How much do you know about the war that the ancient Greeks kept talking and writing about? I don't mean the war they fought against the Persians or the war between the Greek leagues. This one had a decisive victory, once and for all. The Greeks were the winners, but not by virtue of their manliness and martial skills. They ended this one with a trick. No, this wasn't a candle you can't blow out or a cube with colors to be arranged in an impossible pattern, or even some miscreant's program for your computer, but it was still a trick. We call it the Trojan Horse.

Read: Major Events in the Trojan War.

Related:

• Odysseus
• Events Leading up to the Persian Wars
• Timeline of the Major Treaties and Battles in the Peloponnesian War
• The Life and Work of Homer

_{The winged Boreads rescuing Phineus from Harpies. Attic red-figure column-krater c. 460 B.C. Louvre
PD Courtesy of Marie-Lan Nguyen}

If you see a picture of a bird-body with a woman's upper half, you may not be sure whether you're looking at a Siren or a Harpy. Generally, if beautiful, you might assume it was one of those female creatures who lured willing sailors to their death in the Odyssey; if hideous and causing anguish, probably one of the horrible creatures who stole or defiled the food the blind King Phineus wanted to eat. This is a perfectly reasonable way of looking at them, but you may run into trouble. It is not based on the early ancient Greek myths. Read More...

This Day in Ancient History - May 21:

Saint Helena, mother of the first Christian emperor, Constantine I,
traveled to the Holy Land where some believe she discovered the cross on which Jesus was crucified.

It is possible that Helena was born Christian, but it is thought that she converted. Details about her early life and even her death are scanty. Helena (Flavia Iulia Helena) was born in about 250 and died when she was about 80, according to Eusebius, sometimes called the father of Church history. Helena is thought to have come from Drepanum, in the Roman province of Bithynia [see map] because of the honor her son paid to the area.

In the Eastern Orthodox Church, St. Helena's saint's day is May 21. In the Roman Catholic Church, it's August 18.

Read more about St. Helena.

Related:

• Constantine the Great
• Constantinople
• Palestine
• The Byzantine Empire and Era

This Day in History - May 20: On this day in 1912, Moses Finley was born in New York City. After studying law, during the McCarthy era, Finley moved to England and taught classics at Cambridge University. He died on June 23, in 1986.

Among other books, Finley wrote The World of Odysseus, The Ancient Economy, Politics in the Ancient World, and Land, Debt, and the Man of Property in Classical Athens.

Also on this day in history, in 1957, classical scholar Gilbert Murray (b. January 2, 1866) died.

In ancient history, this may have been the day the first Council of Nicaea started in 325 A.D. See: The Arian Controversy and the Council of Nicaea.

Related:

• The Life and Work of Homer
• The Council of Nicaea and the Arrian Controversy
• Democracy Then and Now
• Classical Greece