Etiquette required that the Greeks give the Trojans one last chance for peace, so Menelaus and Odysseus addressed the Trojan assembly.
Barry Strauss says that Priam could not afford to admit fault by returning what his son had stolen from the Greeks. It would have led to civil war and his ousting, as had recently happened to a Hittite ally, King Walmu. What happens in the first part of the war is not told in The Iliad. The Trojans spent most of the war working on defense -- and therefore were called cowards by Poseidon, while the Greeks led attacks. The Trojans needed to keep their allies happy by avoiding too many casualties. There were 3 ways to conquer a fortified city in the Bronze Age: assault, siege, and ruse. The Greeks had trouble getting enough food for a siege or manpower, since some of the force was always off getting food. They never surrounded the city. However, they did attempt to scale the 33 feet high and 16 feet thick walls of Troy. Idomeneus was one of the Greeks who took part in the assault. He and Diomedes wore figure-8 shields, which Strauss says were once thought to be old-fashioned and anachronistic, but were still in use in the 1300s, and may still have been a century later. Ajax bore a tower-shaped shield. The Greeks were unable to storm the city.
The Trojan War: A New History, summary pages:
Introduction | 1. War for Helen | 2. The Black Ships Sail | 3. Operation Beachhead | 4. Assault on the Walls | 5. The Dirty War | 6. An Army in Trouble | 7. The Killing Fields | 8. Night Moves | 9. Hector's Charge | 10. Achilles Heel | 11. The Night of the Horse | Conclusion
