The Iliad is a poem that speaks of war and exalts the military virtues of its heroes. It is also, however, the narration of all of the people involved in a war - soldiers and civilians, heroes, women and children - the perfect description of an enormous tragedy and the repercussions on the community.
Between the lines of Homer’s beautiful verse lies the pain for the death of a son or a husband, a brother or a friend, the desperate fight to defend ones own city or honour, the fear of destruction and loss. In this sense, the Trojan war represents the matrix of all wars: it is the first that was written about, but it contains them all. Starting with Homer’s Iliad, the play - through the accounts of Heinrich Schliemann, the archaeologist that discovered the ruins of Troy - follows the thread that ties legend, epic and narration to the present. Because, even if times, eras and wars change, the themes that regard mankind are destined to always remain the same.