A Very Short Fact: On this day in 1963, American actor and film producer Brad Pitt was born in Shawnee, Oklahoma.

“And, of course, artistic and literary reinterpretations of the Trojan War and the fate of its better-known participants, including Odysseus, have been produced and reproduced over the centuries, up to and including the present. Thus, we have not only the later Greek playwrights and the Roman poets but also Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde, Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida, Camille Saint-Saëns’s opera Hélène (1904), James Joyce's Ulysses, and the silver screen’s various takes on the epic, with numerous films appearing since the early twentieth century featuring the Trojan War, Helen, Achilles, Odysseus, and/or the Trojan Horse.

Some of these later works contain parts that may be considered inaccurate or unfaithful to Homer in details or plot—the 2004 Hollywood blockbuster movie, for instance, has no gods or goddesses in sight; Brad Pitt anachronistically placing coins on the closed eyes of dead Patroclus five hundred years before such currency is invented in Lydia ca. 700 BCE; and both Agamemnon and Menelaus killed at Troy while Paris/Alexander is not, thereby changing the familiar Homeric/Epic Cycle version—but this is a long-standing tradition going back to the Greek playwrights who followed Homer and who also felt free to change some of the details. More importantly, each has reinterpreted the story in its own way, with changes and nuances frequently reflecting the angst and desires of that particular age, such as medieval Christianity for Chaucer, the Elizabethan worldview for Shakespeare, and the Iraq war for Troy director Wolfgang Peterson.” — From ‘The Trojan War: A Very Short Introduction’ by Eric H. Cline

[Pg. 108-9 — From ‘The Trojan War: A Very Short Introduction’ by Eric H. Cline.]

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