me at the age of 22 when I found out that the Trojan War was a part of mythology and didn't actually happen

Are you shitting my Here's something completely understanding of human history. When you think of ancient Greece, this is probably what you think of, right? Socrates, Plato, Pythagorean theorem, intellectual, olive oil vibes. But this is not the ancient Greece that Homer was born into. Homer who wrote the Iliad and the Odyssey about the Trojan Wars was born before this, during the Greek Dark Ages. What? There were Greek Dark Ages? So before the people that we think of as Greeks, there were the Mycenaeans. They were incredibly advanced. They built these palatial compounds, they had great technology and then suddenly they disappeared around 1200 BC and we have no idea why. Greece is plunged into a dark age. They lose written language and so Homer grows up around these ruins of palaces they couldn't build. Of course, these men were gods. And we would leave it at that, except we found Troy. It was a real city. And so even though this is a work of fiction, there was truth to it. The Mycenaeans going to war.