Troy - the eternal city?

Was this the face that launch'd a thousand ships, And burnt the topless towers of Ilium? - Marlowe "Dr Faustus"

Aside from the beauty of this whole passage from Marlowe (seriously, chaps/chapesses, along with being able to cook a good meal, being able to declaim a transportingly wonderful poem or two to your intended paramour is a Useful Life Skill), this piece from my summer reading got me thinking again about how the overlapping epics of Homer and Virgil are such embedded parts of our literary and artistic consciousness in Western Europe and, by extension, the (ex)colonies and dependencies of the old imperial powers. Indeed, does this two-pronged Greco-Roman wellspring of Troy (also called Ilium) allow it to lay a greater claim to be "the eternal city" than Rome itself?

Rather than pretend this is a novel idea, I decided instead to try to offer up three lesser known places where this cultural legacy has popped up, and then invite you to contribute your own glimpses of Troy from the modern world in the comments.

1. Music - Warlord

One of my favourite 80s metal bands, Warlord has an unusual claim to fame for a genre more often associated with devilishness in that its lead singer, Bill Tsamis, was also a lecturer in theology at a Dallas seminary for some years. That aside, they reformed to release the album "Holy Empire" in 2013, including the song "City Walls of Troy". Not as good as their 80s material, in my opinion.

2. Computer games - Battle for Troy

Classical mythology and ancient history, especially where the two overlap, is fertile ground from which to harvest ideas for computer games. The easily recognisable stylistic tropes that Hollywood has given us, the half-remembered stories from childhood, and the adventure/combat focus with superhuman characters make it appealing even to the non-classicist. This particular incarnation is a real-time-strategy game that is free to download (download at your own risk - no responsibility can be taken for files hosted on other sites. It might contain a trojan!)

3. On screen - The Simpsons

Many films have been made based on some version of the battle or aftermath of the siege of Troy, including The Odyssey (1997) with a particularly faaaabulous Hermes. These have not all gathered critical acclaim! There is also a Simpson episode, however, from May 1985 called Lemon of Troy detailing how Springfield launches reprisals on Shelbyville after their lemon tree is stolen. It includes a delighted Homer sneaking out of Ned Flanders' RV that they deliberately got impounded by the Shelbyvillians and claiming "I bet no-one else in history has thought of something this clever!" Brilliant.