For many years the Greeks camped outside the walls of Troy, but were unable to penetrate its mighty defenses. By the tenth year, many of the Greek soldiers longed to see their homeland again.

Schliemann believed that the Troy ruled over by King Priam, as in the Iliad, would be found at the deepest layer of the city, and so, beginning in 1870, he aimed for the base of Hisarlik’s mound.