Chapter 15
The Achaeans suffered loss after loss during the war with the Trojans. Their most imposing trump card Archilles was quickly dealt with by Hector's meticulous planning. He only needed some hundred archers to focus some poisonous arrows at Archilles' heels, half for each heel. In the end, it was the right heel of Achilles, which was a mortal one, and so the demigod was put to near death at the beginning.
After Archilles' mother begged the support of Apollo to heal Achilles, so the demigod survived.
Apollo was the god of archery, music, dance, arts, poetry, truth, prophecy, healing, diseases, the Sun, light, oracles, knowledge, herds and flocks, and protection of the young.
However, Achilles was no longer invulnerable after his pseudo-immortality had been breached, his usefulness had been reduced to a bit below the level of Ajax.
Apollo's healing was nothing short of a resurrection, as a consequence, it was considered an insult by Hades. Hades was the God King of the underworld, God of the dead and riches.
He cursed Archilles with poverty, or more precisely that ever 'gold he gets shall be turned to cooper and every cooper to stone'; and a curse of reclamation, which makes that Archilles body was gradually turning into dust.
Ajax, the strongest defense fighter on the Achaean side, was surely a wall that gave some confidence to the ones on his side, but it was far from enough.
The Trojan Army was the first Western and even Eastern army to have all its fighters with touki awakened.
With Hector's strategic mind, he was able to gradually come up with battle formations to use the power of touki as a group. With touki flying everywhere, gradually some archaeans have woken up touki. The Trojans, however, still have an overwhelming advantage in the number of touki users.
It was not something the Achaeans could overcome. Some gods used their powers to support the Archaeans, while others helped the Trojan army to keep up its momentum. Poseidon has been using the war to make some easy wealth after Medusa bankrupted him. Making the Archaeans have to sacrifice large sums of gold every time they wanted to cross the sea.
As the sovereign of the moon, my authority over the waves was actually on par with Poseidon, so I have been blessing the Trojans with safe travels on the sea.
Fate and the gods could only hold back the Trojans for a while, as gradually the Achaeans were pushed more and more to the defensive, as an Achaean city fell one after another.
Before fate could plan some bullshit that gave the Achaeans victory over their enemies, Hector executed a move that gave fate some short circuit, he declared the founding of an empire centered in Troy, which he renamed Rome, founding the Roman empire. At this point, Hector's father seeing how his son's influence overshadowed his had already renounced his throne to his son. Hector's renaming worked so that fate could sweep the Trojans' victory under the rug, as instead of defining fate it was more like creating a different version of it.
Centuries into the future a legend tells of Aeneas coming from Troy and traveling to Italy. This tradition emerges from the Iliad's prophecy that Aeneas' descendants would one day return and rule Troy once more.
In this tale, Aeneas' son founded the city of Alba Longa and established a dynasty there, which eventually produced Romulus, who founded Rome.
Aeneas was a demigod son of the Trojan royal Anchises and the goddess Aphrodite, who left Troy after its destruction during the Trojan War and sailed to the western Mediterranean.
He brings his son – Ascanius – and a group of companions. Landing in Italy, he forms an alliance with a local magnate called Latinus and marries his daughter, Lavinia, joining the two into a new group called the Latini; they then founded a new city, called Lavinium.
After a series of wars against the Rutuli and Caere, the Latins conquered the Alban Hills and its environs. His son Ascanius then founded the legendary city of Alba Longa, which became the dominant city in the region.
The later descendants of the royal lineage of Alba Longa eventually produced Romulus and Remus, setting up the events of their mythological story.
As the war gradually became one-sided, some royal families from the Greek cities, killed their relatives, who were bound by oaf to 'save' Helen.
Other royal families went extinct.
Euphemus was a son of Poseidon, granted by his father the power to walk on water. For his contributions to the war, he was given full support from Troy on the formation of the colonial city-state of Cyrene, in Libya, where he would rule as a prince vassaled to Troy.
Glaucus was a son of Hippolokhos and a grandson of the hero Bellerophon. Hippolochus was a Lycian prince as the son of King Bellerophon. He was probably the successor of the latter in the kingship of the Lycian land.
Bellerophon was a divine Corinthian hero of Greek mythology, the son of Poseidon and Eurynome, and the foster son of Glaukos.
He was "the greatest hero and slayer of monsters, alongside Cadmus and Perseus, before the days of Heracles", among his greatest feats was killing the Chimera of the Iliad, a monster that Homer depicted with a lion's head, a goat's body, and a serpent's tail: "her breath came out in terrible blasts of burning flame."
Bellerophon was also known for capturing and taming the winged horse Pegasus with the help of Athena's charmed bridle and earning the disfavor of the gods after attempting to ride Pegasus to Mount Olympus. To award his family, they were given rulership over the island of Rhodes.
Rhodesa was a relatively large island, which was southwest of Lycia and sided with the Archaeans during the war.
Sarpedon was the son of Zeus and Laodamia, the daughter of Bellerophon. He was the commander of Glaucis during the war.
He would serve as the ruler of Rhodesa for the Lycian royal family, as Glaucus, who also had large contribution was already an heir to the heur of the Lycian family.
Hector made sure to personally award Glaucus with the rulership of the Syrne island. The island was much smaller than Rhodesa, but not too much. It was north of Rhodes.