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Kaal Raam

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=== THE STORY ===

Remember the movie Troy with Brad Pitt as Achilles?

It's based on Homer's Iliad, one of the greatest stories ever told. When I read it, I was surprised to find they'd cut a key character from the film entirely:

The King of Argos, Diomēdēs boēn agathos (translated: Diomedes of the War Cry)

He'd been cut because he'd steal the spotlight from shining Achilles.

The Iliad is composed of 24 books, and Achilles only starts fighting in book 20. Until that point, it is Diomedes who is leading the charge - in his aristea.

Among all the heroes in the Iliad, it is only Diomedes who fights directly against the Gods - his spearpoint drawing blood from Aphrodite's wrist. Later he lances Ares, the god of war - sending him running from the battlefield. He was with Odysseus in the belly of the Trojan Horse as it was wheeled into the doomed city of Troy.

I enjoyed reading the Iliad so much that I had to research what happened to each of the key characters after the war.

Swift-Footed Achilles, as we know, died from the arrow wound to his heel.

Mighty Ajax succumbed to madness, and fell upon his own sword in shame.

Far-Ruling King Agamemnon went home after the war - only to be stabbed and drowned in his own bath by his adulterous wife.

Cunning Odysseus yearns to return home, but the Gods blast him with storms and perils of every kind - as we see in the Odyssey.

But what of Diomedes? We don't really know!

His story was lost because when the Trojan War ended, the World ended with it.

This 400 year Dark Age is known as the Bronze Age Collapse.

Every major civilization of the Mediterranean - civilizations that had survived for hundreds of years, flickered - and went out.

The Egyptians, the Mycenaean Greeks, the Hittites, the Assyrians, the Canaanites. All gone.

After the sack of Troy, Diomedes would have found himself in this strange, fast-changing world.

The goal of this novel is to tell this story; to give Diomedes the fame he deserves - his Kleos.

We have some scraps of information: it is said that he returned to his kingdom in Argos, but left it to venture further west. (why?) He's said to have founded the famous port city of Brundisium in Italy. (how and why?)

He was among the greatest warriors of his age, yet history forgot him.

You can bring him back.

===

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