“Little is known about those hundreds of years—except that it was a turbulent and war-torn time.”

By James Rollins

While writing my latest novel, The Last Odyssey, I discovered a large swath of history that to this day remains fraught with mystery, that remains largely unknown. It’s a period of the Bronze Age known as the Greek Dark Ages.

This enigmatic era spanned from 1100 B.C. to 800 B.C. To this day, those three centuries continue to confound historians and archaeologists. Little is known about those hundreds of years—except that it was a turbulent and war-torn time.

One of the only accounts of this shadowy period is the two lyric poems by Homer: The Iliad and the Odyssey. Because of this, the Greek Dark Ages is also known as the “Homeric Age.”

History or Myth?

Homer’s two stories were at one time believed to have been composed during the 8th century B.C.—near the end of the Greek Dark Ages. But today, some historians doubt Homer even existed. This bard—who sung tales of gods and monsters—was likely just a convenient pseudonym, representing the many minstrels who recounted this turbulent story.

It may be for this reason that most historians and archaeologist failed to place much faith in the two tales, dismissing them as fantasy versus an accurate account of the time. How could they not when Homer told of warring gods and rampaging monsters, of cursed sailors and cunning witches? The stories seemed pure flights of fancy as opposed to a historical record.

However, that was not true two millennia ago. A Greek historian from the first century AD — Strabo — believed Homer was chronicling historical events of the poet’s own time. He vehemently advocated his position and sought proof, which he gathered into a 2,000-page volume titled Geographica.

In that mighty work, Strabo tried to connect places in The Iliad and Odyssey to real-world locations. The treatise was greatly revered as a masterpiece of historical and geographical study. Even today, it’s still held in high esteem as a travelogue of the ancient world.

Yet, over the passing centuries, Strabo’s fervent belief that Homer’s tales recounted real events lost favor and was dismissed. It seemed preposterous to believe such a fanciful tale was rooted in anything real. For centuries, historians dismissed even the existence of Troy—a great city besieged by the Greeks and brought low by the trickery of the Trojan Horse as recounted in The Iliad. Troy was believed to be a mythical place, a fantasy brought to life by Homer.

Then, in the late 19th century, a German amateur archaeologist named Heinrich Schliemann dug into a large hill at the Turkish site of Hisarlik and exposed the ruins of a great city. It would take many years, but eventually this buried complex was indeed identified as the lost city of Troy.

And just like that, myth became history.

World War Zero?

It’s now accepted that the Trojan War was but a single battle in a much larger conflict, one that spanned most of the Mediterranean.

At the start of the Greek Dark Ages, three mighty civilizations thrived and prospered in region: the Mycenean Greeks, the Anatolian Hittites, and the ancient Egyptians. Then war broke out—a battle that spanned the breadth of the Mediterranean. It was so widespread and extensive that many historians now call it World War Zero, the first great war that swept the known world.

In its aftermath, all three mighty civilization fell into ruin, soundly defeated by an unknown enemy. The Mediterranean descended into centuries of darkness. It was for this reason that so little is known of that time. But there were clues left behind—from Neolithic ruins on the island of Sardinia to the words of Homer himself—that hinted at an enemy like none ever seen before.

Even the Egyptians only recorded scant accounts of this formidable force, as if they were fearful to even write about them. One of the only illustrations of this war can be found on the walls of Medinet Habu in Luxor. It depicts the sheer chaos of that battle against this new enemy.

But who was this enemy? What unknown people brought down three civilizations in less than two decades? And where did they go?

The Sea Peoples

For now, they are simply called the “Sea Peoples,” a shadowy seafaring confederation. It’s believed they likely rose out of the western Mediterranean, then burst into the eastern half, where they laid waste to civilization after civilization, prompting centuries of darkness.

According to one account, “They came from the sea in their warships and none could stand against them.”

The original homeland of this nomadic seafaring confederation remains unknown, as does the reason for their sudden assault across the Mediterranean. Likewise, no one really knows what became of them, a force strong enough to bring down three civilizations. It is such mysteries that are great fodder for thriller writers.

The mystery of the Sea Peoples certainly drove me in my research. I interviewed a slew of historians and archaeologists. I toured those ruins in Sardinia. I searched museums in Greece and Rome. All to try to gather enough information to shine a light into that dark time in history, into the heart of World War Zero. I incorporated what I learned to craft a modern thriller that ties back to this shadowy war and unknown enemy.

Millennia ago, Homer tried to capture that horror, chaos, and conflict of World War Zero in his two epic poems. And today, I’m following in the bard’s footsteps and attempting to do the same in The Last Odyssey.

For it is in story that sometimes the greatest truths are hidden.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: James Rollins, whose next novel, The Last Odyssey, continues the search for truths hidden within Homer’s epic poems, revealing how much of these tales of gods and monsters could be true—and how such truths shine a light on the human condition.