According to legend, the people of Troy, especially those who accompanied Paris in his abduction of Helen, were endowed with prodigious strength, endurance, energy, and capacity.
English acceptance of the legend dates back to the Benedictine chronicler of the fourteenth century, Ranulf Higden.
But it was not until the nineteenth century that English and American writers began to compare the powers of their fictional heroes, for lying, for working, for drinking, and even for swearing, with these Trojan heroes.
