A Greek Odyssey with Bettany Hughes S01E05 - Warriors of Legend

The historian arrives in the Peloponnese, a peninsula regarded as home to some of ancient Greece's most legendary kings and vicious warriors. To understand the violent world in which the myths and legends are set, Bettany visits the bones of a 19-year-old-warrior who died more than 3,500 years ago. Healed sword marks and a large hole in his skull are a testament to his environment. In Sparta, the home town of Helen of Troy, Bettany discovers what made the region's warriors so feared before heading to Mycenae, likely home to the kings and queens that inspired the story of the Trojan War.

Bettany is nearing the end of her odyssey from the battlegrounds of ancient Troy to Odysseus's home in Ithaca. The Peloponnese is home to one of the greatest Bronze Age civilizations--the Mycenaeans--as well as the mythic heroes Helen of Troy, Agamemnon, and Odysseus himself. Bettany explores this peninsula's prosperous and violent past and discovers, through its human remains and golden treasures, just how much the ancient Greek's legendary tales are rooted in fact.