Benoit de Sainte-Maure's Roman de Troie, dating to around 1165, is, along with the Roman de Thebes and the Roman d'Eneas, one of the three "romances of antiquity" (romans d'antiquite). These romances launched the plots, themes and structures of the genre, then blossoming in the hands of authors such as Chretien de Troyes. As an account of the Trojan War, Benoit's work is of necessity a poem about war and its causes, how it was fought and what its...