Editing Minas Tirith (section)

=== Troy ===

In a letter, Tolkien stated that Minas Tirith, some "600 miles south [of the village of [[Hobbiton]] in the Shire], is at about the latitude of [[Florence]]. The Mouths of Anduin and the ancient city of Pelargir [in the south of Gondor] are at about the latitude of ancient [[Troy]]."<ref group=T>{{harvnb|Carpenter|2023|loc=#376 to Charlotte and Denis Plimmer, 8 February 1967 }}</ref> Michael Livingston comments in ''[[Mythlore]]'' that Minas Tirith resembled Troy in having "impregnable walls", and in being subjected to a [[siege]] that seemed to threaten civilisation.<ref name="Livingston 2013"/> 

Further, in Livingston's opinion, the Steward Denethor's two sons, [[Boromir]] and [[Faramir]], play the roles of [[Hector]] in [[Homer]]'s ''[[Iliad]]'', "the heroic example of martial, mortal man", and of [[Paris (mythology)|Paris]], the younger brother "little loved by [his father]", in "asterisk" form, as they might have been.<ref name="Livingston 2013"/>  Livingston notes that Paris, like Faramir, is seriously wounded by a "deadly dart"; he is dragged back into Troy, just as Faramir is carried to Minas Tirith's Houses of Healing. Both men suffer burning fevers. Paris can't be saved; Faramir can. Paris's body is burned on a pyre; his abandoned wife Oenone burns herself to death with him. Denethor has himself burned alive on a pyre, and he tries to have Faramir burned with him, but is foiled in this.<ref name="Livingston 2013">{{cite journal |last=Livingston |first=Michael |year=2013 |title=Troy and the Rings: Tolkien and the Medieval Myth of England |journal=[[Mythlore]] |volume=32 |issue=1 |at=Article 6 |url=https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol32/iss1/6}}</ref>