What was the name of the river near Troy where battles took place?

The river near Troy where major battles took place was the Scamander. In Homer’s Iliad, the Greek camp lies near the river’s mouth, while fighting repeatedly unfolds across the plain between the Achaean ships and the walls of Troy.

The Scamander is more than a landmark in the poem. Homer personifies it as a river god who supports the Trojans. After Achilles fills its channel with corpses and insults the river, Scamander rises against him and nearly drowns him. Hera, Athena, and Hephaestus intervene to save the Greek hero.

The river is also called Xanthus in the Iliad, especially when the gods refer to it. Homer describes two springs near Troy—one warm and one cold—and later tradition connects the ancient Scamander with the modern Karamenderes River in northwestern Turkey.

Readers sometimes choose Simois because it was another river near Troy and was associated with the Trojan plain. However, the Scamander is the river most prominently connected with the battlefield and Achilles’ dramatic river episode.