[virissimo]

Many European scholars did consider Troy fictional. For example, Jacob Bryant's "A Dissertation concerning the War of Troy" (1796) explicitly argued that Troy never existed as a real city and that the Trojan War was purely mythological. He thought Homer's place names derived from Egyptian and Phoenician religious vocabulary, so the entire Trojan War narrative should be interpreted as imported solar allegory without any historical basis.

[jamiek88]

That’s like quoting harry turtledove on ww2. Bryant was writing fictional pseudo history.

[neaden]

Bryant was a pseudo historian who came up with an elaborate alternate history. He doesn't represent the mainstream view anymore then flat earthera do today.

Edit: as I said, Troy was inhabited until around 1300 and left behind many artifacts like coins. While conspiracy theorists might doubt it occasionally, it was never a mainstream view that the person I was responding to presented it as. Saying that we used to doubt Troy so therefore maybe Atlantis is real is basically saying that if we reject one conspiracy theory we should accept a separate one.