Homer
Important Terms
• Hero
• Epic
• Heroic
Poetry
• Iliad
• Odyssey
Invocations
rhapsode
Muse
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Prayer
Request for inspiration
Summary/introduction
Invocation in the Iliad
Sing, Goddess, sing of the rage of Achilles, son of Peleus—
that murderous anger which condemned Achaeans
to countless agonies and hurled many warrior souls
deep into Hades, leaving their dead bodies
carrion food for dogs and birds—
all in fulfillment of the will of Zeus.
Start at the point where Agamemnon, son of Atreus,
that king of men, quarreled with noble Achilles.
Which of the gods drove these two men to fight?
Iliad I.1-10
In medias res
• landing at Troy
• nine years of indecisive warfare, including
raids by the Achaeans on Troy's allies
• The Iliad
– quarrel between Achilles & Agamemnon
Grand Assembly
Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (1696-1770)
William Page
Quarrel of Achilles and Agamemnon, ca. 1832
Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (1696-1770)
Arming Scene
Two-handled jar (neck-amphora) depicting the arming of Achilles. Archaic
Period, about 550 B.C. By the Camtar Painter. Attic ceramic, Black Figure.
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Inscriptions: "Achilleus," "Thetis”
Hephaistos and Thetis, tondo, Attic Red-figure cup by the
Foundry Painter, from Vulci, ca. 490-480 BCE
Thetis at Hephaestus'
forge waiting to
receive Achilles' new
weapons.
From the triclinium
of House IX.I.7,
Pompeii.
Jan Van Dyck. Thetis Receives the Arms and Armor
for Achilles from Hephaestus (Venus at the Forge of
Vulcan). 1630-32.
Elaborate Description
Achilles’ Shield
Embassy Scene
Jean-Dominique Ingres,
Achilles Greets the Ambassadors of Agamemnon (1800-1801)
Battle Scene
Menelaus (centre-left) pursues Paris (centre-right) as Aphrodite (left) and
Artemis (right) watch on. Side A from an Attic red-figure kylix, ca. 490–460
BC. From Capua. Douris Painter.
Hector at death of Patroclus, ca. 500 BC,
in Agrigento
Epithets
• Origin I Home: 'spearmen who lived on the fertile
soil of Larisa'
• Patronymic: 'Achilles son of Peleus'.
• Appearance/State: 'white-armed Andromache;
'fair-haired Menelaus'.
• Skill/Art: ‘resourceful Odysseus’; 'swift-footed
Achilles' .
• Position: Agamemnon, king of men'; 'sacred
herald'.
• Heroic quality / General: godlike Epeios’; p.2O3
'strong Diomedes’
Similes
“Diomedes of the great war cry shivered as he saw him,
and like a man in his helplessness who, crossing a great plain,
stand at the edge of a fast-running river that dashes seaward,
and watches it thundering into while water, and leaps a pace
backward, now Tydeus’s son gave back, and spoke to his people:
‘Friends, although we know the wonder of glorious Hektor
to be a fighter with the spear and a bold man of battle,
yet there goes ever some god beside him, who beats off destruction, and
now, in the likeness of a man mortal, Ares goes with him.
Come then, keeping your faces turned to the Trojans, give ground
Backward, nor be we eager to fight in strength with divinities’”
(5:596-606).
Catalogue
Homer's Iliad and the Catalogue of Ships
Divine Machinery
in Homeric Epic
The Divine Assembly
Parthenon Frieze
Athena
Games
A pottery fragment 580 – 570 BC
(Sophilos)
François Vase
Museum: Florence, Museo Archeologico
Size: 66cm. (volute-crater)
Function: convivial
Technique: black-figure
Style: Miniature black-figure
Subject/s: seven figure friezes on the
body above one animal frieze; pygmies
fight cranes on the foot
Funeral Scene
Jacques-Louis David
The Funeral of Patroclus (1779)
Katabasis
Descent into the Underworld
Odysseus and Elpenor
Odysseus and Tiresias
Odysseus also meets Agamamnon and Achilles
See Odyssey XI
Vision of the Future in the Iliad
Post-Iliad Stories
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arrival of the Amazons as Trojan allies
death of Penthesileia, their queen (killed by Achilles)
assistance of the Ethiopians on the Trojan side
death of Memnon king of the Ethiopians8
death of Achilles (shot by an arrow aimed by Paris & Apollo)
contest for the arms of Achilles between Odysseus & Ajax (see
Ovid for details)
suicide of Ajax
arrival of Achilles' son Neoptolemus (or Pyrrhus-"red-haired)
successful attempt to get the bow & arrows of Heracles9
death of Paris (killed by Philoctetes with Heracles' bow)
marriage (?) of Helen & Deiphobus, another of Priam,s sons
theft of the palladium (statue of Athene) by Odysseus and
Diomedes
strategy of the wooden horse
story of Sinon & death of Laocoon, priest of Poseidon
FALL OF TROY
death of Priam at the altar (killed by Neoptolemus)
escape of Aeneas
rape of Cassandra by lesser Ajax
sacrifice of Polyxena to Achilles' ghost
murder of Astyanax
enslavement of the Trojan women
Epic Scenes and Features
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invocation
in medias res
grand assemblies
arming scenes
elaborate descriptions
embassy scenes
battle scenes
epithets
similes
an epic catalogue or list
divine machinery
epic games or contests
funeral scene
a trip to the Underworld
a vision of the future