HOMER’S ILIAD
The first of the great poems traditionally attributed to Homer is called the Iliad, a term derived
from Ilium, which was another name for the city of Troy. Although it is the earliest extant piece
of literature in the Western Tradition, the Iliad is a sensitive and penetrating work. While it is
ostensibly concerned with war and military honor, it also succeeds in undercutting this view by
vividly portraying the effects of war on men, women, and children. It is also full of
psychological insight, explicating the motivations and emotions of its characters.
Homer’s Iliad succeeded in becoming a classic because it has set the standard for all succeeding
literature. In Archaic and Classical Greece it was, together with its sequel the Odyssey, seen as
the preeminent work of literature, and it served as a handbook for proper behavior for almost
every member of those societies. In subsequent ages its memorable figures, descriptions, and
insights into human nature have been great literary inspirations.
Objectives:
• Learn all the major figures in the Iliad and familiarize yourself with the overall plot
• Understand the importance of the genre in the form of the poetry, remembering the principles
of oral composition and noting characteristic traits of Classical epic such as epithets
• Identify in the readings examples of the Homeric values such as aret (excellence,
especially valor), tim (honor), respect for xenia (guest-friendship or hospitality), and
support of the law of basileia (kingship, but more broadly the law of social order).
• Recognize in the characters of the epic those feelings and experiences that are timeless—that
serve as classical models of the human experience.
The Trojan War and Homer’s Poem
Reading: NA 93–95.
Contrary to many popular assumptions, the Iliad is not a poem about the Trojan War. Instead it
is a story about a few lead characters, their actions, and the consequences of the sometimes rash
decisions that they make. As such the story occupies only a few weeks in what was a ten-year
war between the Greeks and the people of the city of Troy.
The war itself, however, was part of an even larger set of legends that Homer presumed were
already familiar to his audience. These stories were part of the oral tradition from which Homer
drew the events around upon which he built his epics. Collectively they are called the Trojan
Cycle because they deal with the events leading up to the Trojan War, episodes of the war itself,
and stories about the homecomings of the victorious Greeks after they captured Troy.
Before Troy
Not all of the episodes of the Trojan Cycle have been preserved with the detail that we find in the
Homeric poems. Later imitators of Homer tried to recount episodes which the great bard had not
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treated, but their works did not succeed in becoming true classics and so have come down to us
only in fragments. Nevertheless, enough has survived from these poems and other mythological
and literary sources for us to piece together the basic stories of the Trojan Cycle.
Most of the events prior to the Trojan War were contained in a poem called the Cypria. The
name came from an epithet or title for the goddess Aphrodite, who was supposedly born from the
sea near the island of Cyprus. The goddess of love, as we shall see, had a primary role in the
causing the outbreak of the Trojan War.
Before Aphrodite entered the picture, however, the Cypria and some of our other sources recount
an important wedding between the sea goddess Thetis and mortal man Peleus. A prophecy had
foretold that Thetis’ son would be far greater than his father, and Zeus did not want any god to
marry Thetis, lest her son be greater than any of the gods and somehow overthrow the Olympian
order. Accordingly he married her off to Peleus, and the gods and goddesses all attended the
wedding feast. One problematic goddess, however, was left off the guest list. She was Eris, or
“strife,” and she took her revenge by throwing a golden apple into the midst of the party that had
carved on it the phrase “to the fairest.” Three of the goddesses—Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite—
all claimed to be the most beautiful, and they asked Zeus to judge which of them rightfully
deserved the apple. The king of the gods wisely refused to judge and appointed a Trojan prince,
Paris, to make the decision.
Thus followed a memorable mythological beauty contest called The Judgement of Paris. Each of
the goddesses tried to bribe the mortal judge—Hera, as queen of the gods, offered him rule and
earthly power; Athena, the goddess of wisdom, offered him her gift; and Aphrodite, the goddess
of love and beauty, promised him the most beautiful woman in the world. Aphrodite’s gift was
irresistible. Paris decided that Aphrodite deserved the apple, and in the process he made enemies
of Hera and Athena who hated him and all the Trojans from that point on.
Aphrodite’s bribe was consequently the central feature of the Cypria. The problem was that the
most beautiful woman, a Greek queen named Helen, was already married. Helen and her family
were central in another set of myths (she, her sister, and her two brothers were hatched from eggs
after Zeus had an affair with their mother, Leda, in the form of a swan!), but she and her sister
are the ones who concern us here. Helen’s mortal father knew that Helen’s beauty would be the
source of strife, so he made all the suitors (prospective grooms) of his beautiful daughter promise
that they would defend and be loyal to whomever he chose to marry Helen. He chose a man
named Menelaus, who was king of the Greek city of Sparta. Menelaus’ brother, Agamemnon,
who was the king of the most important Bronze Age site, Mycenae, and all the other Greek kings
and princes swore that they would support the marriage at all costs. Agamemnon, in fact,
married Helen’s sister Clytemnestra.
Paris visited Sparta, where he was received hospitably by Menelaus and Helen in accordance
with the expectations of xenia. The Trojan prince violated the important principles of guestfriendship, however, by promptly abducting his host’s wife, carrying Helen off to Troy. Whether
she was initially willing was a point of mythological debate. Menelaus and Agamemnon quickly
summoned all the Greek kings and princes together and organized a great expedition to Troy to
retrieve the stolen Helen, thus giving rise to the phrase of the beauty of “the face that launched a
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thousand ships.”
Achilles and the Trojan War
One of the princes that joined the expedition, although admittedly somewhat reluctantly, was
Achilles, the son of Peleus and Thetis. At Achilles’ birth Thetis knew that her son, although he
would be the greatest warrior the world had ever seen, would not be immortal like herself.
According to some stories she tried to make him impervious by dipping him three times in the
river Styx, the mythical river that surrounded and entered the Underworld. As she dipped him
she grasped him by the heel, however, making that the one spot where he was vulnerable and
thus giving rise to the expression “an Achilles’ heel.” In addition to Achilles, Agamemnon and
Menelaus were joined by other leading Greeks, such as Odysseus, with whom you will become
familiar as you read the assigned selections from the Iliad and especially the Odyssey..
Since the Iliad only recounted a few weeks of the ten-year siege of Troy, other poems in the
cycle filled in the gaps. These included works such as the Aethiopis, which told of the further
adventures of Achilles at Troy and chronicled his death and burial. Two additional epics, the
Little Iliad and The Sack of Troy, told of the victory of the Greeks and the destruction of Troy.
The Trojan Cycle concluded with a series of stories about the adventures of the Greeks on their
homeward journeys, which we will discuss in more depth as we start reading the Odyssey.
The Heroic Age and the later Greeks
To the Greeks of the Dark Ages, the kings and battles of the Heroic Age—a mythical age in
which figures and events from the Bronze Age acted out their adventures in a Dark Age
setting—were very real. Throughout Greece ruined Bronze Age palaces were identified as the
homes of legendary kings and Mycenaean grave circles were confidently identified as the tombs
of prominent heroes such as those featured in the Trojan Cycle. Archaeological evidence reveals
that there actually was a city of Troy in northwestern Turkey, and that it was destroyed several
times—including an occasion during the Bronze Age that is close to the traditional dating of the
legendary Trojan War. Nevertheless, we have no way of knowing whether Mycenaean Sparta
ever had a king named Menelaus, and no evidence has directly identified a ruler of Mycenae as
Agamemnon.
Despite the uncertainty about some details, the oral tradition provided Homer with information
and details that clearly originated in the Mycenaean Period. For instance, a common Homeric
term for “lord” as applied to his kings is anax, which is a later form of the Mycenaean title
wanax. Evidence about armor—such as the shape of shields used and the types of helmets
worn—is in line with weapons found in Mycenaean grave circles but does not accord with
anything used in the Dark Ages or at the time Homer composed his poems. Review the
principles of oral transmission and composition to see how such details were preserved for
hundreds of years.
Sometimes anachronisms in the Homer’s poems reveal that he did not always understand the
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details that the oral tradition had provided to him. For example, in the Bronze Age chariots were
commonly employed in battle, but by Homer’s time they were only used in races, and he had no
practical knowledge of their use. Consequently, Homer has his heroes race up to battles in their
chariots, but when they arrive at the site of battle, they park the chariots and do not use them in
actual fighting as Mycenaeans would have done. Homer also has his chariots do things that they
cannot physically do, such as jump ditches and navigate improbable terrain. In the Odyssey each
of Homer’s supposedly Mycenaean heroes lives in a megaron (a columned hall around an open
hearth), but it is not the immense, richly-decorated palace of the Bronze Age. Instead his
description is often of a more modest Dark Age hall where warlords would have feasted with
their warrior companions.
While such details and anachronisms have interest to modern scholars, what was important to
Homer’s Greek audiences were the heroes themselves and the values they represented. The
Homeric “doer of deeds and speaker of words” was truly a model of the ideal man for those who
heard and later read the epics. They strove to emulate the positive qualities of their heroes and
learned while also learning from their mistakes and failings. Above all, the Homeric poems gave
the Greeks a sense of identity and importance and, as they began to emerge from the Dark Age in
Home’s time, connected them with a great past.
The Rage of Achilles
•
•
Learn the theme of the Iliad and understand how it drives the plot of the epic.
Begin to note the occurrences of characteristic traits of Classical epic, such as
epithets (continue to look for these in subseque nt sections).
• Know the following characters and why they are important in Book I of the Iliad:
Achilles, Agamemnon, Chryseis (priest’s daughter who was war prize of
Agamemnon), Athena, Nestor, Patroclus, Briseis (captured girl who was Achilles’
war prize), and Thetis.
Here are a few tips as you begin reading selections from the Iliad and other readings in this
course. As you read, pay attention to the footnotes. They will provide you with background
information that may be new to you. For instance, note 3 on NA page 98 explains that the term
“Achaeans” is another Homeric word for “Greeks.” Read through the entire selection mindful of
both the unit and the section objectives. You may well want to take some notes as you finish the
assignment, listing major characters and what they do, identifying key themes, and summarizing
in a few sentences what you have read.
Also, since we are only reading selections from the Iliad, starting in Section 3 I have provided
before each reading assignment a brief summary of the intervening material. For the most part
this is simply for your benefit so that you can more easily follow the story.
Reading: Homer, Iliad I (NA, 98–115).
Discussion of Book I
“The Rage of Achilles” is the theme of both Book I and the entire epic. In line 1 on NA page 98
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your translator has repeated the word “rage” twice. This is because in the Greek m nin (MAY
nin) or “wrath” is the very first word of the text, signifying its importance for all that follows.
English word order does not allow this as easily. Ask yourself why the anger of Achilles is so
prominent. What caused it? What were the results in Book I? Note different words—such as
fury and anger—in our translation and note how often they are repeated. Keep this theme in
mind, because the results will be even more far-reaching later in the poem.
Achilles demonstrated, among other things, the tensions that could exist between competing
Homeric values. On the one hand, it was caused by Agamemnon’s taking of his “war prize,”
which in this case was a captive that had been taken in a raid and given to Achilles as part of his
share of the booty. Such a war prize is sometimes translated “a prize of honor,” because
possessions indicated the level of one’s tim . However, in both the almost feudal context of
Mycenaean Greece and also in the warlord society of Archaic Greece, Agamemnon demanded
respect because of his status as the most powerful king and as commander-in-chief of the
expedition. In this instance, therefore, Achilles’ honor came into conflict with his place in the
social order (the law of basileia).
In addition to the epithets and other obvious epic conventions that frequently occur in the text,
Book I also features a good example of a formula in lines 545–66 (NA, 111). This passage
describes in some detail how the priest made a sacrifice to Apollo. These very lines recur at
several points in the epic whenever someone performs such a sacrifice.
Lines 587–735 (NA, 112–15) comprise a literary motif that will be used frequently in epic and
the Classical Tradition. It is called a Council of the Gods (in some literary commentaries you
will see it described by the Latin term concilium deorum). At first the council appears to be
simply a mythical aside, projecting the gods into the affairs of heroes. While to some extent this
is true (the Greeks ascribed the unpredictability of events to the inscrutable interventions of the
gods), a council of the gods also serves a literary purpose. On the one hand, since an epic begins
in medias res, it allows the poet to provide some background to what has happened before. On
the other, as we will see as we study the Odyssey in the next unit, such a council will often reveal
the course of the story and its ultimate outcome, which in Greek literature is rarely a surprise.
Hector and Andromache
•
•
•
Review the intervening material between Books I and VI in order to follow the
general story more easily (but do master the important points that I bring to your
attention from these sections).
Know the following characters and why they are important in Book VI of the Iliad:
Priam, Hecuba, Hector, Paris, Andromache, and Astyanax.
Note situations and emotions in Book VI that are truly timeless and with which you
can identify.
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Intervening Material
Following Achilles’ withdrawal from the fighting, the Greeks, even without their best fighter, are
temporarily successful in driving back the Trojans. Nevertheless, the long years of fighting and
the recent quarrels among their leaders have demoralized the Greeks. In Book II, the gods send
Agamemnon a dream that encourages him to test the troops by supposedly giving them the
choice to press on with the fighting or to return home. Much to Agamemnon’s chagrin, the
Greeks rush to the ships, and only the clever Odysseus can convince them to stay. At the end of
the book, Homer gives his audience an epic catalogue, listing all the Greek ships that set forth to
Troy, noting where they came from and who commanded them.
Book III features a duel between Menelaus and Paris that is intended to stop the fighting between
the Greeks and the Trojans by having the two parties involved with Helen fight for her.
Menelaus bests Paris, but Aphrodite saves the Trojan prince and returns him to Helen’s bedroom.
The troops on both sides are at a loss as to what to do after the “disappearance” of Paris, but in
Book IV a Trojan breaks the truce by shooting Menelaus with an arrow (he is wounded but
survives). The battle begins again in earnest.
Most of Book V comprises an aristeia that focuses attention on the secondary character,
Diomedes, who fights with superhuman valor and displays great aret (he is aided by Athena
and other gods who favor the Greeks). As a result, this book is often called the Diomedia, or
“the doings (deeds) of Diomedes.” Besides slaying numerous Trojans, Diomedes wounds two
gods who are supporting the Trojans, Aphrodite and Ares. Diomedes then leads the Greeks in a
victorious charge that drives the Trojans back to their own walls. This aristeia may well have
been a self-contained poem or story of its own within the oral tradition, which Homer
appropriated and inserted into his own epic.
The aristeia of Diomedes continues into Book VI, where there is a telling example of xenia. At
one point in the battle, Diomedes encounters a Trojan ally named Glaukon. The two begin their
duel with characteristic boasts of their own aret , which include boasts about their battle
prowess and claims of great ancestry. As Diomedes and Glaukon review their genealogies
together, they discover that their ancestors several generations prior had established a guestfriend relationship. The ties of this xenia continued among their descendants, so Diomedes and
Glaukon, despite the fact that their peoples are at war, exchange armor and other gifts with each
other and promise to avoid fighting each other in the future.
The Diomedia then comes to an end, and the attention shifts to the Trojan champion, Hector,
who returns to the city of Troy and tries to rally his people. This is the point where your reading
assignment in the Norton Anthology resumes.
Reading: Homer, Iliad VI (NA, 116–124).
Discussion of Book VI
The second half of this book is unusual in its sensitive and sympathetic portrayal of the Trojans,
the bitter enemies of the Greeks. Hector is portrayed in a particularly positive light in this and all
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of the books of the Iliad—a point that contrasts drastically with the almost juvenile behavior of
the Greek hero Achilles in much of the epic.
Women and children are also highlighted in Book VI, where they provide a very different
perspective on war. Andromache, who loves her husband deeply, is more concerned about his
safety than he is—his own fears are overshadowed by his responsibility to the city and his
subordination to his tim . In lines 201–39 (NA, 120–21) she provides a pitiful description of the
fate faced by women in wartime. Their son Astyanax (whose name means “Lord of the City,”
note the presence of the word anax in the name), represents not only the vulnerability of
children, but also the future of the city over which he would one day be king.
The Embassy to Achilles
•
•
•
•
Review the intervening material between Books VI and IX in order to follow the
general story more easily.
Know the following characters and why they are important in Book IX of the Iliad:
Agamemnon, Diomedes, Nestor, Odysseus , Ajax, and Phoenix.
Assess the different characters as to how they meet the ideal of a Homeric Hero.
Consider the Greek personification of wrath, delusion, ruin, and prayers
(forgiveness).
Intervening Material
In Books VII and VIII, Zeus makes good the promise that he made to Thetis in Book I, namely
that he will allow the Achaean Greeks to be hard-pressed by the Trojans so that Agamemnon and
the other leaders will realize how much they need their champion Achilles. First, when Hector
returns to the battle, the Greek attack on the city of Troy comes to a halt, but the two sides fight
to exhaustion in the plain between the city and the Greeks’ seaside camp. Then Zeus commands
all of the gods to withdraw from the fighting, which favors the Trojans since Hera, Athena, and
Poseidon had been working vigorously for the Greeks.
As Book IX opens, the Greeks are huddled within their camp, which they have fortified to
protect their ships from the expected Trojan attack.
Reading: Homer, Iliad IX (NA, 124–145).
Discussion of Book IX
The theme of m nin (anger, wrath) continues in Book IX, but it is joined by the personifications
of passions and feelings that often take control of men and women. The first one of these is the
idea of at (AH tay), which the Norton Anthology translates in line 20 and throughout the book
as “madness, blinding ruin.” In other places it can be translated as “delusion,” and the Greeks
explained at —this kind of blinding feeling that frequently led to rash acts and brought
destruction on foolhardy decisions—as something the gods inflicted upon mortals. This was a
mythological attempt to understand unexplainable and unexpected emotional and psychological
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behavior.
As the Greeks and their leaders become demoralized in the face of the Trojan successes,
Agamemnon uses the concept of at to explain how he and the other Greeks became entangled
in the expedition in the first place: “Cronus’ son [Zeus] has entangled me in madness, blinding
ruin—Zeus is a harsh cruel god.” Feeling that he had been deluded by Zeus’ promise that he
would indeed take Troy, Agamemnon bursts into tears and suggests that the Greeks all return
home.
Agamemnon’s emotional outburst appears patently unheroic to a modern audience, but we will
see throughout the Homeric poems that modern ideas of male stoicism and machismo are not
directly applicable to an early Greek context. Agamemnon’s failure is not to be found in his fit
of tears; rather it is in his weakness as a leader and his inconsistent achievement of the Homeric
ideal of being “a speaker of words and doer of deeds.”
Following Agamemnon’s outburst, Diomedes and the old hero Nestor head off a Greek
withdrawal—Diomedes by proclaiming that he will stay and take Troy single-handedly if the rest
leave and Nestor by suggesting that Agamemnon and the other Greek leaders try to placate
Achilles and bring him back to fight on their side.
Review carefully what you have read in Book IX about the embassy to Achilles, noting the
characters involved and the arguments made. At one point Phoenix tries to convince Achilles to
return in a speech (beginning with line 598; NA, 138) that brings up the concepts of both rage
and at but adds a new concept, the idea of forgiveness and mercy as personified by Zeus’
daughters, the Prayers. How does Phoenix use this speech to convince Achilles to give up his
wrath?
The Shield of Achilles
•
•
•
Review the intervening material between Books IX and XVIII in order to follow the
general story more easily (but do master the important points that I bring to your
attention from these sections).
Be able to describe the scenes portrayed on the shield of Achilles.
Consider what larger point Homer may be making here
Intervening Material
Books X–XII contain numerous battles scenes that include a spying mission of Diomedes and
Odysseus. There then follows significant aristeia of Agamemnon (he can, at time be heroic!)
and Hector. After Hector breaks through the wall defending the Greek camp, those gods who
support the Greeks endeavor to secretly aid them. A somewhat humorous scene that illustrates
how the anthropomorphic nature of the Greek gods and goddesses applies as much to their
behavior as to their physical form. In it Hera seduces her husband Zeus, thereby allowing
Poseidon to help the Greeks while the king of gods is sleeping.
Despite Poseidon’s help, the Greeks still find themselves in a desperate situation. All of their
leaders except for Ajax are wounded and must leave the battle. At the suggestion of Nestor,
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Patroclus, Achilles’ best friend, finally convinces the recalcitrant hero to allow him to fight in
support of the Greeks. Although Achilles himself does not rejoin the battle, he allows Patroclus
to wear his armor and lead his men into battle. As Patroclus leaves, Achilles gives him specific
instructions to do no more than fight long enough to save the ships from the Trojan attack. He
must not attack Troy or try to fight personally with Hector.
When the Trojans see Patroclus dressed in Achilles’ armor, they think that it is the great hero
himself and flee in panic. Book XVI is, in effect, Patroclus’ aristeia as he fights bravely.
However, this book also gives us a clear example of the danger of hybris: Patroclus is carried
away by his success and rashly attacks Hector. In the battle Patroclus is killed and Achilles’
armor is captured.
Reading: Homer, Iliad XVIII (NA, 145–161).
Discussion of Book XVIII
After a narration of Achilles’ horrified response to the death of his friend, Homer proceeds to
describe the preparations of the hero to return to battle. Note the role of his mother Thetis in this
book, both in helping her son and in intervening with Zeus. Why is she so concerned for
Achilles?
The last part of Book XVIII comprises a lengthy description of the armor that Thetis has the
blacksmith god, Hephaestus, make for her son. This description focuses on the shield in what is
called an ekphrasis (EK fra sis), literally, “talking about or describing an object.” The scene is
so famous that other Classical authors will try to imitate Homer by using an ekphrasis in their
own writing (we will see one again in Vergil’s Aeneid later in this course). Why does Homer
spend so much time on the description of the shield? How does the ekphrasis, like the family
scene in Book VI, subtly undermine some of the values of what appears to be such a warlike
society?
The Death of Hector and Priam’s Visit to Achilles
•
•
•
Note Homer’s ability to describe strong feelings such as grief and how this make the
work accessible to a modern reader.
Consider how Homer resolves the issues of wrath and revenge at the end of the
work.
Ask yourself how fitting an ending Book XXIV provides to such a long work and
what final messages Homer might have had for his audience.
Reading: Homer, Iliad XXII and XXIV (NA, 173–208).