iliad

Iliad

This article is about the epic poem. For other uses, seeIliad (disambiguation).

The Iliad (/lid/;[1] Ancient Greek: Ilias, pro-nounced [i.li.s] in Classical Attic; sometimes referred toas the Song of Ilion or Song of Ilium) is an ancient Greekepic poem in dactylic hexameter, traditionally attributedto Homer. Set during the Trojan War, the ten-year siegeof the city of Troy (Ilium) by a coalition of Greek states, ittells of the battles and events during the weeks of a quar-rel between King Agamemnon and the warrior Achilles.Although the story covers only a few weeks in the nalyear of the war, the Iliad mentions or alludes to many ofthe Greek legends about the siege; the earlier events, suchas the gathering of warriors for the siege, the cause of thewar, and related concerns tend to appear near the begin-ning. Then the epic narrative takes up events prophesiedfor the future, such as Achilles looming death and thesack of Troy, pregured and alluded to more and morevividly, so that when it reaches an end, the poem has tolda more or less complete tale of the Trojan War.The Iliad is paired with something of a sequel, theOdyssey, also attributed to Homer. Along with theOdyssey, the Iliad is among the oldest extant works ofWestern literature, and its written version is usually datedto around the eighth century BC.[2] Recent statisticalmodelling based on language evolution has found it todate to 760710 BC.[3] In the modern vulgate (the stan-dard accepted version), the Iliad contains 15,693 lines; itis written in Homeric Greek, a literary amalgam of IonicGreek and other dialects.

1 SynopsisNote: Book numbers are in parentheses andcome before the synopsis of the book.

(1) After an invocation to the Muses, the story launchesin medias res (in the middle of things) towards the endof the Trojan War between the Trojans and the besiegingGreeks. Chryses, a Trojan priest of Apollo, oers theGreeks wealth for the return of his daughter Chryseis, acaptive of Agamemnon, the Greek leader. Althoughmostof the Greek army is in favour of the oer, Agamem-non refuses. Chryses prays for Apollos help, and Apollocauses a plague throughout the Greek army.After nine days of plague, Achilles, the leader of the

Myrmidon contingent, calls an assembly to solve theplague problem. Under pressure, Agamemnon agrees toreturn Chryseis to her father, but also decides to takeAchilless captive, Briseis, as compensation. Angered,Achilles declares that he and his men will no longer ghtfor Agamemnon, but will go home. Odysseus takes a shipand brings Chryseis to her father, whereupon Apollo endsthe plague.

The rst verses of the Iliad

In the meantime, Agamemnons messengers take Briseisaway. Achilles then asks his mother, Thetis, to ask Zeusthat the Greeks be brought to breaking point by the Tro-jans, so Agamemnon will realize how much the Greeksneed Achilles. Thetis does so, and Zeus agrees.(2) Zeus sends a dream to Agamemnon, urging him toattack the city. Agamemnon heeds the dream but decidesto rst test the morale of the Greek army by telling themto go home. The plan backres, and only the interventionof Odysseus, inspired by Athena, stops a rout.Odysseus confronts and beats Thersites, a common sol-dier who voices discontent at ghting Agamemnons war.After a meal, the Greeks deploy in companies upon theTrojan plain. The poet takes the opportunity to describethe provenance of each Greek contingent. When news ofthe Greek deployment reaches king Priam, the Trojanstoo sortie upon the plain. In a similar list to that for theGreeks, the poet describes the Trojans and their allies.(3) The armies approach each other on the plain, but be-fore they meet, Paris oers to end the war by ghting aduel with Menelaus, urged by his brother and head of theTrojan army, Hector. While Helen tells Priam about theGreek commanders from the walls of Troy, both sidesswear a truce and promise to abide by the outcome of theduel. Paris is beaten, but Aphrodite rescues him and leadshim to bed with Helen before Menelaus could kill him.

1

2 1 SYNOPSIS

(4) Pressured by Hera's hatred of Troy, Zeus arrangesfor the Trojan Pandaros to break the truce by woundingMenelaus with an arrow. Agamemnon rouses the Greeks,and battle is joined.(5) In the ghting, Diomedes kills many Trojans, includ-ing Pandaros, and defeats Aeneas, whom again Aphroditerescues, but Diomedes attacks and wounds the goddess.Apollo faces Diomedes, and warns him against warringwith gods. Many heroes and commanders join in, in-cluding Hector, and the gods supporting each side try toinuence the battle. Emboldened by Athena, Diomedeswounds Ares and puts him out of action.(6) Hector rallies the Trojans and stops a rout; the GreekDiomedes and the Trojan Glaukos nd common groundand exchange unequal gifts. Hector enters the city, urgesprayers and sacrices, incites Paris to battle, bids his wifeAndromache and son Astyanax farewell on the city walls,and rejoins the battle.(7) Hector duels with Ajax, but nightfall interrupts theght and both sides retire. The Greeks agree to burn theirdead and build a wall to protect their ships and camp,while the Trojans quarrel about returning Helen. Paris of-fers to return the treasure he took, and give further wealthas compensation, but without returning Helen, and theoer is refused. A days truce is agreed for burning thedead, during which the Greeks also build their wall andtrench.(8) The next morning, Zeus prohibits the gods from in-terfering, and ghting begins anew. The Trojans prevailand force the Greeks back to their wall while Hera andAthena are forbidden from helping. Night falls before theTrojans can assail the Greek wall. They camp in the eldto attack at rst light, and their watchres light the plainlike stars.

Iliad, Book VIII, lines 24553, Greek manuscript, late 5th, early6th centuries AD.

(9) Meanwhile, the Greeks are desperate. Agamemnonadmits his error, and sends an embassy composed ofOdysseus, Ajax, Phoenix, and two heralds to oer Bri-

seis and extensive gifts to Achilles, who has been campednext to his ships throughout, if only he would return to theghting. Achilles and his companion Patroclus receivethe embassy well, but Achilles angrily refuses Agamem-nons oer, and declares that he would only return to bat-tle if the Trojans reach his ships and threaten them withre. The embassy returns empty-handed.(10) Later that night, Odysseus and Diomedes venture outto the Trojan lines, killing the Trojan Dolon and wreakinghavoc in the camps of some Thracian allies of Troy.(11) In the morning, the ghting is erce and Agamem-non, Diomedes, and Odysseus are all wounded. Achillessends Patroclus from his camp to inquire about the Greekcasualties, and while there Patroclus is moved to pity bya speech of Nestor.(12) The Trojans assault the Greek wall on foot. Hector,ignoring an omen, leads the terrible ghting. The Greeksare overwhelmed in rout, the walls gate is broken, andHector charges in.(13) Many fall on both sides. The Trojan seer Polydamasurges Hector to fall back and warns him about Achilles,but is ignored.(14) Hera seduces Zeus and lures him to sleep, allowingPoseidon to help the Greeks, and the Trojans are drivenback onto the plain.(15) Zeus awakes and is enraged by Poseidons inter-vention. Against the mounting discontent of the Greek-supporting gods, Zeus sends Apollo to aid the Trojans,who once again breach the wall, and the battle reachesthe ships.(16) Patroclus can stand to watch no longer, and begsAchilles to be allowed to defend the ships. Achilles re-lents, and lends Patroclus his armor, but sends him owith a stern admonition not to pursue the Trojans, lesthe take Achilless glory. Patroclus leads the Myrmidonsto battle and arrives as the Trojans set re to the rstships. The Trojans are routed by the sudden onslaught,and Patroclus begins his assault by killing the Trojan heroSarpedon. Patroclus, ignoring Achilless command, pur-sues and reaches the gates of Troy, where Apollo him-self stops him. Patroclus is set upon by Apollo andEuphorbos, and is nally killed by Hector.(17) Hector takes Achilless armor from the fallen Patro-clus, but ghting develops around Patroclus body.(18) Achilles is mad with grief when he hears of Patro-cluss death, and vows to take vengeance on Hector; hismother Thetis grieves, too, knowing that Achilles is fatedto die young if he kills Hector. Achilles is urged to helpretrieve Patroclus body, but has no armour. Made bril-liant by Athena, Achilles stands next to the Greek walland roars in rage. The Trojans are dismayed by his ap-pearance and the Greeks manage to bear Patroclus bodyaway. Again Polydamas urges Hector to withdraw intothe city, again Hector refuses, and the Trojans camp in

2.1 Achaeans 3

the plain at nightfall. Patroclus is mourned, and mean-while, at Thetis request, Hephaestus fashions a new setof armor for Achilles, among which is a magnicentlywrought shield.(19) In the morning, Agamemnon gives Achilles all thepromised gifts, including Briseis, but he is indierent tothem. Achilles fasts while the Greeks take their meal, andstraps on his new armor, and heaves his great spear. Hishorse Xanthos prophesies to Achilles his death. Achillesdrives his chariot into battle.(20) Zeus lifts the ban on the gods interference, and thegods freely intervene on both sides. The onslaught ofAchilles, burning with rage and grief, is terrible, and heslays many.(21) Driving the Trojans before him, Achilles cuts ohalf their number in the river Skamandros and proceedsto slaughter them and lls the river with the dead. Theriver, angry at the killing, confronts Achilles, but is beatenback by Hephaestus restorm. The gods ght amongthemselves. The great gates of the city are opened to re-ceive the eeing Trojans, and Apollo leads Achilles awayfrom the city by pretending to be a Trojan.(22) When Apollo reveals himself to Achilles, the Tro-jans had retreated into the city, all except for Hector,who, having twice ignored the counsels of Polydamas,feels the shame of rout and resolves to face Achilles,in spite of the pleas of Priam and Hecuba, his parents.When Achilles approaches, Hectors will fails him, andhe is chased around the city by Achilles. Finally, Athenatricks him to stop running, and he turns to face his op-ponent. After a brief duel, Achilles stabs Hector throughthe neck. Before dying, Hector reminds Achilles that heis fated to die in the war as well. Achilles takes Hectorsbody and dishonours it.(23) The ghost of Patroclus comes to Achilles in a dreamand urges the burial of his body. The Greeks hold a dayof funeral games, and Achilles gives out the prizes.(24) Dismayed by Achilles continued abuse of Hectorsbody, Zeus decides that it must be returned to Priam. Ledby Hermes, Priam takes a wagon out of Troy, across theplains, and enters the Greek camp unnoticed. He graspsAchilles by the knees and begs to have his sons body.Achilles is moved to tears, and the two lament their lossesin the war. After a meal, Priam carries Hectors bodyback into Troy. Hector is buried, and the city mourns.

2 Major charactersMain article: List of characters in the IliadSee also: Category: Deities in the Iliad

The many characters of the Iliad are catalogued; thelatter-half of Book II, the "Catalogue of Ships", lists com-manders and cohorts; battle scenes feature quickly slain

minor characters.

2.1 Achaeans

The Achaeans () also called Hellenes(Greeks), Danaans (), or Argives ().

Agamemnon King ofMycenae, leader of theGreeks.

Achilles son of Peleus, foremost warrior,leader of the Myrmidons, son of a divinemother, Thetis.

Odysseus King of Ithaca, Greek comman-der.

Ajax the Greater son of Telamon and kingof Salamis.

Menelaus King of Sparta, husband of Helenand brother of Agamemnon.

Diomedes son of Tydeus, King of Argos. Ajax the Lesser son of Oileus, often partnerof Ajax the Greater.

Patroclus Achilles closest companion. Nestor King of Pylos, and trusted advisor toAgamemnon.

2.1.1 Achilles and Patroclus

Main article: Achilles and PatroclusMuch debate has surrounded the nature of the relation-

Achilles Lamenting the Death of Patroclus (1855) by the Rus-sian realist Nikolai Ge

ship of Achilles and Patroclus, as to whether it can bedescribed as a homoerotic one or not. Classical and Hel-lenistic Athenian scholars perceived it as pederastic,[4]while others perceived it as a platonic warrior-bond.[5]

4 2 MAJOR CHARACTERS

2.2 Trojans The Trojan men

Hector son of King Priam and the foremostTrojan warrior.

Aeneas son of Anchises and Aphrodite. Deiphobus brother of Hector and Paris. Paris Helens lover-abductor. Priam the aged King of Troy. Polydamas a prudent commander whose ad-vice is ignored; he is Hectors foil.

Agenor a Trojan warrior, son of Antenor,who attempts to ght Achilles (Book XXI).

Sarpedon, son of Zeus killed by Patroclus.Was friend ofGlaucus and co-leader of the Ly-cians (fought for the Trojans).

Glaucus, son of Hippolochus friend ofSarpedon and co-leader of the Lycians (foughtfor the Trojans).

Euphorbus rst Trojan warrior to wound Pa-troclus.

Dolon a spy upon the Greek camp (Book X). Antenor King Priams advisor, who arguesfor returning Helen to end the war.

Polydorus son of Priam and Laothoe. Pandarus famous archer and son of Lycaon.

The Trojan women Hecuba (, Hekabe) Priams wife,mother of Hector, Cassandra, Paris, and oth-ers.

Helen () daughter of Zeus; Menelausswife; espoused rst to Paris, then to Dei-phobus; her abduction by Paris precipitatedthe war.

Andromache Hectors wife, mother ofAstyanax.

Cassandra Priams daughter. Briseis a Trojan woman captured by Achillesfrom a previous siege, over whom Achillessquarrel with Agamemnon began.

2.3 GodsIn the literary TrojanWar of the Iliad, the Olympian gods,goddesses, and minor deities ght and play great roles inhuman warfare. Unlike practical Greek religious obser-vance, Homers portrayals of them suited his narrativepurpose, being very dierent from the polytheistic idealsGreek society used. To wit, the Classical-era historianHerodotus says that Homer, and his contemporary, the

poet Hesiod, were the rst artists to name and describetheir appearance and characters.[6]

In Greek Gods Human Lives: What We Can Learn FromMyths, Mary Lefkowitz discusses the relevance of di-vine action in the Iliad, attempting to answer the ques-tion of whether or not divine intervention is a discreteoccurrence (for its own sake), or if such godly behav-iors are mere human character metaphors. The intellec-tual interest of Classic-era authors, such as Thucydidesand Plato, was limited to their utility as a way of talk-ing about human life rather than a description or a truth,because, if the gods remain religious gures, rather thanhuman metaphors, their existencewithout the foun-dation of either dogma or a bible of faithsthen allowedGreek culture the intellectual breadth and freedom toconjure gods tting any religious function they requiredas a people.[7][8]

In The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of theBicameral Mind, psychologist Julian Jaynes uses the Il-iad as a major supporting evidence for his theory ofBicameralism, which posits that until about the time de-scribed in the Iliad, humans had a much dierent mental-ity than present day humans, essentially lacking in whatwe call consciousness. He suggests that humans heard andobeyed commands from what they identied as gods, un-til the change in human mentality that incorporated themotivating force into the conscious self. He points outthat almost every action in the Iliad is directed, caused, orinuenced by a god, and that earlier translations show anastonishing lack of words suggesting thought, planning,or introspection. Those that do appear, he argues, aremisinterpretations made by translators imposing a mod-ern mentality on the characters.[9]

The major deities: Zeus (Neutral) Hera (Achaeans) Artemis (Trojans) Apollo (Trojans) Hades (Neutral) Aphrodite (Trojans) Ares (Trojans) Athena (Achaeans) Hermes (Neutral) Poseidon (Achaeans) Hephaestus (Achaeans)

The minor deities: Eris Iris Thetis Leto

3.4 Wrath 5

Proteus Scamander Phobos Deimos Hypnos

3 Themes

3.1 NostosNostos (, homecoming) occurs seven times inthe poem.[10] Thematically, the concept of homecom-ing is much explored in Ancient Greek literature, espe-cially in the post-war homeward fortunes experienced bythe Atreidae (Agamemnon and Menelaus), and Odysseus(see the Odyssey). Thus, nostos is impossible withoutsacking TroyKing Agamemnons motive for winning,at any cost.

3.2 KleosKleos (, glory, fame) is the concept of gloryearned in heroic battle.[11] Formost of the Greek invadersof Troy, notably Odysseus, kleos is earned in a victo-rious nostos (homecoming). Yet, Achilles must chooseonly one of the two rewards, either nostos or kleos.[12]In Book IX (IX.41016), he poignantly tells Agamem-nons envoysOdysseus, Phoenix, Ajaxbegging hisreinstatement to battle about having to choose betweentwo fates ( , 9.411).[13]

The passage reads (the translation is Lattimores):In forgoing his nostos, he will earn the greaterreward of kleos aphthiton ( , fameimperishable).[13] In the poem, aphthiton (,imperishable) occurs ve other times,[16] each occur-rence denotes an object: Agamemnons sceptre, thewheel of Hebe's chariot, the house of Poseidon, thethrone of Zeus, the house of Hephaestus. TranslatorLattimore renders kleos aphthiton as forever immortal andas forever imperishableconnoting Achilless mortalityby underscoring his greater reward in returning to battleTroy.Achilles shield, crafted by Hephaestus and given to himby his mother Thetis, bears an image of stars in the cen-tre. The stars conjure profound images of the place of asingle man, no matter how heroic, in the perspective ofthe entire cosmos.

3.3 TimAkin to kleos is tim (, respect, honor), the con-cept denoting the respectability an honorableman accrueswith accomplishment (cultural, political, martial), per his

station in life. In Book I, the Greek troubles begin withKing Agamemnons dishonorable, unkingly behaviorrst, by threatening the priest Chryses (1.11), then, byaggravating them in disrespecting Achilles, by conscat-ing Briseis from him (1.171). The warriors consequentrancor against the dishonorable king ruins the Greek mil-itary cause.

3.4 Wrath

The Wrath of Achilles (1819), by Michel Drolling.

The poems initial word, (mnin, accusative of, mnis, wrath, rage, fury), establishes the Il-iads principal theme: The Wrath of Achilles.[17] Hispersonal rage and wounded soldiers vanity propel thestory: the Greeks faltering in battle, the slayings ofPatroclus and Hector, and the fall of Troy. In BookI, the Wrath of Achilles rst emerges in the Achilles-convoked meeting, between the Greek kings and the seerCalchas. King Agamemnon dishonours Chryses, the Tro-jan priest of Apollo, by refusing with a threat the resti-tution of his daughter, Chryseisdespite the proeredransom of gifts beyond count.[18] The insulted priestprays his gods help, and a nine-day rain of divine plaguearrows falls upon the Greeks. Moreover, in that meeting,Achilles accuses Agamemnon of being greediest for gainof all men.[19] To that, Agamemnon replies:

But here is my threat to you.Even as Phoibos Apollo is taking away myChryseis.I shall convey her back in my own ship, withmy ownfollowers; but I shall take the fair-cheekedBriseis,your prize, I myself going to your shelter, thatyou may learn wellhow much greater I am than you, and anotherman may shrink backfrom likening himself to me and contendingagainst me.[20]

6 3 THEMES

After that, only Athena stays Achilless wrath. He vowsto never again obey orders from Agamemnon. Furi-ous, Achilles cries to his mother, Thetis, who persuadesZeuss divine interventionfavouring the TrojansuntilAchilless rights are restored. Meanwhile, Hector leadsthe Trojans to almost pushing the Greeks back to thesea (Book XII). Later, Agamemnon contemplates defeatand retreat to Greece (Book XIV). Again, the Wrath ofAchilles turns the wars tide in seeking vengeance whenHector kills Patroclus. Aggrieved, Achilles tears his hairand dirties his face. Thetis comforts her mourning son,who tells her:

So it was here that the lord of menAgamemnon angered me.Still, we will let all this be a thing of the past,and for all oursorrow beat down by force the anger deeplywithin us.Now I shall go, to overtake that killer of a dearlife,Hektor; then I will accept my own death, atwhatevertime Zeus wishes to bring it about, and theother immortals.[21]

Accepting the prospect of death as fair price for avengingPatroclus, he returns to battle, dooming Hector and Troy,thrice chasing him 'round the Trojan walls, before slayinghim, then dragging the corpse behind his chariot, back tocamp.

Achilles Slays Hector, by Peter Paul Rubens (163035).

3.5 Fate

Fate (, kr, fated death) propels most of the eventsof the Iliad. Once set, gods and men abide it, neither

truly able nor willing to contest it. How fate is set is un-known, but it is told by the Fates and by Zeus throughsending omens to seers such as Calchas. Men and theirgods continually speak of heroic acceptance and cowardlyavoidance of ones slated fate.[22] Fate does not determineevery action, incident, and occurrence, but it does de-termine the outcome of lifebefore killing him, Hectorcalls Patroclus a fool for cowardly avoidance of his fate,by attempting his defeat; Patroclus retorts: [23]

No, deadly destiny, with the son of Leto,has killed me,and of men it was Euphorbos; you are only mythird slayer.And put away in your heart this other thing thatI tell you.You yourself are not one who shall live long,but now alreadydeath and powerful destiny are standing besideyou,to go down under the hands of Aiakos greatson, Achilleus.[24]

Here, Patroclus alludes to fated death by Hectors hand,and Hectors fated death by Achilless hand. Each acceptsthe outcome of his life, yet, no-one knows if the gods canalter fate. The rst instance of this doubt occurs in BookXVI. Seeing Patroclus about to kill Sarpedon, his mortalson, Zeus says:

Ah me, that it is destined that the dearestof men, Sarpedon,must go down under the hands of Menoitiosson Patroclus.[25]

About his dilemma, Hera asks Zeus:

Majesty, son of Kronos, what sort of thinghave you spoken?Do you wish to bring back a man who ismortal, one long sincedoomed by his destiny, from ill-soundingdeath and release him?Do it, then; but not all the rest of us gods shallapprove you.[26]

In deciding between losing a son or abiding fate, Zeus,King of the Gods, allows it. This motif recurs when heconsiders sparing Hector, whom he loves and respects.Again, Hera asks him:

Father of the shining bolt, dark misted,what is this you said?Do you wish to bring back a man who ismortal, one long since

4.1 The Iliad as oral tradition 7

doomed by his destiny, from ill-soundingdeath and release him?Do it, then; but not all the rest of us gods shallapprove you.[27]

Again, Zeus appears capable of altering fate, but doesnot, deciding instead to abide set outcomes; yet, contrari-wise, fate spares Aeneas, after Apollo convinces the over-matched Trojan to ght Achilles. Poseidon cautiouslyspeaks:

But come, let us ourselves get him awayfrom death, for fearthe son of Kronos may be angered if nowAchilleuskills this man. It is destined that he shall bethe survivor,that the generation of Dardanos shall not die...[28]

Divinely aided, Aeneas escapes the wrath of Achilles andsurvives the Trojan War. Whether or not the gods canalter fate, they do abide it, despite its countering their hu-man allegiances; thus, the mysterious origin of fate is apower beyond the gods. Fate implies the primeval, tripar-tite division of the world that Zeus, Poseidon, and Hadeseected in deposing their father, Cronus, for its domin-ion. Zeus took the Air and the Sky, Poseidon the Waters,andHades theUnderworld, the land of the deadyet theyshare dominion of the Earth. Despite the earthly powersof the Olympic gods, only the Three Fates set the destinyof Man.

3.6 The Male TotemRecently it was proposed that in the Iliad Homer lookedinto the soul of man the warrior. 'Kleos and warrior in-terrelations are viewed through anthropological, ethno-logical animistic concepts.

the Iliad is a poetical rendition of malephyletic fantasies. The Iliad is about klea an-dron, the glorious and terrible deeds of men inrelation to other men, the raw content of thesoul of man, but not of woman. It is a vastlagoon of dream fragments of the male uncon-scious, haunted with eternal shadows that com-pete, strut, ght, kill and rape, and above allseek the approval of other men.

[29]

4 Date and textual historyFurther information: Homeric question and Historicityof the Iliad

The poem dates to the archaic period of Classical An-tiquity. Scholarly consensus mostly places it in the 8thcentury BC, although some favour a 7th-century date.Herodotus placed Homer at approximately 400 years be-fore his own time, which would place Homer at circa 850BC.The historical backdrop of the poem is the time of theLate Bronze Age collapse, in the early 12th century BC.Homer is thus separated from his subject matter by about400 years, the period known as the Greek Dark Ages.Intense scholarly debate has surrounded the question ofwhich portions of the poem preserve genuine traditionsfrom the Mycenaean period. The Catalogue of Ships inparticular has the striking feature that its geography doesnot portray Greece in the Iron Age, the time of Homer,but as it was before the Dorian invasion.The title Ilias (genitive Iliados) is el-liptic for he poiesis Ilias, meaning theTrojan poem. , of Troy, is the specically fem-inine adjective form from , Troy"; the masculineadjective form would be or .[30] It is usedby Herodotus.[31]

Venetus A, copied in the 10th century AD, is the oldestfully extant manuscript of the Iliad.[32] The rst editionof the Iliad,editio princeps, by Demetrius Chalcondyleswas printed in Florence in 1488.[33]

4.1 The Iliad as oral tradition

In antiquity, the Greeks applied the Iliad and the Odysseyas the bases of pedagogy. Literature was central to theeducational-cultural function of the itinerant rhapsode,who composed consistent epic poems from memory andimprovisation, and disseminated them, via song andchant, in his travels and at the Panathenaic Festival of ath-letics, music, poetics, and sacrice, celebrating Athenasbirthday.[34]

Originally, Classical scholars treated the Iliad and theOdyssey as written poetry, and Homer as a writer. Yet,by the 1920s, Milman Parry (19021935) had launcheda movement claiming otherwise. His investigation ofthe oral Homeric style"stock epithets and reitera-tion (words, phrases, stanzas) established that theseformulae were artifacts of oral tradition easily appliedto an hexametric line. A two-word stock epithet (e.g.resourceful Odysseus) reiteration may complement acharacter name by lling a half-line, thus, freeing thepoet to compose a half-line of original formulaic textto complete his meaning.[35] In Yugoslavia, Parry andhis assistant, Albert Lord (19121991), studied the oral-formulaic composition of Serbian oral poetry, yield-ing the Parry/Lord thesis that established oral tradi-tion studies, later developed by Eric Havelock, MarshallMcLuhan, Walter Ong, and Gregory Nagy.

8 5 WARFARE IN THE ILIAD

In The Singer of Tales (1960), Lord presents likenessesbetween the tragedies of the Greek Patroclus, in the Il-iad, and of the Sumerian Enkidu, in the Epic of Gil-gamesh, and claims to refute, with careful analysis of therepetition of thematic patterns, that the Patroclus story-line upsets Homers established compositional formulaeof wrath, bride-stealing, and rescue"; thus, stock-phrasereiteration does not restrict his originality in tting storyto rhyme.[36][37] Likewise, in The Arming Motif, Prof.James Armstrong reports that the poems formulae yieldricher meaning because the arming motif dictiondescribing Achilles, Agamemnon, Paris, and Patroclusserves to heighten the importance of ... an impres-sive moment, thus, "[reiteration] creates an atmosphereof smoothness, wherein, Homer distinguishes Patroclusfrom Achilles, and foreshadows the formers death withpositive and negative turns of phrase.[38][39]

In the Iliad, occasional syntactic inconsistency maybe an oral tradition eectfor example, Aphrodite islaughter-loving, despite being painfully wounded byDiomedes (Book V, 375); and the divine representationsmay mix Mycenaean and Greek Dark Age (ca. 1150800 BC) mythologies, parallelling the hereditary basileisnobles (lower social rank rulers) with minor deities, suchas Scamander, et al.[40]

5 Warfare in the Iliad

5.1 Depiction of infantry combatDespite Mycenae and Troy being maritime powers, theIliad features no sea battles.[41] So, the Trojan shipwright(of the ship that transported Helen to Troy), Phereclus,ghts afoot, as an infantryman.[42] The battle dress andarmour of hero and soldier are well-described. Theyenter battle in chariots, launching javelins into the en-emy formations, then dismountfor hand-to-hand com-bat with yet more javelin throwing, rock throwing, and ifnecessary hand to hand sword and a shoulder-borne ho-plon (shield) ghting.[43] Ajax the Greater, son of Tela-mon, sports a large, rectangular shield (, sakos)with which he protects himself and Teucer, his brother:

Ninth came Teucer, stretching his curved bow.He stood beneath the shield of Ajax, son ofTelamon.As Ajax cautiously pulled his shield aside,Teucer would peer out quickly, shoot o an ar-row,hit someone in the crowd, dropping that soldierright where he stood, ending his lifethen he'dduck back,crouching down by Ajax, like a child beside itsmother.

Ajax would then conceal him with his shiningshield.(Iliad 8.26772, Ian Johnston, translator)

Ajaxs cumbersome shield is more suitable for defencethan for oence, while his cousin, Achilles, sports a large,rounded, octagonal shield that he successfully deploysalong with his spear against the Trojans:

Just as a man constructs a wall for some highhouse,using well-tted stones to keep out forcefulwinds,thats how close their helmets and bossedshields lined up,shield pressing against shield, helmet againsthelmetman against man. On the bright ridges of thehelmets,horsehair plumes touched when warriorsmoved their heads.Thats how close they were to one another.(Iliad 16.2137, Ian Johnston, translator)

In describing infantry combat, Homer names the phalanxformation,[44] but most scholars do not believe the his-torical Trojan War was so fought.[45] In the Bronze Age,the chariot was the main battle transport-weapon (e.g. theBattle of Kadesh). The available evidence, from the Den-dra armour and the Pylos Palace paintings, indicate theMycenaeans used two-man chariots, with a long-spear-armed principal rider, unlike the three-man Hittite char-iots with short-spear-armed riders, and unlike the arrow-armed Egyptian and Assyrian two-man chariots. Nestorspearheads his troops with chariots; he advises them:

In your eagerness to engage the Trojans,don't any of you charge ahead of others,trusting in your strength and horsemanship.And don't lag behind. That will hurt ourcharge.Any man whose chariot confronts an enemysshould thrust with his spear at him from there.Thats the most eective tactic, the waymen wiped out city strongholds long ago their chests full of that style and spirit.(Iliad 4.30109, Ian Johnston, translator)

Although Homers depictions are graphic, it can be seenin the very end that victory in war is a far more somberoccasion, where all that is lost becomes apparent. Onthe other hand, the funeral games are lively, for the deadmans life is celebrated. This overall depiction of war runscontrary to many other ancient Greek depictions, wherewar is an aspiration for greater glory.

95.2 Inuence on classical Greek warfareWhile the Homeric poems (the Iliad in particular) werenot necessarily revered scripture of the ancient Greeks,they were most certainly seen as guides that were im-portant to the intellectual understanding of any educatedGreek citizen. This is evidenced by the fact that in the latefth century BC, it was the sign of a man of standing tobe able to recite the Iliad andOdyssey by heart.[46] More-over, it can be argued that the warfare shown in the Iliad,and the way in which it was depicted, had a profound andvery traceable eect on Greek warfare in general. In par-ticular, the eect of epic literature can be broken downinto three categories: tactics, ideology, and the mindsetof commanders. In order to discern these eects, it isnecessary to take a look at a few examples from each ofthese categories.Much of the detailed ghting in the Iliad is done by theheroes in an orderly, one-on-one fashion. Much like theOdyssey, there is even a set ritual which must be ob-served in each of these conicts. For example, a ma-jor hero may encounter a lesser hero from the opposingside, in which case the minor hero is introduced, threatsmay be exchanged, and then the minor hero is slain. Thevictor often strips the body of its armor and militaryaccoutrements.[47] Here is an example of this ritual andthis type of one-on-one combat in the Iliad:

There Telamonian Ajax struck down theson of Anthemion, Simoeisios in his striplingsbeauty, whom once his mother descendingfrom Ida bore beside the banks of Simoeiswhen she had followed her father and motherto tend the sheepocks. Therefore they calledhim Simoeisios; but he could not render againthe care of his dear parents; he was short-lived,beaten down beneath the spear of high-heartedAjax, who struck him as he rst came for-ward beside the nipple of the right breast, andthe bronze spearhead drove clean through theshoulder.[48]

The biggest issue in reconciling the connection betweenthe epic ghting of the Iliad and later Greek warfare isthe phalanx, or hoplite, warfare seen in Greek historywell after Homers Iliad. While there are discussions ofsoldiers arrayed in semblances of the phalanx through-out the Iliad, the focus of the poem on the heroic ght-ing, as mentioned above, would seem to contradict thetactics of the phalanx. However, the phalanx did haveits heroic aspects. The masculine one-on-one ghting ofepic is manifested in phalanx ghting on the emphasis ofholding ones position in formation. This replaces the sin-gular heroic competition found in the Iliad.[49]

One example of this is the Spartan tale of 300 pickedmen ghting against 300 picked Argives. In this battleof champions, only two men are left standing for the Ar-gives and one for the Spartans. Othryades, the remaining

Spartan, goes back to stand in his formation with mortalwounds while the remaining two Argives go back to Ar-gos to report their victory. Thus, the Spartans claimedthis as a victory, as their last man displayed the ulti-mate feat of bravery by maintaining his position in thephalanx.[50]

In terms of the ideology of commanders in later Greekhistory, the Iliad has an interesting eect. The Iliad ex-presses a denite disdain for tactical trickery, when Hec-tor says, before he challenges the great Ajax:

I know how to stormmy way into the strug-gle of ying horses; I know how to tread themeasures on the grim oor of the war god.Yet great as you are I would not strike you bystealth, watching

for my chance, but openly, so, if perhaps Imight hit you.[51]

However, despite examples of disdain for this tacticaltrickery, there is reason to believe that the Iliad, as well aslater Greek warfare, endorsed tactical genius on the partof their commanders. For example, there are multiplepassages in the Iliad with commanders such as Agamem-non or Nestor discussing the arraying of troops so as togain an advantage. Indeed, the Trojan War is won by anotorious example of Greek guile in the Trojan Horse.This is even later referred to by Homer in the Odyssey.The connection, in this case, between guileful tactics ofthe Greeks in the Iliad and those of the later Greeks is nota dicult one to nd. Spartan commanders, often seen asthe pinnacle of Greek military prowess, were known fortheir tactical trickery, and, for them, this was a feat to bedesired in a commander. Indeed, this type of leadershipwas the standard advice of Greek tactical writers.[52]

Ultimately, while Homeric (or epic) ghting is certainlynot completely replicated in later Greek warfare, many ofits ideals, tactics, and instruction are.[53]

Hans van Wees argues that the period that the de-scriptions of warfare relate can be pinned down fairlyspecicallyto the rst half of the 7th century BC.[54]

6 Inuence on the arts and litera-ture

Main article: Trojan War in popular culture

The Iliad was a standard work of great importance al-ready in Classical Greece and remained so throughout theHellenistic and Byzantine periods. It made its return toItaly and Western Europe beginning in the 15th century,primarily through translations into Latin and the vernac-ular languages. Prior to this reintroduction, a shortenedLatin version of the poem, known as the Ilias Latina, was

10 7 ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS

very widely studied and read as a basic school text. TheWest, however, had tended to look at Homer as a liar asthey believed they possessed much more down to earthand realistic eyewitness accounts of the Trojan War writ-ten by Dares and Dictys Cretensis who were supposedlypresent at the events.These late antique forged accounts formed the basis ofseveral eminently popular medieval chivalric romances,most notably those of Benoit de Sainte-Maure and Guidodelle Colonne. These in turn spawned many others invarious European languages, such as the rst printed En-glish book, the 1473 Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye.Other accounts read in the Middle Ages were antiqueLatin retellings such as the Excidium Troiae and worksin the vernaculars such as the Icelandic Troy Saga. Evenwithout Homer, the Trojan War story had remained cen-tral to Western European medieval literary culture and itssense of identity. Most nations and several royal housestraced their origins to heroes at the Trojan War. Britainwas supposedly settled by the Trojan Brutus, for instance.Subjects from the TrojanWar were a favourite among an-cient Greek dramatists. Aeschylus' trilogy, the Oresteia,comprising Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers, and TheEumenides, follows the story of Agamemnon after his re-turn from the war.Homer also came to be of great inuence in Europeanculture with the resurgence of interest in Greek antiquityduring the Renaissance, and it remains the rst and mostinuential work of the Western canon.William Shakespeare used the plot of the Iliad as sourcematerial for his play Troilus and Cressida, but focusedon a medieval legend, the love story of Troilus, son ofKing Priam of Troy, and Cressida, daughter of the Tro-jan soothsayer Calchas. The play, often considered to bea comedy, reverses traditional views on events of the Tro-jan War and depicts Achilles as a coward, Ajax as a dull,unthinking mercenary, etc.William Theed the elder made an impressive bronzestatue of Thetis as she brought Achilles his new armorforged by Hephaesthus. It has been on display in theMetropolitan Museum of Art in New York City since2013.Robert Browning's poem Development discusses hischildhood introduction to the matter of the Iliad and hisdelight in the epic, as well as contemporary debates aboutits authorship.

6.1 20th century

Simone Weil wrote the essay The Iliad or the Poem ofForce in 1939 shortly after the commencement of WorldWar II. The essay describes how the Iliad demonstratesthe way force, exercised to the extreme in war, reducesboth victim and aggressor to the level of the slave and theunthinking automaton.[55]

The 1954 Broadway musical The Golden Apple by libret-tist John Treville Latouche and composer Jerome Mo-ross was freely adapted from the Iliad and the Odyssey,re-setting the action to America's Washington state in theyears after the SpanishAmerican War, with events in-spired by the Iliad in Act One and events inspired by theOdyssey in Act Two.Christa Wolf's 1983 novel Cassandra is a critical engage-ment with the Iliad. Wolfs narrator is Cassandra, whosethoughts we hear at the moment just before her murder byClytemnestra in Sparta. Wolfs narrator presents a femi-nists view of the war, and of war in general. Cassandrasstory is accompanied by four essays which Wolf deliv-ered as the Frankfurter Poetik-Vorlesungen. The essayspresent Wolfs concerns as a writer and rewriter of thiscanonical story and show the genesis of the novel throughWolfs own readings and in a trip she took to Greece.David Melnick'sMen in Aida (cf. ) (1983) isa postmodern homophonic translation of Book One intoa farcical bathhouse scenario, preserving the sounds butnot the meaning of the original.

6.2 Contemporary popular culture

An epic science ction adaptation/tribute by acclaimedauthor Dan Simmons titled Ilium was released in 2003.The novel received a Locus Award for best science ctionnovel of 2003.A loose lm adaptation of the Iliad, Troy, was released in2004. Though the lm received mixed reviews, it was acommercial success, particularly in international sales. Itgrossed $133 million in the United States and $497 mil-lion worldwide, placing it in the 88th top-grossing moviesof all time.[56]

Age of Bronze is an American comics series bywriter/artist Eric Shanower retelling the legend of theTrojan War. It began in 1998 and is published by ImageComics.[57][58][59]

Published October 2011,[60] Alice Oswald's sixth collec-tion,Memorial, is based on the Iliad but departs from thenarrative form of the Iliad to focus on, and so commemo-rate, the individually-named characters whose deaths arementioned in that poem.[61][62][63] Later in October 2011,Memorial was shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize,[64] butin December 2011, Oswald withdrew the book from theshortlist,[65][66] citing concerns about the ethics of theprizes sponsors.[67]

7 English translations

Further information: English translations of Homer

11

Wenceslas Hollar's engraved title page of a 1660 edition of theIliad, translated by John Ogilby.

George Chapman published his translation of the Iliad, ininstalments, beginning in 1598, published in fourteen-ers, a long-line ballad metre that has room for all ofHomers gures of speech and plenty of new ones, as wellas explanations in parentheses. At its best, as in Achillesrejection of the embassy in Iliad Nine; it has great rhetor-ical power.[68] It quickly established itself as a classicin English poetry. In the preface to his own translation,Pope praises the daring ery spirit of Chapmans ren-dering, which is something like what one might imag-ine Homer, himself, would have writ before he arrived atyears of discretion.John Keats praised Chapman in the sonnet On FirstLooking into Chapmans Homer (1816). John Ogilby'smid-seventeenth-century translation is among the earlyannotated editions; Alexander Pope's 1715 translation, inheroic couplet, is The classic translation that was builton all the preceding versions,[69] and, like Chapmans, itis a major poetic work in its own right. William Cowper'sMiltonic, blank verse 1791 edition is highly regarded forits greater delity to the Greek than either the Chapmanor the Pope versions: I have omitted nothing; I have in-vented nothing, Cowper says in prefacing his translation.In the lectures On Translating Homer (1861), MatthewArnold addresses the matters of translation and interpre-

tation in rendering the Iliad to English; commenting uponthe versions contemporarily available in 1861, he identi-es the four essential poetic qualities of Homer to whichthe translator must do justice:

[i] that he is eminently rapid; [ii] that heis eminently plain and direct, both in the evo-lution of his thought and in the expression ofit, that is, both in his syntax and in his words;[iii] that he is eminently plain and direct in thesubstance of his thought, that is, in his matterand ideas; and, nally, [iv] that he is eminentlynoble.

After a discussion of the metres employed by previoustranslators, Arnold argues for a poetical dialect hexame-ter translation of the Iliad, like the original. Laborious asthis meter was, there were at least half a dozen attemptsto translate the entire Iliad or Odyssey in hexameters; thelast in 1945. Perhaps the most uent of them was by J.Henry Dart [1862] in response to Arnold.[70] In 1870,the American poet William Cullen Bryant published ablank verse version, that Van Wyck Brooks describes assimple, faithful.Since 1950, there have been several English translations.Richmond Lattimore's version (1951) is a free six-beatline-for-line rendering that explicitly eschews poeticaldialect for the plain English of today. It is literal, un-like older verse renderings. Robert Fitzgerald's version(Oxford Worlds Classics, 1974) strives to situate the Il-iad in the musical forms of English poetry. His forcefulversion is freer, with shorter lines that increase the senseof swiftness and energy. Robert Fagles (Penguin Clas-sics, 1990) and Stanley Lombardo (1997) are bolder thanLattimore in adding dramatic signicance to Homersconventional and formulaic language. Barry B. Powell'stranslation (Oxford University Press, 2014) renders theHomeric Greek with a simplicity and dignity reminiscentof the original.A recent book oers a comparative review of translationsof the Iliad [71]

8 ManuscriptsThere are more than 2000 manuscripts of Homer.[72][73]Some of the most notable manuscripts include:

Rom. Bibl. Nat. gr.6 + Matriti. Bibl. Nat. 4626from 870-890 AD

Venetus A = Venetus Marc. 822 from the 10th cen-tury

Venetus B = Venetus Marc. 821 from the 11th cen-tury

Ambrosian Iliad

12 10 NOTES

Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 20 Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 21 Codex Nitriensis (palimpsest)

9 See also Hellenismos portal Mask of Agamemnon

10 Notes[1] Iliad. Random House Websters Unabridged Dictionary.

[2] Vidal-Naquet, Pierre. Le monde d'Homre (The World ofHomer), Perrin (2000), p. 19

[3] Linguistic evidence supports date for Homeric epics -Altschuler - 2013 - BioEssays - Wiley Online Library.Onlinelibrary.wiley.com. 2013-02-18. Retrieved 2014-03-13.

[4] Aeschylus does portray it so in Fragment 134a.

[5] Hornblower, S. and Spawforth, A. The Oxford Companionto Classical Civilization (1998) pp. 3, 347, 352.

[6] Homers Iliad, Classical Technology Center.

[7] Lefkowitz, Mary. Greek Gods, Human Lives: What WeCan Learn From Myths (2003) New Haven, Conn.: YaleUniversity Press

[8] Taplin, Oliver. Bring Back the Gods, The New YorkTimes 14 December 2003.

[9] Jaynes, Julian. (1976) The Origin of Consciousness in theBreakdown of the Bicameral Mind. Pg. 221

[10] 2.155, 2.251, 9.413, 9.434, 9.622, 10.509, 16.82

[11] The Concept of the Hero in Greek Civilization. Ath-ome.harvard.edu. Retrieved 2010-04-18.

[12] Heroes and theHomeric Iliad. Uh.edu. Retrieved 2010-04-18.

[13] Volk, Katharina. " Revisited". Clas-sical Philology, Vol. 97, No. 1 (Jan., 2002), pp. 6168.

[14] 9.410-416

[15] Homer. The Iliad. Richmond Lattimore, translator.Chicago: University of Chicago Press (1951)

[16] II.46, V.724, XIII.22, XIV.238, XVIII.370

[17] Rouse, W.H.D. The Iliad (1938) p.11

[18] Homer. The Iliad, Richmond Lattimore, translator.Chicago: University of Chicago Press (1951). 1.13.

[19] Homer. The Iliad, Richmond Lattimore, translator.Chicago: University of Chicago Press (1951). 1.122.

[20] Homer. The Iliad. Richmond Lattimore, translator.Chicago: University of Chicago Press (1951). 1.1817.


[22] Fate as presented in Homers The Iliad, Everything2

[23] Iliad Study Guide, Brooklyn College






[29] Nikoletseas, Michael. M. (2012). The Iliad: The MaleTotem, p. 26. ISBN 978-1482069006.

[30] , , . Liddell, Henry George; Scott,Robert; A GreekEnglish Lexicon at the Perseus Project

[31] Hist. 2.116

[32] Robot Scans Ancient Manuscript in 3-D, Wired.

[33] Nikoletseas, Michael M. (2012). The Iliad: TwentyCenturies of Translation: A Critical View. ISBN 978-1469952109

[34] The Columbia Encyclopedia, Fifth Edition (1994) p.173

[35] Porter, John. The Iliad as Oral Formulaic Poetry (8 May2006) University of Saskatchewan. Retrieved 26 Novem-ber 2007.

[36] Lord, Albert. The Singer of Tales Cambridge, Mas-sachusetts: Harvard University Press (1960) p.190

[37] Lord, Albert. The Singer of Tales Cambridge, Mas-sachusetts: Harvard University Press (1960) p.195

[38] Iliad, Book XVI, 13054

[39] Armstrong, James I. The Arming Motif in the Iliad. TheAmerican Journal of Philology, Vol. 79, No. 4. (1958),pp.33754.

[40] Toohey, Peter. Reading Epic: An Introduction to the An-cient Narrative. New Fetter Lane, London: Routledge,(1992).

[41] Iliad 3.4550

[42] Iliad 5965

[43] Keegan, John. A History of Warfare (1993) p.248

[44] Iliad 6.6

13

[45] Cahill, Tomas. Sailing theWine Dark Sea: Why the GreeksMatter (2003)

[46] Lendon, J.E."Soldiers and Ghosts (2005) p.36

[47] Lendon, J.E. Soldiers and Ghosts (2005) p. 223

[48] Iliad. 4.473-83, Lattimore, translator

[49] Lendon, J.E. Soldiers and Ghosts (2005) p.51

[50] 5.17

[51] (Iliad. 7.237-43, Lattimore, translator)

[52] Lendon, J.E. Soldiers and Ghosts (2005) p.240

[53] A large amount of the citations and argumentation inthis section of the article must be ultimately attributedto:Lendon, J.E. Soldiers and Ghosts: A History of Battlein Classical Antiquity. New Haven, CT: Yale UP, 2005.

[54] Greek Warfare: Myth and Realities [Paperback] HansVan Wees, p 249

[55] Bruce B. Lawrence andAishaKarim (2008). OnViolence:A Reader. Duke University Press. p. 377. ISBN 978-0-8223-3769-0.

[56] IMDB. All Time Worldwide Box Oce Grosses, BoxOce Mojo

[57] A Thousand Ships (2001, ISBN 1-58240-200-0)

[58] Sacrice (2004, ISBN 1-58240-360-0)

[59] Betrayal, Part One (2008, ISBN 978-1-58240-845-3)

[60] Oswald, Alice (2011). Memorial: An Excavation of the Il-iad. London: Faber and Faber. ISBN 978-0-571-27416-1.

[61] Holland, Tom (17 October 2011). The Song of Achillesby Madeline Miller / Memorial by Alice Oswald. Surngthe rip tide of all things Homeric.. The New Statesman(London: New Statesman). Retrieved 1 June 2012.

[62] Kellaway, Kate (2 October 2011). Memorial by Al-ice Oswald review. The Observer (London: GuardianNews and Media Limited). Retrieved 1 June 2012.

[63] Higgins, Charlotte (28 October 2011). The Song ofAchilles by Madeline Miller, and more review. TheGuardian (London: Guardian News and Media Limited).Retrieved 1 June 2012.

[64] Flood, Alison (20 October 2011). TS Eliot prize 2011shortlist revealed. The Guardian (London: GuardianNews and Media Limited). Retrieved 1 June 2012.

[65] Waters, Florence (6 December 2011). Poet withdrawsfrom TS Eliot prize over sponsorship. The Telegraph(London: Telegraph Media Group Limited). Retrieved2012-02-13.

[66] Flood, Alison (6 December 2011). Alice Oswald with-draws from TS Eliot prize in protest at sponsor Aurum.The Guardian (London: Guardian News and Media Lim-ited). Retrieved 2012-02-13.

[67] Oswald, Alice (12 December 2011). Why I pulled outof the TS Eliot poetry prize. The Guardian (London:Guardian News and Media Limited). Retrieved 2012-02-13.

[68] The Oxford Guide to English Literature in Translation,p.351



[71] Nikoletseas, Michael M. The Iliad: Twenty Centuries ofTranslation: A Critical View, 2012

[72] OCLC 722287142

[73] Bird, Graeme D. (2010). Multitextuality in the HomericIliad : the witness of the ptolemaic papyr. Washington,D.C.: Center for Hellenic Studies. ISBN 0-674-05323-0.

11 References Budimir, Milan (1940). On the Iliad and Its Poet. Mueller, Martin (1984). The Iliad. London: Allen& Unwin. ISBN 0-04-800027-2.

Nagy, Gregory (1979). The Best of the Achaeans.Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press.ISBN 0-8018-2388-9.

Powell, Barry B. (2004). Homer. Malden, Mass.:Blackwell. ISBN 978-1-4051-5325-6.

Seaford, Richard (1994). Reciprocity and Ritual.Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-815036-9.

West, Martin (1997). The East Face of Helicon. Ox-ford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-815221-3.

Fox, Robin Lane (2008). Travelling Heroes: Greeksand their myths in the epic age ofHomer. Allen Lane.ISBN 978-0-7139-9980-8.

12 Further reading Murray, A.T.; Wyatt, William F., Homer: The Il-

iad, Books I-XII, Loeb Classical Library, HarvardUniversity Press, 1999, ISBN 978-0-674-99579-6

Kirk, G.S., The Iliad: A Commentary: VolumeI, Books 1-4, Cambridge University Press, 1985.ISBN 0-521-23709-2

Kirk, G.S., The Iliad: A Commentary: VolumeII, Books 5-8, Cambridge University Press, 1990.ISBN 0-521-23710-6

14 13 EXTERNAL LINKS

Hainsworth, Bryan; Kirk, G.S., The Iliad: A Com-mentary: Volume III, Books 9-12, Cambridge Uni-versity Press, 1993. ISBN 0-521-23711-4

Edwards, MarkW.; Janko, Richard; Kirk, G.S., TheIliad: A Commentary: Volume IV, Books 13-16,Cambridge University Press, 1992. ISBN 0-521-28171-7

Edwards, Mark W.; Kirk, G.S., The Iliad: A Com-mentary: Volume V, Books 1720, Cambridge Uni-versity Press, 1991. ISBN 0-521-30959-X

Richardson, Nicholas; Kirk, G.S., The Iliad: A Com-mentary: Volume VI, Books 2124, Cambridge Uni-versity Press, 1993. ISBN 0-521-30960-3

West, Martin L., Studies in the text and transmissionof the Iliad, Mnchen : K.G. Saur, 2001. ISBN 3-598-73005-5

13 External links D. B. Monro, Homer: Iliad, Books I-XII, with an

Introduction, a Brief Homeric Grammar, and Notes(3rd ed., 1890)

D. B. Monro, Homer: Iliad, Books XIII-XXIV, withNotes (4th ed., 1903)

D. B. Monro, A Grammar of the Homeric Dialect(2nd ed., 1891)

Iliad in Ancient Greek: from the Perseus Project(PP), with the Murray and Butler translations andhyperlinks to mythological and grammatical com-mentary; via the ChicagoHomer, with the Lattimoretranslation and markup indicating formulaic repeti-tions

Links to translations freely available online are in-cluded in the list above.

Gods, Achaeans and Troyans. An interactive visu-alization of Iliads characters ow and relations.

The Iliad: A Study Guide Classical images illustrating the Iliad. Repertory ofoutstanding painted vases, wall paintings and otherancient iconography of the War of Troy.

Comments on background, plot, themes, authorship,and translation issues by 2008 translator HerbertJordan.

The Iliad of Homer a Parsed Interlinear Text, Books1-24: Kindle edition

Flaxman illustrations of the Iliad The Iliad study guide, themes, quotes, teacher re-sources

The Iliad of Homer, Translated into English BlankVerse by William Cowper, edition c.1860. Onlineat Project Gutenberg.

The Opening to the Iliad (Proem), Read in AncientGreek with a simultaneous translation.

The Iliad Map, map of locations in The Iliad Published English translations of Homer, with sam-ples and some reviews by translator and scholar IanJohnston

Digital facsimile of the rst printed publication (edi-tio princeps) of the Iliad in Homeric Greek byDemetrios Chalkokondyles, Bayerische Staatsbib-liothek

15

14 Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses14.1 Text

Iliad Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iliad?oldid=673843745 Contributors: Derek Ross, Brion VIBBER, Vicki Rosenzweig, BryanDerksen, Andre Engels, XJaM, Christian List, Matusz, Oliverkroll, Deb, Ichelhof, Montrealais, Michael Hardy, Llywrch, Bewildebeast,Gabbe, Stephen C. 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16 14 TEXT AND IMAGE SOURCES, CONTRIBUTORS, AND LICENSES

shaha, Supdiop, KasparBot, Adam9007 and Anonymous: 1031

14.2 Images File:Akhilleus_Patroklos_Antikensammlung_Berlin_F2278.jpg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/ba/

Akhilleus_Patroklos_Antikensammlung_Berlin_F2278.jpg License: Public domain Contributors: User:Bibi Saint-Pol, own work, 2008Original artist: Sosias (potter, signed). Painting attributed to the Sosias Painter (name piece for Beazley, overriding attribution) or theKleophrades Painter (Robertson) or Euthymides (Ohly-Dumm)

File:Beginning_Iliad.svg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/96/Beginning_Iliad.svg License: Public domainContributors: Own work (using Wikisource for text) Original artist: User:Bibi Saint-Pol

File:Cadmus_teeth.jpg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9c/Cadmus_teeth.jpg License: Public domain Con-tributors: [1] Original artist: Maxeld Parrish

File:Commons-logo.svg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/4a/Commons-logo.svg License: ? Contributors: ? Originalartist: ?

File:Folder_Hexagonal_Icon.svg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/48/Folder_Hexagonal_Icon.svg License: Cc-by-sa-3.0 Contributors: ? Original artist: ?

File:Homer_British_Museum.jpg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1c/Homer_British_Museum.jpg Li-cense: Public domain Contributors: Originally from en.wikipedia; description page is/was here.. Original uploader was JW1805 aten.wikipedia Original artist: ?

File:Iliad1660Frontis.jpg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/dc/Iliad1660Frontis.jpg License: Public domainContributors: 1660 Edition of The Iliad Original artist: Homer, Hollar

File:Iliad_VIII_245-253_in_cod_F205,_Milan,_Biblioteca_Ambrosiana,_late_5c_or_early_6c.jpg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0d/Iliad_VIII_245-253_in_cod_F205%2C_Milan%2C_Biblioteca_Ambrosiana%2C_late_5c_or_early_6c.jpg License: Public domain Contributors: Transferred from en.wikipedia; transfered to Commons by User:Twice25 usingCommonsHelper. Original artist: Original uploader was Wareh at en.wikipedia

File:Laurel_wreath_fa13.gif Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/72/Laurel_wreath_fa13.gif License: Copy-righted free use Contributors: http://fa13.com Original artist:

File:Nikolay_Ge_002.jpeg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bc/Nikolay_Ge_002.jpeg License: Public do-main Contributors: http://fotki.yandex.ru/users/hds-shah/view/210878?page=2 Original artist: Nikolai Ge

File:Portal-puzzle.svg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/fd/Portal-puzzle.svg License: Public domain Contributors: ?Original artist: ?

File:Slays_Hector.jpg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9e/Slays_Hector.jpg License: Public domain Con-tributors:http://www.umich.edu/~{}homeros/Representations%20of%20Homer{}s%20Ideas/Marisa%20-%20Self-identity%20in%20the%20Iliad.htmOriginal artist: Peter Paul Rubens

File:Symbol_book_class2.svg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/89/Symbol_book_class2.svg License: CCBY-SA 2.5 Contributors: Mad by Lokal_Prol by combining: Original artist: Lokal_Prol

File:Wikisource-logo.svg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4c/Wikisource-logo.svg License: CC BY-SA 3.0Contributors: Rei-artur Original artist: Nicholas Moreau

File:Wrath_of_Achilles2.jpg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3f/Wrath_of_Achilles2.jpg License: Publicdomain Contributors:http://www.philipresheph.com/demodokos/book1/wrath.htmOriginal artist: Michel Martin Drolling

14.3 Content license Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0

SynopsisMajor charactersAchaeansAchilles and Patroclus

TrojansGods

ThemesNostosKleosTimWrathFateThe Male Totem

Date and textual historyThe Iliad as oral tradition

Warfare in the IliadDepiction of infantry combatInfluence on classical Greek warfare

Influence on the arts and literature20th centuryContemporary popular culture

English translationsManuscriptsSee alsoNotesReferencesFurther readingExternal linksText and image sources, contributors, and licensesTextImagesContent license

iliad

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