Iliad

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The Iliad (Greek: Ἰλιάς [iliás] (Ancient), Ιλιάδα [ili'aða] (Modern)) is, together with the Odyssey, one of two ancient Greek epic poems traditionally attributed to Homer. However, the claim of a single author is disputed, as the poems show evidence of a long oral tradition and hence, possible multiple authors.

Many scholars believe the poem to be the oldest extant work of literature in the ancient Greek language. For most of the 20th century, both the Iliad and the Odyssey have been commonly dated to the late 9th or 8th century BC.^[1] Most still hold this view, notably Barry B. Powell (who has proposed a link between the writing of the Iliad and the invention of the Greek alphabet), G.S. Kirk, and Richard Janko. However a few others, such as Martin West and Richard Seaford, now prefer a date in the 7th or even the 6th century BC.

The poem concerns events during the ninth year of the Trojan War, the siege of the city of Ilion or Troy, by the Greeks. The plot centers on the Greek warrior Achilles and his anger toward the king of Mycenae, Agamemnon, which proves disastrous for the Greeks.^[2] It provides many of the events that the later poems of the Epic Cycle build on, including the death of the Trojan captain Hector.

Written in dactylic hexameter, the Iliad comprises 15,693 lines of verse. Later ancient Greeks divided it into twenty-four books or scrolls, a convention that has lasted to the present day with little change.

The word Iliad means "pertaining to Ilios" (in Latin, Ilium), the city proper, as opposed to Troy (in Greek, Τροία, Troía; in Latin, Troia, Troiae, f., in Turkish Truva), the state centered around Ilium.

Contents 1 The story of the Iliad 1.1 Book summaries 1.2 Famous passages 1.3 After the Iliad 2 Major characters 3 Themes 3.1 Nostos 3.2 Kleos 3.3 Timê 3.4 The Wrath of Achilles 3.5 Fate 4 The Iliad as oral tradition 5 The relationship of Achilles and Patroclus 6 Warfare in the Iliad 7 Mythological characters in the Iliad 8 The Iliad in subsequent arts and literature 9 Translations into English 9.1 Partial list of English translations 10 See also 11 Notes 12 References 13 External links

[edit] The story of the Iliad

The Iliad begins with these lines:

μῆνιν ἄειδε θεὰ Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος
οὐλομένην, ἣ μυρί' Ἀχαιοῖς ἄλγε' ἔθηκεν,
Sing, goddess, the rage of Achilles the son of Peleus,
the destructive rage that sent countless ills on the Achaeans...

The first word of Homer's Iliad is the ancient Greek word μῆνις (mēnis), fury, rage, or wrath. This word announces the major theme of the Iliad: the wrath of Achilles.

As the poem begins, the Greeks have captured Chryseis, the daughter of Chryses, and given her as a prize to Agamemnon, the leader of the Greeks. When Chryses, a priest of Apollo, attempts to ransom his daughter, Agamemnon threatens him; Apollo sends a plague against the Greeks as punishment. At an assembly called by Achilles, the Greeks compel Agamemnon to restore Chryseis to her father to appease the god and end the sickness. Agamemnon reluctantly agrees, but takes Briseis, whom the Achaeans had given to Achilles as a spoil of war. Stung by the dishonor, Achilles, widely seen as the greatest warrior of the war, withdraws from the fighting, taking with him his powerful Myrmidon warriors.

In counterpoint to Achilles' pride stands the Trojan prince Hector, a husband and father who fights to defend his city and his family. With Achilles on the sidelines, Hector leads successful counterattacks against the Greeks, who have built a fortified camp around their ships pulled up on the Trojan beach. The best of the remaining Greek warriors, including Odysseus and Diomedes, are wounded, and the gods favor the Trojans.

When the Trojans threaten the Greek ships with fire, Achilles allows his close friend Patroclus to impersonate him (by wearing his armor) and lead the Myrmidons back into battle. While fighting, Hector discovers that the man in Achilles' armor is not Achilles, but Patroclus, and Hector kills him. The death of Patroclus brings Achilles back into the war, seeking revenge. He slays Hector in single combat and defiles his body for days, until King Priam, with the aid of Hermes, comes to Achilles alone to ransom his son's body. Achilles is moved to pity. The funeral of Hector ends the poem.

Homer devotes long passages to frank, blow-by-blow descriptions of combat. He gives the names of the fighters, recounts their taunts and battle cries, and gruesomely details the ways in which they kill and wound one another. Often, the death of a hero only escalates the violence, as the two sides battle for his armor and corpse, or his close companions launch a punitive attack on his killer. The lucky ones are sometimes whisked away by friendly charioteers or the intervention of a god, but Homeric warfare is still some of the most bloody and brutal in literature.

The Iliad has a very strong religious and supernatural element. Both sides in the war are extremely pious, and both have heroes descended from divine beings. They sacrifice to the gods and consult priests and prophets to decide their actions. For their own part, the gods frequently join in battles, both by advising and protecting their favorites and even by participating in combat against humans and other gods.

The Iliad's huge cast of characters connects the Trojan War to many ancient myths, such as Jason and the Argonauts, the Seven Against Thebes, and the Labors of Hercules. Many ancient Greek myths exist in multiple versions, so Homer had some freedom to choose among them to suit his story.

The action of the Iliad covers only a few weeks of the tenth and final year of the Trojan War. It does not cover the cause of the war (Paris' abduction of Helen from her husband, King Menelaus), the first nine years of fighting, or its end (the death of Achilles and the fall of Troy). Other epic poems, collectively known as the Epic Cycle or cyclic epics, concern themselves with many of these events; these poems only survive in fragments and later descriptions.

[edit] Book summaries

Homer himself did not name the 24 books of the Iliad, but many translators have provided their own book titles. The number of books is identical to that of Homer's other epic, the Odyssey.

• Book 1: Nine years into the war, Agamemnon seizes Briseis, the concubine (prize) of Achilles, since he has had to give away his own; Achilles withdraws from the fighting in anger; in Olympus, the gods argue about the outcome of the war.
• Book 2: Agamemnon pretends to order the Greeks home to test their resolve; Odysseus encourages the Greeks to keep fighting; Catalogue of Ships, Catalogue of Trojans and Allies.
• Book 3: A truce is observed as Paris challenges Menelaus to single combat over Helen, while she watches from the walls of Troy with Priam; Paris is quickly overmatched by Menelaus, but is rescued from death by Aphrodite, and Menelaus is seen as the winner.
• Book 4: The truce is broken and battle begins.
• Book 5: Diomedes has an aristeia (a period of supremacy in battle) and wounds Aphrodite and Ares with the assistance of Athena.
• Book 6: Glaucus and Diomedes greet each other during the fighting; Hector returns to Troy and speaks to his wife Andromache.

• Book 7: Hector battles Ajax.
• Book 8: The gods withdraw from the battle.
• Book 9: The Embassy to Achilles. Agamemnon sends Odysseus, Ajax, and Phoenix to Achilles to obtain his help; his promises of honour and riches are spurned.
• Book 10: The Doloneia. Diomedes and Odysseus go on a night mission, kill the Trojan Dolon, and ambush a camp of Thracians.
• Book 11: Paris wounds Diomedes; Achilles sends Patroclus on a mission.
• Book 12: The Greeks retreat to their camp and are besieged by the Trojans.
• Book 13: Fighting before the ships; Poseidon encourages the Greeks.
• Book 14: Hera helps Poseidon assist the Greeks; Deception of Zeus.
• Book 15: Zeus stops Poseidon from interfering; Hector brings fire to the ships.
• Book 16: Patroclus borrows Achilles' armour, enters battle, kills Sarpedon and then is killed by Hector.
• Book 17: The armies fight over the body and armour of Patroclus. Books 16 and 17 are collectively called the Patrocleia.
• Book 18: Achilles learns of the death of Patroclus and receives a new suit of armour. The Shield of Achilles is described at length.
• Book 19: Achilles is reconciled in form with Agamemnon and enters battle.
• Book 20: The gods join the battle; Achilles drives all the Trojans before him.
• Book 21: Achilles does battle with the river Scamander, but is led astray by Ares.
• Book 22: Achilles kills Hector outside the walls of Troy and drags his body back to the Greek camp.
• Book 23: Funeral games for Patroclus.
• Book 24: Priam secretly enters the Greek camp. He begs Achilles for Hector's body. Achilles is moved to pity and grants it to him, and it is taken away and given a funeral, at which Helen and Andromache both make comments, and then his body is burned on a pyre.

[edit] Famous passages

• Catalogue of Ships (Book 2, lines 494-759)
• Teichoscopia (Book 3, lines 121-244)
• Deception of Zeus (Book 14, lines 153-353)
• Shield of Achilles (Book 18, lines 430-617)

[edit] After the Iliad

Although the Iliad scatters foreshadowings of certain events subsequent to the funeral of Hector, and there is a general sense that the Trojans are doomed, Homer does not set out a detailed account of the fall of Troy. For the story as developed in later Greek and Roman poetry and drama, see Trojan War. The other Homeric poem, the Odyssey, is the story of Odysseus' long journey home from Troy; the two poems between them incorporate many references forward and back and overlap very little, so that despite their narrow narrative focus they are a surprisingly complete exploration of the themes of the Troy story.

[edit] Major characters

See also: Category:Deities in the Iliad

The Iliad contains a large number of characters. The latter half of the second book (often called the Catalogue of Ships) is devoted entirely to listing the various commanders and their contingents. Many of the battle scenes in the Iliad feature minor characters who are quickly slain.

• The Achaeans (Ἀχαιοί) – the word Hellenes, which would today be translated as Greeks, is not used by Homer. Also called Danaans (Δαναοί) and Argives ('Aργεĩοι).
  • Agamemnon, King of Mycenae, and leader of the Achaeans.
  • Achilles, King of the Myrmidions, foremost Achaean warrior, he clashes with Agamemnon and sits out much of the combat. After the death of Patroclus, he returns to battle and slays Hector.
  • Odysseus, King of Ithaca, the cleverest Achaean commander. The hero of the Odyssey.
  • Ajax the Greater, a large warrior, tied with Diomedes as second to Achilles in fighting prowess.
  • Menelaus, King of Sparta and husband of Helen.
  • Diomedes, the youngest Achaean king; he is king of Argos.
  • Ajax the Lesser, another Achaean leader, frequently partnered with Ajax the greater.
• The Trojan men
  • Hector, son of the Trojan king Priam and the foremost warrior of Troy, slain by Achilles.
  • Aeneas, son of Anchises and Aphrodite.
  • Deiphobus, brother of Hector and Paris.
  • Paris, son of King Priam, the lover who stole Helen and started the Trojan War.
  • Priam, the aged King of Troy
  • Polydamas, a young Trojan commander who sometimes figures as a foil for Hector by proving cool-headed and prudent when Hector charges ahead. Polydamas gives the Trojans sound advice, but Hector seldom acts on it.
  • Agenor, a Trojan warrior who attempts to fight Achilles in Book 21.
  • Dolon (Δόλων), a Trojan who is sent to spy on the Achaean camp in Book 10.
  • Antenor, a Trojan nobleman, advisor to King Priam, and father of many Trojan warriors. Antenor argues that Helen should be returned to Menelaus in order to end the war, but Paris refuses to give her up.
  • Polydorus, a Trojan prince and son of Priam and Laothoe.

• The Trojan women
  • Hecuba (Ἑκάβη), Queen of Troy, wife of Priam, mother of Hector, Cassandra, Paris, and others
  • Helen (Ἑλένη), wife of Menelaus, now espoused to Paris, and after his death, to Deiphobus
  • Andromache (Ἀνδρομάχη), Hector's wife and mother of their infant son, Astyanax (Ἀστυάναξ)
  • Cassandra (Κασσάνδρα), daughter of Priam, prophetess, first courted and then cursed by Apollo. As her punishment for offending him, she accurately foresees the fate of Troy, including her own death and the deaths of her entire family, but does not have the power to do anything about it.

The Olympian deities, principally Zeus, Hera, Apollo, Hades, Aphrodite, Ares, Athena, Hermes and Poseidon, as well as the lesser figures Eris, Thetis, and Proteus appear in the Iliad as advisers to and manipulators of the human characters. All except Zeus become personally involved in the fighting at one point or another (See Theomachy).

[edit] Themes

[edit] Nostos

Nostos (Greek: νόστος) (pl. nostoi) is the ancient Greek word for homecoming. The word νόστος is used seven times in the Iliad (2.155,251, 9.413,434,622, 10.509, 16.82) and the theme is heavily explored throughout ancient Greek literature, especially in the fortunes of the Atreidae returning from the Trojan War. The Odyssey, dealing with the return of Odysseus, is the most famous of these stories, but many surrounding other characters such as Agamemnon and Menelaus exist as well. In the Iliad, nostos cannot be obtained without the sacking of Troy, which is the driving force behind Agamemnon's will to win at any cost.

[edit] Kleos

Kleos (Greek: κλέος) is the ancient Greek concept of glory that is earned through battle.[3] For many characters, most notably Odysseus, their kleos comes with their victorious return home (nostos).[4] However, Achilles must choose between the two. In one of the most poignant scenes in the Iliad (9.410-416), Achilles tells Odysseus, Phoenix, and Ajax about the two fates (διχθαδίας κήρας 9.411) he must choose between.[5]. The passage reads:

μήτηρ γάρ τέ μέ φησι θεὰ Θέτις ἀργυρόπεζα (410)
διχθαδίας κῆρας φερέμεν θανάτοιο τέλος δέ.
εἰ μέν κ’ αὖθι μένων Τρώων πόλιν ἀμφιμάχωμαι,
ὤλετο μέν μοι νόστος, ἀτὰρ κλέος ἄφθιτον ἔσται•
εἰ δέ κεν οἴκαδ’ ἵκωμι φίλην ἐς πατρίδα γαῖαν,
ὤλετό μοι κλέος ἐσθλόν, ἐπὶ δηρὸν δέ μοι αἰὼν (415)
ἔσσεται, οὐδέ κέ μ’ ὦκα τέλος θανάτοιο κιχείη.^[3]

Richmond Lattimore translates the passage as follows:

For my mother Thetis the goddess of silver feet tells me
I carry two sorts of destiny toward the day of my death. Either,
if I stay here and fight beside the city of the Trojans,
my return home is gone, but my glory shall be everlasting;
but if I return home to the beloved land of my fathers,
the excellence of my glory is gone, but there will be a long life
left for me, and my end in death will not come to me quickly.
^[4]

Here Achilles acknowledges that he must lose his nostos in order to obtain his kleos. However, Achilles is not offered just kleos, but kleos aphthiton (Greek: κλέος ἄφθιτον), or "fame imperishable."[6] The word ἄφθιτον is used five other times throughout the Iliad (2.46, 5.724, 13.22, 14.238, 18.370), each time describing an immortal object, specifically Agamemnon's sceptre, the wheel of Hebe's chariot, the house of Poseidon, Zeus's throne, and the house of Hephaistos, respectively. Lattimore translates the word to mean 'immortal forever' or 'imperishable forever.' Achilles is the only mortal to ever be referred to in this way, which highlights the immense glory that awaits him if he stays and fights at Troy.

[edit] Timê

Related to kleos is the concept of timê (Greek: тιμή), usually translated as "respect" or "honor". One's timê is properly determined by one's station in life, or one's accomplishments (e.g., on the battlefield). The Greeks' troubles begin when Agamemnon dishonors (1.11) the priest Chryses' attempt to ransom his captive daughter. Later, Achilles' ruinous anger with Agamemnon stems from the disrespect (1.171) he feels the Argive king has shown him despite Achilles' obvious value to the Greek army.

[edit] The Wrath of Achilles

As mentioned above, the first word of the Iliad is the Greek μῆνιν (mēnin), meaning rage or wrath. In this, Homer is immediately announcing a main theme throughout the epic, the wrath of Achilles. Achilles' rage and vanity, which sometimes seem almost childlike, drive the plot, from the Greeks' faltering in battle and the death of Patroclus, to the slaying of Hector, and the eventual fall of Troy, which is not explicitly depicted in the Iliad, but is alluded to numerous times.

The wrath of Achilles is first displayed in Book I in a meeting between the Greek kings and the seer Kalchas. Agamemnon had dishonored Chryses, the Trojan priest of Apollo, by taking his daughter Chryseis and refusing to return her, even when offered "gifts beyond count."^[5] Chryses then prayed to Apollo for help, who rained arrows upon the Greeks for nine days. At the meeting, Achilles accuses Agamemnon of being "greediest for gain of all men."^[6] To this, Agamemnon replies:

"But here is my threat to you.
Even as Phoibos Apollo is taking away my Chryseis.
I shall convey her back in my own ship, with my own
followers; but I shall take the fair-cheeked Briseis,
your prize, I myself going to your shelter, that you may learn well
how much greater I am than you, and another man may shrink back
from likening himself to me and contending against me."^[7]

After this remark, Achilles' anger can only be stayed by Athena and he vows to never take orders from Agamemnon again. Later, Achilles cries to his mother Thetis, who convinces Zeus on Olympus to favor the Trojans until Agamemnon restores Achilles' rights. This dooms the possibility of Greek victory in the near future, and the Trojans under Hector almost push the Greeks back into the sea in Book XII, causing Agamemnon to contemplate defeat and a return to Greece.

The Wrath of Achilles turns the tide of the war again when his closest friend Patroclus is killed in battle by Hector. When Nestor informs him, Achilles mourns grievously, tearing out his hair and dirtying his face. During his mourning, Thetis again comes to comfort him. Achilles tells her:

So it was here that the lord of men Agamemnon angered me.
Still, we will let all this be a thing of the past, and for all our
sorrow beat down by force the anger deeply within us.
Now I shall go, to overtake that killer of a dear life,
Hektor; then I will accept my own death, at whatever
time Zeus wishes to bring it about, and the other immortals.^[8]

In his desire for vengeance, Achilles is even willing to accept the prospect of his own death as a reasonable price to avenge his lost friend. He enters battle again, dooming both Hector and Troy. After killing and wounding numerous Trojans, Achilles finds Hector on the battlefield in Book XXII and chases him around the walls of Troy three times before slaying him. Achilles, in his final show of rage, then drags the body behind his chariot back to the Greek camp.

[edit] Fate

Fate is shown to be a driving force behind many of the events of the Iliad. It is obeyed by both gods and men once it is set, and neither seems able (or willing) to change it. The forming of Fate is unknown, but it is told by The Fates and seers such as Calchas, and mentioned by gods and men throughout the epic. It was considered heroic to accept one's fate honorably and cowardly to attempt to avoid it.^[9] However, fate does not predetermine all human action. Instead, it primarily refers to the outcome or end, such as a man's life or a city such as Troy.^[10] For instance, before killing him, Hector calls Patroclus a fool for trying to defeat him in battle. Patroclus retorts:

No, deadly destiny, with the son of Leto, has killed me,
and of men it was Euphorbos; you are only my third slayer.
And put away in your heart this other thing that I tell you.
You yourself are not one who shall live long, but now already
death and powerful destiny are standing beside you,
to go down under the hands of Aiakos' great son, Achilleus.^[11]

Here Patroclus alludes to his own fate as well as Hector's to die at the hands of Achilles. Upon killing Hector, Achilles is fated to die at Troy as well. All of these outcomes are predetermined, and although each character has free will in his actions, he knows that eventually his end has already been set.

In some places, it is ambiguous whether the gods, namely Zeus, have the ability to alter fate. This situation first appears in Book XVI when Zeus' mortal son, Sarpedon, is about to be slain in battle by Patroclus. Zeus says:

'Ah me, that it is destined that the dearest of men, Sarpedon,
must go down under the hands of Menoitios' son Patroclus.^[12]

When Zeus mentions his dilemma to Hera, she answers him:

'Majesty, son of Kronos, what sort of thing have you spoken?
Do you wish to bring back a man who is mortal, one long since
doomed by his destiny, from ill-sounding death and release him?
Do it, then; but not all the rest of us gods shall approve you.^[13]

When faced with having to decide between losing his beloved son and abiding by fate, even Zeus, the king of the gods, decides to let the matter pass as it has been already decided. This same motif is used again when Zeus contemplates whether to spare Hector, whom he loves and respects. This time, Athena answers him:

'Father of the shining bold, dark misted, what is this you said?
Do you wish to bring back a man who is mortal, one long since
doomed by his destiny, from ill-sounding death and release him?
Do it, then; but not all the rest of us gods shall approve you.^[14]

Again Zeus seems able to change fate but does not, choosing instead to abide by the outcomes decided long before that day's events.

Fate, working in the other direction, spares Aeneas from death at the hands of Achilles. Apollo convinces Aeneas to confront Achilles during battle, although Achilles is too strong to be defeated. Seeing Aeneas outmatched and in peril, Poseidon speaks out among the immortals:

But come, let us ourselves get him away from death, for fear
the son of Kronos may be angered if now Achilleus
kills this man. It is destined that he shall be the survivor,
that the generation of Dardanos shall not die...^[15]

Aeneas is fated to survive the Trojan War and because of this, is saved from Achilles. Although it is unclear whether the gods have the power to change fate, they repeatedly make a conscious effort to maintain fate even in opposition to their personal allegiances. This shows that although its origins are mysterious, fate plays a huge role in the outcome of events in the Iliad. It is the one power that lies even above the gods and shapes the outcome of events more than any other force in the epic.

The question of fate also hints at the primeval division of the world by the three sons of Cronus, when they toppled their father. Zeus was given the air and sky, Poseidon the waters and Hades the Underworld, where the dead go. The earth per se was given jointly to all three, hence Poseidon may flood it, or convulse it with earthquakes, and Hades is free to roam it and claim those who are to die and descend to his own domain. Furthermore the Three Fates, deities of obscure and possibly far older origin than the Olympian gods, were often shown as having the only say as to the length of the lives of mortals, a matter over which the gods were unable to intervene.

[edit] The Iliad as oral tradition

The Iliad and the Odyssey were considered by Greeks of the classical age, and later, as the most important works in Ancient Greek literature, and were the basis of Greek pedagogy in antiquity. As the center of the rhapsode's repertoire, their recitation was a central part of Greek religious festivals. The book would be spoken or sung all night (modern readings last around 14 hours), with audiences coming and going for parts they particularly enjoyed.

Throughout much of their history, scholars of the written word treated the Iliad and Odyssey as literary poems, and Homer as a writer much like them. However, in the late 19th century and the early 20th century, scholars began to question this assumption. Milman Parry, a classical scholar, was intrigued by peculiar features of Homeric style: in particular the stock epithets and the often extensive repetition of words, phrase and even whole chunks of text. He argued that these features were artifacts of oral composition. The poet employs stock phrases because of the ease with which they could be applied to a hexameter line. Specifically, Parry observed that Homer complemented each main character's name with a specific stock epithet such that the two-word unit filled half a line. Therefore, he would only ever have to compose afresh half a line – the other half could be automatically completed with a formulaic phrase like “resourceful Odysseus.”^[16] Taking this theory, Parry travelled in Yugoslavia, studying the local oral poetry. In his research, he observed oral poets employing stock phrases and repetition to assist with the challenge of composing a poem orally and improvisationally. Parry's line of inquiry opened up a wider study of oral modes of thought and communication and their evolution under the impact of writing and print by Eric Havelock, Marshall McLuhan, Walter Ong and others. In fact, Parry's student Albert Lord, in his landmark work The Singer of Tales, detects similarities between the tragic story of Patroclus and the death of Enkidu in the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh. In the book, Lord refutes the idea that the Patroclus storyline upsets the "established" Homeric pattern of "wrath, bride-stealing, and rescue"^[17] and says that the structure of the Iliad is dictated by "a careful analysis of the repetition of thematic patterns."^[18]

It should be noted, however, that the use of repetition and stock phrases has not necessarily been interpreted as a restriction on Homer's originality and capacity to rework the story as he saw fit. Professor James Armstrong, in his paper The Arming Motif in the Iliad, argues that even formulaic sections of Homer's text contain enriched meaning through illustrative word choice. He points to what he refers to as the “arming motif;” characters such as Paris, Agamemnon, Patroclus, and Achilles are all described while being armed in a formulaic, long-winded fashion. Armstrong writes that this is needed to “heighten the importance of…an impressive moment” while the repetition “creates an atmosphere of smoothness.” Yet each time, he modifies elements of the passages – for example, when describing Patroclus^[19], he changes from a positive to a negative turn of phrase, which Armstrong explains as demonstrating that Patroclus is not Achilles, foreshadowing Patroclus’ death.^[20]

One of the effects that oral tradition has had on the Iliad is that the poem sometimes has inconsistency. For example, Aphrodite is described as “laughter-loving” even when she is in pain from the wound given to her by Diomedes (5.375). Oral tradition has also been a reason attributed for the Iliad's break from the view of the gods the Greeks in Homer's time actually had. In the Iliad, Mycenaean elements have become mixed up with Dark Age elements. For example, the most powerful Olympic gods have been compared to the Dark Ages’ hereditary basilees nobles who ruled over lesser social ranks, paralleling lesser gods like Scamander^[21].

[edit] The relationship of Achilles and Patroclus

The precise nature of the relationship between Achilles and Patroclus has been the subject of some dispute in both the classical period and modern times-In the Iliad, it is clear that the two heroes have a deep and extremely meaningful relationship, but the evidence of a romantic or sexual element is equivocal. Commentators from the classical period to today have tended to interpret the relationship through the lens of their own cultures. Thus, in fifth-century Athens, the relationship was commonly interpreted as pederastic, an accepted part of Athenian society. Present-day readers are more likely to interpret the two heroes either as non-sexual war friends or as a similarly aged homosexual couple. However, the common theme in the Iliad shows women being given as prizes, spoils of war, and in fact the whole of the Iliad is begins with an argument involving Agamemnon needing to give away his prize Chryseus and wanting Achilles' prize Bryseus instead. Achilles argues heavily against the removal of his prize a women and therefore, it may be speculated that Achilles was either straight or bisexual.

[edit] Warfare in the Iliad

Even though Mycenae was a maritime power that managed to launch over a thousand ships and Troy at the very least had built the fleet with which Paris took Helen,^[22] no sea-battle takes place throughout the conflict and Phereclus, the shipbuilder of Troy, fights on foot.^[23]

The heroes of the Iliad are dressed in elaborate and well described armor. They ride to the battlefield on chariots, throw spears at the enemy formation and then dismount, use their other spears and engage in personal combat. Telamonian Ajax carries a large tower-shaped shield (σάκος) that is used not only to cover himself, but also his brother:

Ninth came Teucer, stretching his curved bow.

He stood beneath the shield of Ajax, son of Telamon.

As Ajax cautiously pulled his shield aside,

Teucer would peer out quickly, shoot off an arrow,

hit someone in the crowd, dropping that soldier

right where he stood, ending his life—then he'd duck back,

crouching down by Ajax, like a child beside its mother.

Ajax would then conceal him with his shining shield.

(Iliad 8.267–272, translated by Ian Johnston)

Ajax's shield is heavy and difficult to carry. It is thus more suited for defence than offence. His cousin Achilles, on the other hand, has a large round shield that he uses along with his famous spear with great success against the Trojans. Round or eight-sided is the shield of the simple soldier. Unlike the heroes, they rarely have a breastplate and rely exclusively on the shield for defence. They form very dense formations:

Just as a man constructs a wall for some high house,

using well-fitted stones to keep out forceful winds,

that's how close their helmets and bossed shields lined up,

shield pressing against shield, helmet against helmet

man against man. On the bright ridges of the helmets,

horsehair plumes touched when warriors moved their heads.

That's how close they were to one another.

(Iliad 16.213–7, translated by Ian Johnston)

Once Homer actually calls the formation phalanx, though the true phalanx formation appears in the 7th century BC.^[24] Was this the way that the real Trojan War was fought? Most scholars do not believe so.^[25] The chariot was the main weapon in battles of the time, like the Battle of Kadesh. There is evidence from the Dendra armor and paintings at the palace of Pylos that the Mycenaeans used two-man chariots, with the principal rider armed with a long spear, unlike the Hittite three-man chariots whose riders were armed with shorter spears or the two-man chariots armed with arrows used by Egyptians and Syrians. Homer was aware of the use of chariots as a main weapon. Nestor places his charioteers in front of the rest of his troop and tells 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 our charge.

Any man whose chariot confronts an enemy's

should thrust with his spear at him from there.

That's the most effective tactic, the way

men wiped out city strongholds long ago—

their chests full of that style and spirit.

(Iliad 4.301–309, translated by Ian Johnston)

[edit] Mythological characters in the Iliad

Although gods, goddesses, and demigods play a large role in the plot of the Iliad, scholars note that the portrayal of gods by Homer represents a break from the ways in which Greeks actually observed their religion. The gods of the Iliad were crafted to suit the author's needs in telling his story instead of to give an ideal representation of how the Greeks viewed their mythological figures. Herodotus, the classical historian, even went so far as to say that Homer and his contemporary, Hesiod, first named and described the characteristics and appearances of the gods.^[26]

In her book, Greek Gods: Human Lives, scholar Mary Lefkowitz discusses the relevance of the gods' actions in the Iliad and attempts to answer the question of whether their actions are applicable for their own sakes or if they are merely a metaphorical representation of human characteristics. Many classic authors, such as Thucydides and Plato, were only interested in the Homeric characters of gods as "a way of talking about human life rather than a description or a truth."^[27] She argues that, if one looks at the Greek gods as religious elements rather than metaphors, their existence is what allowed Greeks to be so intellectually open. Without any established dogma or single holy book, Greeks could design gods that fit any description of religion.^[28]

[edit] The Iliad in subsequent arts and literature

Subjects from the Trojan War were a favourite among ancient Greek dramatists. Aeschylus' trilogy, the Oresteia, comprising Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers, and The Eumenides, follows the story of Agamemnon after his return from the war.

Robert Browning's poem Development discusses his childhood introduction to the matter of the Iliad and his delight in the epic, as well as contemporary debates about its authorship.

William Shakespeare used the plot of the Iliad as a source material for his play Troilus and Cressida, but focused the love story of Troilus, a Trojan prince and a son of Priam, and a Trojan woman Cressida. The play, often considered to be a comedy, reverses traditional views on events of the Trojan War and depicts Achilles as a coward, Ajax as a dull, unthinking mercenary, etc.

The 1954 Broadway musical The Golden Apple by librettist John Treville Latouche and composer Jerome Moross was freely adapted from the Iliad and the Odyssey, re-setting the action to America's Washington state in the years after the Spanish-American War, with events inspired by the Iliad in Act One and events inspired by the Odyssey in Act Two.

Christa Wolf's 1983 novel Kassandra is a critical engagement with the stuff of the Iliad. Wolf's narrator is Cassandra, whose thoughts we hear at the moment just before her murder by Clytemnestra in Sparta. Wolf's narrator presents a feminist's view of the war, and of war in general. Cassandra's story is accompanied by four essays which Wolf delivered as the Frankfurter Poetik-Vorlesungen. The essays present Wolf's concerns as a writer and rewriter of this canonical story and show the genesis of the novel through Wolf's own readings and in a trip she took to Greece.

A number of comic series have re-told the legend of the Trojan War. The most inclusive may be Age of Bronze, a comprehensive retelling by writer/artist Eric Shanower that incorporates a broad spectrum of literary traditions and archaeological findings. Started in 1999, it is projected to number seven volumes.

Led Zeppelin recorded a song entitled "Achilles Last Stand" for their 1976 album Presence.

Power metal band Blind Guardian composed a 14 minute song about the Iliad, "And Then There Was Silence", appearing on the 2002 album A Night at the Opera.

Power metal band Manowar composed a 28 minute medley, "Achilles, Agony and Ecstasy in Eight Parts", in their 1992 album, The Triumph of Steel. Other Metal bands inspired by the epos: Manilla Road "The Fall Of Iliam"; Stormwind "War Of Try"; Virgin Steele composed a rock opera in two parts called The Fall Of House Atreus; Jag Panzer "Achilles"; Arcane "Agamemnon"; Warlord "Achilles Revenge"; Tierra Santa "El Caballo De Troya".

An epic science fiction adaptation/tribute by acclaimed author Dan Simmons titled Ilium was released in 2003. The novel received a Locus Award for best science fiction novel of 2003.

A loose film adaptation of the Iliad, Troy, was released in 2004, starring Brad Pitt as Achilles, Orlando Bloom as Paris, Eric Bana as Hector, Sean Bean as Odysseus and Brian Cox as Agamemnon. It was directed by German-born Wolfgang Petersen. The movie only loosely resembles the Homeric version, with the supernatural elements of the story were deliberately expunged, except for one scene that includes Achilles' sea nymph mother, Thetis (although her supernatural nature is never specifically stated, and she is aged as though human).

Though the film received mixed reviews, it was a commercial success, particularly in international sales. It grossed $133 million in the United States and $497 million worldwide, placing it in the 64th top-grossing movie of all time.^[29]

S.M. Stirling's Island in the Sea of Time series contains numerous characters who are clearly the "original versions" of those appearing in the Iliad. Odysseus himself plays a major role in the third and last book, On the Oceans of Eternity. The twentieth-century characters are quite aware of this and make rather frequent reference to it. One, for example, comments that "a big horse ought to be present at the fall of Troy", and another uses the glory that the poem would have brought its protagonists to turn one of them against his master.

Alesana's "The Third Temptation of Paris" is based on the theft of Helen and the subsequent consequences.

[edit] Translations into English

The Iliad has been translated into English for centuries. George Chapman's 16th century translation was praised by John Keats in his sonnet, On First Looking into Chapman's Homer, and it quickly became a classic of English poetry. John Ogilby's mid-17th-century English translation was one of the first to incorpate detailed and extensive annotations. Alexander Pope's translation into rhymed pentameter, published in 1715, is also considered a major poetic achievement. William Cowper's 1791 version in forceful Miltonic blank verse is highly regarded and is more faithful to the Greek than Chapman or Pope.

In his lectures On Translating Homer Matthew Arnold commented on the problems of translating the Iliad and on the major translations available in 1861. Arnold identifies four essential qualities of Homer the poet to which the translator must do justice:

that he is eminently rapid; that he is eminently plain and direct both in the evolution of his thought and in the expression of it, that is, both in his syntax and in his words; that he is eminently plain and direct in the substance of his thought, that is, in his matter and ideas; and, finally, that he is eminently noble

After a discussion of the meters employed by previous translators, and in other existing English narrative poetry, he argues the need for a translation of the Iliad in hexameters in a poetic dialect, like the original.

In 1870, the American poet William Cullen Bryant published a version in blank verse that Van Wyck Brooks called "simple, faithful".

There have been several English translations since 1950. Richmond Lattimore's version is "a free six-beat" line for line rendering that explicitly eschews "poetical dialect" for "the plain English of today"; it is more literal than older verse renderings. Robert Fitzgerald strove to situate the Iliad in the musical forms of English poetry and his forceful version is freer; his lines are shorter and this helps to increase the sense of swiftness and energy. Some find Lattimore a bit dull and "plodding", considering Fitzgerald's "voice" to be "sometimes a better reflection of the nuances and connotations in the original Greek than Lattimore's". Robert Fagles and Stanley Lombardo are both bolder in adding dramatic significance to conventional and formulaic Homeric language, but Fagles generally follows the original more closely, while Lombardo has chosen an American idiom that is much more colloquial than the other translations and his gritty "street verse" style has been criticised by some as being out of tune with the diction of the original. Rodney Merrill's version employs an accentual dactylic hexameter that "by following the Homeric line in its shape as well as its meter" reproduces Homer's combination of sound and sense more accurately than previous verse translations.

[edit] Partial list of English translations

This is a partial list of translations into English of Homer's Iliad. For a more complete list, see English translations of Homer.

• George Chapman, 1598 and 1615 - verse
• John Ogilby, 1660
• Thomas Hobbes, 1675 - verse: full text
• John Ozell, William Broome and William Oldisworth, 1712
• Alexander Pope, 1713 - verse: full text
• James Macpherson, 1773
• William Cowper, 1791: full text
• Theodore Alois Buckley, 1851 - prose: full text
• Lord Derby, 1864 - verse: full text
• William Cullen Bryant, 1870 - verse
• Walter Leaf, Andrew Lang and Ernest Myers, 1873 - prose: full text
• Samuel Butler, 1898 - prose: full text (many typos, confusing to read in many places)
• A.T. Murray, 1924 - prose with facing Greek text: full text of translation
• Alexander Falconer, 1933
• Sir William Marris, 1934 - verse
• W.H.D. Rouse, 1938 - prose
• E.V. Rieu, 1950 - prose
• Alston Chase and William G. Perry, 1950 - prose
• Richmond Lattimore, 1951 -verse: full text with interlinear Greek text
• Ennis Rees, 1963 - verse
• Robert Fitzgerald, 1974 - verse
• Martin Hammond, 1987 - prose
• Robert Fagles, 1990 -verse
• Stanley Lombardo, 1997 -verse
• Ian Johnston, 2002 - verse: full text
• Rodney Merrill, 2007 - verse

[edit] See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Iliad

• Epic poetry
• Historicity of the Iliad
• Greek mythology
• Oral tradition

[edit] Notes

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Iliad, online version of the work by Homer (English). Pope translation.
• Iliad in Ancient Greek: from the Perseus Project (PP), with the Murray and Butler translations and hyperlinks to mythological and grammatical commentary; via the Chicago Homer, with the Lattimore translation and markup indicating formulaic repetitions
• Links to translations freely available online are included in the list above.
• The Iliad: A Study Guide
• Classical images illustrating the Iliad. Repertory of outstanding painted vases, wall paintings and other ancient iconography of the War of Troy.

• Homer: Iliad Books 1-12, & 13-24, ed. by Monro, 3rd Ed.: © Oxford Univ. Press 1902, parsed interlinear eBook for Palm Handheld

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