Why, someone asked, is the Iliad overshadowed by the Odyssey? I'm sure the answer is a complex one, but I'll offer one possibility. We, like the soft suitors of Penelope, have no stomach for the business of war. We'd rather leave such business to others; live securely because of their wartime accomplishments; and repay them with condescension, poverty, and stigma. Heroic literature, especially heroic war literature, appalls us--unless, of course, it's heroic anti-war literature.