The Iliad

This particular version of the Iliad, the story of the siege of Troy, is a translation by Samuel Butler, first published in 1898.

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A war started over a single fruit. This is where the tale of the Iliad began. It developed over time to become one of the great epics of our society, one that many people all over the world have come to like, sympathizing for each of the characters. Homer's creative use of the Greek language makes it far more interesting, his lengthy descriptions give the mind something to picture. Its as if you were there, standing next to each of the main warriors as these things happened to them. Homeric similes make the picture even more vivid, comparing the Greek and Trojan warriors to everything from deities to boars. Not only is this a tale of war, but the fights that occur between men when their pride gets hurt. How every man has that one thing he will always be mad about. The characters may seem devoid of human emotions, but eventually develop individual personalities. In only a few parts does it seem like only a listing, that the deaths that occur are not actually real people. You can relate to the main characters, sympathize or even hate them as you go through. The Greek gods are an extreme part of this tale. The war started because of gods, and they continued interfering all through the story. Even such things as sleep and ruin are characterized as being actual deities, showing us a side of Greek culture that not many knew of. An overlying theme in this book is based off of the Greek word aritei. This is the one thing every Greek warrior thrived for. It was honor. This honor could be found in battling a more experienced opponent than yourself, even if it did end in your death. Killing a man lower in rank, killing him after promising something to him, or defacing an enemy after his death could all result in the loss of aritei, immediately resulting in the lowering of one's honor. The Iliad is truly entertaining, whether you are reading it for the entertainment or historical value. So please, go, enjoy this amazing story of pride, honor, love, and war.--Submitted by Jessi Kluvich

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Recent Forum Posts on The Iliad

"Liquid gold" source?

It is often quoted that Homer called olive oil "liquid gold." Can anyone provide a source for this? Thanks.

Posted By Jauchart at Tue 10 Apr 2012, 10:57 AM in The Iliad || 0 Replies

Diomedes of the Loud War Cry

I really do not think Diomedes receives enough credit for all that he accomplished within the Iliad, especially in Book V with his glorious battle with Aeneas and the wounding of Aphrodite and Ares. In my opinion the chapters on Diomedes are some of my favorites within the poem itself.

Posted By Archaic Smile at Wed 28 Sep 2011, 8:48 PM in The Iliad || 0 Replies

How does Book 24 relate to Book 1 of the Iliad?

I have an essay that I have to write that is due next Tuesday, yet our professor still has the class stuck on Book 20. May I please have some help for ideas that I may implement in this essay ? Thank You Very Much :D

Posted By Dandaman09 at Thu 15 Sep 2011, 1:16 AM in The Iliad || 0 Replies

Achilleus & Patroklos

Achilleus & Patroklos; Were they friends or lovers or both?

Posted By Mary... at Fri 25 Mar 2011, 1:23 AM in The Iliad || 33 Replies

Questions about Chryseis

I just finished re-reading the Iliad. The first time I read it was years ago. In that version I think I read that Chryseis was a priestess of Apollo. In the version that I just read, she is only the daughter of a priest of Apollo. I am curious, does anybody know; Who/what Chryseis was before the Greeks captured her? Was she a priestess of Apollo herself or just the daughter of a priest of Apollo? Could she have been a member of the priest class? (In The Histories, Herodotus refers to a caste system in Egypt during a time when there was considerable contact between the Greeks and Egyptians. The Egyptian caste system had seven different castes including a warrior class at the top and an untouchable class at the bottom) Does her status vary from translation to translation? Did the Greeks ever sack any temple of Apollo anywhere? I am a new member of this forum. I can't wait to hear from you guys. Sincerely, Ainia

Posted By Mary... at Tue 8 Mar 2011, 11:56 PM in The Iliad || 2 Replies

Which translation is this?

Hi, can anyone help me to identify this translation of The Iliad (It has become something of an obsession for me now): "Sing the wrath, O Goddess, the baleful wrath of Achilles son of Pelus, that laid on the Achaens ten thousand sorrows, and sent away goodly souls of heroes to Hades, and themselves it gave to dogs and all the birds; and the counsel of Zeus was fulfilled, from the day when first Atreides, king of men, and the divine Achilles quarrelled and stood apart. Who among the gods set them twain to fight?" I've taken it from the first chapter of East and West by C. Northcote Parkinson, where the author describes it as "the opening lines of The Iliad". In the bibliography at the end of the book, he has "Homer, The Iliad, translated by E.V.Rieu, Penguinn Classics, 1950. So I got a copy of that exact book, but this it not it. This book begins "The Wrath of Achilles is my theme....". Really it's a much plainer version of that verse, without that kind of "old-world" sound to it (excuse my lame description of how the text sounds to me!) I have googled some phrases from the quote, and the closest I've found is a version by Walter Leaf, Andrew Lang and Ernest Myers, 1873, but it is still significantly different. I am beginning to think Parkinson made this up, i.e. paraphrased from several translations he had read, and then just looked up the most "current" translation for his bibliography, which would have been Rieu's. But there is something about the particular language that I really like, and I'd really like to find if it's an existing translation. Any ideas? Thanks in advance!

Posted By divil at Wed 17 Feb 2010, 10:51 PM in The Iliad || 1 Reply

Need help with these topics about the Iliad?

I have to choose one of these topics for a paper I am writing on the Iliad and I could not find much information online. Does anyone have any insight on any of these topics? Compare and contrast... ~ The simile in which Paris is compared to a horse and Hector a snake ~ The speech of Andromache with that of Helen ~ Hector's speech to Andromache with Achilles to Patroclus Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Posted By xStarlightx at Sun 7 Feb 2010, 4:28 PM in The Iliad || 0 Replies

Help finding specific examples..?

I need help finding specific examples of Violence, Epic simlies/heroic figures, and emotional roller coasters/emotional scenes in this book. Help will be GREATLY appriciated.

Posted By GiJerry at Fri 6 Nov 2009, 10:40 PM in The Iliad || 3 Replies

Tell me all you muses...the iliad of homer

UNSEEN SUMMARY OF THE ILIAD BY HOMER LIST OF CONTENTS 1. Author Information 2. List of Main Characters and Brief Attributes 3. About the Summary 4. The Summary 5. Strengths of The Iliad 6 Criticisms of The Iliad 7. Conclusion 1. Author Information Kudakwashe KANHUTU BA English Literature University of London Goldsmiths College 2009 - 2012 2. List of main characters and brief attributes Agamemnon – Leader of the Greeks. Achilles – Son of Penelaus, the Greeks’ best warrior. Hector – Trojan prince and their best fighter. Patroclus – Achilles’ trusted companion. Menelaus- Agamemnon’s brother whose wife Helen is the cause of the siege of Ilium. Helen – Wife of Menelaus who is seduced by one of the Trojan princes. Priam – King of Troy Paris – Helen’s lover and brother to Hector of Troy. Aeneas – A very skilled warrior fighting on the side of the Trojans. Odysseus – One of the brave and skilled warriors in the Greek ranks. Diomedes – Another very skilled warrior in the Greek ranks. Nestor – The Gerenian charioteer, an older fighter who brings wisdom to the Greek Expeditionary Force. Briseis – Achilles’ prize, taken by Agamemnon as compensation for Chryseis, prompting Achilles to walk away from the fighting. Chryseis – Daughter to Apollo’s priest taken as a slave by lord Agamemnon when the Greeks looted Apollo’s temple. Zeus – King of all Olympian gods. Thetis – A sea goddess, mother to Achilles. Athene – Olympian goddess on the Greek side Hera – Another of the Olympian goddesses, who favours the Trojans Apollo – The archer god, who favours the Trojans Hephaestus – The lame god, who is a very skilled blacksmiths, he makes the armour Achilles wears in the final battle against Hector. Hermes – The messenger god Aphrodite – love goddess Poseidon – Olympian god, the earth-shaker who favours the Trojans 3. About the Summary For my BA English, I endeavour to summarise any book I read within 10 days of my finishing the book. This will be an ‘unseen’ summary, meaning I will not refer to the text at all. I will just write what I have understood in the first reading and also any conclusions and notions I will have developed in that initial reading. This is very useful in that it helps me to commit to memory any text I will have read. But may be misleading to anyone else because there will definitely be errors with regards to names and attributes which I can only correct much later on when I revise the book. With this in mind, here is my first take of The Iliad by the master poet Homer. 4. The Summary TUESDAY 20 OCTOBER 2009-10-20 The Iliad is an epic martial poem by Homer set in the last year of the ten year siege of the Trojan city of Troy by the Greek Expeditionary Force led by Agamemnon. This siege came about when Prince Paris of Troy betrayed his Greek host Menelaus, and ran away with his wife Helen. Menelaus persuaded his brother lord Agamemnon to raise an expedition to punish the treachery of the Trojans and bring his wife back. The supposition here is that, betraying your host in this manner at that time was a cardinal sin, for it is inconceivable today that an army easily numbering over ten thousand, could be raised and fight over a woman for a decade. The main protagonists of the epic are Achilles who is the best fighter of the Greeks and Hector who is the Trojan camp’s most skilled fighter. Prince Hector is son to King Priam of Troy and older brother to Paris whom he scolds for seducing Helen, and thus invoking Greek anger, but nevertheless he defends him and Helen. The two main camps fighting against each other are the Greeks and the Trojans but both draw support from allies as evinced by Achilles’ withdrawal from combat with his Myrmidon tribe. There are numerous references to the allies, notably the one where Agamemnon in rallying his troops tells them that; ‘if a truce were to be arranged, and of those defending Troy, only Trojans were to be asked to serve the Greeks with wine, one Trojan to a group of four Greeks, many of us Greeks would have to go without a drink, because that is how much we outnumber the Trojans’. The epic concentrates on the ninth year and opens with an argument over prizes between Lord Agamemnon and godlike Achilles. It opens with Lord Agamemnon refusing to hand back Chryseis, the daughter of the archer god Apollo’s priest who he had taken as a prize after sacking the god’s temple. The priest then prays for the Greek Expeditionary Force to be struck down by Apollo. When the Greek army starts dying off, struck down by a plague, deliberations among the leaders yields that to avert the god’s anger, Agamemnon has to hand back Chryseis and make offerings to Apollo. Agamemnon agrees but then takes Achilles’ prize, Bryseis, as compensation. This argument fuels Achilles’ anger and in turn he gets a promise from far thundering Zeus, through his goddess mother Thetis, that the Greeks should be routed by the Trojans so that they realise their folly in angering the one man who could win the war for them. The story’s centre of gravity is the Greek’s best warrior, Achilles’ rage against his leader Agamemnon which sees him withdraw from the fighting with his trusted side kick, Patroclus. Achilles nurses his anger by his hollow ships, while day after day the Greeks are massacred by the Trojans on the plains that lay between Troy and the sea where the well built ships were anchored. A further and most critical point in this epic is that the gods are involved in the war inordinately. They are seen to favour different sides in the war to the extent that the Trojan War really is a proxy war for the gods. Every aspect of the war is influenced by the gods; this includes removing warriors from the battlefield, covering with mist or averting missile strikes on favourite warriors, inducing cowardice in opponents and even getting involved in the fighting itself. Zeus, the king of all gods oversees this transgression on human affairs by the immortals. For it is to him that the gods bring requests for victory of their favourite mortals and he acquiesces. For example, when Apollo wrecks havoc on the Greek warriors for raiding his temple and enslaving the priestess Chryseis, the result is that there is an argument over prizes which causes Achilles to walk away from the fighting. Thetis, the sea goddess, then wrings a promise out of Zeus that the Greeks should be routed by the Trojans to appease her son Achilles. The fighting is very intense and a lot of warriors die gruesome deaths which the master Homer depicts colourfully in his incomparable fashion. The key moment in the warriors’ deaths is when Patroclus dies at the hands of Prince Hector of Troy, this is in turn makes Achilles rejoin the fight in anger and turns the rout into a tide of victory for the Greeks. This victory comes at a very high price for it fulfils the prophecy Thetis gave to her son that should he kill Prince Hector, it was also his destiny to die in Troy. Achilles kills Hector and mutilates his body but this does not diminish his anger. The Iliad ends without spelling the fates of all those warriors who are still alive at the end of the siege, their fates become known only when you read either Homer’s the Odyssey or Virgil’s Aeneid… 5. Strengths of the Iliad The Iliad’s strength according to my Penguin Classics edition is its rich humanity. Through similes Homer manages to bring the world of conflict closer to most people who otherwise would not fathom the full implications. Examples are those of people compared to lions, birds of prey in action, a wild boar’s strength (‘which is not to be despised) and even poppies heavy with dew. The other spectacular and commendable characteristic of Homer is that of assigning epithets to all his characters; ‘rosy fingered’ dawn, ‘well built’ ships, ‘resourceful’ Odysseus, ‘heroic’ Menelaus, ‘godlike’ Achilles etc … 6. Weaknesses of the Iliad Homer is said to use ‘ring composition’ which perhaps was a brilliant invention for the oral poet as it allowed him to stay on course but sounds like dreary repetition when viewed in print. There are so many warriors’ deaths that end with ‘his armour clattered about him’ you will be excused for thinking you had unwittingly gone back a couple of pages. I also find the conversation in heated combat very unrealistic considering combat consists of crisp and curt commands. Particularly when Odysseus and Diomedes observe Aeneas’ horses which are supposedly bred from Zeus’ stock. The two Greek warriors engage a lengthy discussion of their desire to capture the horses as ‘it would win them heroic glory’. The conversation traverses how the horses were bred, how the breeder who was Aeneas’ father kept four for himself and gave two to Aeneas to use in battle. In reality Odysseus and Diomedes should not have had enough time in combat to talk at that length. 7. Conclusion The Iliad is a brilliant book to read and has all the education a leader of men can ever need.

Posted By Kuda4rl at Wed 28 Oct 2009, 2:16 PM in The Iliad || 2 Replies

Need Help with Iliad!

hey all. i have to find instances of the following things in the iliad. I have read the book, but it has been a while. I am in a bind and any help would be much appreciated. i need to cite the line in the text where the event occurs. If you could even help with the harder ones, i can do the easy ones. Thank you guys i just have so much on my plate right now. Here is the list. 1. Eating & drinking 2. Lovemaking (between man and woman) 3. Lovemaking (between god and goddess) 4. Giving birth 5. Marital discord 6. Marital harmony 7. Spinning or weaving 8. Sending a written message 9. Threshing (not winnowing) grain 10. Sailing 11. Fishing 12. Trading armor 13. Building 14. Playing a musical instrument 15. Forging (metal) 16. Robot maidens 17. Defiling a corpse. 18. Human sacrifice 19. Boxing 20. Chariot racing let me know if you email anything

Posted By jarjar90 at Tue 27 Oct 2009, 6:18 PM in The Iliad || 2 Replies

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