Publication in the Great Books series should not imply that the translation has the "imprimatur" of the University of Chicago. The translations in that book set are public domain translations. The Richmond Lattimore translation has the (literal) imprimatur of the University of Chicago Press.<br><br>
HTis is almost certainly the translation by the great 19th-century writer Samuel Butler,the same man (I think) who wrote Erewhon and The Way of All Flesh. It IS disconcerting that he uses the Roman names -- Pallas Minerva sounds particularly strange.<br><br>THis translation is of course in the public domain and copyright is not a question - which is my guess as to why it's the version used. But it's also the version used in the Great Books series aND HAS THE IMPRIMATUR OF mIEKLEJOHN AND HTE u OCF cHICAGO (oops caps lock)....<br><br>It's also instructive to read a version translated during hte period when everybody who was in the civil serrvice , not to mention Parliament or in any other way responsible for running the British Empire, had been brought up on the Iliad as if it were a second Bible. In those days, the Iliad laty at hte heart of the education of the aristocracy and hte gentry -- they studied it as children, IN GREEK, knew lots of it by heart IN GREEK -- even as recently as Winston Churchill and George Orwell -- two VERY VERY different men -- you can seethe ideals of the Iliad manifested in hte speeches and in hte actions of <br>both men in almost everything they undertook.....<br>
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