Get to grips with Homer’s Iliad in five minute chunks in this blog series! For A Level Classics or Ancient History students, each post is a five-minute summary of some of the main topics you need for your exams. For university-level scholars or independent researchers, we’ve included clickable links to useful literature, primary sources and canonical scholarship you’ll need to know.
In this post, discover the story behind the Iliad and the mystery of Homer’s identity.
Peter Paul Rubens’ Achilles Defeating Hector
According to legend, Troy, on the western coast of Anatolia (modern-day Turkey), was besieged for 10 years by the Greeks in the Trojan War.
Troy is also known as Ilium (hence, Homer’s Iliad). The action of the Iliad takes place during the war. However, the story that Homer tells lasts for just fifty days, nine years into the war.
The war itself was said to be a result of a wedding, an apple and a clever plan for revenge.
A Wedding and a War
Eris (the goddess of discord), was angry because she had not been invited to the wedding of sea-goddess Thetis. Eris had a brilliant plan to get her revenge by causing chaos at the wedding. Knowing the characters of those goddesses in attendance, she threw a golden apple into the party, bearing the inscription ‘to the most beautiful.’
Aphrodite, Athena and Hera all claimed the apple. Zeus, reluctant to get involved, appointed Trojan prince Paris to decide who should have it. He chose Aphrodite because she promised him Helen, the most beautiful women on earth.
Helen was the wife of Menelaus, King of Sparta, but Paris abducted Helen and took her back to Troy. Menelaus and his brother Agamemnon, King of Mycenae, declared war on Troy.
While they were camped outside Troy’s city walls, Greeks raided neighbouring Trojan cities. They took prisoners such as Briseis, who was given to Greek hero Achilles as a prize.
Jan Brueghel and Hendrick van Balen’s Marriage of the Goddess of the Sea, Thetis, and King Peleus
The Iliad
The action of the Iliad begins in the 10th year of the Trojan War. Agamemnon has taken the maiden Chryseis as a war prize. Her father Chryses (a priest), prays to Apollo, who brings plague to the Greeks. This forces Agamemnon to return Chryseis.
In retaliation, Agamemnon takes Briseis from Achilles. Furious, Achilles withdraws his troops and begins sulking in his tent.
Achilles’ mother Thetis convinces Zeus to help the Trojans so that Agamemnon regrets dishonouring her son. The Trojans gain ground, setting up camp close to the Greek ships.
To fend them off, Achilles’ dear friend Patroclus disguises himself in the armour of Achilles and leads the Greeks into battle. However, Patroclus is killed by Trojan prince Hector.
Devastated, Achilles sets aside his anger with Agamemnon. He kills Hector.
Achilles desecrates Hector’s body by dragging it behind his chariot. Hermes, the messenger god, helps Hector’s father Priam. Achilles grants Priam’s request to return Hector’s body.
The Question of Homer
The Iliad was originally an oral poem (composed without writing and passed on from memory). The epics were recited by rhapsodes (reciters) at festivals. It’s not even certain that Homer was a single person, although both Greek epics the Iliad and the Odyssey are attributed to him.
The “Homeric Question” asks whether these epics were the work of Homer, or were a patchwork of stories collected over many years. There are inconsistencies, such as Apollo and Athena supposedly being in both Troy and Ethiopia at the same time in Book One. On the other hand, the Iliad has structural patterns that suggest that it is the work of one person.
These patterns include ring composition, in which the content is arranged in a symmetrical ABCDCBA pattern. For instance, Apollo initiates events in which a suppliant asks for a child or is granted the request in Books One and Twenty Four. In Nestor’s speech in Book One, there is an ABCBA pattern.
Peter Paul Rubens’ Briseis Given Back to Achilles
There are also parallel episodes: for instance, the assemblies in Books One and Nineteen. Additionally, there are groups of three (for instance, Hector meets three women in Book Six; three speeches in Book Nine and three laments in Book Twenty Four).
There are parallel and contrasting characters. For example, warrior-prince Hector is contrasted with his wife Andromache (who wants him to stay safe with his family), with his cowardly brother Paris and with Achilles, who fights for himself rather than to protect others.
Parallels include: Hector kills Patroclus, then Achilles kills Hector; Patroclus’ body is preserved by Thetis, then Hector’s body is preserved by Apollo; Hector and Patroclus wear Achilles’ armour and are both killed and Hector and Patroclus’ boldness seals their own fates.
Formulae: Homer repeats phrases, scenes and epithets (words or phrases added to a name or object to show its nature, for example “Archer-King Apollo”). Homer also uses many similes: Trojans are likened to birds as they advance, filling the air with clamour like cranes.
There are also repeated scenes, such as “the warrior arms himself.” For instance, in Book Sixteen, Patroclus arms himself.
Finally, there are patterns in fighting scenes. As classicist Peter Jones points out, “There is a common pattern for A to throw at B, miss and kill C; for A to miss B and kill A (B is always a Greek here); for A to miss B, B to hit but not pierce the armour, and A to kill B (A again id always a Greek); and so on.”
After the Iliad
The Iliad ends here, but the story of Troy continues. The war goes on and Achilles and the Greeks defeat both the Amazons and the Ethiopians before Achilles himself is killed by Paris.
The Greeks eventually win the war, building a huge wooden horse and leaving it outside the city gates, then pretend to sail back to Greece. Following Odysseus’ cunning plan, the Greeks hide their best warriors inside the horse.
Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo’s Procession of the Trojan Horse
The Trojans bring the horse into the city and the Greeks creep out in the middle of the night and sack Troy. The city falls and its men and boys are brutally slain.
Events that happened before the story in Homer are sometimes referred to during the plot. For instance, Helen reminds Paris of her abduction on Book Three. Homer also reminds us of what will happen in the future. Thetis foresees Achilles’ death in Book Twenty Four.
After the war, the gods are angry that Greeks committed atrocities and create difficulties for them. Odysseus is tormented by the sea god Poseidon, waylaid by storms, shipwreck and dangerous encounters with mythical creatures. When he finally reaches home, he finds his house besieged by suitors vying for the hand of his wife Penelope! Odysseus’ return journey is told in Homer's Odyssey.
King Priam’s second cousin, Aeneas escapes the city with his father, son and a band of Trojan refugees to eventually found Rome. Aeneas’ story is told in Virgil’s Aeneid.
In our next post, discover what it takes to be a hero in the Iliad!
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