Reading Homer's Iliad

By Kostas Myrsiades

We still read Homer’s epic the Iliad two-and-one-half millennia since its emergence for the questions it poses and the answers it provides for our age, as viable today as they were in Homer’s own times. What is worth dying for? What is the meaning of honor and fame? What are the consequences of intense emotion and violence? What does recognition of one’s mortality teach? We also turn to Homer’s Iliad in the twenty-first century for the poet’s preoccupation with the essence of human life. His emphasis on human understanding of mortality, his celebration of the human mind, and his focus on human striving after consciousness and identity has led audiences to this epic generation after generation. This study is a book-by-book commentary on the epic’s 24 parts, meant to inform students new to the work. Endnotes clarify and elaborate on myths that Homer leaves unfinished, explain terms and phrases, and provide background information. The volume concludes with a general bibliography of work on the Iliad, in addition to bibliographies accompanying each book’s commentary.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bucknell University Press
• Release date: Nov 11, 2022
• ISBN: 9781684484508

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Cover: Reading Homer’s Iliad by Kostas Myrsiades

READING HOMER’S ILIAD

READING HOMER’S ILIAD

KOSTAS MYRSIADES

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Myrsiades, Kostas, author.

Title: Reading Homer’s Iliad / Kostas Myrsiades.

Description: Lewisburg : Bucknell University Press, 2022. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2022009343 | ISBN 9781684484485 (paperback) | ISBN 9781684484492 (hardback) | ISBN 9781684484508 (epub) | ISBN 9781684484522 (pdf)

Subjects: LCSH: Homer. Iliad. | LCGFT: Literary criticism.

Classification: LCC PA4037 .M97 2022 | DDC 883/.01—dc23/eng/20220420

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022009343

A British Cataloging-in-Publication record for this book is available from the British Library.

Copyright © 2023 by Kostas Myrsiades

All rights reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. Please contact Bucknell University Press, Hildreth-Mirza Hall, Bucknell University, Lewisburg, PA 17837-2005. The only exception to this prohibition is fair use as defined by U.S. copyright law.

References to internet websites (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing. Neither the author nor Bucknell University Press is responsible for URLs that may have expired or changed since the manuscript was prepared.

The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.

www.bucknelluniversitypress.org

Distributed worldwide by Rutgers University Press

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To a new generation of Homeridae,

the newest addition to the Myrsiades family,

great-grandson Homer Kairos Myrsiades

CONTENTS

List of Illustrations

Introduction: The Poem, the Poet, and the Myth

1 Achilles’ Wrath Exposed: Il. 1 (Days One to Twenty-One)

Book 1

2 The First Battle: Il. 2–7 (Days Twenty-Two to Twenty-Four)

Book 2

Book 3

Book 4

Book 5

Book 6

Book 7

3 The Second Battle: Il. 8–10 (Day Twenty-Five)

Book 8

Book 9

Book 10

4 The Third Battle: Il. 11–18 (Day Twenty-Six)

Book 11

Book 12

Book 13

Book 14

Book 15

Book 16

Book 17

Book 18

5 The Fourth Battle: Il. 19–23 (Day Twenty-Seven)

Book 19

Book 20

Book 21

Book 22

Book 23

6 Achilles’ Wrath Concluded: Il. 24 (Days Twenty-Eight to Fifty-Three)

Book 24

Appendix A: Days Covered by the Iliad Narrative

Appendix B: Character Names in the Iliad

Appendix C: Place-Names in the Iliad

Appendix D: Greek Terms Cited

Acknowledgments

Notes

General Bibliography

Index

ILLUSTRATIONS

Figure 5.1. Aeneas’ genealogy

Table I.1. Dactylic hexameter

Table 4.1. Lineup of Achaean ships

Table 5.1. Patroklos’ funeral game

Table A.1. Days covered by the Iliad narrative

READING HOMER’S ILIAD

INTRODUCTION

THE POEM, THE POET, AND THE MYTH

The reader might wonder why we still read the Iliad two and a half millennia after its emergence. We do so for the questions it poses and the answers it provides for our age, which are as viable today as they were in Homer’s own time. What is worth dying for? How should one face death? What is the meaning of honor and fame? What are the consequences of intense emotion and violence? How does one achieve a balance between sophrosune (moderation) and hubris (excess)? Why is there a need for balance between biē (force) and mētis (cunning intelligence) in human existence? What does recognition of one’s mortality teach? What is gods’ role in human affairs?

One of the many reasons why we still turn to Homer in the twenty-first century is the poet’s preoccupation with understanding the essence of human life. It is his emphasis on human beings’ striving to accept and understand their mortality, his celebration of the human mind, and his focus on human striving after consciousness and identity that have, I believe, led audiences to the Homeric epics generation after generation.

The present reading of the Iliad, like its companion volume, Reading Homer’s Odyssey, is neither a critical study nor a study on the epic’s authorship or the nature of its orality. It is rather a book-by-book commentary based on many readings of the epic in the original and in translation and by consulting the plethora of sources on Homer that proliferate every year. It is impossible for anyone to peruse everything written on Homer, and since the writing of this book dozens of new sources have been published. The general bibliography included with this study is a modest attempt to cull together as many of the sources as I could amass. I have discovered, however, over the period of producing this book, that I have neglected a number that should also have been included. Nor have I read or looked at all the sources listed in the bibliography, though I have read many and certainly carefully checked those listed at the end of each book’s commentary. This admission is a cautionary comment to emphasize that this is a personal reading of the Iliad based on the selected sources listed and my own views after having read, studied, and taught this epic in translation to both graduate and undergraduate students in comparative literature and mythology courses and seminars. As in the previous volume on the Odyssey, each discussion of one of the Iliad’s twenty-four books concludes with a list of critical sources in English pertaining to the book in question. Each discussion is further partitioned into sections wherever Homer’s text permits in order to stress the length and the importance placed on specific topics and episodes. Percentages of a book’s total size are provided for each of these sections to further demonstrate the significance Homer places on various topics and episodes, enabling the reader to evaluate the emphasis given to certain themes and topics. For example, the Iliad’s first book conveniently divides into five parts: the proem (1% of the book), Apollo’s anger (18% of the book), the quarrel (12% of the book), Achilles’ anger (19% of the book), and the consequences of the quarrel (50% of the book). The divisions clearly indicate that half of the first book is on the consequences of Achilles’ anger, which becomes the main theme of the epic’s narrative. The preceding four sections, whose sizes also highlight their importance, prepare the reader for the fifth, which explains what is to follow in the rest of the epic. Endnotes throughout the reading clarify and expand on the myths Homer assumes prior knowledge of among his audience. Endnotes are also used to comment on events or issues beyond the purview of the Iliad. This reading, as the previous one on the Odyssey, assumes for convenience that the Iliad is the achievement of an unusually creative individual known as Homer (see The Poet later in this chapter).

The commentary is divided into six chapters—the first and last chapters introduce and conclude Achilles’ wrath and revenge themes (chapters 1 and 6, respectively). Chapters 2–5 treat six of the epic’s fifty-three days in detail and cover the epic’s four battles. It should be clarified at this point that the assumed fifty-three-day narrative of the Iliad is not universally acknowledged. Cedric Whitman (Homer and the Heroic Tradition), for example, counts fifty-four days, while Irene de Jong (Time in Ancient Greek Literature) opts for fifty-one. Other scholars align themselves with the aforementioned or come up with their own counts, as in my case with fifty-three. I tend to follow Joachim Latacz’s (Homer) count of fifty-one days up to Il. 24, but after Hector’s funeral I believe two more days should be added to the total.

Chapter 1, which includes all of Il. 1 and the first forty-seven lines of Il. 2 (days one to twenty-one), introduces the reader to the epic’s first theme, the wrath of Achilles. Chapter 2, which accounts for Il. 2–7 (days twenty-two to twenty-four), reports on events leading to the epic’s first battle. Chapter 3, an account of Il. 8–10 (day twenty-five), narrates the second battle. Chapter 4, on Il. 11–18 (day twenty-six), covers the third battle, and chapter 5, on Il. 19–23.110 (day twenty-seven), reports on the fourth and final battle. Chapter 6, Il. 23.110–24 (days twenty-eight to fifty-three), brings Achilles’ revenge theme to a close, which is introduced after Patroklos’ death in Il. 16 (see appendix A).

All quotations, unless otherwise noted, are from Richmond Lattimore’s 1951 translation of the Iliad. The preference for the Lattimore translation is twofold: it is a faithful verse translation and not merely a prose rendition of the poem, and more importantly it respects the line numeration of Homer’s Greek, which allows easy access to the original by matching the line numbers supplied in the margins. However, Lattimore’s translation choices are sometimes challenged by other translators in the many new translations that are constantly being published (see "Translations of Homer’s Iliad in English" at the end of the bibliography). Nevertheless, citing Lattimore makes it easier for students and instructors to replace Lattimore’s with a number of other excellent translations when using this commentary. Among these, I would recommend the prose translation by Anthony Verity (Homer) and the verse translations by Caroline Alexander (Iliad) and Peter Green (Iliad), which also closely follow Homer’s original text. Also notable are the translations of Robert Fagles (Homer), Stanley Lombardo (Iliad), Robert Fitzgerald (Iliad), and Barry Powell (Iliad), whose line numbers the reader can collate to the original, since these translations indicate the original Greek text lines on the upper corners of each page of their texts.¹ The Greek text used for this reading is that of A. T. Murray, revised by William F. Wyatt for the Loeb Classical Library edition first published in 1919, although more up-to-date texts have appeared since, among them T. W. Allen’s 1931 edition, Malcolm M. Willcock’s 1978–1984 edition, and M. L. West’s 1998–2000 edition.

Four appendixes include the days covered by the Iliad, the epic’s named characters, places identified in the Iliad, and Greek terms used in this book. The book concludes with a two-part bibliography: sources for the study of the Iliad, and Iliad translations in English. Since George Chapman’s (1559–1634) iambic heptameter translation of the Iliad in 1616, some 131 English translations of Homer’s epics have appeared, over half of which are of the Iliad.

THE POEM

The Iliad, perhaps the earliest and best-known work of Western literature, is a narrative poem² in dactylic hexameter divided centuries after its composition into twenty-four parts known as books. The Iliad author called Homer could refer to a single person, many people, or no person at all, since almost nothing is known about the life or the existence of such a person (see The Poet later in this chapter). Almost half of the Iliad is in direct discourse, making it as much a dramatic poem as it is a narrative one. Homer’s craft was that of a performing bard who had a knowledge of stories, the ability to adapt them, and a mastery of the techniques of oral composition developed by past generations of singers. The one essential characteristic of an oral poet like Homer, besides the caliber of the singer, was that each performance was different, shaped to fit its specific situation. Such oral poets fashioned an oral text as they performed. Thus, a discussion of Homer’s oral texts cannot be limited to a time when these oral poems achieved fixity (with the advent of writing, for example). Each time a singer performed, he crafted an oral text by putting to use the mechanisms of entextualization, defined as the process of rendering a given instance of discourse a text, detachable from its local context (Ready, Orality, Textuality, 16).

Most often the Iliad’s date of composition is cited as occurring sometime within the eighth or early seventh century B.C.E., depending on the sources consulted. Homerists, in referring to the Iliad or Odyssey, however, often have in mind some kind of written text. Some, for example, believe a rhapsode³ dictated his version of the epic to a scribe in the Archaic period (eighth century–480 B.C.E.), and that a written text became the archetype of the textual tradition. Another group of scholars holds that two poets from this period, one for the Iliad and a second for the Odyssey, wrote the poems themselves over an extended period of time, and these written texts became the archetypes for the textual tradition. Scholars who opt for the late part of the eighth or early seventh century (ca. 725–675 B.C.E.) can claim some influence on writing in the composition of the epics, since the appearance of the Greek alphabet is usually dated to the first quarter of the eighth century. Those who opt for a later date treat the epics as sung oral compositions recorded by scribes. A more recent theory (Gregory Nagy’s evolutionary model; see Nagy, Ancient Greek Hero) questions the two earlier theories just mentioned. The evolutionary model states that the Homeric texts achieved a state of near fixation over centuries of oral performances without the intervention of written texts. This model asserts that written texts of the Iliad and the Odyssey appear after 550 B.C.E. and take one of three forms. First, these texts appear as transcripts that can be used as aids for oral performance. Second, starting in the later part of the fourth century B.C.E., they appear as scripts that are mandatory for successful oral performances. Third, starting in the mid-second century B.C.E., we have written texts that replace the oral performance. Nevertheless, irrespective of a scholar’s allegiance to any of the three models discussed, a relatively fixed entity, a poem handed down from performer to performer merits the word ‘text’ (Ready, Orality, Textuality, 73).

The Iliad’s language, an unspoken one and the legacy of generations of oral traditional singers, is an artificial mixture of several dialects, predominantly Ionic and Aeolic, with some lesser influences from various parts of the ancient Greek world (such as Attic and Doric). Homer’s dialect was never the spoken language of a specific community but rather a language adapted for the composition and transmission of performed oral songs. This artificial language consisted of a mixture of elements from a variety of dialects; it retained old linguistic forms alongside more recent ones and modified regular grammatical forms to make them fit in a hexameter line. Homeric epic’s unit of composition, the hexameter line and not the stanza, is made up primarily of a three-syllable metrical unit, the dactyl, popular in oral poetry. A hexameter line comprises six feet (hexameter) consisting of dactyls (one long syllable followed by two short ones) or spondees (two longs) and based on quantitative rather than stress accent, as in English poetry. Thus, the first four metrical units of each Homeric line could either be dactyls or often be substituted for spondees. The fifth foot is nearly always a dactyl, and the final syllable of each line is considered to be long. This means that the sixth foot is always a spondee (table I.1). Each line also contains, usually within the third or fourth foot, a caesura, a word break or a pause, which can be either short or long.

A variety of ancient editions of the Homeric epics were edited and commented on by three Alexandrian scholars: Zenodotus of Ephesus (active during the early third century B.C.E.), Aristophanes of Byzantium (early second century B.C.E.), and Aristarchos of Samothrace (mid-second century B.C.E.). Their work eventually led to the text we have, which is essentially the same as that of Roman and medieval times. This text, however, did not become the standard or vulgate (a commonly accepted text) text until around 150 B.C.E. The oldest surviving complete Iliad text, from about 1000 C.E., known as Venetus A, consists of sewn-bound pages of parchment (known as a codex). Earlier texts were made of papyrus scrolls (writing material made from the pith of the papyrus plant). The scribes who produced the Homeric texts in the papyri did so at a time when oral performances of the Iliad and Odyssey flourished. They sought not only to traditionalize and provide a complete dramatic presentation but to also create a unique visual performance. Papyrus was replaced by parchment between the second and fifth centuries C.E. The first printed edition of the vulgate appeared in Florence, Italy, in 1488 and was set in a typeface created to imitate the Byzantine manuscripts that existed before it.

TABLE I.1.

DACTYLIC HEXAMETER

Using an arsenal of oral traditional techniques, including those listed in the remainder of this section, Homer was foremost an oral poet who achieved an exceptional rendition of the Iliad song by revealing the psychology of his characters.

1. Type Scenes

Activities like arming, sacrificing, dreaming, engaging in battlefield supplication, dueling, assembling, dressing, eating and drinking, going to bed, bathing, traveling, engaging in seduction, arriving and departing, and visiting follow prescribed protocols, which often begin and end with the same line. Banquets, for example, conclude each time with an identical line that expresses the participants’ satisfaction: They feasted, nor was any anyone’s hunger denied a fair portion (1.602). Sacrifice scenes, one of the most complex of type scenes, boasts of at least twenty-one different elements. Dreams, a traditional feature of oral poetry, are yet another type scene used as a method for supernatural communication, which visits the dreamer as a familiar character standing at the dreamer’s head to deliver his or her message (see Agamemnon at 2.16–47 and Achilles at 23.62–107).

Numerous monomachias (a type scene depicting conflict between two warriors observing a predetermined order of combat) take place one after another between the frontline warriors (promachoi) of each army while the common soldiers (plethos) act as spectators. Such duels, like other Homeric type scenes, consist of a series of formal steps from which the poet can select as few or as many as he deems necessary to lay stress on the importance of a specific duel or to vary the uniqueness of a duel: exchange of verbal challenges, exchange of missiles, hand-to-hand combat, the death of a warrior, vaunts by the victor, and the stripping of the armor or mutilation of the body of an opponent.

2. Formulas and Epithets

Repeated phrases throughout an epic like the Iliad, which exhibits a large degree of repetition, are called formulas, a term codified by Milman Parry (1902–1935). Parry defined a formula as an expression, regularly used, under the same metrical conditions to express an essential idea (Adam Parry, Making of Homeric Verse, 13). Later, scholars reduced this meaning of formula to include any repeated word group and examined how such repeated phrases constitute a language system for performers that is used to recite their songs anew during a performance rather than having to rely merely on memorization.

Among such repeated phrases are the epithets given to major heroes and gods. These adjectives are not only used to satisfy the meter of a specific line but also to give expression to a character’s psychology when used selectively at specific moments for particular actions. Achilles is often called swift-footed or brilliant, two of the many phrases but not exclusively used to identify him, whether he is sitting, sleeping, or moving. However, when swift-footed is applied to him while he is chasing but unable to catch the Trojan Agenor (Apollo in disguise) in Il. 21, the adjective becomes ironic and comments on Achilles’ mortality. Warlike and of the great war cry are epithets used often to describe Menelaos, and Odysseus is referenced as son of Laertes and seed of Zeus, resourceful Odysseus. Agamemnon is called the lord of men and Son of Atreus, most lordly. Each major warrior, whether Greek or Trojan, bears one or more epithets: tall Hector of the shining helm, son of Tydeus, Diomedes, brilliant Alexandros (Paris), and the flowing-haired Achaians. Even the gods have their personal adjectives: Zeus, high-thundering lord of Hera; gray-eyed Athene or daughter of Zeus who wears the aegis; and Artemis of the showering arrows. These epithets can be either generic, used to describe more than a single character, or distinctive, used for a specific character.

3. Similes

Perhaps one of the most distinctive features of Homer’s epics is the Homeric simile, which, like the common simile, compares an object A to a familiar object B using like or as but reverses the process so that B precedes A. Part B is then developed sometimes at great length before returning to A, as in the simile at 12.278–287 describing the cries of Achaeans (Greeks) as they clash with the Trojans:

And they, as storms of snow descend to the ground incessant

on a winter day, when Zeus of the counsels, showing

before men what shafts he possesses, brings on a snowstorm

and stills the winds asleep in the solid drift, enshrouding

the peaks that tower among the mountains and the shoulders out-jutting,

and the low lands with their grasses, and the prospering work of men’s hands,

and the drift falls along the gray sea, the harbors and beaches,

and the surf that breaks against it is stilled, and all things elsewhere

it shrouds from above, with the burden of Zeus’ rain heavy upon it;

so numerous and incessant were the stones volleyed from both sides.

The Iliad, with its endless fighting, boasts some two hundred of these long similes to the Odyssey’s forty and uses them to remove its audience from the monotony of battle not only for relief but also to contrast a world at war with one at peace. Perhaps one of the reasons for the Odyssey’s fewer similes is that its setting is closer to daily life than that of the Iliad and similes thus afford less contrast. In the Iliad, similes often occur in passages describing general movements and to introduce the appearance of a new hero who requires the audience’s immediate attention.

The similes employed are drawn from weather and other natural phenomena (fires, storms, and floods), from hunting, herding, and human technology. In the Iliad, similes based on lions are by far the most numerous among the living things listed (around forty instances), which include boars, stags, birds, bees, flies, and fish. The majority of Iliad similes occur in battle scenes and more often in the narrator’s voice than in character speeches. They serve to emphasize human emotions and psychological nuances.

4. Digressions

Homer often digresses from the wrath and revenge themes of Achilles to narrate episodes from various phases of the ten-year-long Trojan conflict in order to place his themes in the context of the Trojan legend and to provide a synopsis of the entire Trojan War myth. At other times these digressions take the form of myths used as paradigms, which he presents in whole or in part, assuming prior knowledge of the myths in question on the part of his audience. Sometimes personal anecdotes by various members of his main cast of characters, especially by the aged counselor Nestor, interrupt the main flow of the narrative. These interruptions expand the poet’s narrative from a fifty-three-day wrath and revenge theme to encompass the tale of the entire Trojan conflict and vary from several lines to over seventy (see Nestor’s story of the Pylians and Eleians in Il. 11 and the story of Meleager in Il. 9). Other detours take the reader to the beginning of the war, to the fate of specific Greek and Trojan warriors, and to the genealogies and backstories of a number of Greek and Trojan heroes.

5. Misdirection

The story Homer is narrating is one familiar to his audience, as are most of the myths he uses in the telling of it. Its familiarity allows little room for surprises. Achilles’ friend Patroklos will die at the hands of Hector, and Achilles will eventually kill Hector, just as he himself will be killed beyond the Iliad’s scope. Troy’s destruction is inevitable, a tradition that Homer cannot alter. For example, the duels between Paris and Menelaos fought in Il. 3 and between Ajax and Hector in Il. 7 can alter the course of the traditional story. In both cases a victory by either opponent can end the war, but something always intervenes to return the narrative to its rightful and predetermined course.

6. Ekphrasis

Ekphrasis is a description of a work of art that makes the objects depicted real for the audience and advances the plot and the themes relevant to the narrative. Among the best examples of ekphrasis is the shield of Achilles, which depicts the entire cosmos at 18.462–613.

7. Catalogs

Since oral poetry included the re-creation of a poetic story based on tradition, lists of any type become a tour de force for an aiodos (singer), one who can delight his audience with feats of memorization. The catalog of the Greek contingents that sailed to Troy recited in Il. 2 (2.494–760) is a traditional component the singer artfully includes. In the catalog, Homer cites twenty-nine contingents and names their forty-four leaders who sailed to Troy in 1,186 ships with a united force of around one hundred thousand men. Other feats of traditional aoidic recomposition include the lists of the squads and leaders of the Trojan forces (2.817–877), a list of thirty-three Nereids (18.39–49), Zeus’ parade of lovers (14.315–328), Agamemnon’s gifts to Achilles (9.120–157), Priam’s offerings to ransom Hector (24.228–237), and the hundreds of names of Greek and Trojan warriors fighting and being slain. These catalogs present the war as an event of great importance and amplify the diversity of the masses that are fighting to either conquer or defend Troy.

8. Speeches

Since almost half of the Iliad is in direct discourse, which makes use of more expressive and judgmental language, Homer employs a variety of speech types, each with its own unique characteristics. Among them are hortatory speeches persuading someone to a course of action, prayers and supplications, laments, messages, and various kinds of battlefield oratory. Some speech types always start with the same line and end with a general gnomic saying. Although stylized, each speech is at the same time unique and tailored to its context and situation. Laments, for example, are ritual or ritualized speeches inspired by the death of a family member and uttered by the deceased’s relatives or close friends. These appear either as threnoi, sung by professional mourners or Muses, or as gooi, spoken by relatives or close kin. Speech types are especially common for conferences and assemblies, for delivering messages (usually repeated verbatim), and in encouraging warriors to take part in battles. Among the most numerous speech types are soliloquies, expressing a warrior’s innermost thoughts, and parainesis, exhortations to battle, appearing around sixty-five times in the Iliad. Other speech types include challenges, appearing before a duel; vaunts, celebrating a victorious combatant’s triumph; rebukes by one leader or warrior to another; boasts just before a warrior is about to attack his opponent; and supplications to gods or other heroes when a warrior seeks aid to assist or save someone’s life, including the warrior’s own. Like other epic speeches, supplications follow prescribed formats, which the narrator can use selectively to enhance the singularity of the character in question.

9. Xenia (Hospitality)

The plots of both the Iliad and the Odyssey are dependent on the recognition and the abuse of xenia, which is a reciprocal guest-host obligation under the aegis of the father of the Olympian gods, Zeus Xenios (see Il. 6.119–236). The Trojan conflict itself is the result of the misuse of hospitality when a guest of Menelaos (the Trojan prince Paris) abducts his host’s wife.

10. Aristeia

An aristeia is a scene in the Iliad in which a hero in battle experiences his finest moments. All major epic heroes, at some point during the battle sequences, are given the opportunity to show their prowess and excellence. The Iliad, besides focusing throughout its battle sequences on a number of minor warrior achievements, highlights five major aristeias: Diomedes’ in Il. 4–6, Agamemnon’s in Il. 11, Hector’s in Il. 15, Patroklos’ in Il. 16, and Achilles’ in Il. 19–22. Each of these aristeias follows a list of a predetermined method of procedure, which the poet can use at his discretion to emphasize the length and importance of each warrior’s performance, as well as to vary the uniqueness of that performance—for example, the way in which a god rouses a hero to arm for battle. The poet can then elaborate on each piece of a warrior’s attire separately or focus on a specific item like the shield of Achilles in Il. 18. The hero wreaks havoc among the ranks of the enemy, or he might have an initial setback after being wounded and after praying to a god for assistance, who restores his strength. The hero next sets out to achieve fresh exploits that result in the opponent’s defeat. A struggle over the corpse and the armor ensues until either or both are recovered by one of the two sides.

11. Myths

Homer allows himself a good deal of freedom in adapting myths to suit his purposes throughout the Iliad. On some occasions, he may actually invent a myth in order for a character who is seeking a favor to trade with a deity who owes them one. A good example appears in Il. 1, where Achilles advises his mother, Thetis, to use the Briareus incident to supplicate Zeus on his behalf (1.396–404). There are a variety of myths found throughout the epic, which include not only the Troy legends and folktales on which the Iliad is based but also the divine mythology of the Olympian gods, who play a major role in the Iliad, as well as allegorical stories like those of Atê (Delusion) and the Litai (Prayers) at 19.78–138 and 9.502–512, respectively. The majority of the stories encountered, which can be identified as myths in the Iliad, are stories told by the epic’s internal characters. Myths are used by those characters in a number of ways, including the assertion of their own standing, as in the case of Glaucus’ genealogy related to Diomedes at 6.150–211 or Sthenelus’ reference to the sack of Thebes by the Epigoni at 4.403–410. Elsewhere in the epic, characters relate stories as paradigms that indicate a proper course of behavior, as is the case with Phoenix’s story of Meleager at 9.524–599 or Achilles’ Niobe story to Priam to underline the importance of eating to sustain one’s grief (24.602–617). The supernatural, in the sense of the fantastic and the miraculous, however, is rarely found in Homer’s epics. Nor will one find the more sordid elements of human treachery and suffering.

12. Ring Composition

This is a framing device (known also as chiasmus) that serves as an aid to recomposition in oral performance. It is a device whereby an episode begins and ends with the same formula, bestowing clarity and shape to parts of the narrative, especially to speeches. Cedric Whitman (Homer and the Heroic Tradition) sees this type of composition in the Iliad from the level of small narrative sections all the way to the level of entire books and the entire narrative. For example, the episodes in Il. 1 can be seen matching in reverse those in Il. 24. Thus, the funerals of the dead as a result of Apollo’s plague, which opens the beginning of Il. 1, correspond to Hector’s funeral, which ends Il. 24. A quarrel on Olympos that ends Il. 1 is reversed in Il. 24, which begins with a quarrel on Olympos. For further discussion of this framing device, see the comments at the beginning of Il. 24 in chapter 6.

The conflict that opens the poem (Achilles’ wrath and revenge themes) is both political and ethical. It is a standoff between the rights of the true warrior (the best of the Achaians) and those of the king who commands the Greek expedition. The Homeric warrior possesses two qualities—excellence in counsel coupled with prowess on the battlefield. He possesses both biē (force) and metis (intelligence). He fights to kill or to be killed, and his reward for forfeiting his life in battle is honor (timē, kleos), which is measured by the booty (geras) he amasses (tangible goods and slaves) from the division of the spoils of war among the leading participants. The greater the portion received, the greater the honor, which offers him the only immortality possible to a mortal—to live in the memory of the generations to come for one’s accomplishments, measured in rewards received and heroic deeds carried out. Spoils once distributed cannot be redistributed, for to take back honor questions its permanence. True honor is as permanent as death. Beyond the grave, the dead live only in the memory of the living, and honor is the fuel that fosters remembrance. This warrior code is questioned at the beginning of the Iliad and becomes the reason for Achilles’ withdrawal from the fighting to await Zeus’ judgment.

Once Patroklos, Achilles’ closest companion, dies in Il. 16, Achilles’ wrath is eclipsed by his need to revenge his friend. In the process of revenging his comrade, for whom he feels responsible, Achilles discovers that personal honor cannot take precedence over a friend’s life. He realizes the limitations of the warrior code he lives by as one fleeting and transient, whereas love and friendship are both internal and eternal. At the end of the epic, Achilles’ anger turns to pity (eleos) and respect (aidōs) for the human condition with which he now more easily identifies. Although half-divine, he discovers he has more in common with the mortal Priam than with his goddess-mother, Thetis.

While Achilles waits for Zeus to set things right, the war continues, to the disadvantage of the Greeks, who cannot conquer Troy without their major warrior. The first eight books of the Iliad deal with the results of Achilles’ absence, but at the same time they allow the poet to digress in order to place his narrative in its broader context—the Trojan War legend. In these first eight books, Homer returns to the initial causes of the war, introduces the reader to the main figures of the Greek expedition, and provides a summary of the fleet and its leaders. In the latter books of the epic, as the war becomes more brutal between the two sides, Homer again digresses at intervals to remind the reader of the legend’s overall design. Hector will die at the hands of Achilles; Achilles, beyond the Iliad’s scope, will die at the hands of Apollo and Paris; and Troy and its populace will be destroyed. Thus, although the focus is on the fifty-three-day working out of Achilles’ wrath and revenge, the reader is constantly apprised of all that surrounds Achilles’ small patch of fabric in the ten-year-long tapestry that is the Trojan War myth.

The epic setting is a warrior society that is basically patriarchal, polytheistic, slaveholding, and monarchical. All temporally immediate human action takes place on one of three stages: the Greek camp, the city of Troy, or the plain between the two warring sides. For ease and expediency in reading the Iliad, the epic’s twenty-four divisions (books) can be approached in various size segments. Both Homeric epics are most often read as six tetrads of four books each. However, since the Odyssey is often approached in tetrads, whose units of four are more integrated than those of the Iliad, routinely the Iliad is approached in the same way.

The Iliad, however, more readily lends itself to a three-part structure in three movements. Il. 1–9 deal with the consequences of Achilles’ wrath until the embassy episode (Il. 9), in which the Greek warrior’s return is requested. Il. 10–18 represent one full day of battle up to the death of Patroklos and the beginning of Achilles’ revenge theme. Il. 19–24 focus on Achilles’ aristeia and the end of the wrath and revenge themes. An alternative three-part structure divides the epic into a different set of three movements: Il. 1–8, Il. 9–15, and Il. 16–24. Each movement in this scheme ends with Zeus setting out his plan, with the book following beginning with Achilles’ own decision. A more suitable structure for the Iliad than the tetrads used in reading the Odyssey is a four-part frame of six books each. Il. 1–6 minister to introduce the epic’s themes and the Trojan War myth. Il. 7–12 cover the Greeks’ struggle against the Trojans without Achilles, their best warrior. In this scheme, the central Il. 12 is the climax of the epic, leading to the revenge theme. Il. 13–18 continue the battle of the two warring sides up to the turning point of the epic, Il. 18, in which Achilles ends his wrath and returns to the battlefield to avenge Patroklos. Il. 19–24 are on Achilles’ aristeia, which ends with his newfound humanity. The present reading of the epic divides the Iliad into its four main battles, which encompass twenty-two of the epic’s twenty-four books and occupy a period of six days.

THE POET

Who was Homer? Where was he born? Where did he compose and sing his poems? Was Homer an individual or a symbol? No reference to the author is made in the Iliad (or Odyssey), unless one considers the passages in both epics where the narrator directly addresses some gods (the Muses and Apollo) and a number of characters (Achilles, Patroklos, Menelaos, Melanippos, and Eumaeus) as representing Homer’s voice. Nevertheless, the narrator’s voice remains anonymous. There have been a variety of answers to all the questions just posed throughout the centuries, and yet the name Homer still remains a mystery today. Some scholars consider Homer a poetic movement in which a large number of singers took part (see Graziosi, Inventing Homer). According to one Homerist, the name can refer to anyone who stitches songs together (Nagy, Best of the Achaeans). Yet others have thought of Homer as one or two exceptional bards who contributed to a final edition of the two epics. In classical times, legend considered him to be an Ionian bard, a divine singer (theios aoidos) who hailed from the coast of central Asia Minor (present-day western Turkey), one of a number of rhapsodists who traveled from city to city performing tales of the Trojan War privately and at public festivals. Some legends identify him as one Melesigenes, whose father was the river Meles and his mother a nymph, Kretheis. Although Melesigenes means born of Meles, the word also refers to honey (meli; honey-tongued perhaps?). The name Homer, by which he is best known, also means hostage (omēros), which might be a further clue to his identity. A saying attributed to a student claims, Homer was not written by Homer but by another man of that name. What one can say with some finality is that we simply do not know who Homer was, where he was from, whether he composed the Iliad or the Odyssey, or exactly how these poems became fixed in the form we have them today.

Homer’s birthplace was variously claimed by the cities of Smyrna (present-day Izmir), Colophon, and Cyme, all three in present-day western Turkey; the Greek Aegean islands of Chios, Rhodes, and Ios along the Ionian coast; Athens and Argos on the Greek mainland; and the island of Salamis, west of Athens. However, the leading contender for the bard’s birthplace is usually designated as the area around Izmir and the Greek island Chios. Tourists to this day can visit the hypothetical rock on which Homer sat and recited his epics on the island of Chios or visit his pseudo grave site on the island of Ios. Perhaps the reason for the Aegean coast being the main rival for Homer’s birthplace was a desire to associate the bard with the iterant singers who traveled throughout Ionia (western Turkey) to sing their tales.

What, then, can we suggest about Homer? The Iliad and Odyssey stand at the end of an epic tradition that stretches back over many centuries across the ancient world. Homer is not the creator of the Trojan War saga (not a historical reality), the subject of the two epics, nor is the dactylic hexameter unique to his poems but rather common to a large number of oral poems using the same artificial language and deploying many of the same formulas (something suggested by the remnant of the lost Epic Cycle). For the present we can assume that the Homeric epics, the Iliad and Odyssey, came into being sometime during the eighth or, at the latest, early seventh century B.C.E., when they were memorialized by collectors and scribes. An absolute timeline for this process, however, must be avoided, since there is much we do not know.

THE MYTH

The Bronze Age, within which the Mycenean period falls and which includes the Trojan War (often cited as occurring around 1184 B.C.E.), extends from around 1600 to 1100 B.C.E. This epoch possessed a writing system known as Linear B. The Minoan civilization, which preceded the Bronze Age, reached its zenith between 2600 and 1450 B.C.E. and also possessed a writing system, Linear A. Linear A and B are both syllabaries but not alphabets.⁴ The Mycenean period was a prosperous, urbanized, and even literate period (although no epic written material from this period has been found). Around 1200 B.C.E. a catastrophe of unknown nature occurred that saw its weakening and eventual collapse along with the Hittite empire (on whose northwestern edge Troy existed), as well as the weakening of another major power of the time, Egypt, which suffered mass piratical raids. The sacking of Mycenae (Homer’s kingdom of Agamemnon) followed around 1100 B.C.E. Some scholars connect the catastrophe that brought an end to the Mycenaean power to marauding bands of seafarers, which put an end to literacy (Linear B) and gave rise to the Dark Age⁵ that followed (a mostly illiterate period for which little information exists). The end of the Dark Age, around 800 B.C.E., began a Greek renaissance, the Archaic period, that gave birth to renewed growth and prosperity. A new urban society and literacy returned with the invention of the Greek alphabet and the memorialization of the Homeric epics.

The site of Troy, the setting of the Homeric epics, was abandoned by 1200 C.E. and remained a legend until 1871 C.E. when Heinrich Schliemann excavated the mound of Hisarlik in western Turkey and followed the legend as though a reality. His successors included a number of other archeologists, among them Carl Blegen in the 1930s and Manfred Korfmann in the 1980s. Of the nine levels of Troy (along with their ancillary sublevels) eventually excavated by the archeologists who followed Schliemann, it is reasonable to conjecture that the likeliest stage for a possible Homeric Troy could be found in either Troy level six (1800–1275 B.C.E.) or Troy level seven (1275–1100 B.C.E.). Since then, the Trojan myth is assumed to be a legend, which is a myth with some sort of historical basis.

If the Iliad was sung sometime during the eighth century B.C.E. and the Trojan War fought around 1184 B.C.E., almost five hundred years had elapsed. Legends concerning this war could have reached Homer through word of mouth and perhaps intermingled with other legends and myths, especially those of the Theban War and the expedition of the Argonauts