( 3) The armies approach each other, but before they meet, Paris offers to end the war by fighting a duel with Menelaus, urged by Hector, his brother and hero of Troy.
When news of the Achaean deployment reaches King Priam, the Trojans respond in a sortie upon the plain. The Achaeans deploy in companies upon the Trojan plain. Odysseus confronts and beats Thersites, a common soldier who voices discontent about fighting Agamemnon's war. The plan backfires, and only the intervention of Odysseus, inspired by Athena, stops a rout.
But nine years into the war, the soldiers' morale has worn thin. Agamemnon heeds the dream, but first decides to test the Achaean army's morale by telling them to go home. Thetis does so, and Zeus agrees.( 2) Zeus then sends a dream to Agamemnon, urging him to attack Troy. Only then will Agamemnon realize how much the Achaeans need Achilles, and restore his honor. Achilles asks his mother to ask Zeus to allow the Achaeans to be beaten back by the Trojans, until their ships are at risk of burning. Achilles becomes very upset and prays to his mother, Thetis, a minor goddess and sea nymph. In the meantime, Agamemnon's messengers take Briseis away. Odysseus returns Chryseis to her father, causing Apollo to end the plague. Achilles furiously declares that he and his men will no longer fight for Agamemnon. Because war prizes were correlated with honor, Agamemnon's decision dishonors Achilles in front of the assembled Achaean forces. Under pressure, Agamemnon agrees to return Chryseis to her father, but decides to take Achilles' captive, Briseis, as compensation. After nine days of plague, Achilles, the leader of the Myrmidon forces and aristos achaion ("best of the Greeks"), calls an assembly to deal with the problem. Chryses prays for Apollo's help, and Apollo sends a plague to afflict the Achaean army. Although most of the Achaean kings are in favor of the offer, Agamemnon refuses. Agamemnon, king of Mycenae, acts as commander for these united armies.Ĭhryses, a Trojan priest of Apollo, offers the Achaeans wealth for the return of his daughter Chryseis, held captive by Agamemnon. The Achaean forces consist of armies from many different Greek kingdoms, led by their respective kings or princes. The events begin in medias res towards the end of the Trojan War, fought between the Trojans and the besieging Achaeans. ( 1) The story begins with an invocation to the Muse. The first verses of the Iliad Exposition (Books 1–4) In terms of formal style, the poem's repetitions, use of similes and epithets, are often explored by scholars. Their characterisation in the poem humanised them for Ancient Greek audiences, giving a concrete sense of their cultural and religious tradition. The Olympian gods also play a major role in the poem, aiding their favoured warriors on the battlefield and intervening in personal disputes. It contains detailed descriptions of ancient war instruments and battle tactics, and fewer female characters. The poem is frequently described as a masculine or heroic epic, especially compared with the Odyssey.
#The iliad and the odyssey professional
Given widespread illiteracy, audiences were more likely to have heard the poem than read it it was performed by professional reciters of Homer known as rhapsodes.Ĭritical themes in the poem include kleos (glory), pride, fate and wrath. Homer's authorship was infrequently questioned in antiquity, but contemporary scholarship predominantly assumes that the Iliad and the Odyssey were composed independently and that the stories formed as part of a long oral tradition. The Iliad, and the Odyssey, were likely written down in Homeric Greek, a literary amalgam of Ionic Greek and other dialects, probably around the late 8th or early 7th century BC. The Iliad is often regarded as the first substantial piece of European literature. In particular, it depicts a fierce quarrel between King Agamemnon and a celebrated warrior, Achilles. Set towards the end of the Trojan War, a ten-year siege of the city of Troy by a coalition of Mycenaean Greek states, the poem depicts significant events in the siege's final weeks. It contains 15,693 lines in its most widely accepted version. As with the Odyssey, the poem is divided into 24 books and was written in dactylic hexameter. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. The Iliad ( / ˈ ɪ l i ə d/ Ancient Greek: Ἰλιάς, romanized: Iliás, Attic Greek: "a poem about Ilium (Troy)") is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer.
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