Homeric Question
Although practically everyone has heard of the Iliad, historians actually know very little in the way of when, how, why and even by whom it was written. We casually attribute the brilliant literary feats that are the Iliad and the Odyssey to this mysterious man called Homer, but really, no one knows who this Homer was, if he even existed at all. These uncertainties make up the foundations of that ever-nagging Homeric Question: the ongoing debate over the true authorship of the Iliad and the Odyssey.
What we can confidently say about the first of the Homeric epics is that it was written somewhere in the 8th century BCE─still a little vague, of course, but something to go on. We can also safely assume that the Iliad was first narrated in the form of an oral chronicle of sorts, recited by Greek bards from memory. Though this may seem to be an astonishing accomplishment when you consider that the epic is comprised of 15,693 lines in total, the bards did have some tricks up their sleeves to help with the memorisation aspect. Epithets─such as “swift-footed Achilles” or “Thetis of the lovely hair”─would have been helpful in prompting the bard to remember exactly who it was that he talking about, and to fill out any gaps in the rhyming metre. This metre was another helpful part of the song, as a piece with a rhyme scheme is much easier to remember than a block of prose. Also the use of stock scenes or phrases was common; if a bard could remember the basic foundations of the scene in which a warrior dressed himself, he could remember practically half of the epic (warriors arming themselves is a stock scene; a scene that recurs often in the song). Similarly, stock phrases─longer than epithets but much shorter than scenes─such as “dawn with rosy fingers” or “I say this to you, and it will be accomplished” recur so often that it becomes imprinted in the bard’s memory: you only need to know the phrase once in order to say it many (many many many) times.
Whether or not the epics were written by one author is the main inquiry in the Homeric Question. There are generally three groups of people who have their own views on the matter: Analysts, who believe the Iliad was a large accumulation of smaller poems combined to make one text; Unitarians, who think it was one sole poet who wrote both epics; and Oralists, who believe that the naturally occurring variations of the bard’s song were gradually formed into one poem.
Parry and Lord were two scholars who believed in the Oralist way of thinking. In the 1920s they journeyed to former Yugoslavia, a place where song-reciting was still a prevalent part of their culture. Parry and Lord noticed that Yugoslavian bards used epithets and stock scenes just as Homer had. They also noted that, though each bard thought he was reciting an identical representation of the poem as the bard before him did, there were really slight variations in the text they sang. This is where the scholars adopted their beliefs in Oralism. They believed that, over time, the different interpretations would come together as a whole, as they thought the Iliad had.
Plot of the Iliad
Almost the entirety of the Iliad was based on the wrath of the great Achaean warrior Achilles, who felt dishonoured by the King of the Greeks, Agamemnon. Achilles had been given Briseis, a priest’s daughter, as a prize for his bravery in battle, only to have it taken away again by Agamemnon. Briseis was an example of geras, a gift of honour won in war; thus it was especially insulting of Agamemnon to take the girl from Achilles.
In his anger, Achilles backed out from the battle, taking with him his army of Myrmidons. He refused to fight, he said, until Agamemnon saw reason and made it up to him. The Greeks were greatly troubled by the loss of their greatest warrior, and eventually Agamemnon sent an Embassy to Achilles, begging him to return with the promise of Briseis and much more wealth. Even though Achilles respected the ambassadors sent to him─Phoenix, Odysseus and Telemonian Ajax─he refused to give in.
Although the primary reason for this is that Achilles was stubborn and proud as many Greek warriors were, it’s worth mentioning here that there may have been another reason for Achilles’ refusal. Agamemnon had personally told Odysseus what to say, and Odysseus had copied him to the letter─apart from one message, which he tactfully left out. Agamemnon urged Odysseus to tell Achilles to, as he put it, “yield” to the “elder” and “better” man that was Agamemnon. Although Odysseus did not include this part of the speech, it seems that Achilles understood the undertone to his plea: Agamemnon was not wholly apologising, but rather, he was still asking Achilles to yield to the better power. And this was precisely what Achilles had been refusing to do all along.
And so the Embassy was sent back by Achilles with the bad news: the great warrior would not be rejoining them. Everyone was surprised; they had all expected him to receive the huge pile of gifts and return to battle. They couldn’t understand why he hadn’t.
Many books later, Achilles’ best friend Patroclus came to Achilles with an idea. He suggested that, if he wore his friend’s armour in battle, the Trojans might mistake him for the true Achilles and retreat. Achilles agreed only reluctantly, for he didn’t want to send Patroclus into the front line of the battle. But his friend won him over, and he went into battle dressed as Achilles.
There was, however, one person that wasn’t to be fooled by Patroclus’ disguise. Hector saw through Achilles’ armour and realised that it was only Patroclus: a skilled warrior, admittedly, but nothing compared to Achilles. He killed Patroclus and took from him his armour (technically, Achilles’ armour). Achilles, when he heard the news, blamed himself for sending Patroclus into the battle. Hephaistos, the blacksmith god, crafted Achilles a new set of armour, and the warrior returned to fight in battle.
What Achilles really wanted was to avenge Patroclus’ death. And so, he called Hector to a duel. Although Hector knew he was going to die, he accepted anyway out of bravery and fear for his honour─I’ll be talking in more detail about that later.
Achilles killed Hector, and, regardless of the latter’s last dying wishes, dragged him back to the Greek camp rather than giving him over to his father Priam. There he dragged the corpse around Patroclus’ burial mound repeatedly: a terrible act of savagery for a society who believed that, unless buried, your body would not be accepted into Elysium (Greek heaven).
In the final book of the Iliad, Hector’s father Priam visits Achilles, under the protection of the Olympians, who think that Achilles has taken his revenge a little far. Priam actually goes as far as to kiss the hands of Achilles, who slaughtered Hector among many of Priam’s other sons. He begs Achilles to return the body, and the warrior, with the apparent return of any kind of human emotion, agrees. Together Achilles and Priam weep: Priam for his sons, Achilles for the fallen Patroclus.
Structure
There are over two hundred translations of the Iliad to choose from. For the first half of the book, I read Caroline Alexander’s, before switching to that of Richmond Lattimore for the remainder of the epic. Lattimore’s translation is generally most preferred among scholars of the Homeric epics, primarily because it reads most closely to the original Greek text. Some other translations, however, have attempted to maintain as much of the original rhyme scheme in translating the poem, meaning that it would be a very loose translation of the actual Greek. This rhyme scheme is called dactylic hexameter. It’s comprised of six bars, the first five of which have a “crotchet-quaver-quaver” beat, or a “one beat-half a beat-half a beat” scheme (words like “strawberry” follow this pattern!). Alternatively, but only occasionally, the first five bars can use a “crotchet-crotchet” beat pattern, or “one beat-one beat”. The last of the six bars is always just two consecutive crotchets, such as “jam pot.” Thus, sometimes it’s easy to remember the typical rhyme scheme of the dactylic hexameter with the phrase “Strawberry jam pot”!
Different scholars have proposed their own opinions as to the structure of the Iliad. You can break the epic down into three different main patterns: heroism; 3-day recitation and book numbering; and Achillean structure.
To demonstrate how heroism structured the epic, we can show how every few books detail the deeds of three different warriors. In Books 1-7, Diomedes is the hero, attacking Aphrodite and Apollo, before falling back and surviving this dangerous enterprise. In Books 8-17, Patroclus attempts to sack Troy single-handedly. As a result of his not giving up, he pays for this with his life. In Books 18-24, Achilles is the main hero. He fights with the River Scamanda and mutilates the corpse of Hector, whom he had recently defeated. In the end, he reconciles with Priam, and the book closes with Achilles’ prophesied death imminent.
A professor at the University of Oxford highlighted another pattern in the writing of the epic, which he termed the 3-day recitation structure. It was only a few hundred years after the Iliad was written that numbered Books were placed in it (in the form of chapters). The Oxford scholar suggested that the epic was, until then, recited in three parts with intervals in between every eight or so books.
The Achillean structure highlights the role of Achilles throughout the epic. In Books 1-9, he withdraws from the battle, and the Achaeans attempt to bring him back. In Books 10-17, the fighting continues in his absence, while Achilles hides away in his tent. In Books 18-24, he returns to the battle and defeats his main opponent, Hector.
Language
The Iliad, as one of the oldest works ever written, must be one of the most amazing things I’ve read. But from the standpoint of a fourteen-year-old whose favourite book is the Jeeves & Wooster series, I must admit that I found some parts of the epic quite boring. Perhaps reading an abridged version might have been a better idea! Homer once went on for page upon dreadful page about the forty-six different ships that comprised the Achaean fleet, the captains and crew members of each ship, their fathers, grandfathers, wives and children, their siblings, their homelands, their upbringings, their later years, and all the gruesome ways in which they were going to die because it had been fated that way by Athene of the shapely feet or whatever she was.
Peneleos lanced beneath the brows, down to the eyes’ roots and scooped an eyeball out— the spear cut clean through the socket, out behind the nape and backward down he sat, both hands stretched wide as Peneleos, quickly drawing his whetted sword, hacked him square in the neck and lopped his head and down on the ground it tumbled, helmet and all. But the big spear’s point still stuck in the eye socket— hoisting the head high like a poppy-head on the shaft he flourished it in the eyes of all the Trojans now…
Iliad (Caroline Alexander) Book XIV
The majority of the Iliad was comprised of parts like the one above, with the characters engaged in war, ceaselessly hacking each other up with their “pitiless bronze”. Here the characters are portrayed as merciless, violent to a notably extreme degree: one-dimensional warriors whose only thought lies in killing and revenge. I don’t want this to sound as though it were a negative thing: perhaps in today’s society, yes, but the Greeks viewed this merciless valiance as a positive trait, a way of proving oneself. These men were fighting for their honour and their respect among the other soldiers; they were fighting for their own causes, as a way of avenging a fellow warrior’s death (as seen between Achilles and Patroclus); and they were, of course, fighting for Menelaos’ cause─the whole point of the Trojan War was to return his kidnapped wife Helen to Greece.
Homer often tries to beautify this violence with reference to similes and the use of metaphorical language, often likening to the warriors to natural forces or phenomena. Here he describes Diomedes as a river bursting its banks in a paragraph full of powerful force and imagery:
He surged across the plain like a river swollen with winter flood that, racing swiftly, dashes its embankments, and the dams fenced close around cannot restrain it, nor the protective walls hold it from the fertile gardens in its sudden coming, when the rain of Zeus pounds down, and crushes beneath it many fine plots tilled by vigorous young men; so the close-pressed ranks of Trojans were roiled by the son of Tydeus, nor did they withstand him although they were many.
Iliad (Caroline Alexander) Book V
In contrast, many parts of the epic weren’t focusing on the gory and violent aspects of the war; there are many contrasting scenes where we see a much more human side to the warriors. While in battle scenes, the characters are all presented as warmongering, bloodthirsty, relentless warriors, there are many parts where we see a different side to the fighters, mostly through their own private conversations or actions. For example, the part where Hector parts with his wife Andromache and his little son as he prepares for battle is particularly moving. Up until now, Hector has always been portrayed as aggressive, brave and intimidating, but now we see the more caring dimension of his character. His son is frightened of Hector’s helmet, and the warrior takes it off to pacify him before he picks him up. In this passage, the brave, “man-slaughtering” Hector is suddenly portrayed as so very human and loving that it is really quite beautiful. This could be especially noted when Hector told a sobbing Andromache, “May I be dead and the piled earth hide me under before I hear you crying and know by this that they drag you captive.” This is an example of dramatic irony, as we know that Andromache will be taken away, and that Hector will be dead and buried while it happens. The fact that he lifts up his baby son and prays to Zeus that he will be protected alludes to the baby’s true fate that readers nowadays should know: he will be picked up again, not by Hector, but by an Achaean, who will hurl him over the Trojan ramparts, dashing him to the ground below.
In Book XVIII, Homer describes the shield that the god Hephaistos designed for Achilles. Here especially we see a stark contrast between the scenes of peace and happiness and those of war and death. There are depictions on this shield of “dancing young men and girls”, and of “a boy playing a lovely tune on a clear-sounding lyre” and peacetime descriptions of farming in the fields, right next to scenes of acute violence and gore. This is an interesting juxtaposition of these two contrasting themes on the shield, highlighting all the far-reaching concerns of the Greeks.
The Gods
Some other parts of the epic worth mentioning describe the relationships between the gods. While you might think that the immortals would be always portrayed as intimidating and omnipotent, Homer made it clear that this was not always the case. Indeed, he describes the Olympians as extremely selfish and petty, always quarrelling with one another about the most trivial things, and interfering with, manipulating and deceiving each other to support their own interests. Different gods sided with different armies in the war. Notably, Aphrodite supported the Trojans (the reason for this can be found in the story of the Apple of Discord, the event which triggered the Trojan War in the first place), and Zeus had to be constantly trying to prevent the immortals from interfering in human affairs too much.
Many ancient authors and philosophers picked up on Homer’s negative depiction of the Olympians. An example which I found particularly amusing comes from Plato who, because he believed he had set a bad example with his degrading portrayal of the gods, wouldn’t allow Homer into his ideal state.
Many scholars have suggested that the mortals and the gods were very much alike in their portrayal in the Iliad. That may be true when you take into account their ridiculous small-mindedness, but there are two strong lines that separate the mortals from the immortals. Homer makes these very clear in the epic. The first is obvious: mortals die, and immortals don’t. The second is a little more hazy: mortals are unhappy, and immortals are happy.
Such is the way the gods spun life for unfortunate mortals, that we live in unhappiness, but the gods themselves have no sorrows. There are two urns that stand on the door-sill of Zeus. They are unlike for the gifts they bestow: an urn of evils, an urn of blessings. If Zeus who delights in thunder mingles these and bestows them on man, he shifts, and moves now in evil, again in good fortune. But when Zeus bestows from the urn of sorrows, he makes a failure of man, and the evil hunger drives him over the shining earth, and he wanders respected neither of gods nor mortals.
Iliad (Lattimore) Book XXIV
Characterisation
There are, really, only a few characters in the entirety of the Iliad that could be classed as multidimensional or particularly individuated. Achilles is the primary example of that kind of character, and, though I have previously described Hector as multidimensional as well, not everyone agrees with me. Professor Richard Jenkyns, in a MOOC that I was watching recently, suggested that Hector was indeed the opposite; he was depicted, so Jenkyns claimed, as the typical father, the typical husband, the typical leader: in short, the typical man of that age. Jenkyns went on to propose that Homer “uses [Hector] for psychological penetration”, a way of manipulating the reader into liking or disliking particular characters or ideas. The Oxford professor explained that this kind of subtle manipulation can be most easily spotted in the scenes when Hector talks to himself, because he can say exactly what’s on his mind in the absence of other characters.
Professor Jenkyns put another surprising twist on the matter. I had always thought of Helen of Troy, who didn’t actually play much of a role in the Iliad despite her being the cause of the entire war, to be quite one-dimensional herself. She seemed to be portrayed as very much detached from the situation throughout: she never cried, despite the fact that even the toughest warriors felt the necessity to do so every five minutes; she never seemed to be too concerned that she was the cause of a terrible ten-year-long war; and she never voiced much of an opinion about anything, only to complain once that neither Paris nor Menelaus were her ideal husband. Richard Jenkyns suggested that it was this mysteriousness, this apparent detachment and indifference were what made her so individual and full of character. She and Achilles, Jenkyns suggested, were the only characters in the epic who were “artistic” (Achilles is playing the lyre and singing when the Embassy are sent to him, and she is shown embroidering a tapestry with the deeds of Trojan heroes). Jenkyns also recognised that she was very “self-reflective” (though I couldn’t really see it myself!), as was Achilles. The professor cited Book 3, in which Helen comes out onto the Trojan ramparts to watch the battle taking place, and how Priam greets her with the care and love of a father. Here, the reader isn’t exactly sure where she stands in the epic, seeing as Priam sides with Helen and not his son Paris, who abducted her. Is she welcome in Troy? Do they really blame her for the war? Helen herself voices no opinion or, indeed, any kind of emotion at all, as is her mysterious custom. Instead, she asks Priam to point out which warrior is which in the battle. It is this very mysteriousness, Jenkyns argues, that makes her such an interesting character to us readers (supposedly; I wasn’t particularly impressed with her indifference, seeing as the whole war was, arguably, her fault).
The Homeric Hero
In Ancient Greece, the concepts of time (pronounced tim-air) or honour, aidos, the respect a warrior feels towards one of a higher time, and kleos, the glorious reputation every Homeric warrior hopes to achieve, were an important part of Greek culture, especially when it came to warfare. In achieving kleos, Achilles was given the slave-girl Briseis as a result of the other soldiers’ aidos towards him. When Agamemnon took the girl away, he destroyed all time associated with Achilles and the kleos that he had worked so hard to earn.
Of course, in our modern-day societal system and culture, it would be considered ridiculously petty for someone to abandon their role in a huge war because someone took a prize from them. But to the Ancient Greeks, Agamemnon’s act was one of serious disrespect to Achilles and an insult to his honour. Achilles’ next move was considered perfectly understandable to the Achaeans, but also a serious threat to their chances of winning the war. Achilles was one of the greatest warriors in the entirety of Greece, widely renowned for his skills in warfare: without him, the Achaeans stood a much lower chance of victory.
We can see some examples throughout the Iliad where heroism becomes a prominent theme. For example, the part where Hector explains to Andromache why he must go to fight, while she begs him to remain in Troy: “I would feel deep shame,” Hector told her, “before the Trojans and the Trojan women […] if like a coward I were to shrink aside from the fighting; and the spirit will not let me, since I have learned to be valiant […] winning for my own self great glory, and for my father.”
There’s a notable contrast between Hector and his brother Paris, considering it was Paris’ fault that this whole war had started. Hector was continually fighting, but his brother seldom appeared on the battlefield across the entirety of the epic. When he did, Paris always went reluctantly at his brother’s insistence, and the gods always aided him as he would have been killed easily otherwise.
Another part of the poem where the theme of heroism comes into play is when Sarpedon and Glaucos, two Trojan warriors, discuss heroism between themselves. Sarpedon claims that, were he immortal, he would never fight in war. To us modern readers, this seems a bit backward─if you would never die, wouldn’t you fight in battle all the harder, so as to be as much use to your comrades as you were able? Not in the shame culture of the Ancients you wouldn’t. In those days, the whole point of fighting in a war was to take the risk that you might die: that was the heroic part of it. If you were never going to die, it wouldn’t be considered at all brave of you to fight, because it’s only worth fighting if you might get killed in the process and remembered as a brave war hero.
My favourite quotes
Let not the sun go down or darkness descend upon us until I have hurled headlong Priam’s smoke-blackened palace, enflamed its gates with deadly fire, and rent from Hector’s breast his tunic slashed with bronze; while in droves around him his companions, headlong in the dust, bite the earth between their teeth…
Iliad (Caroline Alexander) Book II
If entering its gates and high walls you could eat Priam and the sons of Priam raw, and all the other Trojans, would you then be cured of your anger?
Book (Caroline Alexander) IV
Dawn robed in saffron spread over all the earth…
Iliad (Caroline Alexander) Book VIII
I hold him at the value of a splinter.
Iliad (Caroline Alexander) Book IX
As flakes of snow pour down in drifts on a winter’s day, when all-devising Zeus begins to snow, showing to mankind these the shafts of his artillery, and hushing the winds to sleep, he heaps the snow steadily, so that it shrouds the heights of high mountains and peaks of cliffs, and blossoming lowlands and the rich worked-lands of men; and the snow drifts the bays and beaches of the gray salt sea, and the sea swell splashing it is stilled; and all else is cloaked from above, when the snows of Zeus weigh down; just so did the stones fly thick from both sides…
Iliad (Caroline Alexander) Book XII
So they fought on in the likeness of fire, nor would you have thought the sun was still secure in his place in the sky, nor the moon, since the mist was closed over all that part of the fight where the bravest stood about Patroklos, the fallen son of Menoitios.
Iliad (Lattimore) Book XVII
Iliad (Lattimore) Book XVII
