The Iliad, by Homer

In the history of world literature The Iliad, an epic poem reputedly composed by somebody called Homer around the 8^th Century BCE and perhaps written down a couple of hundred years after that, is held up as a shining trophy. It tells a story that every one of us will have heard of; a great war waged by the ancient Greeks against a place called Troy (or Ilium/Ilion) in order to reclaim a beautiful queen by the name of Helen, which would drag on for many years and result in much death and destruction, until a trick involving a great wooden horse finally resulted in the defeat and destruction of the city. The original story, containing those memorable characters of Achilles and Hector, Odysseus, Agamemnon, Ajax, Paris, and Helen ‘whose face launched a thousand ships’ (or to put it better, ‘whose face tangentially resulted in a thousand ships being launched’), was originally recited orally by people who lived at least half a millennia after these events were supposed to have taken place and, alongside its equally famous sequel The Odyssey, form the bedrock of western literature.

          So how on Earth am I supposed to judge this thing? Surely something which has lasted nearly three-thousand years must be absolutely magnificent, immune to all criticism, gushing with intricacy and narrative wonders. I’m a little more used to dealing with modern literature, particularly novels and short-stories, so I might be a bit out of my depth with ancient Greek poetry. Regardless of this I tackled it anyway. Having brushed up on Michael Wood’s In Search of the Trojan War (a really quite good 1980s documentary about whether or not the Trojan War actually took place, presented by one of the sexier tight-trouser-wearing historians to ever grace the world with his presence), I opened up my particular translated copy of this most popular story, read through the first page and immediately found myself bored and confused. For the benefit of the world in general, as well as myself, I persevered and made my way through the following 442 pages.

          The story mostly concerns itself with the rivalry between the warriors Achilles and Hector, as the Trojan War has dragged into its tenth year. In the years previously a prince of Troy (the city itself is usually referred to as Ilium or Ilion, hence the title of the epic) called Paris, or Alexandrus, wound up judging some sort of divine beauty pageant, in which he had to decide between three goddesses, and found himself bribed by one of them with the hand of the Spartan queen Helen. Paris took his new conquest back to Ilium (Troy) thinking nothing of how pissed off her husband King Menelaus would be. Menelaus then appealed to his brother, King Agamemnon of Mycenae, the most powerful ruler in Achaea (ancient southern Greece), who assembled a vast confederation of allied cities to send troops across the Aegean Sea  to battle the Trojans and reclaim his wife. But this is all back story.

          Ten years later, and both sides are weary of the conflict. Achilles, the Achaean champion, has butted heads with Agamemnon while the Trojan champion, Hector, leads a surprise attack on the Achaean ships in the hopes of dealing them a crippling blow. During the fighting Hector ends up killing Achilles’ best friend and comrade, Patroclus, and the Achaean hero is so incensed by this that he works up a bloodlust and slaughters his way through most of the Trojan army, finally killing Hector and carrying off his body as a prize. That all takes up about 95% of the story. The closing chapters detail the sorrow of both sides – Achilles’ loss of Patroclus and King Priam’s loss of his son Hector – until Priam goes down to the enemy camp and ransoms back his son’s body for cremation.

          The main problem I found in trying to enjoy this piece of ancient literature was its structure; its tedious verse format. I am not a fan of verse at the best of times, and that this one keeps itself going continuously for hundreds of pages makes it a little hard to bear sometimes. It can be understood why The Iliad exists in this way – the fact that in illiterate societies great works of language need to be memorable, and poetry with its emphasis on rigid structure and highly organised word-positioning is the stuff that’s going to survive in the long-run even if it’s not written down for centuries – and I’m sure most people consider the verse format to be not only a strength, but a necessary part of the text rather than a weakness, but I cannot disguise the way it seemed to make each individual part of the tale drag on for far too long. The dialogue was too artificial to be even understood most of the time, let alone believed, and the events took place and were discussed in such a meandering over-the-top way that I was not even sure what was meant to be going on for a large proportion of the time; and I’m not myself unfamiliar with the events it’s alluding to here.

          The story itself consists of numerous one-on-one fight scenes, as various insignificant minor characters square off against one-another or get cut down by more important individuals. The other events surrounding whichever battle it is taking place at the time are moved to the sideline, while Homer recounts in gory detail precisely who is fighting whom, and where in the body the victor ends up dealing his opponent a fatal wound. In an excerpt from book XIII, two minor characters called Antilochus and Adamas battle to the death, and no; I can’t remember who is on what side.

          “  Now Asius’ son

Adamas caught him [Antilochus] as he aimed and struck him,

stepping in close, driving his mid-shield,

but felt the spearshaft broken by Poseidon,

who grudged him this man’s life. One half the spear

hung like a fire-hardened stake impaled

in the shield of Antilochus, while on the ground

the other half lay. Adamas then backed

into his throng of friends, away from death,

but as he drew away, Meriones

went after him and hit him with a spear-throw

low between the genitals and navel, there

where pain of war grieves mortal wretches most.

The spear transfixed him. Doubled up on it,

as a wild bullock in the hills will writhe

and twitch when herdsman fetter and drag him down,

so did the stricken man – but not for long

before Meriones bent near and pulled out

spearhead from flesh. Then night closed on his eyes.      ”

                                                         [Oxford. P.232. XIII 560-578]

This passage was not just a choice pick; there are hundreds of little snippets like this littered around The Iliad, and a large proportion of dying characters are awarded their own name and their own little back-story before they charge off into battle and get their lives promptly extinguished. Such is the tragedy of war. Such is the tragedy of The Iliad.

But while a few of these minor characters get their own little place in the sun, it’s the bigger figures of the tale who make this thing what it is; Achilles, Hector, Helen, and the Gods themselves. While I found that the structure of The Iliad hampers identification of the characters sometimes, the reader ends up spending so much time around some of these guys that they do take on a life of their own, particularly as the story ambles further towards its conclusion. Arrogant Agamemnon, proud and vengeful Achilles, war-weary Priam – each of them is flawed and human, with something more to their persona than simply being Greek statues locked in endless combat. No-one here is especially two-dimensional, no good-guys and no bad-guys, the heroes not especially heroic, and the war itself is seen from both sides and considered with some degree of impartiality. In many ways it is the ultimate victors, the Achaean aggressors, who come across in a worse light, while the Trojan champion Hector seems like the real hero of the piece, brave and chivalrous in the defence of his home and family – all the more upsetting when we see the way he is killed, and his body treated afterwards by Achilles.

When it comes to flawed and human characters, there are none more so than the Gods themselves. The ancient Greek pantheon is filled with delightful characters, a good number of the main ones showing up during the course of the story to argue, observe, and otherwise meddle in the happenings that go on outside the walls of Ilium. So as to clarify who’s whom and who’s working for who, here's a little character-guide table, neatly divided into the two opposing factions, and into mortals and Gods (whom I consider represent a third faction).

Achaeans, Argives or Danaans	Trojans
Agamemnon – King of Mycenae, and commander-in-chief of the Achaean forces attacking Ilium. Brother of Menelaus of Sparta, and therefore brother-in-law to Helen of Troy.	Priam – King of Troy, father of Hector and Paris, and also of numerous minor characters on the Trojan side.
Achilles – Achaean champion, and Prince of the Myrmidons; son of the sea-nymph Thetis and of Peleus (one of the Argonauts)	Hector – Trojan champion, prince, and son of Priam.
Odysseus (Ulysses) – Strategist for the Achaeans, and an all round cunning chap. He would later star in the sequel, The Odyssey.	Paris/Alexandrus – Younger brother of Hector, son of Priam, and abductor of Helen.
Menelaus – King of Sparta, embittered former husband of Helen of Troy, and brother of Agamemnon.	Helen (of Troy) – ex-wife of Melelaus of Sparta, abducted by Paris/Alexander and taken to Troy.
Telemonian Ajax (Aias the Greater) – Achaean hero and tough-guy, cousin of Achilles. Not to be confused with Locrian Ajax (Aias the Lesser), also a character in the Trojan War. Just remember that there are two different Ajax’s.	Aeneas – Minor member of the royal family, eventually got his own spin-off epic, Virgil’s Aeneid.
Patroclus – Friend and comrade of Achilles. Plays a major role in the war by being killed by Hector.	Polydamas – Trojan lieutenant.
Nestor – King of Pylos, former Argonaut and veteran advisor of Agamemnon.
Diomedes – King of Argos
Idomeneus – King of Crete

The Gods, Immortals, or Olympians
Zeus (Jupiter) – King of the Gods, and god of general all-round thundering	Aphrodite (Venus) – Goddess of love and sex, so naturally quite a popular lady
Hera (Juno) – Queen of the Gods, goddess of marriage, and scheming wife of Zeus	Hephaestus (Vulcan) – God of fire and blacksmithery, and bears a disability
Athena/Pallas (Minerva) – Goddess of wisdom, ‘the grey-eyed goddess’	Apollo/Phoebus – God of archery, art, music and sunlight
Ares (Mars) – God of war, played by Kevin Smith in Hercules: The Legendary Journeys	Artemis (Diana) – Goddess of hunting
Poseidon (Neptune) – God of the sea, horses, earthquakes, and of being awesome	Hermes (Mercury) – God of messengers

With the return of Hector’s body to his father, this story of the Trojan War draws to a close. The strange thing to note is that the ultimate fate of Troy, one of the best-known stories of all time which involves a giant wooden horse, is not actually included in the pages of The Iliad. This Epic is purely about the antagonism between Achilles and Hector, set against the background of the war itself, and though Hector’s death and the immense foreshadowing throughout make it plain that Troy is doomed to lose its struggle with the Achaeans, the Trojan Horse itself makes no appearance here. Nor does that most famous part of Achilles’ anatomy ever show itself; at the end of this story Achilles and most of the Achaean heroes and leaders are still well and truly alive, and Helen herself is still more-or-less safely ensconced within the walls of Ilium. 

It seems that the tales of Achilles’ downfall by his own heel, the destruction of Troy, the recapture of Helen, and the ultimate tragic fates of the various Achaean heroes are the subjects for other legends. I suspect that Homer’s critically acclaimed sequel The Odyssey may shed light on some of these noteworthy exceptions, but as of the writing of this review I have yet to actually read that, and as I’m right ‘pooped-out’ from all this ancient Greek literature it may take me a while to get round to it.

In conclusion then, can I recommend The Iliad? I have already outlined my lack of love for old poetic epics, so forgive me if I don’t give this one a clean bill of health. The verse structure and the particular style of storytelling is riddled with issues, sometimes making it a battle to carry on until the end of the chapter, but compared to my last epic-poetry experience, Paradise Lost, I have to confess I did much prefer this one. Though there were perhaps a tad too many characters to keep track of, a few of them did seem interesting and compelling; it was especially the Gods who made things a bit out of the ordinary, and they are themselves actually real characters as much as superhuman plot-devices. But in the end I think the last chapter justifies the whole story, a sad and morbid conclusion to the affair of the Trojan War; for after all, this ancient war epic is no glorification of war, but a hard look at the overall cost in terms of human life and the loss of reason.

The Iliad remains a popular book, so I am told, and it is one of the most important works of literature ever composed. If you feel the need to pick up a copy and dive in, then it is best to be cautious seeing as how long and dense it is; really, it’s one of those books for which you really do need to know the story and characters before tackling, as this will make the whole experience considerably less arduous. But in the end I feel chuffed to have gotten through the whole thing, and that’s all that matters really.

The Bibliad

Homer. The Iliad. Translated by Robert Fitzgerald. Oxford University Press: Aylesbury. (1984 [First Published... erm... well, sometime before 700 BCE I suppose, but they didn’t really have publication back then)