Fuming with anger, Achilles sits down by the ocean’s edge and complains to his mother Thetis. He sets Chryseis free, yet seizes Briseis, a young captive that Achilles has set his eyes on, as compensation. When Achilles, the bravest of the Greek heroes, vehemently advocates for the liberation of the prisoners, Agamemnon is furious. But Agamemnon refuses, and Apollo punishes the Greeks with a plague. The Trojan Chryses, priest of the god Apollo, shows up in the Grecian camp to demand the release of his captured daughter Chryseis from the Greek king, Agamemnon. “My fates long since by Thetis were disclosed,/ And each alternate, life or fame, proposed / Here, if I stay, before the Trojan town,/ Short is my date, but deathless my renown.”Īgamemnon’s Heartlessness and Achilles’s Ire.After Brad Pitt portrayed Achilles in the 2004 blockbuster movie Troy, Homer became the top-selling poet in Britain.German archeologist Heinrich Schliemann discovered its remains in 1870. If so, many question whether the Iliad was entirely his work or the work of many authors. No one is sure if Homer was a real person.The poem most likely emerged in the second half of the 8th century BC in Ionic Greece, a narrow arc of settlements along the coast of Asia Minor.Humans shouldn’t fight fate: Their only hope is to acquire immortal fame.With the gods’ meddling, the battle for Troy turns into unceasing strife.The epic poem covers a 52-day period in the 10-year-long Trojan War – a very important event in Greek mythology.When Achilles’s best friend dies, the warrior returns to battle and slays the Trojan hero, Hector. Their great hero, Achilles, refuses to fight because his leader, Agamemnon, offends him. It is the midst of the Trojan War: The gods have taken the side of the Trojans and inflicted misfortunes on the Greeks.The Iliad is one of the oldest works of Western literature.This tale of a strange war in a strange time continues to resonate across the centuries. Being human is about getting up and facing challenge. Even today, when many see war as distant and far removed from their day-to-day lives, this central contradiction of human activity remains at the heart of life. And yet, this seemingly meaningless endeavor is what gives each warrior the chance to achieve immortality through his actions. The events that brought the Archaic Greeks to the walls of Troy aren’t entirely within the control of the human protagonists, and even when they attempt to halt the bloodshed, outside forces (the gods) conspire against them. They’re both broadly of the same culture, share the same hopes and dreams, suffer the same fears and pains, and at another time could be sharing each other’s hospitality. ![]() In Homer’s story, neither side is right or wrong, heroic or villainous. Homer’s Iliad tells a tale of war: war as the moment when men can become great, as the moment when men reveal their flaws, and as the tragedy of suffering and lives lost – individual, personal and pitiable.
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