The Iliad is an ancient epic poem whose events occur over the course of fifty days in the ninth year of a decade-long war between the Greeks and the Trojans. It begins with Achilles, first among Greek fighters, offended by the decision of the Greek king Agamemnon to take Achilles’s war . . . . Continue Reading »
The Iliad translated by peter green university of california, 608 pages, $29.95 A translator of Homer is like a pentathlete, who needs not just sheer stamina but a variety of skills. The first example of European literary writing adapts episodes of the Trojan War myth from a long, winding oral . . . . Continue Reading »
Why Homer Matters by adam nicolson henry holt and co., 320 pages, $30 Homer on the Gods and Human Virtue: Creating the Foundations of Classical Civilization by peter j. ahrensdorf cambridge, 278 pages, $45 The question of Homer’s existence is a little like the question of . . . . Continue Reading »
Avery odd thing happens in Book 16 of the Iliad when Zeus decides that Sarpedon must die. Sarpedon was one of the greatest of the Trojan warriors. He also happened to be the son of Zeus—though this does not render him immortal. As Sarpedon and Patroklos are about to fight, Zeus laments to Hera: Continue Reading »
Near the beginning of the twenty-fourth and last Book of Homer’s Iliad, called by Simone Weil “the only true epic” the West possesses, even the gods—detached as they are in their bliss from all sufferings—have seen enough. Achilles has become inhuman. Ignoring our animal nature, . . . . Continue Reading »
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