Study Guide to The Iliad by Homer

Intelligent Education

• Publisher: Dexterity
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781645422273
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Studienhilfen
• Subtopic: Studienführer

A comprehensive study guide offering in-depth explanation, essay, and test prep for Homer's The Iliad, one of the earliest and most influential works of the Western canon.

As an epic poem set during the Trojan War, The Iliad serves as both a mythological tale and a historical text, providing invaluable insight into the lives of the ancient Greeks. Moreover, the text established a unified identity for the Greeks and provided literary inspiration throughout the Classical, Hellenistic and Byzantine periods, as well as the European Renaissance. This Bright Notes Study Guide explores the context and history of Homer's classic work, helping students to thoroughly explore the reasons it has stood the literary test of time. Each Bright Notes Study Guide contains:

- Introductions to the Author and the Work

- Character Summaries

- Plot Guides

- Section and Chapter Overviews

- Test Essay and Study Q&As

The Bright Notes Study Guide series offers an in-depth tour of more than 275 classic works of literature, exploring characters, critical commentary, historical background, plots, and themes. This set of study guides encourages readers to dig deeper in their understanding by including essay questions and answers as well as topics for further research.

INTRODUCTION TO HOMER

“Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, polytropon, hos mala polla plagchthe, epei Troies hieron ptoliethron eperse”

“O Muse, tell me about the man, you know, the crafty one, who was hounded for so long after destroying the holy city of Troy.”

With these words opens one of the two greatest epics by the best epic poet. Homer wrote the Odyssey to tell the story of one man who lived vicariously for all men. It is no accident that the first word of the epic is andra, man. The epic is not about gods, or God, or to justify His ways to man. The epic is about man, whom the Greeks knew for certain to be “the measure of all things.”

However distant Homer is from us, we can without the slightest effort transport ourselves into the life he describes. And we are thus transported chiefly because, however alien to us may be the events Homer describes, he believes in what he says and speaks seriously of what he is describing, and therefore he never exaggerates and the sense of measure never deserts him. And therefore it happens that, not to speak of the wonderfully distinct, lifelike, and excellent characters of Achilles, Hector, Priam, Odysseus, and the eternally touching scenes of Hector’s farewell, of Priam’s embassy, of the return of Odysseus, and so forth, the whole of the Iliad and still more of the Odyssey, is as naturally close to us all as if we had lived and were now living among gods and heroes.

(From Leo Tolstoy, “Homer and Shakespeare,” in Recollections and Essays, translated by Aylmer Maude. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1937).

But not all literary creatures, including friendly literary creatures, feel the Odyssey is good art. T. E. Shaw, better known as Lawrence of Arabia, translated the Odyssey, I conjecture, because he believed he was a type of Odysseus, the wanderer and marvelous adventurer, but did not approve of it as great art:

Crafty, exquisite, homogeneous - whatever great art may be, these are not its attributes. In this tale every big situation is burked and the writing is soft. The shattered Iliad yet makes a masterpiece; while the Odyssey by its ease and interest remains the oldest book worth reading … Gay, fine, and vivid it is … Book XI, the Underworld, verges toward terribilita - yet runs instead to the seed of pathos, that feeblest mode of writing. The author misses his every chance of greatness, as must all his faithful translators.

(From “Translator’s Note,” The Odyssey of Homer, translated by T. E. Shaw. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1932).

THE PRE-HOMERIC AGE

Early Settlers In Greece

By as early as 6500 B.C. nomad-farmers had crossed over the Bosporus into Europe and settled in northern Greece. Some other farmers followed the Danube into central Europe. Those who had settled in northern Greece and Macedonia moved slowly southward in Greece into Thessaly and built primitive settlements at places like Sesklo and Dhimini. Unfortified houses here were erected with brick walls on stone foundations, and their inhabitants were farmers who tilled local fields and worshipped big-breasted, fat-thighed female fertility goddesses. By 5000 B.C. culturally related farmers who raised sheep, pigs, and cattle had settled in Crete and particularly in Knossos. Settlers moved to the Cyclades, islands between Greece and the Asia Minor coast, by 4000 B.C., and onto the Greek mainland by 2800 B.C. This early island civilization moved ahead of the rest of Greece in developing copper tools and weapons, stone-cutting, pottery and jewelry working. Meanwhile in Egypt and in Asia Minor copper became the most sought-after war material; tin, its alloy in bronze, was also coveted. In Egypt and Sumer and Akkad the political leader with the bronze weapons invariably conquered his enemies and friends alike. Moving from east to west, these metals and their resultant weapons arrived first in the Cyclades, then in Greece proper.

Troy Is Founded

One of the many fortified sites that sprang up at this time (ca. 3000 B.C.) was Troy on the Scamander river on the Asia Minor side near the Hellespont. A vigorous people apparently founded this city and the surrounding farming and trading communities. In the city itself archaeologists have discovered one of the earliest megaron buildings, a long, narrow room with a portico at the front and a fireplace in the center of life. We see this type of building many centuries later in Mycenae in southern Greece. In Troy we find also a new type of black polished pottery different from what had preceded in this area and in Greece.

New Immigrants In Greece

For one reason or another, perhaps because of massive migrations of people all over what is now southern Russia and western Turkey, a new race of man, formerly called Aryans but now known by language instead of race as Indo-European speakers, came into the Aegean area. The new immigrants were a broad-skulled people, and they apparently settled both peacefully and in a warlike fashion with the earlier narrow-skulled, Mediterranean type people. One of the places settled was Mycenae, home of Homer’s Agamemnon. These new “invaders” brought with them black polished pottery, some of it with geometric patterns painted on it, and also megaron-styled houses.

Minoan Civilization

To keep our chronology in something resembling order, we must break away at this point and move to Crete, the island between Greece and Africa. Because of its position as a crossroads for trade, Crete was a natural site for early development. Trade between Greece and Egypt and Greece and the East frequently stopped in Crete. The early civilization in Crete is known as “Minoan” after the mythical king Minos who ruled his labyrinth kingdom at Knossos. The famous archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans gave it that name. By 2300 B.C. there was a flourishing civilization on Crete, which created marvelous painted vases, gold jewelry, faience ornaments, and carefully carved ivory pieces. The farmers on Crete were already cultivating olive groves. About the beginning of the second millennium B.C., the individualistic units scattered around Crete began a rapid process of urbanization with Knossos, Mallia, and Phaestos leading the way. An early model of the famous palace of King Minos at Knossos probably dates back to this time, as well as the beginning of crowded cities, roads for commerce, and hieroglyphic writing from Egypt which apparently evolved into what we now call Linear A. Though the Cretans had a knowledge of bronze swords, they did not seem to have made them in great numbers, or to have fortified their cities with walls. It is clear that by the year 2000 B.C. Cretan civilization surpassed any other on the Greek mainland or on the islands

Arrival Of Homer’s “Achaeans”

Then after 2000 B.C. a very special event took place, of particular importance to our study of Homer, the immigration into Greece of Greek-speaking peoples, or the evolution of a very early form of Greek, which was not as yet set out in what we recognize as the Greek alphabet. This early form of Greek clearly belongs to that vast group of languages known as the Indo-European family which includes Latin and Romance languages, Germanic, and Sanskrit. The language of the early native inhabitants of Greece was not Greek, as can be discerned from place names like Corinth and Cynthos, which predate the invaders of 2000 B.C. and are not Greek, linguistically speaking. The invaders, who were inferior culturally and learned much from the Mediterranean aborigines, moved down from the north (i.e., the plains of southern Russia), and their grave sites reveal that they had domesticated both cattle and horses. The age of 2000-1500 B.C., known as the Middle Helladic (Early Helladic 3000-2000 B.C.), saw a southward movement of these proto-Greeks into the Greek mainland and the growth of cities at Mycenae and Tiryns in the Peloponnesus. Those proto-Greeks brought with them (as their trademark almost) a gray (yellow in south Greece) pottery called “Minyan” ware. It replaced the brighter preceding pottery. It is these proto-Greeks who brought the Greek language into the Aegean basin. Later Homer would call them “Achaeans,” and still later archaeologists would refer to them as Mycenaeans. The ancient Greeks called themselves and their first ancestors Hellenes. These Hellenes roamed throughout Greece and settled the land by force, by farming it, by stealing it, and by killing off the earlier inhabitants. What had begun in 2000 B.C. was concluded by 1500 B.C.: the Hellenes were in control of Greece. The most powerful city-state in Greece was Mycenae “rich in gold,” as Homer says, ruled perhaps by an early ancestor of Agamemnon, “lord of hosts and ruler of Mycenae.”

FALL OF CRETE: RISE OF MYCENAE

While Mycenae prospered from 2000 to 1500 B.C., so did Crete, particularly Knossos, its chief city, whose magnificent ruins have been restored by Sir Arthur Evans (at his own expense!). Even by present standards Knossos would be large and prosperous. The local economy was based on agriculture and trade which extended to Egypt, Syria, mainland Greece, and southern Italy. The Mycenaeans traded with the Cretans and prospered. The gold from the Mycenaean graves and the money spent on the massive beehive tombs are accurate indicators of the wealth of Mycenae.

History In A Myth

It is necessary to emphasize that the Cretans and the Hellenes were not the same people, and while in 1500 B.C. they traded, they were not subjects one to the other. Mycenae and its allied cities or city-states ruled the Greek peninsula; Knossos and its allied cities ruled the sea and the sea trade. A conflict was surely inevitable. The Mycenaeans were (generally speaking) a Western race, Cretans an Eastern people. The former were taller, had the square northern skull; they had horses and chariots pulled by horses. The Cretans had a matriarchal religion in which they worshipped the earth-mother; the Mycenaeans a patriarchal system in which they worshipped the sky-god. According to mythology (which here may be more truth than fiction), one of the great rulers at Knossos was Minos whose wife Pasiphae conceived a bestial lust for a great bull, from which union was born the Minotaur. According to ancient tradition the Minotaur was housed in a huge labyrinth and every year tribute in the form of young (and virginal) men and women was offered to the bull-man in his labyrinth. This tribute was exacted from the city of Athens, until Theseus, the son of the king, went to Knossos as part of that tribute and slew the Minotaur. So much is myth, or more exactly legend, behind which probably lies some historical reality. Following the suggestions of many others, we would like to support the belief that behind the legend lies the historical expansion of the Achaeans or Mycenaeans from Greece into Crete and the capture of that island and its capital, Knossos. The Minotaur in the labyrinth is then explained as the king, Minos, whose symbol of power and royalty was the bull, in the labyrinth of his palace in Knossos. A brief glance at the plans and reconstruction of this palace (Paul MacKendrick, The Greek Stones Speak. New York: St. Martin’s, 1962, pp. 46-52; 93-117) will illustrate even to an obtuse observer how impressed must have been the people of Greece at the splendor, size, intricacy, winding passages, and artwork of Minos’ palace. It is little wonder then that visitors returning to Mycenae or Athens from Knossos spoke of the king’s labyrinth. A visitor from Georgia would have a similar reaction to the Pentagon.

Knossos Destroyed

The imminent conflict and struggle between what we have called the Mycenaeans or Achaeans (Greeks) and the Minoans (Cretans) apparently came to a head around 1400 B.C. Minoan civilization reached its zenith for about one hundred years on either side of 1500 B.C. Then in 1400 B.C. Knossos was destroyed in a terrible fire. Some say the destruction of Knossos was due to an earthquake; others that an earth-shaking volcanic explosion on the island of Thera, which was stronger than the 1883 volcanic eruption of the island of Krakatoa, destroyed Knossos and many other Cretan cities (an interesting sidelight here is the observation that the cities destroyed in this hypothetical holocaust were looted, and whoever heard of a looting volcano?); still others believe that the Mycenaeans, a raiding race of people who later raided Troy, according to Homer, methodically overran the island, destroying and looting.

The plot of our little mystery thickens when we add to it the appearance of what are called Linear B tablets. These tablets, deciphered in the 1950s by the young British architect Michael Ventris (who taught himself Greek in six weeks) as an early form of Greek written in a syllabic script (i.e., ka instead of two separate letters k + a) turned the scholarly world upside down for a time. Sir Arthur Evans, the great man of archaeology in Crete, had proposed a theory of Cretan dominance of the Greek mainland, which was contradicted by the decipherment of the tablets and the tablets themselves. If the tablets were Greek (i.e., Greek language) and Evans himself had found many tablets in Crete, his hypothesis of Cretan influence is then exactly opposite to the facts: the Mycenaeans, after learning from and trading with the Cretans, launched a military campaign against the same Cretans around the year 1400 B.C. and forced the island to become a Mycenaean satellite. But Evans refused to believe any of the new evidence or new theories. The arguments about the “Linear B problem” or the “Minoan Problem” came to be one of the biggest scandals in the scholarship of the ancient world (scandals among classicists, it must be remembered, are academic and force no government to resign), and evolved to the sad state of affairs in which certain archaeologists, who had acquired immense popularity with the Greek government, were able to keep other archaeologists from working in limited areas of Greece and from uncovering new evidence. The controversy continues to the present date.

Mycenaean Trade With Troy

All argumentative theories aside, the decline and destruction (or vice versa) of Knossos opened the road for the advance of the Mycenaeans. The demise of the Minoans left a vacuum which the Achaeans filled quickly, as they spread their influence throughout the Aegean world. They moved into Cyprus (for copper), Rhodes, Asia Minor, Syria, and westward to Sicily. At each center of Mycenaean power palaces grew up (Tiryns and Mycenae). A megaron, with a porch of pillars at one end and an overall oblong shape with a central hearth and above it an open roof, was the center of attraction in every palace. The wealth and power of the “lord of hosts” at Mycenae are well illustrated by the tholoi in which the kings were buried. The tholos tomb or “beehive tomb” has the shape of a cone, built with consummate skill out of cut stone. These tombs were dug into the sides of the hills and approached by a monumental entrance. Once Mycenaean governors had taken over Crete, it again flourished, and we can see the Mycenaeans trading even with Troy (Troy VI, as the archaeologists would have it, 1700-1300 B.C.), a future enemy.

Homer’s Mycenaeans

The world which Homer describes in the Odyssey should be the world we have just been looking at, the Aegean world of 1184 B.C., the traditional date for the fall of Troy to the Greeks. But Homer’s epics are oral epics and in the course of telling and retelling are altered by contemporary events, until they reflect better the society that succeeded the Mycenaean civilization and immediately preceded Homer’s age (800 B.C.). The society and life described by Homer are surely a composite picture of the Mycenaeans and their successors from 1400 to 800 B.C. Archaeologists have established 1250 B.C. as the date for the fall of Troy; 1184 B.C is the traditional date. It is surprising to see how accurate tradition can be.

From Homer we learn that Agamemnon, as the most powerful leader among the Mycenaeans, requested all the Greek or Achaean princes to send aid to help in the war against Troy. From the remote area of the West and Ithaca came Odysseus, who owed a certain allegiance to Agamemnon. In the Iliad Homer tells of the Greek siege of Troy, in the Odyssey of Odysseus’ journey back to Ithaca twenty years later. But Homer does not tell us that the war against Troy was really a form of organized piracy, that the Mycenaeans or Achaeans were in actuality sea-raiders (a polite word for pirates), and that they (principally) were responsible for destroying all sea trade in the Aegean and eastern Mediterranean. Piracy and trade have never mixed well. ...