Homer’s Iliad is an epic poem that takes place toward the end of the Trojan War.
The decade-long conflict started after a Trojan prince abducted the wife of the King of Sparta. Helen was the most beautiful woman in the world. Paris was an honored guest of Menelaus when he breached all norms of hospitality by abducting Helen, taking her back to Troy, and marrying her. This outrageous behavior prompted a coalition of Greek states to sail to Troy and lay siege to the city. The alliance was led by Agamemnon, the powerful King of Mycenae and the brother of Menelaus.
Homer launches into The Iliad with no background about the events leading up to the war and he gives no account of the nine years of fighting that precede the events of the poem. His epic covers just over seven momentous weeks and ends with the funeral of a great Trojan hero. We are not told about the conclusion of the war and many readers are surprised to learn that there is no mention of the Trojan Horse!
The modern reader approaching The Iliad with no understanding of Ancient Greece might find the plot hard to follow. But Homer’s audience would not have found the story confusing. The Iliad was made to be recited, often with music, and the audience had an intimate understanding of the gods, their personalities, and the history of the Trojan War, a conflict foundational to Greek mythology and culture.
Historians differ regarding whether the Trojan War actually took place. If it did, the war occurred twelve or thirteen centuries before the birth of Jesus Christ. When the contemporaries of Socrates and Plato heard the poem recited in the sixth century BC, The Iliad already represented “ancient history.” The Trojan War might have seemed as ancient to Socrates as the Crusades seem to us today.
The identity of Homer himself is shrouded in mystery. Some scholars believe that there was no Homer and that the poems we have today are composites of various oral traditions that evolved over many centuries. Samuel Butler, a nineteenth century scholar and the author of a prose translation of The Iliad, believed that Homer was a woman. Robin Lane Fox, the author of Homer and His Iliad, believes that there was a historical Homer who composed The Iliad in the mid-eighth century BC. Ultimately, we cannot be certain of authorship or dating. But we can be certain that The Iliad was a foundational element of culture in Greece by the sixth century BC.
When I decided to begin reading The Great Books of the Western World last year, I was not starting entirely from scratch. I was assigned Homer’s epic poems in college. I went on to read Robert Fitzgerald’s translations of The Iliad and The Odyssey again as an adult. In 2020, I read Emily Wilson’s translation of The Odyssey and found it so compelling that I gave away copies. When I read about Wilson’s translation of The Iliad, published in 2023, I made a note of it but did not intend to read it right away.
I was eager to start on books that are entirely new to me, but that was a mistake. It quickly became apparent that I lacked sufficient understanding of Greek culture and mythology to fully appreciate the works of the Greek tragedians. Edith Hamilton’s books helped a great deal and, with this remedial education, I decided to start at the beginning by reading The Iliad and The Odyssey again to make certain that I fully understand both epics and have internalized the personalities of the characters.
I devoted the majority of my reading time in March to The Iliad.
This article is not a “review” of The Iliad. Homer’s epic poems have been the subject of countless dissertations and I am not qualified to be a literary critic of ancient poetry. I have no interest in creating a summary since so many already exist.
My goal is to describe observations related to the wrath of Achilles. This is by no means a comprehensive study, just aspects of the story that I took special note of during my reading. The Iliad is a complex epic with many notable characters. Lengthy books have been written analyzing the plot. So, obviously I leave out many key details. This exercise is mostly for my own benefit since I would like to revisit my thoughts in the future when I return to Homer, as I surely will.
Following my account of the wrath of Achilles, I’ll describe the translations that I have read and present my suggestions for how someone unfamiliar with Homer might proceed. I hope this will be useful information for first time readers of The Iliad.
The Wrath of Achilles
The Iliad opens with Chryses, a priest of the god Apollo, begging Agamemnon to return his daughter, Chryseis, who was captured by the Greeks and given to Agamemnon as a slave. It was common for women to be captured during raids and given as “trophies” to warriors. Agamemnon not only rejects Chryses’ distraught pleas but treats him with extreme rudeness. Chryses prays to Apollo who punishes the Greek encampment with a plague. Calchas, a prophet in the Greek camp, eventually reveals that Agamemnon’s refusal to release Chryseis was the cause of the plague.
Agamemnon reacts with fury but Achilles promises to protect Calchas from any retribution for revealing the cause of the plague. Achilles is furious that Agamemnon continues to resist returning Chryseis. After all, Achilles had no quarrel with the Trojans and went to war to help retrieve Agamemnon’s sister-in-law from captivity. Even worse, Agamemnon has demanded that he be given another man’s trophy in exchange for giving up Chryseis which he must do to end the plague. He demands that Achilles turn over Briseis, a woman who was given to Achilles as his trophy. Of course, this sends Achilles into a fit of rage:
I did not come to Troy because I wanted to fight against the warriors of Troy. They never did me any harm at all. They never raided cows from me nor horses, nor blighted fertile fields that feed the men of Phthia, far away across so many shadowy hills, reverberating seas. I came with you, you brazen cheat, to please you! To claim back compensation from the Trojans for Menelaus and for you — you dog-face! But none of that means anything to you. You do not even care! And now you threaten to take away the trophy that I worked for, after the sons of Greece gave it to me.
Only divine intervention prevents Achilles from drawing his sword and killing Agamemnon on the spot. Agamemnon was the “commander in chief” but he was not an unquestioned supreme leader who other leading men were afraid to challenge. Greece was not a unified kingdom but a collection of small kingdoms in alliance with each other. In such a situation, rivalries are bound to arise, particularly when matters of honor are at stake. When a man is given a possession, which unfortunately was the status of enslaved women, threats to take the possession away are met with fury.
Achilles was exhibiting aspects of human psychology that are still prevalent today.
Once Briseis is taken from Achilles, he refuses to fight and nurses his fury in his camp. This takes the most important Greek warrior out of the picture with devastating consequences. As Homer tells us in his opening, Achilles’ wrath “caused the Greeks immeasurable pain and sent so many noble souls of heroes to Hades.”
Agamemnon’s duty as leader of the entire war effort took a back seat to his insatiable pride and acquisitiveness, something that he would be forced to finally acknowledge in Book 9. Agamemnon sends Odysseus, Ajax and Phoenix to offer to return Briseis, supposedly untouched by Agamemnon, along with numerous very valuable items. Achilles will have none of it and rejects the overture, only saying that he will enter the fight if the Trojans begin to burn his own ships.
When the Trojans finally reach the Greek ships, Achilles is approached by Patroclus who begs to be allowed to enter the fight. Patroclus and Achilles have a long history prior to the war and have an extremely close relationship, with Achilles clearly in the senior role. Achilles allows Patroclus to use his armor, hoping to fool the Trojans into thinking that Achilles himself has entered the battle. This has the intended effect at first. The Trojans are terrified and Patroclus pushes the enemy back, but contrary to his orders from Achilles, Patroclus pushes too far and is killed by Hector, the most formidable Trojan warrior and the brother of Paris, the man who started the conflict.
Achilles is devastated by the loss of his closest brother in arms and his anger soon turns to fury. His rage, previously directed at Agamemnon, is now directed at Hector and Achilles is out for blood. He is determined to make the Trojans pay for the death of Patroclus, to kill Hector, and have his body consumed by birds, dogs, and worms.
In Book 19, Agamemnon returns Briseis and gives Achilles all that he promised. But at this point, Achilles is so numb with grief and rage at Hector that he is ready to move on from his rage at Agamemnon which, by now, seems trifling in comparison:
Now, son of Atreus [Agamemnon], did this benefit either of us, you or me — that we were so upset, so full of rage, our hearts and minds so eaten up by conflict, over a girl? If only Artemis [a god] had killed her with an arrow by the ships, the day I sacked Lyrnessus, and seized her. Then many Greeks would not have died and taken the boundless earth between their teeth, defeated by enemies, while I was full of wrath. All this was advantageous to the Trojans and Hector. I believe the memory of conflict between you and me will last a very long time in the minds of Greeks. But that is in the past now. Let it go, despite our grief. We must suppress our feelings inside ourselves, out of necessity. I cease my anger now. It is not right for me to rage with never-ending fury.
But Achilles still rages with never-ending fury. His target has just shifted to Hector.
Going back into battle means that Achilles was destined to die. His mother, the goddess Thetis, knew that Achilles must choose to either live a long but uneventful life if he abandons the war and sails home or he will surely die in battle. Achilles does not even hesitate in making his choice. He will take a glorious and honorable death over flight. He is so furious that nothing less than Hector’s death will suffice.
Achilles goes on a rampage, killing so many Trojans that the course of the Scamander river is changed due to being clogged with so many bodies. The river god does not appreciate being filled with bodies and rises up against Achilles, nearly killing him, but Achilles manages to escape. Achilles is distracted long enough for the Trojans to retreat into their walled city, but Hector refuses to retreat. Standing outside the walls, his parents and his wife beg him to enter the city knowing that he is no match for the might of Achilles. When Hector sees Achilles approach, he loses his nerve and runs. Achilles, one of the fastest men to ever live, chases Hector around the city.
Hector is tricked by the goddess Athena into thinking that one of his brothers, Deiphobus, has come to his aid so he decides to stop running and face Achilles, but Deiphobus soon vanishes. Hector is mortally wounded by Achilles. As he dies, Hector begs to be returned to his family to receive a proper burial but Achilles refuses.
Dog, do not beg or speak of knees or parents. If only I had will and heart to do it I would carve up your flesh and eat it raw, for the abominations you have done me. No one can save your body from the dogs, not even if they bring me as a ransom ten times or twenty times the usual rate and weight it out and promise even more. Not even if Dardanian Priam promised to have you weighed and give your weight in gold. Not even so will your mother ever lay you out properly upon a bier, and mourn and grieve for you, the child she birthed. The dogs and birds will eat you up completely.
The death of Hector is not enough to satisfy Achilles.
He strips Hector’s armor, pierces the tendon behind his feet, threads leather straps through the tendons, and drags Hector behind his chariot for all of Troy to see from the tall walls. Hector’s death foreshadows the fall of Troy. Priam is devastated by the loss of his son. Hector is brought back to the Greek camp and treated dishonorably, but the gods intervene so that his body does not degrade even after many days of exposure and being dragged behind Achilles’ chariot.
After giving Patroclus a proper funeral, Achilles still has no intention of returning Hector’s body until Zeus intervenes, sending a messenger to order Achilles to release the body to Priam who travels to Achilles’ camp accompanied only by one elderly man charged with driving the wagon carrying the ransom. Priam and Achilles meet, both men are reduced to tears due to their losses, and Priam begs for his son’s body. Achilles relents and allows Priam to take Hector back to Troy and agrees to a lengthy truce to permit the Trojans to provide a proper funeral.
The Iliad concludes with Hector’s funeral but Homer’s audience was well aware of the subsequent death of Achilles, the Trojan Horse trick, the fall of Troy, and the death of Priam at the hands of Neoptolemus, Achilles’ son.
Emily Wilson characterizes Achilles’ anger as “cataclysmic wrath” and this seems very appropriate. Achilles does not have a typical anger management problem. He goes absolutely ballistic when wronged to the point where he sat out much of the action over fateful days during which countless Greek warriors died, in large part due to his absence. When Patroclus is killed, Achilles turns his rage from Agamemnon to Hector, and the rage is turned up several notches.
The code of honor among warriors of Homer’s world is not entirely alien to us today. Warriors still fight for honor and to protect their brothers in arms, and close bonds are still formed by those who fight in wars. Anger is still a constant problem in war and it is often a struggle for leaders to prevent soldiers from committing atrocities due to rage and fury. Hatred still drives human behavior. Envy of what others have, especially when it is seen to be acquired unjustly, still permeates human psychology. These emotions, when unchecked, can still lead to disaster.
Translations
Homeric scholars might disagree on many things, but I think that all of them would say that the optimal way to read The Iliad and The Odyssey is to learn Ancient Greek and read from the original. Better yet, one could take this a step further and recite these epic poems in Greek as they might have been performed thousands of years ago. For those of us unable or unwilling to go to such extreme lengths, we must rely on translations that inevitably lose some of the essence of Homer’s original composition.
I started this project with a long held belief that The Iliad is a slog full of gratuitous violence and mayhem. This was my impression when I read the poem in college and later as an adult. My recent reading ended with a much greater appreciation for the messages that Homer was trying to convey. If you’ve found The Iliad to be a boring slog, it is probably due to lack of background or a less than engaging translation.
Edith Hamilton’s book, Mythology, first published in 1942 is excellent for providing the backstory of the Greek gods. I wrote a review of the book earlier this year and kept it by my side as I read The Iliad. I often found myself referring to the book when a god was referenced. Homer’s audience would have already known about the personalities of the gods but I certainly did not have a full understanding before reading Hamilton.
Samuel Butler
Since I have the full set of Great Books of the Western World, I knew that I wanted to read the translation of The Iliad included in the set. The prose translation by Samuel Butler is not one that is commonly read today, probably because it was published in the late nineteenth century. I found it quite readable. Butler did not use archaic language and his choice of words seems intuitive to me. However, the Great Books editors only provide one page introduction and there is no glossary or end notes.
Butler uses the names of the Roman gods that correspond to the Greek gods. This can be somewhat confusing, but reading Edith Hamilton’s Mythology helped since she provides information on how the names correspond. I kept an index card with the names of the Greek and Roman gods to keep things straight in my mind. It did not take long to get used to Athena being referred to as Minerva, Hephaestus as Vulcan, Aphrodite as Venus, Zeus as Jove, Hera as Juno, etc.
In terms of the book’s physical attributes, the Great Books set uses relatively small type in a two column per page format with very limited space in the margins for making notes. This is common to all of the books in the set and a fairly significant limitation. However, the upside is that the physical book is fairly small compared to translations with a more spacious format.
A glaring omission is a complete lack of maps. I am not sure if this is a decision Butler himself made or if the editors of the Great Books set made the decision to omit maps in order to save space. I found myself referring to alternate sources for maps as I read the Butler translation. The Iliad often refers to locations that would have been familiar to an ancient audience but have no meaning to modern readers, at least those of us who are not intimately familiar with modern-day Greece and Turkey.
Emily Wilson
Emily Wilson’s new translation of The Iliad is simply outstanding in terms of the artistry evident in her rendering of the poem. The quotes presented in this article are from Wilson’s translation. She also provides the reader with a lengthy introduction, translator’s notes, end notes, a comprehensive glossary, and several maps. I found Wilson’s poetic translation superior to Butler’s prose from an aesthetic standpoint given that The Iliad was meant to be recited rather than read. Although I am not in the habit of reading books out loud, it is easy to see the effect her translation would have by simply speaking the words on a few pages.
I am no expert when it comes to poetry, but the stylistic virtues are particularly evident when one encounters sections of The Iliad that are tedious to read in prose. A great example is the catalog of ships and their leaders that appear in Book 2. This comprehensive listing is not exactly riveting reading to modern eyes since the names and places mean little to us. But for an ancient audience listening to The Iliad, the catalog was very meaningful. Wherever the poem was recited in the Greek world, those who listened identified their towns and cities among the listing and maybe they even cheered. Wilson suggests reading the catalog out loud if it seems tedious.
Robert Fitzgerald
Robert Fitzgerald’s translation of The Iliad was published in 1974. I own this book but only used it as a reference. I read this translation in 2017 along with Fitzgerald’s translation of The Odyssey. The book contains a good introduction but lacks the level of detail found in Wilson’s introduction. There is less guidance for the reader overall.
When I read the Fitzgerald translation, I did not have much of a background in Greek mythology and my impression was that it was an endless war story with blood and gore predominating the narrative. This was not Fitzgerald’s fault but due to my lack of appreciation for the poem. The next time I read The Iliad, I will probably return to the Fitzgerald translation since my impression will no doubt be different.
My Approach
I decided to read the Butler and Wilson translations concurrently. Prior to reading either translation, I read Wilson’s introduction and translator’s notes in full. I would not recommend this to someone totally new to The Iliad since Wilson reveals the plot in the introduction, but since I already knew the story I found her insights valuable. Since my last reading of The Iliad was years ago, it was a good refresher course.
My procedure was to read each book (chapter) in the Butler translation followed by the same book in the Wilson translation. While reading Wilson, I decided to flip to the end notes after every couple hundred lines. This seemed like a good compromise between keeping in the flow of the story and benefiting from Wilson’s commentary. Referring to the end notes too often would break the flow and ruin the overall experience of reading the poem. I kept her maps bookmarked and referred to them constantly. Every time a new character appeared, I would refer to the glossary. I would often refer to Edith Hamilton’s Mythology when the gods came into the picture.
I was happy with this approach and found the repetition of reading two translations valuable since I really wanted to internalize the story. I would definitely recommend Wilson over Butler for those who are looking for just one translation.
Final Thoughts
The Iliad tells the tale of heroes engaged in a brutal war, but it is much more than that. Homer had a philosophical message to convey and much to say about the fleeting nature of human life. Although his epic is set in a culture that modern people cannot fully understand, taking the time to read The Iliad slowly, with the help of Emily Wilson’s end notes, is something that I think everyone should do at least once.
For many years, I regarded The Odyssey as superior to The Iliad. This was because The Odyssey has more of a sense of forward momentum due to the fact that Odysseus travels from place to place in the narrative. It’s an entertaining adventure story.
In contrast, The Iliad takes more work on the part of the reader. The gods are present in both epics, but their actions in The Iliad seem more frequent and are of greater consequence. To understand the beauty of The Iliad requires the reader to understand the gods and mythology more broadly. The effort is definitely worthwhile.
This month, I am slowly reading The Odyssey using the same approach that I used for The Iliad. I plan to write an article with my impressions in late April or early May.
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