by Greg Johnson
The founding poems also conceal the first expression of historical thought. At the beginning of The Peloponnesian War, Thucydides refers to the Iliad to paint in broad strokes the ancient history of the Greeks, thus recognizing that Homer laid the foundations. But this merit was seldom recognized by others. Inspired by the gods and poetry, which are all the same, Homer bequeathed to us the hidden source of our tradition, the Greek expression of all the whole Indo-European heritage, Celtic, Slavic, or Scandinavian, with a clarity and formal perfection without equivalent. This is why Georges Dumézil read the whole Iliad every year.
Who was Homer? Let us set aside scholarly debates. All that matters is what the Ancients thought. For them, there was no doubt about the reality of the divine poet. Likewise, they never doubted his double paternity of the Iliad and the Odyssey.204
THE RELEVANCE & TRANSMISSION OF HOMER
The relevance of Homer was highlighted in 2007 by an exposition organized by the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BNF).205 It presented for the first time the rich collections of its Cabinet des médailles. As Patrick Morantin, the organizer of the exhibition, wrote:
. . . first we must be appreciate the fact that a work of this magnitude has survived 3,000 years. What veneration must have attended the work of the Poet, whatever the times, that this body of work survived the wars, vandalism, accidents, censors, ignorance! How many works of late Antiquity were lost while today we can read the Iliad and the Odyssey in their entirety!
And Morantin added: “The Iliad is perhaps, with the New Testament, the work which we know from the greatest number of sources.”
Plato said that Homer was “the educator of Greece.” Thus he was also ours. His works, first passed down orally, go back to the 8th century before our era. Two centuries later, three Athenian statesmen, in particular Pisistratus, established the first written edition which thus dates back to the 6th century BCE. Later, the exhibition organizers add, between the 2nd and 3rd centuries before our era:
At the Library of Alexandria, Homer was the most-studied author; he was also the first to have a true critical edition. This critical edition began with Zenodotus of Ephesus in the first half of the 3rd century BCE and culminated with Aristarchus of Samothrace in the first half of the following century. . . . Beginning in the 2nd century BCE, the text becomes uniform. The work of the Alexandrian scholars had set a standard to which everyone referred from then on.
The common source was the edition established in Athens in the 6th century BCE at the request of Pisistratus.
FROM THE MIDDLE AGES TO THE RENAISSANCE
The memory of the poems had dimmed after the end of the Western Roman Empire, without however disappearing:
Although in the medieval West the bonds with the original texts of Homer were broken, the name of the Poet never ceased being venerated, and his heroes and their adventures were not forgotten. Homer indirectly continued to nourish the imagination of the Middle Ages through the traditional Latin poets like Virgil, Ovid, Statius, the Latin summaries of the Iliad, the apocryphal books of Dares the Phrygian and Dictys of Crete, the medieval romances like the Romance of Troy [of Benoît de Sainte-Maure] and their prose adaptations . . . so that the heroes and subject of the epics were known to the educated public until the Renaissance, when the Iliad and the Odyssey were rediscovered in the original Greek.
Paradoxically, in spite of its Christianization, the Byzantine Empire:
. . . saw to the transmission of the old authors. The classical tradition was thus maintained in Byzantium where, from 425 to 1453, the schools of Constantinople remained its pillars. This is why it is unsuitable to speak about the “Renaissance” in the Eastern Roman Empire. In the West, on the other hand, the rediscovery of Homer was a striking fact for the first Italian humanists.
At the request of Petrarch, who did not read Greek, the first Latin translation of the Iliad was made in 1365–66.
The decisive event was the fall of Constantinople in 1453. Shortly before, many learned Byzantines had taken refuge in Italy. Thus in Florence in 1488 the first edition in Greek of the Iliad and the Odyssey appeared. The first French translation of the Iliad was done in 1577 by Breyer.
In an interview at the beginning of the BNF catalog, Jacqueline de Romilly stressed that the Iliad and the Odyssey reveal a high degree of civilization in the sense of refinement of manners. The historian added: “My teacher Louis Bodin, a great specialist in Thucydides, told me just before his death: ‘Now, for me, there is nothing any more but Homer.’ And it is much the same for me now; one goes back to the essential, to the completely pure.”
ALWAYS BE THE BEST
In these poems circulates the sap of eternal youth. They are the source of our literature and an important part of our imagination. At first, their prodigiously inventive style can seem a little disconcerting, with the repetitive descriptions that were used as reference marks by the ancient listeners.206 But once you get into the text, you become enchanted by it.
By composing the Iliad, Homer became the creator of the very first tragic epic, and with the Odyssey that of the very first novel. Both poems place the individuality of the characters in the center of the story, something one does not find in the tradition of any other civilization. As André Bonnard emphasized, the Iliad is a world populated by innumerable distinct characters. To bring them to life, Homer does not describe them. It is enough for him to lend them a gesture or a word. Hundreds of warriors die in the Iliad, but with a specific trait, the Poet gives them a singular life at the instant of death: “And Diores fell into dust, on his back, his arms reaching out towards his comrades” (Book IV, 565). Just one gesture, and today we are touched by this unknown Diores and his love of life.
Death comes to the Trojan Harpalion, a brave man who cannot control a movement of horror: “Turning back, he rejoined the group of his comrades, looking around, so that bronze might not strike his flesh.” He fell back in the arms of his companions and, on the ground, his body expressed its outrage while twisting “like a worm” (Book XIII, 654).
Almost all the characters of the Iliad, except women, children, and old men, are warriors. The majority are brave, but not in the same way. The bravery of Ajax, son of Telamon, first of the Greeks after Achilles in his impressive stature, strength, and cool, flinty, awe-inspiring bravery:
He went forth like great Ares [the god of war], when he goes into battle. . . . So the great Ajax, rampart of the Achaeans, charged forth, a smile on his savage face. And his feet took great strides, as he held high a spear whose shadow grew. At this sight, the Argives [Achaeans] were in great joy. A terrible shudder shook every Trojan’s limbs, and even Hector’s heart pounded in his chest. . . . Ajax approached like a tower . . . (Book VII, 208–19)
A single combat, a duel, followed, full of fire, between Ajax and Hector who, after many assaults, was wounded in the neck. “The spear made black blood ooze.” As the night fell, the heralds intervened to separate the two combatants. Homer shows us the point where combat answers to chivalrous rules. The two adversaries agree to suspend the fight until the following day, each returning to his camp, even exchanging their weapons (Book VII, 303–5). However stubborn, Ajax agrees, feeling that he has triumphed in this duel.
Different is the bravery of the young Diomedes. He has the ardor and dash of youth. He is the youngest of the heroes of the Iliad after Achilles. He is never tired. After a hard day of combat, he still volunteered for a perilous night expedition to the Trojan camp, in the company of Ulysses, a warrior as brave as he is crafty and circumspect.
Diomedes is also one of the chivalrous characters in the Poem. One day, ferociously fighting a Trojan, at the moment of striking with his lance, he suddenly learns he is Glaucos, son of a patron and friend of his father:
Then brave Diomedes was seized with joy, and, planting his lance in the nourishing earth, he addressed his noble adversary these words full of friendship: “In truth, you are a patron of my father’s house, and our bonds are very old
. . . . By your father and mine, let us be from now on be friends.” Thus spoke Diomedes . . . .
Upon this, the two warriors jumped from their chariots, clasped hands, and agreed to be friends (Book VI, 229).
Homer honors rooted individuality, not “individualism,” which is its perversion. With the respect of the adversary, in spite of implacable combat, they are bases of our tradition. One finds traces of this in the modern Iliad, Ernst Jünger’s In Storms of Steel. These living roots dominate the whole European psyche: tragedy and philosophy. They are engraved into art beginning with Greek sculpture; they sustain law and political institutions.
Homer does not conceptualize, as philosophers later did. He makes visible; he shows living examples, teaching the qualities that make a man a “kalos k’agathos,” noble and accomplished. “Always be the best,” Peleus told his son Achilles, “better than the rest” (Iliad, Book VI, 208). To be noble and brave for a man, to be gentle, loving, and faithful for a woman. The Poet bequeathed a digest of what Greece offered thereafter to posterity: nature as model, the striving towards beauty, the creative force that strives always to surpass, excellence as the ideal of life.
THE ILIAD, POEM OF DESTINY
The Iliad is not just a poem about the Trojan War, it is a poem about destiny as perceived by our Borean ancestors, whether they are Greek, Celtic, German, Slavic, or Latin.207 The Poet tells of nobility in the face of the plague of war. He tells of the courage of heroes who kill and die. He tells of the sacrifice of defenders of their fatherland, the sorrow of the women, the farewell of a father to his son going forth, the despondency of the old men. He tells of many more things still: the ambition of the leaders, their vanity, their quarrels. He tells also of their bravery and cowardice, their friendship, their love and tenderness. He tells of the thirst for glory that raises men to the level of gods. This poem where death reigns tells of the love of life and of honor placed higher than life, to which they were devoted even more than the gods.
In 16,000 verses in 24 books, the Poet reports a brief episode at the end of the ten year siege of Troy, probably in the 13th century BCE. Troy, also called Illion (hence Iliad) was a powerful fortified city built at the entrance to the Dardanelles on the Asiatic side of the Hellespont, the enduring frontier between West and East. Like modern historians, the ancients Herodotus and Thucydides, did not doubt the reality of the events that provided the framework of the Iliad. The Trojans were Boreans (Europeans), the same race as their Greek adversaries, the Achaeans “with the blonde hair,” also called Argives (originating in the Argolide) or Danaens (descendants of the mythical Danaos). Despite this small difference, the Trojans are associated with Asia, and not only for geographical reasons. Their army contained contingents of barbarians (foreigners to the Greek world), which was confirmed by archaeological discoveries in the 20th century of their relations with the very diverse Hittite empire.
According to tradition, the conflict had a mythic origin: the intervention of the gods who divided themselves between the two camps. Out of vengeance, Aphrodite (Venus for the Latins) gave Paris, the young prince of Troy, son of the aged King Priam, the power to carry off Helen, the most beautiful of women, already married to “blonde haired” Menelaus, an Achaean, the king of Sparta. The abduction of a royal spouse by a foreigner was a crime that shocked all the Achaeans. At their wedding, all the lords of Greece had sworn to respect the union of Menelaus and the terribly tempting Helen. Thus an army assembled in Aulis with its fast vessels, like the Viking ships to come, and departed towards the Asian shores of the Troad. They went to punish Troy and bring back Helen. Thus the war began: “The whole earth, far and wide, flashed with the gleam of bronze . . .”
THE ANGER & REMORSE OF ACHILLES
After ten years of a very long siege, along with raids in the area, a quarrel opposed Agamemnon, chief of the Achaean coalition, and Achilles, the most famous hero of his camp. Abusing his power, Agamemnon seizes Briseis “with the lovely cheeks,” the young captive loved by Achilles. Such is the pretext and the beginning of the poem: “Sing, goddess, of Achilles’ disastrous anger . . .” This goddess who sings the epic is the Muse, whose interpreter is the Poet, which underlines his bonds with the divine world.
In the grip of righteous indignation, after having copiously insulted Agamemnon, Achilles decided to abandon the battle and “retire to his tent” (a much imitated phrase) as did his followers (the Myrmidons).
This anger of Achilles, principal hero of the Iliad along with the Trojan Hector, is the pivot of the poem. His withdrawal with his men had the gravest consequences for the Achaeans. Victory is abandoned. In the plain, under the walls of Troy, they will suffer three increasingly disastrous defeats. The attackers are put on the defensive. They must even build a fortified camp around their ships. This retrenchment was then attacked by the Trojans, led by Hector, the most famous son of Priam. The enemy managed to set fire to the Greeks’ vessels and push them to the sea.
Throughout these hard battles, which fill the poem with carnage and exploits, the absence of Achilles is nothing but a sign declaring his force and power. The bravest of the Achaean chiefs—the massive Ajax, the impetuous Diomedes, the skillful Ulysses—vainly try to replace him.
One night of black tragedy, between two disasters, while Achilles, in his tent, putrefies in the inactivity to which he has condemned himself, he sees the approach of an embassy led by the two great leaders of the army, Ajax and Ulysses. With them is the aged Phoenix, who tries to make him hear the voice of his father. In the face of the danger, Agamemnon repented. He returned Briseis and offered sumptuous gifts in reparation. The embassy fails. Achilles, wallowing in resentment, put himself at fault in his turn (Book IX).
The following day, the Trojans forced the defenses of the Greeks. Hector set fire to a ship. At the other end of the camp, Achilles saw the rising flames. In spite of his obstinacy, he could not remain deaf to the pleas of his friend Patroclus, his other self. He sent his troops into battle, dressing Patroclus in his own armor. This counterattack drives back the Trojans. But Patroclus is killed by Hector. Achilles’ grief is terrifying. But it brings him back to life, unleashing a fury and rage of vengeance against Hector, the killer of Patroclus.
Thus there is a complete reversal of the dramatic action that had been frozen by the withdrawal of Achilles. Maddened by pain, the Achaean hero returned to combat: “Like a vast fire, raging through the deep valleys of dry mountains, burning the forest, driven in all directions by the whirling wind, Achilles leaped in all directions. He went forth, like the night . . .” (Book XVIII). After a fierce duel, he killed Hector, then stripped his body and dragged it though the dust behind his chariot.
ACHILLES & HELEN AGAINST DESTINY
For Achilles, to the pain of the death of his friend was added the certainty of his own fate. An old prophecy warned that he would be killed as soon as he took Hector’s life. Achilles always knew it. Unlike the other heroes killed in battle, he knew his destiny in advance and chose it. He does not submit to fate in Oriental fashion, he faces it. As a young man, he was offered the choice of a long and peaceful life far from strife, or an intense life cut short in the flash of battle. He chose the latter, bequeathing to the men of the future a model of tragic grandeur. Free of illusions, he knew that he will not have another life: “A man’s life,” he says in Book IX, “does not come again; one can never grasp or seize it again once it has escaped one’s clenched teeth . . .” It is a thought that speaks to us today.
Compared to the sacred texts of other peoples and cultures, the freedom and sovereignty of the heroes of Homer are unique. Admittedly, the gods intervene in the Iliad, at fortunate and unfortunate times, but without really canceling the autonomy of men. Their many interventions do nothing but precipitate what would have happened anyway. And it really seems that Homer does not take them completely seriously (except perhaps Athena), which scandalized Plato’s stilted and moralistic sensibility. In reality, the gods of Homer are allegories of the f
orces of nature and life.
The last book of the Iliad is a drama of reversal: when the aged Priam comes to beseech the return of the body of Hector, his son, one sees Achilles allowing himself to become more and more susceptible to compassion. Transformed by his own suffering, the hero appears more complex than his wild violence suggested.
There are more than heroes and warriors in the Iliad. There are also women (Helen, Hecuba, and Andromache), children (Astyanax), old men (Priam). There are more than just brave men. There is Paris, whose strange love of Helen is the origin of the Trojan War. Carrying out the will of Aphrodite, he was the seducer and the kidnapper of Helen. Unintentional author of the war, he also brings it to a close by killing Achilles with a treacherous arrow, an episode that the Poem does not report, which is suggested only by the prophecy formulated by Hector at the moment he dies (Book XXII, 359–60).
Paris, the often cowardly and conceited fop, is the opposite of his brother Hector, who scorns him. Hector is the pure hero, the guardian of Troy, whereas Paris is the “plague of his fatherland.” Helen, the woman he seduced and abducted, scorns him and does not fear to rebuke him: “You have returned from battle! You should have died out there, under the blows of the strong warrior who was my first husband!” (Book III, 450–55). She detests him, but, by the will of Aphrodite, she is controlled by his sexual magnetism. Once again, Homer does not explain, he tells, and what he says is full of complex truth.
Helen is the opposite of Paris. She is moral, her lover amoral. She revolts against the physical submission to him imposed by Aphrodite. Her nature was made for order. She always regrets leaving her old life: “I left my bridal room, my close relations, my cherished daughter. . . . I languished in tears.” Nothing predisposed her to take the role of adulteress, instrument of the ruin of two peoples. Nothing, except the intervention of the gods, in other words, fate.
