The Iliad of Homer

by Richmond Lattimore

  Several scenarios have been suggested to explain why and by whom Troy might have been destroyed in the twelfth century BC. At this time, a general disruption and movement of populations occurred around the Aegean, with numbers of settlements falling into disuse. Natural disasters, crop failures, or pressure from groups in the hinterland may have been the root causes. Egyptian inscriptions of the era refer to problems with marauding “Sea Peoples,” possibly coming from the east. Perhaps these mysterious bands carried out attacks that were later attributed to Greeks who ended up settling the coast near Troy. On the other hand, it is not unlikely that Greek warriors themselves were involved in widespread raids during this time of general collapse. What has become clear only in the last century is the extent to which Greek civilization, in the form of a highly bureaucratized, palace-centered culture, had already spread its influence by the era of Troy’s fall. Once again, Schliemann can be credited with a major role in bringing this early Greek culture to light. Temporarily blocked by Ottoman authorities after his first season at Hisarlik, he turned to other sites. In August 1876, Schliemann began excavations at the ancient citadel of Mykenai, discovering in a short time shaft graves rich in ancient artifacts, including gold burial masks. His dating of the tombs, which he believed were the resting places of Agamemnon and Klytaimestra, was again too early by several centuries. But this find, together with subsequent discoveries, proved that a network of palace centers existed from around 1600 BC until around 1100 BC, when the Bronze Age in the Mediterranean came to an end. The civilization shared by these sites was given the name “Mykenaian.”

  Scholars soon recognized that the centers of this newly emerging archaic culture matched, to a remarkable extent, the fabled sites celebrated in Greek myths, some of which had no longer been inhabited in historical times. Thebes, Athens, Orchomenos, Tiryns, Sparta, and Pylos arose as Mykenaian powers; they also were the subject of rich storytelling traditions about the age of heroes from a generation or two before the Trojan War. The circumstantial evidence that the Mykenaians were, in fact, Greeks, took longer to verify. Arthur Evans, a British archaeologist, in 1900 uncovered a vast palace complex at Knossos, Crete, predating Mykenaian remains on the mainland, and characterized by signs of high civilization—masterpieces of wall painting, elaborately carved gemstones, precious vessels, imports from Egypt, statuettes, and ritual artifacts. He dubbed this newly found culture “Minoan,” after the mythical King Minos, who was said to have ruled the vicinity at the time of the hero Theseus. Evans also found thousands of clay tablets bearing inscriptions in an unknown, picture-based writing system. Carl Blegen, who had moved on from Troy to excavate the western Greek site of Pylos in 1939, discovered a similar trove of six hundred tablets there—at a Mykenaian palace site. Yet more emerged from Thebes and western Crete. Whether by sudden invasion or gradual infiltration (perhaps after the weakening effects of earthquakes and tsunamis), Mykenaians, it became clear, had taken over former Minoan palaces in Crete. In 1952, their so-called Linear B tablets, dating from 1300 to 1200 BC, were deciphered by the English architect and self-taught cryptologist Michael Ventris (1922–1956). The language proved to be Greek; the texts were official accounts concerning personnel and supplies in the palace economy.

  In short, the discoveries of a few generations showed that something like the war depicted in the Iliad could well have taken place, at the site of Hisarlik, with allies of the Hittite empire unsuccessfully sustaining a siege by Mykenaian Greeks. The relative time frame remains unclear, especially when it comes to causes and effects. Were the conquerors of Troy refugees from a catastrophic collapse of the Mykenaian palace system in mainland Greece, desperate to get the riches of the city that guarded the route to the Black Sea? Or did an extended siege like that in the epic bring about the downfall of major Mykenaian centers by draining resources and sapping manpower? Further enigmas await the discovery of new evidence. Were a series of small-scale attacks over decades compressed by later popular imagination into a “Trojan War”? What is the relation between the attacks on the coast of Asia Minor and later Greek colonization of the area? And how does the fall of the Hittite empire based at Hattusa—also around the pivotal year 1200 BC—fit into the entire puzzle? It is possible that the next several decades will bring clarification of at least some of these mysteries.

  THE SAGA OF TROY

  Whatever its connections to actual historical events, the Iliad as we have it is far from containing the whole story of the Trojan War. The poem sometimes alludes to episodes from the beginning of the conflict, but in a brief and indirect fashion, often within the speeches by individual characters, like the recollections of Odysseus in 2.299–332. There are no extended flashbacks in the poet’s own voice. In order to reconstruct the entire series of relevant events, we must go back to the origins of the world, according to Greek myth. We can piece together the story from such sources as the Theogony of Hesiod (roughly contemporary with the rise of Homeric poetry in the eighth century BC) and the so-called Cyclic epics of the seventh and sixth centuries BC (filling out the Trojan War narrative “cycle”) of which only random citations and a few plot summaries from later sources now survive. As an audience for Homeric epic most likely had these details in mind, it is worthwhile reviewing them.

  Gaia, the Earth, was one of the first creatures. She saw to it that her abusive husband, Ouranos (“sky”) was overthrown by their son Kronos, who was in turn displaced by her favorite grandson, Zeus. With the aid and advice of his grandmother, the young god Zeus gained the kingship, overcoming the older divinities in pitched battles, and by swallowing a dangerous wife, Mêtis (“cunning intelligence”), came to ensure that his own reign would never be overthrown. Instead of producing a son stronger than her spouse, as had been predicted, Mêtis (now inside her husband) bore Athene, who sprang full-grown from the Zeus’ head. Since Zeus owed Gaia a debt for her support, when she eventually complained of the increasingly heavy burden of human life on her land surface, he allowed a massive war to decrease world population. Thus the conditions for the Trojan War were put in place by political maneuverings early in cosmic history.

  The more immediate cause arose from another unusual marriage involving divinity. The ever-amorous Zeus desired a sea nymph Thetis, but the same fear—that the off spring of a powerful goddess might oust him from his rule—led him instead to marry her off to an unsuspecting mortal, Peleus, allegedly to reward the hero’s pious behavior in resisting the adulterous advances of a mortal queen. It was at the wedding of Peleus and Thetis that Discord (Eris), who had not been invited, tossed the famous apple inscribed kallistêi—“to the fairest.” Three goddesses—Hera, Athene, and Aphrodite—each claimed to match that description. Zeus chose a Trojan youth named Paris to decide the contest. He favored Aphrodite’s promise of pleasure (after rejecting the lure of wisdom or power offered by the others) and received, as his reward, the ability to seduce the world’s fairest woman, Helen—inconveniently married at that time to Menelaos, a powerful king in Greece. The Iliad refers to this scenario only once (24.25–30). As with so many other background details, this tale was undoubtedly known already to the hearers of the epic. It was told in one of the many poems or sagas now lost.

  Helen’s unusual birth foretold a remarkable career. Her father was Zeus, who visited her mother Leda (already married) in the form of a swan, the result of their union taking the form of two eggs. From one came Helen and her sister Klytaimestra, from the other her brothers Castor and Pollux (the “sons of Zeus” or Dioscuri whom she seeks in vain to catch sight of at 3.236–44). By the time Helen was of marriageable age, she had suitors from every part of Greece. Menelaos, the son of Atreus, was chosen to be her husband. His brother Agamemnon married Klytaimestra. As if foreseeing eventual trouble, the unsuccessful suitors of Helen swore an oath to retrieve her if the need ever arose. Odysseus, the suitor who had suggested this harmonious solution, was in return rewarded by Helen’s (nominal) father, the mortal Tyndareus, king of Sparta, who persuad
ed his niece Penelope to marry the Ithacan hero. It is not unlikely that we are meant to recall this family bond when, in the Iliad, Odysseus repeatedly takes the side of the sons of Atreus and does their will.

  From the Iliad, we get glimpses of a world in which the elite members of different cultures around the Mediterranean maintain friendly relations, exchanging gifts and visits. Hosted by Menelaos in Sparta as a guest-friend, Paris first caught sight of the woman promised for his judgment. Armed with Aphrodite’s seductive wiles, he persuaded Helen to elope with him to Troy, taking with her much of her husband’s wealth and leaving behind a nine-year-old daughter, Hermione. The oath of the suitors thus was put into effect and, after a failed diplomatic mission to Troy, Greek troops mustered to take vengeance and recover the errant wife. Complications immediately arose. Before leaving for Troy, the Greeks convened at Aulis, the main port for the city of Thebes in eastern Boeotia. An ominous sign occurs at their communal sacrifice: a snake emerges near the altar and devours eight sparrows along with their mother. Kalchas, the official seer of the expedition, interprets this to mean that it will take nine years of siege at Troy before the city can be taken in the tenth. (The seer’s prophecy is recalled by Odysseus at 2.299–332 as he tries to rally the weary Greeks.)

  The attempt as described above ends in confusion and failure. The Greeks cross the Aegean but mistakenly land at Mysia, a region south of Troy, and sack the chief city there, thinking it to be their goal. Telephos, a Greek-born son of Herakles, while defending his adopted Mysian city is wounded by Achilleus. The Greeks retreat, yet still fail to reach Troy because a storm scatters their ships. Some versions have Achilleus land on the island of Skyros at this stage, where he weds the royal princess Deidameia, later to bear him a son, Neoptolemos. Others place the meeting earlier, saying that Thetis, his mother, hid the young hero, disguised as a girl, in the royal court on Skyros so that he would not have to go to war. In this latter version, it is Odysseus on a recruiting mission who tricks Achilleus into giving himself away. Pretending the island is under attack, he sounds a trumpet and the young man, eager for martial glory, leaps to arms. Ironically, Odysseus himself had been tricked into going to the war from his home island: an earlier recruiting party had placed his infant son Telemachos in front of the plow driven erratically by Odysseus while he feigned madness. It was clear he was sane when he swerved aside. Odysseus later took his revenge by framing Palamedes, the Greek recruiter who detected his charade, prompting the warrior’s execution for treason.

  With the troops gathered again in Aulis to ready their second attempt on Troy, Telephos visits Achilleus to be cured (which can be done only using the weapon that earlier wounded him) and stays in order to guide the Greek ships back to the right location. Another ominous sacrifice takes place. Artemis sends contrary winds against the fleet in punishment for Agamemnon’s killing of a sacred stag. Kalchas reveals that Agamemnon must offer up his own daughter, Iphigeneia, to enable the expedition to depart. On the pretense that she is to be engaged to Achilleus, the girl is lured to Troy and killed (or, in some versions, miraculously spirited off by Artemis at the moment of the sacrifice, with a stag left in her place). The Iliad refrains from ever mentioning this episode—perhaps to characterize Agamemnon more sympathetically—but versions of the sacrificial scene became famous in the fifth-century dramas of Aeschylus (Agamemnon) and Euripides (Iphigeneia at Aulis).

  Even before establishing a beachhead, the Greeks lose two important leaders: Philoktetes, abandoned with a festering snakebite on Lemnos (cf. 2.716–25), and Protesilaos, struck down by Hektor as the Greek troops storm ashore (cf. 2.698–702). Once landed, they first aim for a peaceful solution, sending another diplomatic embassy to the city to ask for Helen’s return, but it comes back to camp empty-handed. The Greeks settle in for a long siege. The failure to take Troy for nine years, as the Iliad depicts it, stems less from poor strategy than from the natural advantage of the defenders: the citadel is well fortified and allied cities from all over the Troad and beyond have sent troops to swell the number of fighters. Luring the Trojan heroes from their stronghold is the only way to gain the upper hand. Meanwhile, the Greeks engage in attacks on smaller cities along the coast in an effort to cut off Troy’s lines of supply. Achilleus himself boasts of leading twenty-three such raids (9.328–29). Chryseis, the priest’s daughter whose ransoming sparks the Iliad’s central quarrel, was acquired as a captive in one of these forays (1.366–69), the same one that killed the father and brothers of Andromache, Hektor’s wife, in Thebes (6.414–28), while Achilleus gained his own war bride Briseis in yet another, at Lyrnessos (2.688–93).

  As noted already, the events narrated in the Iliad occupy only a few weeks in the tenth and final year of the siege of Troy. Part of the remarkable artistry of the poem is the way in which it manages to allude to many previous and subsequent events in the war, while keeping a sharp dramatic focus on the main storyline, which is as much about an internal struggle in the Greek ranks as it is about the external enemy. We need only mention the major plot elements here, noting the tight handling of the time frame, as each reader will best experience the power of the Iliad by plunging directly into Lattimore’s rendition and reading, as far as possible, straight through the poem. A more detailed analysis of the craft of the narrative is in the “Style” section below.

  The Iliad derives much of its force from a simple, lucid structure—cause, effect, solution—with each of these three narrative movements generated by crucial human decisions. The epic opens dramatically when Achilleus, on the tenth day of a ruinous plague sent by Apollo, publicly asks Kalchas to name its cause. The seer blames Agamemnon’s impious rejection of the aged priest Chryses, who had ventured to the Greek camp to plead for the return of his captive daughter (Chryseis). Agamemnon reluctantly gives back the girl, but is provoked by Achilleus’ criticism into taking in turn for himself Briseis, that hero’s concubine. Insulted at this loss of status, Achilleus withdraws from the battle. Meanwhile, he begs his divine mother Thetis to pressure Zeus to favor the Trojans temporarily, thus punishing the Greeks who he thinks dishonor him.

  Destruction ensues. In the absence of their best fighter, the Greeks agree to a truce, long enough to stage a duel between the aggrieved parties, Menelaos and Paris (also called Alexandros), the Trojan who eloped with Helen. The duel is inconclusive (Paris having been spirited off the field), the truce is broken, and battle rages, with the gods taking an increasingly interventionist role. Another duel, between Aias and Hektor, ends in a draw, and a daylong cessation of conflict allows both sides to bury their dead. The Greeks use the time to construct a defensive wall. In view of mounting losses, Agamemnon is forced to send an embassy, promising Achilleus extensive gifts if only he will return to the fight. He refuses. In the worsening situation, the main leaders of the Greeks are wounded and Hektor leads his Trojans to breach the Greek wall. Meddling by various gods turns the fight into a tug-of-war. Patroklos, the closest companion of Achilleus, enters the battle in his younger friend’s armor, kills Sarpedon, a son of Zeus, and is in turn felled by Hektor (with the assistance of Apollo). Only this catastrophe rouses Achilleus, who rejoins the battle with new, divinely made armor. After a climactic battle in which the gods take sides in the general destruction, Achilleus (with aid from Athene) slays Hektor. But rather than giving back the corpse to the Trojans, in his continuing rage over the loss of Patroklos he drags it each day around the city, bound by the feet to his chariot. The poem concludes with a mirror image of its beginning: an old man (Priam) ventures to the camp of his enemy in order to ransom his child, but—unlike the priest Chryses—is pitied and given what he wants: the body of Hektor for burial. The Iliad ends with Hektor’s funeral back in Troy.

  The solution of the conflict between Agamemnon and Achilleus, with Achilleus’ final acknowledgment of his foe’s humanity, leads to the conclusion of the Iliad but not the war. The poem foreshadows the imminent death of Achilleus in several passages. The hero is aware that he is
destined to die young if he fights at Troy (9.410–16). One of his horses, temporarily given voice, warns that Achilleus’ doom is near (19.407–10). And Hektor, on the point of dying, foretells that his slayer will be slain by Paris and Apollo at the gates of the city (22.358–60). Alongside these explicit testimonies, the demise of Achilleus’ stand-in, Patroklos, provides an extended foreshadowing of the grief to come. It is not accidental that the name Akhilleus is most plausibly etymologized as “grief [akhos] for the fighters [laos].”

  A few episodes of the overall saga intervene between the death of Hektor, narrated in the Iliad, and that of Achilleus (not told in the poem). The Amazon Penthesileia, the daughter of the war god Ares, newly arrived to help the Trojans, is slain by Achilleus. Another ally from the east, Memnon the son of the goddess Dawn, meets the same fate (but is immortalized, thanks to his mother’s entreaties). Achilleus is killed on the point of entering Troy, and Aias carries his body back to the Greek camp for burning, but Thetis snatches the body from the pyre and takes her son to a place called the White Island—whether he, too, is immortalized in the post-Iliad tradition is unclear. The reminiscence of Achilleus’ funeral in the Odyssey (24.35–94) presents a different story: Achilleus is cremated, his bones are placed in a golden urn with those of Patroklos, and the vessel is entombed under a prominent mound.

  Odysseus, in competition with Aias to inherit the arms of the fallen hero, manages to pervert justice, and Aias, insane with anger, kills the herds of the Greeks and then himself. Learning that only the bow of Philoktetes can take Troy, Odysseus (or in some versions his friend Diomedes) brings the long-abandoned hero back from Lemnos: it is he who kills Paris. Odysseus also brings Neoptolemos, the son of Achilleus, from Skyros to Troy. The stage is set for the final conquest. By Athene’s instruction (or a plan of Odysseus), the Greeks build a towering, hollow wooden horse and fill it with their chosen warriors, while the rest of the troops pretend to sail away in defeat. Brought into the city as a dedication to the gods amid joyous revels, the horse enables the Greeks to infiltrate the citadel of Troy. While the fleet returns from its off shore hiding place, the leading fighters eliminate the Trojan elite. Neoptolemos kills Priam at the very altar of Zeus; Menelaos retrieves Helen; the “lesser” Aias (son of Oïleus) rapes Cassandra, the Trojan priestess, tearing her away from Athene’s altar while she clutches a talismanic statue of the goddess. The Greeks burn the city and sacrifice Polyxena, a daughter of Priam, at the tomb of Achilleus, as if in compensation for all his grief. The family of Hektor is treated brutally: Odysseus (or Neoptolemos) flings the young Astyanax to death from the city walls, and Neoptolemos claims as his war prize the boy’s mother, Andromache. Knowing about this ending deepens the emotional experience of the Iliad’s depiction of Hektor’s last moments with his wife and child (6.390–502).