Homer’s “Iliad” followed by “The Odyssey” are believed to be the first works of European literature, and many would say, the greatest.
Both are supposed to have been written sometime around the 7th century BCE and still to this day, generations after generations, we still feel passionate about these great heroes and warriors.
The Iliad tells part of the saga of the city of Troy and the war that took place there in the 13th century BCE, in the far away Bronze-age.
The Iliad takes its name from “Ilios”, an ancient Greek word for “Troy”, situated in what is Turkey today. The Epic is composed as one continuous poem, divided into 24 books corresponding to the 24 letters of the Greek alphabet. It is massive literary work with a total of 15 000 lines of verse
The Trojan War has a central place in Greek mythology because of all the meddling of the different gods and goddesses who each tried to help their champions and to win victory.
Mount Olympus must have been at that time a tense place because of the deep divisions between the gods themselves. Hera, Athena and Poseidon sided with the Achaeans ( the Greeks) while Aphrodite, Apollo and Artemis took the Trojan side. Zeus tried to be neutral.
The epic poem The Iliad focuses only on a few weeks in the final year of the decade-long war. It refers to the earlier events such as the reasons for the war, the crossing….Then the epic narrative mentions prophecies such as Achilles’ imminent death and the fall of Troy. But the narrative ends before these events take place.
“The Iliad “ begins with Achilles’ withdrawal from the raging battle after being dishonoured by Agamemnon taking a captive woman away from him.
This act of authority from the commander of the Achaean forces revolted so profoundly Achilles that he even begged his mother, the goddess to help the Trojan win the war.
And the battle under the influence of Zeus did turned in favour of the Trojans, the Greek warriors felt that the gods were letting them down because Agamemnon has angered Achilles.
Agamemnon weeped and declared the war a failure. He proposed to return to Greece in disgrace
The wise Nestor demanded to Agamemnon to reconcile with Achilles, the most popular hero for all the Achaeans, the one who was celebrated as “the one dear to Zeus « .
Agamemnon, understanding the seriousness of the situation and the possibility of the departure of most of the warlords accepted to compromise and to reconcile with Achilles.
Who to send for the peace negotiations with Achilles but the cunning Odysseus ? Still, Agamemnon who was unsure about the loyalty of Odysseus, let him go with two other kings : Ajax and Phoenix.
They found Achilles playing the lyre in his tent with his dear friend Patroclus while his army is getting ready to leave.
Achilles, still resenting the sting of Agamemnon’s insult refused categorically the offer of Agamemnon to give him back the captive lady Briseis and to join the Achaean armies.
Achilles, refusing the peace offering of Agamemnon despite the warnings of his friend Patroclus, proclaimed his intention to return to his homeland of Phthia, where he could live a long, prosaic life instead of the short, glorious one that he was fated to live if he stayed.
The Greek envoys returned unsuccessful, and the whole army again sank into despair, conscious that without Achilles, they were doomed to failure or death.
The Trojans, led by the chivalrous Hector, the eldest son of the king of Troy, Priam , decided to push the Achaean armies back to the sea. They started destroying the Greek ships leaving no other option to their ennemies than their total destruction.
The situation was absolutely tragic for the Greeks.
Patroclus, desperate to avoid the collapse of the Greek armies and unable to convince Achilles to change his mind, tried to save the situation by wearing Achilles ‘armour and leading Achilles soldiers.
At first he succeeded to push back the Trojans. But Patroclus was killed by Hector in the battlefield. And this time it was the perfect leader Hector who was blinded by Hubris : he disrespected the dead body of his enemy by taking the armour of Achilles that Patroclus had been wearing.
« Sing, O Goddess, The Anger of Achilles «
Achilles was at first devastated by the death of his « twin brother « , then he became infuriated by the death of his dearest friend,. Thetis, his adoring mother, tried to comfort him but understanding that Achilles would not listen to anyone , she asked Hephaistos to make a new armour for him, trying her best to protect him. She forecasted that her beloved son was going to fight with death, with Thanatos himself.
Back to the battlefield, Achilles alone in his fury to find Hector and to avenge Patroclus decimated so many Trojans to the point that the river god Scamander became outraged with the amount of blood polluting his river. The excesses have to be punished.
But Scamander was stopped by Hera and Hephaestus. Zeus himself sent the gods to stop Achilles so that he would not change the fate decided by the gods and would not destroy Troy by his own hands alone before the time decided by the gods.
Achilles finally found Hector who could only but run away as there was no human way to stop the fury of Achilles. The pursuit went round the fortifications of Troy for 3 times until Athena tricked Hector under the disguise of his favourite brother Deiphobus who asked him to face Achilles.
But no one, no mortal and perhaps no god could stop Achilles. The god Apollo tried to protect the valorous Hector by hiding him with fog. Nothing could stop Achilles .
He quickly killed Hector. And even worse for the Trojans, Achilles disrespected their most respected champion by dragging his body behind his charriot around the mourning walled city .
There was no worse fate or worse death for the Ancient Greeks.
Hector ‘s father, Priam, the grieving king of Troy, helped by the god Hermes, came to Achilles to beg him to return to him the corpse of his beloved son so he could buried him decently.
«I have gone through what no other mortal on earth has gone through. I put my lips to the hands of the man who has killed my children”.
Seeing the tears of Priam, feeling his sorrow, Achilles could relate to same grief. He accepted a ten days of truce so that the Trojans could buried Hector while the Achaean and himself could bury Patroclus.
The Iliad ends there with a description of Hector’s funeral, with the doom of Troy and the prediction of the death of Achilles, the perfect Greek hero.
Not included in The Iliad :
The Tragic Death of Achilles
As predicted by Hector in his last breath, the hero’s death was brought about by Paris, the the naive and arrogant prince that started the whole conflict.
Paris shot an arrow straight into the only point of vulnerability of the Semi god : his heel. The arrow of Paris is guided by the god Apollo, who has taken side for the Trojans.
The heel of Achilles with which his mother hold him when she plunged him into the Styx river to make him immortal, except of course for the heel that was not dipped
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The expression « Achilles’ heel » comes from the Greek mythology and depicts a point of weakness which can bring the doom of someone otherwise powerful.
« The Achilles’ tendon » is as well named after the semi-god.