The Iliad
Also known as: Iliad, Homer's Iliad, Iliás
An epic of wrath and war set in the final year of the Trojan conflict, focusing on Achilles’ quarrel with Agamemnon, the cost of honor, and the fragile balance of human fate under the gods.
Description
Set during a brief span in the tenth year of the Trojan War, the poem opens with a plague and the rupture between Achilles and Agamemnon, which withdraws the greatest Greek warrior from battle. The narrative tracks shifting fortunes: embassies, duels, aristeiai, divine interventions, and the tragic escalation that follows Patroclus’s death. Central are themes of honor, mortality, and pity—culminating in Achilles’ slaying of Hector and, finally, the ransom scene where Priam moves Achilles to compassion. While bounded in time, the poem gestures to a wider mythic cosmos and the war’s larger arc through catalogues, prophecies, and embedded stories.
Historiography
The Iliad stands at the core of the Homeric Question: the scale and artistry suggest a master poet within a long oral tradition using formulaic diction and type-scenes. Textual transmission is anchored by Hellenistic scholarship—Zenodotus, Aristophanes of Byzantium, and Aristarchus—whose editions and signs shaped later readings. The earliest complete medieval manuscripts include the 10th-century Venetus A, preserving rich scholia derived from ancient commentaries. Numerous papyrus fragments attest to an active performance and reading culture in antiquity; Renaissance printing and modern critical editions stabilized the text used by contemporary translators.
Date Notes
Product of an oral-formulaic tradition likely crystallized in Ionia; textual fixation associated with early alphabetic recording and later Alexandrian editorial work.
Major Characters
- Achilles
- Agamemnon
- Hector
- Patroclus
- Odysseus
- Priam
- Helen
- Menelaus
- Ajax
- Zeus
- Athena
- Apollo
Myths
- The Wrath of Achilles
- The Duel of Paris and Menelaus
- The Embassy to Achilles
- Patroclus’s Aristeia and Death
- The Slaying of Hector
- The Ransom of Hector by Priam
Facts
- The narrative spans only a few weeks in the war’s tenth year.
- The poem opens with a plague sent by Apollo after Agamemnon insults his priest.
- Achilles’ withdrawal endangers the Greeks and frames the exploration of honor.
- Diomedes wounds Aphrodite and Ares, a rare mortal-on-god assault.
- Hector’s death marks the dramatic apex, but Troy’s fall lies beyond the poem.
- The Shield of Achilles presents a microcosm of human life and order.
- Priam’s ransom scene models reconciliation and pity amid war’s savagery.
- Venetus A (10th c.) preserves extensive scholia informing ancient exegesis.
- Alexandrian editors standardized book divisions and critical signs.
- The Iliad shaped Greek education and influenced epic across antiquity and modernity.