Pride drives the plot of the Iliad. The Achaeans gather on the plain of Troy to wrest Helen from the Trojans. Though the majority of the Trojans would gladly return Helen to the Achaeans, they defer to the pride of their prince, Alexandros, also known as Paris. Within this frame, Homer's work begins. At the start of the Iliad, Agamemnon's pride sets forth a chain of events that leads him to take from Achilles, Briseis, the girl that he had originally given Achilles in return for his martial prowess. Due to this slight, Achilles refuses to fight and asks his mother, Thetis, to make sure that Zeus causes the Achaeans to suffer on the battlefield until Agamemnon comes to realize the harm he has done to Achilles. [21]

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Mary Lefkowitz (2003) [7] discusses the relevance of divine action in the Iliad, attempting to answer the question of whether or not divine intervention is a discrete occurrence (for its own sake), or if such godly behaviors are mere human character metaphors. The intellectual interest of Classic-era authors, such as Thucydides and Plato, was limited to their utility as "a way of talking about human life rather than a description or a truth", because, if the gods remain religious figures, rather than human metaphors, their "existence"—without the foundation of either dogma or a bible of faiths—then allowed Greek culture the intellectual breadth and freedom to conjure gods fitting any religious function they required as a people. [7] [8]a b Jaynes, Julian. (1976) The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. p. 221 Peter Green translated the Iliad in 2015, a version published by the University of California Press. [ citation needed] West, M. L. (1999). "The Invention of Homer". The Classical Quarterly. 49 (2): 364–382. doi: 10.1093/cq/49.2.364. ISSN 0009-8388. JSTOR 639863.

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Logue, Christopher (2015). "Introduction by Christopher Reid". War Music, an account of Homer's Iliad. Faber and Faber. ISBN 978-0-571-31449-2. The Iliad was a standard work of great importance already in Classical Greece and remained so throughout the Hellenistic and Byzantine periods. Subjects from the Trojan War were a favourite among ancient Greek dramatists. Aeschylus' trilogy, the Oresteia, comprising Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers, and The Eumenides, follows the story of Agamemnon after his return from the war. Homer also came to be of great influence in European culture with the resurgence of interest in Greek antiquity during the Renaissance, and it remains the first and most influential work of the Western canon. In its full form the text made its return to Italy and Western Europe beginning in the 15th century, primarily through translations into Latin and the vernacular languages. Robert Browning's poem Development discusses his childhood introduction to the matter of the Iliad and his delight in the epic, as well as contemporary debates about its authorship. [ citation needed]

Introduction.

The fall of Troy" (1911), an Italian silent film by Giovanni Pastrone, the first known movie adaptation of Homer's epic poem. The Concept of the Hero in Greek Civilization". Athome.harvard.edu. Archived from the original on 2010-04-21 . Retrieved 2010-04-18. Graziosi, Barbara; Haubold, Johannes, Iliad: Book VI, Cambridge University Press, 2010. ISBN 9780521878845 Gods, Achaeans and Troyans. An interactive visualization of The Iliad 's characters flow and relations. At the end of the seventeenth century, doubts had begun to awaken on the subject, and we find Bentley remarking that "Homer wrote a sequel of songs and rhapsodies, to be sung by himself, for small comings and good cheer, at festivals and other days of merriment. These loose songs were not collected together, in the form of an epic poem, till about Peisistratus' time, about five hundred years after."(23)

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Frobish (2003, p.24) writes that the war "starts with his pride and immaturity, yet is finished with his skill and bravery on the battlefield." [21] Flood, Alison (6 December 2011). "Alice Oswald withdraws from TS Eliot prize in protest at sponsor Aurum". The Guardian. London . Retrieved 2012-02-13.

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Lawson, John Cuthbert (1910). Modern Greek folklore and ancient Greek religion: a study in survivals. Cambridge University Press. pp.2–3. In antiquity, the Greeks applied the Iliad and the Odyssey as the bases of pedagogy. Literature was central to the educational-cultural function of the itinerant rhapsode, who composed consistent epic poems from memory and improvisation, and disseminated them, via song and chant, in his travels and at the Panathenaic Festival of athletics, music, poetics, and sacrifice, celebrating Athena's birthday. [33]

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But even Peisistratus has not been suffered to remain in possession of the credit, and we cannot help feeling the force of the following observations-- These in turn spawned many others in various European languages, such as the first printed English book, the 1473 Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye. Other accounts read in the Middle Ages were antique Latin retellings such as the Excidium Troiae and works in the vernaculars such as the Icelandic Troy Saga. Even without Homer, the Trojan War story had remained central to Western European medieval literary culture and its sense of identity. Most nations and several royal houses traced their origins to heroes at the Trojan War; Britain was supposedly settled by the Trojan Brutus, for instance. [48] Hector rallies the Trojans and prevents a rout. Diomedes and the Trojan Glaucus find common ground after a duel and exchange unequal gifts, while Glaucus tells Diomedes the story of Bellerophon. Hector enters the city, urges prayers and sacrifices, incites Paris to battle, and bids his wife Andromache and son Astyanax farewell on the city walls. He then rejoins the battle. ( 7) Hector duels with Ajax, but nightfall interrupts the fight, and both sides retire. The Trojans quarrel about returning Helen. Paris offers to return the treasure he took and give further wealth as compensation, but not Helen, and the offer is refused. Both sides agree to a day's truce to burn the dead. The Achaeans also build a wall and trench to protect their camp and ships.Before, however, entering into particulars respecting the question of this unity of the Homeric poems, (at least of the Iliad,) I must express my sympathy with the sentiments expressed in the following remarks:-- Dunkle, Roger (1986). " ILIAD", in The Classical Origins of Western Culture, The Core Studies 1 Study Guide. Brooklyn College. Archived from the original December 5, 2007. So successful was this school, that Homer realised a considerable fortune. He married, and had two daughters, one of whom died single, the other married a Chian. Kouroupis, Georgios; Tsiplakos, Ioannis (2022). The Iliad: honour and glory in Wilios. Athens: Akritas. ISBN 9786188420298. In forgoing his nostos, he will earn the greater reward of kleos aphthiton ( κλέος ἄφθιτον, "fame imperishable"). [16] In the poem, aphthiton ( ἄφθιτον, "imperishable") occurs five other times, [19] each occurrence denotes an object: Agamemnon's sceptre, the wheel of Hebe's chariot, the house of Poseidon, the throne of Zeus, the house of Hephaestus. Translator Lattimore renders kleos aphthiton as 'forever immortal' and as 'forever imperishable'—connoting Achilles's mortality by underscoring his greater reward in returning to battle Troy.