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    The Iliad (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)
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    The Iliad (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)
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    The Iliad (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)
    Ebook857 pages15 hours

    The Iliad (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)

    By Homer and Bruce M. King

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    About this ebook

    The Iliad, by Homer, is part of the Barnes & Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of Barnes & Noble Classics:
    • New introductions commissioned from today's top writers and scholars
    • Biographies of the authors
    • Chronologies of contemporary historical, biographical, and cultural events
    • Footnotes and endnotes
    • Selective discussions of imitations, parodies, poems, books, plays, paintings, operas, statuary, and films inspired by the work
    • Comments by other famous authors
    • Study questions to challenge the reader's viewpoints and expectations
    • Bibliographies for further reading
    • Indices & Glossaries, when appropriate
    All editions are beautifully designed and are printed to superior specifications; some include illustrations of historical interest. Barnes & Noble Classics pulls together a constellation of influences—biographical, historical, and literary—to enrich each reader's understanding of these enduring works.

    The epic song of Ilion (an old name for Troy), The Iliad recreates a few dramatic weeks near the end of the fabled Trojan War, ending with the funeral of Hector, defender of the doomed city. Through its majestic verses stride the fabled heroes Priam, Hector, Paris, and Aeneas for Troy; Achilles, Ajax, Menelaus, Agamemnon, Patroclus, and Odysseus for the Greeks; and the beautiful Helen, over whom the longstanding war has been waged. Never far from the center of the story are the quarreling gods: Zeus, Poseidon, Apollo, Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite.

    The Iliad is the oldest Greek poem and perhaps the best-known epic in Western literature, and has inspired countless works of art throughout its long history. An assemblage of stories and legends shaped into a compelling single narrative, The Iliad was probably recited orally by bards for generations before being written down in the eighth century B.C. A beloved fixture of early Greek culture, the poem found eager new audiences when it was translated into many languages during the Renaissance. Its themes of honor, power, status, heroism, and the whims of the gods have ensured its enduring popularity and immeasurable cultural influence.

    Bruce M. King studied at the University of Chicago, and has taught classics and huma
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBarnes & Noble Classics
    Release dateJun 1, 2009
    ISBN9781411432376
    Unavailable
    The Iliad (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)
    Author

    Homer

    Although recognized as one of the greatest ancient Greek poets, the life and figure of Homer remains shrouded in mystery. Credited with the authorship of the epic poems Iliad and Odyssey, Homer, if he existed, is believed to have lived during the ninth century BC, and has been identified variously as a Babylonian, an Ithacan, or an Ionian. Regardless of his citizenship, Homer’s poems and speeches played a key role in shaping Greek culture, and Homeric studies remains one of the oldest continuous areas of scholarship, reaching from antiquity through to modern times.

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    Reviews for The Iliad (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)

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    • 5/5
      I'm not sure, but I think this was the edition I read & liked the best - I've read several over the years. I liked the 'full' or 'best translated' versions & the highly edited versions the least. There's a happy medium in there. The full versions have a lot characters & stuff going on that doesn't add to the story & just confuses me. When edited too much, the story loses its flavor. The story line, plot, can't be beat. Much of the motivation of the characters seems weak or over-used, but that's only because it is the great-granddaddy of so much of our current literature, of course.
    • 5/5
      Comments on just finishing the Robert Fagles translation:oPeople say it is a book about anger, but it is certainly also about killing, getting killed, grasping for glory or fame, as well as loving.oFor someone like myself who finds cultural historiography fascinating, the book is an excellent resource.oOne obvious thing is that while all humans have an emotional natures it becomes equally apparent that different cultures in different times respond radically different to age old basic situations like love and death. In the book, the Greeks respond to love or loss of a loved one without any inhibition or effort at self control. By comparison, in our time the practice of keeping a stiff upper lip and a measured middle way would look anemic by comparison. It is strange that this view toward loving and loss are not covered in any of the books of criticism cited at the back of the book.oOn the topic of loss also, it is apparent that it was a totally acceptable custom and even expected for one to give oneself up to publicly and totally grieving-for as long as it takes. The men and women both are expected to weep uncontrollably.When was the last time any of us ever did that?In summary, I loved it and was amazed that I found it so entrancing through out.Would obviously love to hear how those with military background respond to the book.
    • 5/5
      Brilliant.
    • 4/5
      At long last! The Illiad by Homer DIfficult to rate a literary epic. However, the entire book takes place in the 10th and last year of the Trojan War. Achilles’ wrath at Agamemnon for taking his war prize, the maiden Briseis, forms the main subject of this book. It seemed as if there were a lot of introductions to characters we never hear from again. The word refulgent was used dozen of times. All in all I'm glad I slogged my way through this. The novelized from of Song of Achilles was more satisfactory to me than the Illiad. I read the translation by Caroline Alexander because that's the one the library had. 3 1/2 stars 604 pages
    • 4/5
      Anstrengend war es, das stimmt, und deswegen habe ich auch ewig gebraucht, um mit diesem Hörbuch fertig zu werden. Aber das ändert nichts daran, dass diese Ausgabe der Ilias großartig und überwältigend war.

      Gelesen hatte ich die Geschichte ungefähr im Alter von 10 Jahren in der Nacherzählung von Gustav Schwab, in der auch die Vorgeschichte des Krieges und der Fall Trojas geschildert werden. Außerdem kenne ich ich "Die Feuer von Troja" von Marion Zimmer Bradley und den Film von Wolfgang Petersen. Auch in diesen beiden Adaptionen wird der gesamte Krieg erzählt. Deswegen war ich nicht darauf vorbereitet, dass die tatsächliche Ilias gar nicht die vollständige Geschichte enthält. Der Anfang kam mir schon merkwürdig vor, da man in eine Zeit versetzt wird, wo der Krieg schon 10 Jahre im Gange ist; und das abrupte Ende nach der Beisetzung von Hector, dass ich heute gehört habe, hat mich dann doch überrascht. Mittlerweile habe ich mich in der Beziehung schlau gemacht, um dieses Hörbuch auch einordnen zu können.

      Beim vorliegenden Hörbuch handelt es sich um eine Neuübersetzung von Raoul Schrott in zeitgemäßes Deutsch; gelesen wird es von Manfred Zapatka. Die Übersetzung empfinde ich als überaus gelungen, neu und frisch; die Protagonisten werden durch die heutige Sprache viel plastischer. Die Lesung ist großartig umgesetzt, durch bestimmte Wiederholungen, Stimmvariationen und mäßig, aber perfekt eingesetzte Soundeffekte. Gestört haben mich eigentlich nur die in Griechisch vorgetragenen Passagen.

      Den Inhalt selbst kann ich einfach nur als krass bezeichnen. Was man alles an Informationen allein in einem kurzen Gemetzel an den Kopf geknallt bekommt, ist schon erstaunlich. Man erfährt die Hintergrundgeschichten von so gut wie jedem Getöteten, bekommt komplexe anatomische Details des Tötungsvorganges, wird über Waffen- und Rüstungsschmieden, Kleidungsherstellung, Viehzucht und Ackerbau und alles Mögliche über das Leben und die gesellschaftlichen Strukturen jener Zeit informiert. Für mich als Kind der Massenproduktion ist es besonders beeindruckend, welch hohem Wert jeder Gegenstand und jedem Tier beigemessen wird. Da wird schon mal ewig darum gekämpft, an eine bestimmte Rüstung des gerade getöteten Kriegers zu gelangen bzw. sie zu verteidigen. Jedenfalls sind allein die Hintergrundgeschichten schon Stoff für eine Menge an eigenständigen Erzählungen.

      Fazit: Wahnsinn! Und ich habe jetzt ein unbändiges Verlangen danach, die Serie "Hercules" zu schauen ;-).
    • 4/5
      I read this on the tail of reading The Song of Achilles by Emmy Miller--I wanted to see if I could detect the homoerotic subtext between Achilles and Patroclus myself. The answer to that is definitely Yes, but now I'm curious what other translations are like. This one--by Stanley Lombardo--is pretty jocular, which suits a poem about battle, I guess. So I wonder how other translators handle it.
    • 2/5
      What exactly was the point? War sucks? Yeah, we already knew that. Really depressing, unrelenting testosterone-ridden crap.
    • 4/5
      Quite the epic adventure. I love The Iliad, but it sure is long and tedious. All those battle scenes get old. And all that wailing in grief.But despite all the repetition, it really is good. Lots of bickering gods, vengeful heroes, and, well, wailing.
    • 4/5
      The Iliad is a mixed bag. It is the very wellspring of Western culture, for good and for bad. The storied Olympian gods and heroic mortals who participated in the Trojan War are still alluded to in the written word three thousand years later. But the brutal behavior of those same gods and mortals in that war are also memorialized in the six hundred pages of Homer's epic.The verse translation by Robert Fagles reads very well — like a novel, in fact. The rhythm, the beat is prominent, and presumably if you took the time to read it aloud, it would be powerful indeed. Despite this, The Iliad is not an easy read thanks to the almost one thousand names and epithets of characters and places about which the action takes place and through which that action is conducted. Many of these names are very familiar, some vaguely familiar, but most by far are new to us. The Fagles edition blesses us in this department by providing a pronouncing vocabulary which gives a brief identifying statement about each one. Without this or something like it, The Iliad would be a bewildering swirl of confusion to the modern reader. The Introduction, notes and maps are also helpful.We all know the story of The Iliad — or at least we think we do. Surprisingly to me at least, after nine years of the siege of Troy by the Achaeans, it only covers a brief period of 45 days, and within that the bulk of the poem takes place over six days and nights of intense climactic fighting in which the greatest heroes on both sides are killed. A few of the most famous are left standing: Aeneas, will eventually be the lone survivor of Troy who will go on to found Rome; Odysseus famously takes another twenty years to reach his home in Ithaca; and Achilles, who has slain Troy's greatest hero Hector, is destined beyond the confines of The Iliad to be killed by Paris, the culprit who stole Helen from Menelaus and started the entire conflict to begin with.There are no spoilers here. The destinies of the great and near great are announced early and often throughout the pages of The Iliad. The power of the poem lies not in suspense but in the drama of battle. That drama is conveyed through the driving verse which honors its heroes in the process of butchering them. Battles wax and wane with the rhythm of the poetry. The great Homeric similes, sometimes piled on top of each other, churn and froth with soaring images. Here is an example; italics highlight the "like … so" pattern:"Achilles nowlike inhuman fire raging on through the mountain gorgessplinter-dry, setting ablaze big stands of timber,the wind swirling the huge fireball left and right—chaos of fire—Achilles storming on with brandished spearlike a frenzied god of battle trampling all he killed and the earth ran black with blood. Thundering on,on like oxen broad in the brow some field hand yokesto crush white barley heaped on a well-laid threshing floorand the grain is husked out fast by the bellowing oxen's hoofs—so as the great Achilles rampaged on, his sharp-hoofed stallions trampled shields and corpses, axle under his chariot splashed with blood, blood on the handrails sweeping round the car,sprays of blood shooting up from the stallions' hoofsand churning, whirling rims—and the son of Peleus charioteering on to seize his glory, bloody filthsplattering both strong arms, Achilles' invincible arms."What sets off the episode of The Iliad is a microcosm of the whole arc of the Trojan War itself. The war occurred because Paris, a prince of Troy and a guest at the home of Menelaus, stole Menelaus's wife Helen and spirited her off to Troy together with a vast amount of spoils. Most of the battling within The Iliad occurs without the aid of Achilles who ironically has been humiliated by the brother of Menelaus, warlord Agamemnon, who insists on taking the beautiful Briseis from Achilles for daring to challenge Agamemnon who has behaved badly in capturing the daughter of a priest of Apollo and refusing to give her back, thereby causing the god Apollo to shower down a plague on the Achaeans. Thus The Iliad boils down to an epic tale about men fighting over women!Agamemnon at the beginning of The Iliad is not an attractive figure. Toward the end, Achilles' great friend Patroclus is killed by Hector and that finally brings Achilles into action, particularly as the Achaeans seem to be losing and Agamemnon sees the error of his ways and agrees to return Briseis to Achilles.When The Iliad is reminiscing about the great deeds of one hero or another, it is quite affecting. A great deal of mythology is encompassed here, and the jealousies and machinations of the Olympians behind the scenes are both amusing and annoying.But the battle scenes sometimes amount to a catalog of killing and brutality that go beyond the pleasurable. And while the poem as a whole makes for compelling reading, the blood and gore take it over the top. Compared with The Odyssey, it seems much more primitive in its motivation and unrelenting gratuitous violence. I am glad I read it, and I acknowledge its importance in the literary canon, but it is not one of my favorite reads. Because I personally have a distaste for this level of bloody mindedness doesn't mean it isn't worth reading. Everybody really should read it, and all congratulations go to Robert Fagles for his excellent translation.
    • 5/5
      It's the Iliad; it is what you make of it. If you compare it to modern story telling, I think a lot of readers will find it lacking, especially with the constant battle scenes. We're used to getting petty drama in our petty dramas, tragic deaths in our tragedies, gory action in our gory action thrillers. This oral tradition has it all mashed up together.
    • 4/5
      Translated into English Prose by Andrew Lang, Walter Leaf and Ernest Myers
    • 5/5
      One of the corner stones of all of Western Literature
    • 5/5
      The latest Polish translation of one of the most famous epic masterworks ever, by Kazimiera Jezewska. Written in Polish hexameter.
    • 4/5
      What is this story? Timeless themes tangled in archaic notions that try the patience, but then wild and rhythmic passages that would hold up against any great poet of the modern age. It's a conundrum. At times so difficult I feared I wouldn't be able to pound through it, at other times stealing nights away until 4 a.m., full maddening fevered reading that left me nervy and with the chants of Greek names going through my dreams. My relationship to The Iliad is far different to my late-summer, torpid tale-spinning romance with The Odyssey. It's full of things that sit funny with me: Achilles, the anti-heroic hero, spiteful, vengeful, unmoved; Zeus, tyrant yet yielding; Athena, a mysteriously fierce female in a time of spurned and maligned women. The span of events is peculiar. We see neither the actions and consequences that launched the Achaean onslaught of Troy, nor do we get to hear the legends of Troy's end (i.e. Trojan Horse) or Achilles downfall (Paris' winged arrow to the ankle). It's assumed we already know that.In fact, you go in already knowing everything. The weight of fate, and the way the characters--knowing full well how things are going to come out--respond is the source of the pathos. Achilles: winding tighter in rage as his days are numbered; the gods batting at Achaeans like bored housecats though they know ultimate victory goes against Troy. Yes, the petty spats of the gods echoing out in massacre of mortals and changing tides of gruesome war. Gore and detailed guts. Rhythm. Ritual. Timelessness.As an aside: the Fagles translation is wonderful. Recommended.
    • 4/5
      The classic story of the Battle of Troy between the Greeks and the Trojans. The long war brought about by the abduction of Helen, who had a "face which launched a thousand ships".
    • 1/5
      An extremely clumsy translation by an otherwise capable poet. I cannot critique the scholarship. but the word choice is ugly.
    • 4/5
      The Grand-Daddy of all epic tales!I had never read the Iliad before now, and since it was assigned to me in my current college course, I really had no choice but to embrace it. What a great read! I knew most of the storyline of course through general knowledge of mythology and Greek legend and also (though I cringe a little to say it) from the film, Troy. If you haven't read the Iliad and fancy yourself a fan of legend or fantasy novels, I would highly recommend it. For those out there who aren't purists and want a version that is very easily read and understood, I would stick to the Stanley Lombardo translation over all others. Lombardo has a way of translating the text in such a way that uses more modern language and terms and makes the text much easier to follow than most other translations of older texts that I have attempted to read.As for the story itself, it is filled with action, adventure, war, love, the meddling and politics of the Gods themselves and a great deal more. Achilles is the star of the show so to speak, but I found myself rooting more for Patroclus, Hector and several others as I read through the text. There are a score of likable and detestable characters that all stand out in their own way. Truly a fun read and one that I wish that I had read earlier as I'm sure that it gets better upon subsequent readings.
    • 5/5
      Homer's Iliad is an epic in all definitions of the word. Fagles does Homer great justice in preserving the iambic hexameter of the verse while capturing the true essence of the great Trojan War. Despite a difference of almost 3000 years, the nature of the human spirit remains intact and prevails as the motivation for all actions of this great epic. Achilles and numerous other characters reveal the constant nature of the human spirit and its ability to triumph and be defeated.
    • 5/5
      Interestingly enough I was able to get through it easily. I didn't skip at all even though there was mostly a lot of fighting. Who killed whom- how they died. Gods were interesting. (I did actually skip the 2nd chapter about who went to the Trojan War- Gods kept switching sides.
    • 5/5
      I believe I've read all of the major western classical epics. This is the best.
    • 3/5
      Glad I read it, but it was a long haul getting through.
    • 2/5
      I read this too quickly and passively. One day I'll give it another shot.
    • 5/5
      This is the original great war story. The translation here is phenomenal. Keeping the epic verse is key to getting a good read of this and here it is beautiful and informative.
    • 5/5
      First off, I first read the complete Iliad in Fagles' translation. It is, let me use the cliche, vibrant. If you've found the Iliad boring in the past, you might try it. Anyway...The Iliad is, in short, brilliant; read it. Just keep an open eye: the is no mere adventure or fantasy story (though arguably it's excellent on that level too), and if you go looking for that, you're likely to miss all the reasons people like it. It is, no doubt, ostensibly a story about war (or at least, one man's part in a war), but as an epic it doesn't fail to address many other themes. In fact it seems on the whole concerned with the general misery of human existence, describing as it does a war fought by persons who would much rather be doing something else, goaded on and manipulated by capricious gods, who are themselves subject ruthlessly and painfully to the force of fate. Modern readers may find the intervention of the gods, and probably fate too, to be odd, but most will probably find the description of war and human conduct in all spheres to be worthy of consideration.Besides its thematic and anthropological depth (and besides the large body of mythology for those into that sort of thing) the Iliad has two other important things to offer: poetry and drama. I can't say anything about the poetry of the original Greek, since my Greek is for now nearly non-existent, but one can't doubt that The Iliad has given many translators a good scaffold on which to build their own solid poetry. Even more significant though, The Iliad manages a dramatic quality that you might expect from a Shakespeare tragedy. It's full of hyperbolic action and dramatic monologues (and saving some of its best lines for them too), it revels in situational irony and pathos.To demonstrate several of these points I leave you unannotated an excerpt from one of my favorite speeches in the Iliad, again in Fagles' translation (slight spoiler alert, as it were):"'Come, Friend, you too must die. Why moan about it so?Even Patroclus died, a far, far better man than you.And look, you see how handsome and powerful I am?The son of a great man, the mother who gave me life--A deathless goddess. But even for me, I tell you,Death and the strong force of fate are waiting. '"
    • 3/5
      I read The Iliad Penguin Classic edition. This will contain the whole story, as it is good for me to write it out as revision material for my classics exam - if you want just the review part, skip to the paragraph starting with: "In review..."

      The theme of this epic poem is 'the wrath of Achilleus', a great Greek warrior who has his new prize-girl taken from him by military commander, Agamemnon during the siege of Troy. Achilleus is livid with Agamemnon and refuses to fight for the Greek forces, allowing the Trojans to win many battles against them.

      However, Achilleus' coup does not last long, as his dearest friend Patroklos is killed in battle by the great Trojan warrior, Hektor, whilst wearing Achilleus' armour to inspire his troops and strike fear into the Trojans. Hektor is a family man, and the favourite son of Priam, King of Troy. He is loved throughout Troy, and poses a serious threat for the Greeks in battle - his only match in a fight is Achilleus.

      Achilleus is distraught about Patroklos' death and grieves for him and feels suicidal. After a visit from his mother, a goddess named Thetis, he resolves to make up with Agamemnon and join the fighting once again in order to exact revenge on Hektor.

      Hektor and Achilleus eventually meet in one-on-one combat, and Hektor is confident that he will either win the battle and secure the Trojan victory over the Achaian forces, or he will die a glorious death and be remembered for all eternity. What Hektor does not realise is the true extent of the wrath of Achilleus. Achilleus strikes Hektor with a spear with the help (trickery) of the gods, and whilst Hektor is still breathing, informs him that his corpse will be treated without a shred of respect. From there, Achilleus finishes him off and drags him in circles around the walls of Troy three times before bringing him back to the Greek camp and throwing him in the dust. Achilleus wakes every morning to drag Hektor's body around the tomb of his friend Patroklos as the sun is rising - but the gods prevent Hektor's corpse from coming to any harm.

      It is worth mentioning that Priam eventually receives word from the gods that he must go to the Greek camp to beg for the body of his son from Achilleus. Priam does so, and manages to win the affection of Achilleus, yet he is still dangerous and warns Priam not to anger him further or he will slay him on the spot. Achilleus hands over Hektor's body, and the book ends with an account of Hektor's funeral.

      IN REVIEW, The Iliad was a good book to read when learning to write like a professional writer. Homer uses his traditional formulae and tricks of the trade; remember that this was a recited poem and wasn't put down on paper until centuries after Homer's death - despite this, The Iliad is detailed and descriptive, but is often repetitive, as is the feature of a classic epic poem. In retrospect, if you are looking for an account of the fall of Troy, coupled with an Odyssean adventure, read Virgil's Aeneid which tells the story of Aeneas and the founding of Rome. Otherwise, if you are happy with the stale scenery of war, and don't mind the common features of an epic poem, The Iliad is enjoyable.

      I gave this three stars to reflect the fact that I liked it, but preferred The Odyssey and The Aeneid.
    • 5/5
      Hector, Achilles, Odysseus, Zeus, Athena, Priam... it doesn't get any better. Some mornings I look out the window and still think "rosy fingertips of dawn". This translation is very vivid and readable, though not as precise as the Lattimore... or at least that's what I remember from college.
    • 2/5
      This translation has no poetry to it whatsoever. It's a sad beginning to Homer.
    • 5/5
      This book is best read slowly - I limited myself to one chapter a day - to savour the full of effect of names, gods, repetitions, actions. Beautiful and awesome.
    • 3/5
      I read this book, then watched Troy the movie. I think the movie made me appreciate the book a little more, and the book made me appreciate the movie a lot more. The movie helped me to see more of the emotions of the characters in a way that Homer did not through character development. For instance Achilles dislike of Agamemnon.
    • 5/5
      The movie Troy has revitalized my thirst for The Iliad and the reading of which has long been overdue. I decide to re-read this first work of Western literature in a different literary form: the prose translation by E. V. Rieu, who had first published in 1950 and has since achieved its classic status. Never before had this greatest of ancient Greek poet seemed so vivid, so accessible, approachable, and immediate to the English-speaking readers. This edition in review is a Penguin Classics 1988 revision of Rieu's translation that has timely incorporated the changes in linguistic and cultural idioms. E. V. Rieu's prose translation is as vivid and readable as Professor Richmond Lattimore's verse translation, which I had read in my undergraduate English class. The Iliad is set in the last year of the Greek siege of Ilium, a town in the region of Troy, which is now the northwestern Turkey and it all begins with a quarrel over a woman. On a visit to Sparta, Prince of Troy seduced and ran away with Helen, the wife of the Spartan ruler Menelaus. King Agamemnon, the imperial overlord of Greece, with his brother Menelaus, induced the princes who owe him allegiance to join forces with him against King Priam of Troy. The Greeks for 9 years had encamped beside their ships on the shore near Troy but without bringing the matter to a conclusion, though they had repeatedly looted and captured a number of Trojan towns, under the leadership of Achilles, Prince of Myrmidons, who had cultivated a gripe against Agamemnon.Success of raiding Troy led to a feud between Agamemnon and Achilles. Agamemnon had been allotted a girl named Chryseis as his prize, and he refused to give her up to her father, a local priest of Apollo, when he came to the camp with a ransom for her release. The priest prayed to Apollo and a plague ensued, forcing Agamemnon to give Chryseis up. But the unruly Agamemnon couped himself by confiscating one of Achilles' own prize, a girl named Briseis. It was such violet, public, unjust, and deeply humiliating attack on Achilles' assessment of his significance to the Greek army, along with Agamemnon's seize of Briseis that drove Achilles to withdraw himself and the Myrmidon force from the battlefield.Homer has written the epic with a delay of action, deferring Achilles to later part of the book in order to create a perception that he has covered the entire Trojan War. The Iliad, in this regard, in fact covers a few days of the last year of Trojan War, filling the pages with tight packing of action, the tugging to and fro between the two sides. It only centers on the aristocratic heroes (i.e. Hector, Paris, Aeneas, Achilles, Menelaus, Agamemnon, Diomedes, Ajax, and Odysseus), of whom they are named, but not the general mass of troops.As the Trojans got the upper hand and stormed the Greeks' defenses, Hector, the Trojan Commander-in-chief succeeded in setting fire to one of the Achaean ships. At this point Agamemnon had realized he had wronged Achilles, who had remained obdurate to all entreaties and repeated to the embassy the original accusation that he did all the fighting and Agamemnon got all the rewards. Achilles' bitter and grumpy speech against Agamemnon sheds light to what possibly Homer tries to convey as he has remained restrained in his narrative, leaving much room for private interpretation that one might experience difficulty to supply a definitive answer to question about the one main theme. Achilles had altered his view in life: no compensation could ever pay him back, because all the compensation in the world could not equate the worth of one's life, moreover the Trojans never did him any wrong until death had befallen Patroclus. All he had suffered by constantly risking his life in battle had left him no better off than anyone else. The Iliad tragedizes a hero who had been viscerally wronged: a man who was the son of a great man and a goddess, and yet for whom death and inexorable destiny were waiting. Patroclus' disastrous death brought Achilles to life and gave him a cause to fight. To him life was worth revenge on the person who killed his beloved companion. Achilles' greatness lies in his refusal to disclaim the responsibility for his actions, even though his own death would be the inevitable consequence. The greatness of The Iliad lies in the fact that Homer presents a broad mental picture of what he thought the Trojan battlefield looked like. The poetry may be linked with a tradition of oral poetry, which manifested fully in the repetition of patterns and descriptions that prevailed the epic that existed in the Mycenaean age. The modern reader can enjoy the book, as it was by the contemporary, for its own sake, as a vivid description of the Trojan War. Homer took what the tradition offered him and shaped it into The Iliad we now read, in perfect accordance with his own cultural assumptions.