The Iliad, in the Ancient Greek Language, Essay Example

The Iliad, in the ancient Greek language of its author Homer, translates to Tale of Ilium which is their word for Troy. It is an epic poem believed to have been written by one man in the eighth century BCE. The conflict is set in motion as an expedition to reclaim sullied Greek honour provoked by the abduction of Helen, the most beautiful woman in the world and wife of Menelaus and taken to Asia by Paris, one of the sons of the Trojan King, Priam. What emerges is that both sides in the dispute-the Greeks and the Trojans-become embroiled in a conflict that lasts nearly ten years, occurring somewhere in the Middle East. The Iliad occurs over a period of four days in the ninth year of the war. This makes them the two most important characters in this ancient epic poem and indispensible in the resolution of the war. They are also polar opposites in nearly every action and attitude they possess in the cornucopia of characteristics attributed to the wealth of the human condition.

The Iliad is the first monument to Western literature and is prophetic of the Greek society that is destined to emerge nearly four hundred years later subsequent to the collapse of the Bronze Age. It is this recollection of a bygone heroic age that is captured by the blind poet from Smyrna (modern day Izmir in Turkey), events of the Mycenaean and Hittite worlds. Homer uses techniques of oral poetry to preserve the memories and events. The Greeks saw the Iliad as defining both themselves and their values, and a reflection of Greek society when it was composed by Homer. The poem was instrumental in inspiring archaeologists to discover the lost worlds of the Greek Bronze Age. This paper will look at the two main characters of Homer’s Iliad, Hector and Achilles, and describe how their different characters are central insofar as understanding the differences between the Greek and Trojan camps while at the same time telling us something about the characters of the heroes themselves. This paper will consider Achilles’ and Hector’s reasons for acting, essential to comprehending their respective family and community.

Hector is a fully born human, both in the literary sense and in life. His father and mother are human and Hector is fully socialized, acting and reacting being as well. In the poem, Homer paints a portrait of Hector as the Prince of Troy, variously depicting him as a man who leads his people, as a father and son, as a brother etc, providing readers with an image of Hector participating in virtually every possible human relationship. For the reader, this serves to make Hector the most sympathetic and consequently the most accessible of the Iliad’s characters. In other words, Hector seems to be most like us in the 21^st century and because of it we relate to him and his actions easily, identify with his character, and sympathize with the trials he must endure as part of his acceptance of the human condition even though the protagonist in the story is Achilles.

Achilles on the other hand is the epitome of human isolation in the Iliad, a condition fashioned by his own hand. He has withdrawn from the community of warriors which he leads refuses to socialize with his men, and prefers to retire to the privacy of his military tent when Agamemnon, the leader of the Greek expedition, offends his pride. He further spurns the opportunity to participate within the community itself where he lives. He isolates himself in other ways too. In the Iliad, Achilles has no real human contact or interaction with his family. Unlike his counterpart Hector, Achilles is not part of what Greek communities in the eighth century before Christ considered a normal family and has no domestic background.

Twenty-seven centuries later, and in the modern world we live in, we are sometimes inclined to view reclusive successful leadership as a special breed of humanity and are impressed by the rugged grandeur in their dealings with us yet we should take into account the context of this attribute in the ancient world. In Homeric Greek culture and the Bronze Age it depicts, Achilles’ rejection of community and family is not judged by his peers to be an admirable attribute or personality trait by the Greeks. They see his behaviour as strange and bizarre and that of an inhuman being in terms of Achilles’ conduct.

In Homeric times, Greek culture identified the positions of its community members by their parentage. A person’s social status and standing in the social order was dependent upon whom you were fathered by or whose son you were and served to identify and regulate a person’s place within the social structure. A person having no sense of place or belonging in the community itself, such as Achilles, was not seen as human in the eyes of the community. Homer does not give us the impression that Achilles has a fixed address where he actually lives out his life on earthly soil and where he can be visited in a normal sense by human friends and family. This isolation from everyone is neither valued nor praised by others in the community. It goes against the fabric that society has weaved for itself. Further, it was not seen as an indication of personal strength and did not confer high status. Achilles’ disconnection from the human condition was perceived by the Greeks as something in opposition to acceptable social norms, regarded as odd and less than human; subhuman comes to mind. This distinction between the two heroes-Achilles, the protagonist of the poem and the son of a goddess and human father, and Hector, totally human, is expressed throughout the Iliad.

One of the most obvious differences between Achilles and Hector as already noted is their domestic situations. A most poignant scene in the Iliad occurs in Book VI when Hector visits with his wife and child for what is certainly the last time he hopes to see them alive. It is his farewell to them where he reveals a belief that his own demise is at hand as well as that of his family and Troy itself. He says he prefers to die in battle rather than see her as a Greek prisoner.

May I lie dead and the heaped-up earth cover me, before I hear your cries as they drag you into captivity. (463-464)

Both of Hector’s parents are human and have been living in the Trojan camp since the siege began nearly ten years earlier. They are observers to the impending war between Troy and the Greek encampment (Athenian). Achilles father, Peleus, is never seen in the Iliad though he is human while his mother, Thetis, is a sea goddess and rarely seen, making her incapable of sharing the human experience with her son Achilles.

Hector’s mother Hecuba, on the other hand, has borne many children and Homer renders her as old and what we might think of as pitiable. She is a typical worried parent, concerned about the safety of her child who is about to do battle with their most feared enemy. Her other children, and her own fate as well hang in the balance. At one point in the Iliad she bares her breasts to Hector reminding him that he has suckled there as have his brothers. She reminds him that it was his mother who has grown old caring for him and his brothers. She adopts this tact in an appeal for pity from her son in the hope that he will not go off to war and be killed leaving her and the rest of the family to the mercy of Achilles and to their ultimate destruction by the Greeks.

Achilles’ mother is ageless, forever youthful, and most important, untouched by the imperfections and shortcomings associated with human character such as sorrow or weakness. As ageless, the effects of time bypass her. She is shown to grieve over Achilles, but as an immortal goddess which differs vastly from that of Hektor’s mother, Hecuba, who is about to see her son and her hopes for the future which he carries on his shoulders die, dashing the hopes he carries as well. Achilles’ mother Thetis knows that his life will be but a brief episode in her life. She will live forever whereas Hecuba’s son Hector is a major lifetime event in her life as would be expected in a human parent.

The poem gives the reader glimpses of the Hector (Book VI) with his wife and son. Achilles on the other hand is unmarried and has a concubine and son but he is not seen in the Iliad. Hektor is shown surrounded by family-his father, mother, child, bother, sister, his extended family and in-laws and children. Achilles is shown in complete isolation from everyone except for occasional visits by Thetis.

An opposition between these two heroes is seen in their knowledge of their futures and their attitude towards death. Hector is humanly fallible, misunderstands prophesies and misreads omens. Misunderstanding that when Patroklos speaks of death, he is prophesying. Almost to the final moment of his life, Hector continues to show hope for life, making him humanly fallible and blind to his own fate and a continued hope for life. Achilles on the other hand needs no prophesy to tell him what the future holds since he already knows and is quite the opposite of Hector. After Patroklos’s death Achilles chooses death for himself when he chooses which of the two fates to follow.

There is also disagreement between in their motivation for fighting. Homer shows Hector in Book VI as a man who would prefer not to fight, who would choose to stay at home with his wife and child and live a life of peace as if Troy had not gone to war. He accepts that he must fight to defend and protect his people, a condition of his responsibilities as the Crown Prince of Troy. He would prefer this never happened. He is able to alienate his own desires for the good of his people in the face of certain death by Achilles, and he knows that he must because his position and community demands this of him.

In this sense, Achilles is Hector’s polar opposite. At first he refuses to fight and it is the death of Patroklos that impels his return to the war, done not out of a sense of duty to the community he is isolated from but vengeance against his slayer. Hector fights for the good of his community and society. Achilles associates the death of one man as sufficient reason to fight rather than the greater good of the Greek community.

In nearly every way, Hector and Achilles are in polar opposition. To understand and appreciate either is to have knowledge of both. In the climax of the Iliad in Book 22, Hector is seen awaiting the arrival of Achilles on the plain before Troy. He is frightened and runs at the approach of Achilles, whereby a chase ensues and culminates in a duel and Achilles slays Hector. He ties Hektor’s body to his chariot, drags him around the walls of Troy, and thence to his own camp. Only later does he relent at Thetis’s urging allowing Hector’s father to ransom his return with the Iliad’s ending a funeral for Hector. Achilles’ actions are opposite to the deeds we would expect of Hector whom we earlier see in Book 6 asking Achilles to agree to not defile the others body in victory.

Hector accepts the human condition even unto his own death. Achilles rejects the implications of the human condition, refusing to accept that death in battle is one of the hazards of being human and sending your friends into battle, some will ultimately die. Achilles reacts as though such a thing has never happened before. He refuses to accept the limitations of the human condition and thus of being human. It is ironic that the name Achilles means grief yet the motivations for of his actions over Patroklos’ death.

Ironically, Hector’s name means warder off yet only in his death is Achilles’ vengeance satiated. It is difficult to conceive of his defilement of Hektor’s corpse in Book 22 as anything but vengeful yet later in Book 24 he displays in gracious in Hector to his father. The Iliad ends with Achilles alive, but his death has been foretold in Book 19 that Hector’s brother Paris would kill him. Though the contrasting characters of these two heroes is crucial to understanding and resolving the Iliad’s conflict, it is only through the killing and defiling of Hektor’s corpse that Achilles finds a way to eventually integrate himself with humanity. The experience of their encounter is highlighted in the end by Zeus, who weighs their two fates on a scale.

References

The Iliad of Homer. Literal Translation by Buckley, Theodore Alois. Cox Brothers and Wyman.  Lincoln’s-Inn, Fields. London.