Iliad
Homer's epic of the wrath of Achilles in the tenth year at Troy, from his quarrel with Agamemnon to the funeral of Hector, in twenty-four books; it does not narrate Troy's fall. Its digressions are primary witnesses for many other myths, and Herodotus, who dated Homer four hundred years before himself, argued from its lines about which poems were Homer's. Read in Murray's Loeb translation.
Why this wins its question: Gives the poem's own boundaries with line numbers and an index of the myths it attests in passing, plus the ancient rather than modern evidence for author and date.
Key takeaways
- Wrath to funeral, not war to sack; the Horse and the death of Achilles are outside the poem.
- Its digressions are the earliest Greek witness for the lots of the three brothers, the Titans in Tartarus and the birth of Heracles.
- Herodotus's four hundred years is the only ancient date here, and he already used the Iliad's text to test what Homer wrote.
Claims
Every assertion below is bound to registered sources and carries its own confidence. Weight them; do not treat the page as uniformly authoritative.
The subject is announced in the first lines: "The wrath sing, goddess, of Peleus' son, Achilles, that destructive wrath which brought countless woes upon the Achaeans ... thus the plan of Zeus came to fulfillment, from the time when first they parted in strife Atreus' son, king of men, and brilliant Achilles" (Il. 1.1–7), beginning with Apollo's plague over the priest Chryses (Il. 1.8–12).
It ends before the city falls: Hector foresees that "sacred Ilios shall be laid low" (Il. 6.447–449), Achilles's own death is only prophesied, "when Paris and Phoebus Apollo shall slay thee ... at the Scaean gate" (Il. 22.358–360), and the last line is "On this wise held they funeral for horse-taming Hector" (Il. 24.800). The Wooden Horse appears only in the Odyssey (Od. 8.492–520).
Its best-known set pieces: the Catalogue of Ships, opened by the poet's appeal to the Muses because "the common folk I could not tell nor name, nay, not though ten tongues were mine" (Il. 2.484–493); Hector's farewell to Andromache and Astyanax (Il. 6.405–493); Achilles's two fates (Il. 9.410–416); the death of Patroclus (Il. 16.818–828); the shield of Hephaestus with earth, sea, sun, moon, constellations and "the great might of the river Oceanus" round its rim (Il. 18.478–608); Hector's death (Il. 22.325–366); and Priam kissing "the terrible, man-slaying hands" (Il. 24.477–506).
It is a source for myths outside its plot: the three brothers' lots (Il. 15.187–193), Zeus's threat of Tartarus "as far beneath Hades as heaven is above earth" (Il. 8.13–16), the Titans below Tartarus (Il. 14.274–279), Heracles wounding Hera and Hades (Il. 5.392–404) and the trick of his birth (Il. 19.95–133), the catalogue of Zeus's loves, Danae, Europa, Semele, Alcmene (Il. 14.315–328), Theseus among the centaur-fighters (Il. 1.262–268), the Gorgon on the aegis (Il. 5.741–742) and the couch of Typhoeus (Il. 2.781–783).
The gods are combatants and spectators: Zeus watches from the peak of Olympus while the Hours keep its gates (Il. 1.497–499; 5.749–754), Hera and Athena drive down to the field (Il. 5.755–766), Apollo strips Patroclus of his armour before Hector kills him (Il. 16.788–806), and Zeus accepts that even Heracles, "most dear" to him, could not escape death (Il. 18.117–119).
Herodotus is the oldest witness to author and date: "Hesiod and Homer flourished not more than four hundred years earlier than I" and "taught the Greeks the descent of the gods" (Hdt. 2.53.2). He quotes the Iliad's lines on Paris's voyage by Sidon (Il. 6.289–292) to show that Homer knew of Helen's stay in Egypt and rejected it as unsuited to epic, and concludes that "the Cyprian poems are not the work of Homer but of someone else" (Hdt. 2.116–117).
Questions answered
- What is the Iliad about?
- The subject is announced in the first lines: "The wrath sing, goddess, of Peleus' son, Achilles, that destructive wrath which brought countless woes upon the Achaeans ... thus the plan of Zeus came to fulfillment, from the time when first they parted in strife Atreus' son, king of men, and brilliant Achilles" (Il. 1.1–7), beginning with Apollo's plague over the priest Chryses (Il. 1.8–12). source
- Does the Iliad describe the fall of Troy?
- It ends before the city falls: Hector foresees that "sacred Ilios shall be laid low" (Il. 6.447–449), Achilles's own death is only prophesied, "when Paris and Phoebus Apollo shall slay thee ... at the Scaean gate" (Il. 22.358–360), and the last line is "On this wise held they funeral for horse-taming Hector" (Il. 24.800). The Wooden Horse appears only in the Odyssey (Od. 8.492–520). source
- How does the Iliad begin and end?
- It ends before the city falls: Hector foresees that "sacred Ilios shall be laid low" (Il. 6.447–449), Achilles's own death is only prophesied, "when Paris and Phoebus Apollo shall slay thee ... at the Scaean gate" (Il. 22.358–360), and the last line is "On this wise held they funeral for horse-taming Hector" (Il. 24.800). The Wooden Horse appears only in the Odyssey (Od. 8.492–520). source
- Who wrote the Iliad and when?
- Herodotus is the oldest witness to author and date: "Hesiod and Homer flourished not more than four hundred years earlier than I" and "taught the Greeks the descent of the gods" (Hdt. 2.53.2). He quotes the Iliad's lines on Paris's voyage by Sidon (Il. 6.289–292) to show that Homer knew of Helen's stay in Egypt and rejected it as unsuited to epic, and concludes that "the Cyprian poems are not the work of Homer but of someone else" (Hdt. 2.116–117). source
- Which other myths does the Iliad mention?
- It is a source for myths outside its plot: the three brothers' lots (Il. 15.187–193), Zeus's threat of Tartarus "as far beneath Hades as heaven is above earth" (Il. 8.13–16), the Titans below Tartarus (Il. 14.274–279), Heracles wounding Hera and Hades (Il. 5.392–404) and the trick of his birth (Il. 19.95–133), the catalogue of Zeus's loves, Danae, Europa, Semele, Alcmene (Il. 14.315–328), Theseus among the centaur-fighters (Il. 1.262–268), the Gorgon on the aegis (Il. 5.741–742) and the couch of Typhoeus (Il. 2.781–783). source
- What is on the shield of Achilles?
- Its best-known set pieces: the Catalogue of Ships, opened by the poet's appeal to the Muses because "the common folk I could not tell nor name, nay, not though ten tongues were mine" (Il. 2.484–493); Hector's farewell to Andromache and Astyanax (Il. 6.405–493); Achilles's two fates (Il. 9.410–416); the death of Patroclus (Il. 16.818–828); the shield of Hephaestus with earth, sea, sun, moon, constellations and "the great might of the river Oceanus" round its rim (Il. 18.478–608); Hector's death (Il. 22.325–366); and Priam kissing "the terrible, man-slaying hands" (Il. 24.477–506). source