Plot SummaryHomer's Iliad begins nine years after the Greek armies first arrived at Troy. A plague has overcome the Greek armies because Agamemnon has refused to return the daughter of a Priest of Apollo. Achilles, the epic's central character, exposes this fact and confronts the king. Agamemnon agrees to release this girl, if, and only if, Achilles gives him his 'war-prize', Briseis in return. Achilles finds this to be tremendously unjust and withdraws from battle taking with him all of his soldiers. He asks the gods to grant him revenge and make the Greeks require his assistance in order to win Achilles remains withdrawn for the greater portion of the epic.

Agamemnon is encouraged to attack by a dream and after some trouble with his troops, rallies them. The Trojan side rallies also. The two armies move towards each other but are stopped by a challenge from Hector: Paris and Menelaus are to fight one on one to decide the war. Paris flees the battle with the help of a divinity and Menelaus rages on with his brother demanding the release of Helen and her treasure.

Zeus, the king of the gods, calls an assembly of the gods and orders them to stop helping the battle because he has decided how it is going to turn out. Meanwhile the battle continues near Troy. The Greek Diomedes makes a heroic stand and kills many Trojans. The Trojan Aeneas fights Diomedes and is wounded but eventually rescued by his mother, Aphrodite. Ares reenters the battle on the Trojan side. With Ares at his side, Hector goes on a rampage. Ares is wounded by Diomedes as Hera and Athena enter to help the Greeks.

Telamonian Ajax joins Diomedes and the Greeks begin to repulse the Trojans. Hector returns to Troy to pray for Diomedes to be taken from battle. He chastises Paris for cowardice, speaks to Helen and spends some time with his wife Andromache. Paris and Hector return to war. The Trojans rally again and then Hector challenges a Greek captain to a duel. Ajax fights him but the duel is ended by nightfall and a truce. Both sides debate the follow day of the war expressing the need for a truce to care for their dead. The Trojans propose a settlement. The Greeks reject this, but agree to a truce day for burials.

Zeus again threatens the assembled gods and for a while they heed him. The battle begins and the Trojans, with the blessing of Zeus, push the Greeks back to their earthen walls. Zeus gives an omen to the Greeks and they rally. The Trojans rally again and continue to push onward. Night comes and the Trojan army camps outside the city. The Greeks send an embassy to Achilles requesting his return to battle in exchange for treasure and an unharmed Briseis. Achilles refuses. The Greeks go to sleep but the captains stay awake and Odysseus and Diomedes raid the Trojan camps. They kill the Trojan Dolon and steals horses from the Thracian camp.

The battle begins the next day with a Greek rally led by Agamemnon. Zeus instructs Hector not to fight until Agamemnon is wounded. With this omen fulfilled, Hector rallies the Trojans and pushes towards the ships. Odysseus and Diomedes are also wounded. Achilles watches the battle and sends Patroclus to see who has been wounded. The Trojans continue attacking and with extraordinary feats of strength and bravery by Hector and Sarpedon, they storm the Greek camp. The fighting remains fierce near the Greek ships. With Zeus turned away from the battle, Poseidon inspires Ajax and Idomeneus to fight more fiercely. Hector is driven back and wounded.

Nestor, wounded, goes back to the battle with other Greek captains in order to rally the troops. Hera plots to seduce Poseidon and put him to sleep. With the king of the Gods sleeping, Poseidon enters the battle on the Greek side and the Trojans are routed.

Zeus wakes and reinvigorates the Trojan line. Apollo helps Hector back into battle and the Trojans again push to the Greek Ships. Ajax defends these valiantly and Nestor continues to spur on the Troops. Hector calls for torches to burn the boats as Patroclus observes the panic in his compatriots.

Patroclus returns to Achilles and requests to enter the battle. Achilles lets him go leading the myrmidons. Ajax and Hector continue to fight each other near the ships when the myrmidons enter battle led by Patroclus, easily mistaken for Achilles in the hero's armor. Patroclus kills the Trojan son

of Zeus, Sarpedon and the battle centers around his body. Zeus has Apollo rescue the corpse of his son. The battle is pushed back to the walls of Troy Paris attempts to storm the walls of the city, ignoring the advice of Achilles. Patroclus is killed by a combination of the Trojan Euphorbus, Apollo and Hector.

With the death of Patroclus, the Trojans regain some ground as the two sides struggle for the body. Hector follows Achilles' chariot, desiring his horses. Hector is wounded and must retreat. The Greeks save the body of Patroclus. A runner brings the new of Patroclus' death to Achilles and the hero mourns requesting revenge from his mother. Thetis goes to Hephaestus and gets a new set of armor for her son which she bestows on him even though she finds him lying on the ground weeping.

Achilles goes to battle and Zeus releases the gods to fight as they desire. Aeneas stands up to Achilles but is wounded, saved again by a god. Achilles and Hector clash with their troops following and Achilles rampage continues.

Achilles splits the Trojan line and murders many in the near-by river Xanthus. The river god gets angry with him and Achilles eventually attacks the god himself. The god retaliates and chases Achilles only to be stopped by Hephaestus who repulses him at Hera's bidding. Achilles presses to the very walls of Troy. Hector exits to meet his adversary but then flees him, running around the city three times. Athena tricks him into facing Achilles who kills him after a short struggle. The Greeks dishonor Hector's body and Achilles drags him back to their camp behind his chariot.

The Greeks have a feast and build a pyre for Patroclus. They burn and then bury his body. After this, Achilles hosts a set of funeral games for his fallen friend. At night Zeus has Thetis tell her son that Hector ought to be ransomed and Iris tell Priam to ransom his son. With divine help, Priam comes to Achilles' camp and ransoms the body of his son. The two share a meal together and go to sleep. Priam leaves at the goading of Hermes before day break and the epic ends with the funeral of Hector.

For all practical purposes, Western literature begins with the Iliad. The Epic of Gilgamesh, while at least 1,000 years older, is neither as well-known nor as influential as Homer’s work. We still use expressions like “Achilles’ heel,” “Trojan horse,” or “the face that launched a thousand ships,” all with roots in the Iliad or the mythic cycle on which it is based, nearly 3,000 years after the poem was written. And at least in terms of the number of copies to survive from antiquity, the poems of Homer are second only to the Bible in popularity.

Although “Iliad” means “the story of Ilion,” or Troy, the poem has much more to say about Achilles and Hector than it does about Troy. As the first word of the Greek text suggests (“Rage! Goddess, sing the rage of Peleus’s son Achilles”), this poem has a lot to do with anger. Honor, glory, and fate are also frequent themes.

Among the things for which the Iliad is most famous are its use of epithets, or formulaic phrases to describe an individual, an object, or even some events. Also noteworthy is the poem’s masterful use of similes.

For more than 1,500 years the Iliad and the Odyssey set the standard by which epic poetry, if not all poetry of any kind, was judged. The epic form in poetry has not been widely practiced since the appearance of John Milton’s Paradise Lost in 1667, but the story of the fall of Troy has remained a perennial favorite to the present day.

Iliad SummaryThe Background of the StoryThe goddess Eris (Discord) was not invited to the wedding of Peleus and Thetis (Achilles’ parents), so in revenge she threw a golden apple inscribed “for the fairest” into the banquet hall, knowing it would cause trouble. All the goddesses present claimed it for themselves, but the choice came down to three—Aphrodite, Athena, and Hera. They asked Zeus to make the final decision, but he wisely refused.

Instead, Zeus sent them to Mount Ida, where the handsome youth Paris was tending his father’s flocks. Priam had sent the prince away from Troy because of a prophecy that Paris would one day bring doom to the city. Each of the three goddesses offers Paris a bribe if he will name her the fairest: Hera promises to make him lord of Europe and Asia; Athena promises to make him a great military leader and let him rampage all over Greece; and Aphrodite promises that he will have the most beautiful woman in the world for his wife. Paris picks Aphrodite. From then on both Hera and Athena are dead-set against him, and against the Trojans in general.

The most beautiful woman in the world at the time is Helen, a daughter of Zeus and Leda. Helen is already married—to Menelaus, the king of Sparta. Helen’s adoptive father Tyndareus had required all the men who wanted to marry her swear a solemn oath that they would all come to the assistance of Helen’s eventual husband should he ever need their help.

Paris visits Menelaus in Sparta and abducts Helen, taking her back to Troy with him, seemingly with her active cooperation. Paris also takes a large part of Menelaus’ fortune. This was a serious breach of the laws of hospitality, which held that guests and hosts owed very specific obligations to each other. In particular, the male guest was obligated to respect the property and wife of his host as he would his own.

Menelaus, his brother Agamemnon, and all the rest of Helen’s original suitors, invite others to join them on an expedition to Troy to recover Helen. An armada of some 1,200 ships eventually sails to Troy, where the Achaeans fight for years to take the city, and engage in skirmishes and plundering raids on nearby regions. The story opens in the tenth year of the war.

Book 1: The Wrath of AchillesAgamemnon offends Chryses, the priest of Apollo, by refusing to ransom back his daughter. Apollo sends a plague on the Achaeans in retribution. At a gathering of the whole army, Agamemnon agrees to give the girl back but demands another woman as compensation, and takes Briseis, Achilles’ concubine.

Achilles is enraged, and pulls his whole army out of the war. In addition, he prays to his mother, the goddess Thetis, to beg Zeus to avenge his dishonor by supporting the Trojans against the Achaean forces. Zeus agrees, though not without angering his wife, Hera.

Book 2: Agamemnon’s Dream and the Catalogue of ShipsZeus sends a false prophetic dream to Agamemnon, indicating that if he will rouse the army and march on Troy, he can capture the city that very night. As a test, Agamemnon calls another assembly and suggests instead that the whole army pull up its tents and sail back home.

This turns out to be a very bad idea. The troops rush away to get ready for the voyage home and their leaders have a very hard time restoring them to order. The army is eventually mobilized for war, and a catalogue of the Achaean and Trojan forces involved in the fight follows.

Book 3: The Duel between Paris and MenelausIn what is most likely a flashback episode, a truce is called so that Menelaus and Paris can meet in single combat, the winner to take Helen and all her treasures home with him. Solemn oaths are sworn by both sides to abide by the outcome of the duel. Helen watches the fight with King Priam from the walls of Troy, and points out the chief leaders of the opposing forces. Just as Menelaus is on the point of killing Paris, his protector, the goddess Aphrodite takes him safely out of the battle and back to his bedroom in Troy.

Book 4: The Truce is BrokenHera schemes with some of the other gods and goddesses to break the truce. Athena tricks Pandarus, an ally of the Trojans, into shooting an arrow at Menelaus, wounding him slightly.... » Complete Iliad Summary

Book 5: Odysseus Sets Sail for Home— and is ShipwreckedAt another council of the gods, Zeus orders Hermes to go to Calypso and tell her to let Odysseus leave

for Ithaca. Calypso is unhappy, but obeys the order. She offers Odysseus a chance to become immortal and to live with her forever; which he declines. Odysseus builds a raft with tools and materials she provides, and sails off. Poseidon comes back from feasting with the Ethiopians and wrecks the raft in a storm. Odysseus, with the help of a sea goddess, is washed safely ashore in the land of the Phaeacians.

Book 6: Nausicaa Encounters a StrangerThe Phaeacian Princess Nausicaa finds the shipwrecked Odysseus asleep behind a bush. Odysseus asks Nausicaa for help. She gives him some clothing to wear and sends him into town to find the palace of her father, Alcinous.

Book 7: Odysseus and the King of PhaeaciaOdysseus arrives at the palace and begs the assistance of King Alcinous and Queen Arete. He gives an edited version of his "adventures" to date, but does not disclose his identity. He deftly turns aside Alcinous's suggestion that he should remain in Phaeacia and marry Nausicaa.

Book 8: The Phaeacians Entertain OdysseusThe Phaeacians treat Odysseus to a day of feasting, song, and athletic events. When Odysseus begins weeping during Demodocus's tale of the Trojan War, Alcinous cuts the banquet short. At dinner that evening, Odysseus speaks highly of Demodocus's skill and offers him a prime cut of his own portion. When Demodocus sings the story of the Trojan Horse, Odysseus begins crying again,... » Complete The Odyssey Summary