The Iliad

Summary

The Iliad tells of a few weeks in the tenth year of the Greek siege of Troy, and its subject, announced in the first line, is the wrath of Achilles. A plague sent by Apollo ravages the Greek camp because Agamemnon, commander of the Achaeans, has refused to return the captive daughter of Apollo's priest Chryses. Forced to give her up, Agamemnon takes Achilles' prize, the captive woman Briseis, in compensation. Achilles, the greatest Greek warrior, withdraws from battle and asks his mother, the sea-goddess Thetis, to persuade Zeus to give the Trojans victory until the Greeks recognize his worth. Zeus agrees. The battles that follow fill most of the poem. Paris and Menelaus fight a duel for Helen that is broken off by divine intervention; the truce is broken; Diomedes rampages, even wounding Aphrodite and Ares. Hector, Troy's greatest defender, returns to the city and takes leave of his wife Andromache and infant son Astyanax in one of the most moving scenes in literature. As the Trojans drive the Greeks back to their ships, Agamemnon sends an embassy offering Achilles rich gifts, but Achilles refuses. Odysseus and Diomedes make a night raid. Agamemnon, Diomedes, Odysseus and the healer Machaon are wounded, and Patroclus, Achilles' beloved companion, tends the wounded Eurypylus. Hera seduces Zeus to distract him, and the Trojans breach the Greek wall and fire a ship. Patroclus persuades Achilles to let him fight in Achilles' armour; he drives the Trojans back but, after killing Zeus' son Sarpedon, he is struck by Apollo and killed by Hector, who strips the armour. Achilles' grief is overwhelming. Thetis obtains new armour forged by Hephaestus, whose shield depicts the whole world of peace and war. Achilles reconciles with Agamemnon, refuses food, and returns to battle in a frenzy, slaughtering Trojans and fighting the river Scamander itself. He kills Hector before the walls of Troy, while Hector's parents watch, and drags his body behind his chariot. He holds magnificent funeral games for Patroclus. Finally, guided by Hermes, old King Priam comes by night to Achilles' tent to ransom his son's body. The two enemies weep together, Achilles for his father and Patroclus, Priam for Hector. Achilles returns the body, and the poem ends with the Trojan laments and Hector's funeral.

Top Lessons

• The cost of honour

  Achilles' pursuit of honour costs the lives of countless Greeks and of Patroclus. The poem questions the warrior code it celebrates.

• Grief and rage

  Achilles' grief for Patroclus turns into inhuman rage, refusal of food and desecration of Hector's body. The poem traces the psychology of bereavement in war with extraordinary insight.

• Shared mortality

  In Priam's meeting with Achilles, enemies recognize a common human condition of loss. The poem's deepest wisdom is compassion grounded in mortality.

• War seen from the city

  Hector's farewell and the women's laments show what war means to those who wait. Homer gives voice to the defeated as well as the victors.

Verified Quotes

Medical Lens

The Iliad is the oldest substantial source for Greek battlefield medicine. Homer describes some hundred and forty wounds with anatomical precision, specifying entry and exit points and their usually fatal effects, and some medical historians have argued that he shows real anatomical knowledge. Machaon and Podalirius, sons of Asclepius, are the army's physicians; a speaker declares that a healer who can cut out arrows and apply soothing herbs is worth many other men. Patroclus cuts an arrow from Eurypylus' thigh, washes the wound and applies a bitter root that stops pain and bleeding. The poem opens with a plague sent by Apollo's arrows, among the earliest literary epidemics. Achilles' grief, refusal of food, sleeplessness and berserk rage were influentially compared with the combat trauma of Vietnam veterans by the psychiatrist Jonathan Shay; such readings are illuminating but anachronistic and should be framed as interpretation. Hector's corpse is miraculously preserved from decay, and the laments in Book 24 are a key text for the history of mourning.

• Book 1.43–52

  Apollo shoots his arrows into the Greek camp, killing first mules and dogs and then men, for nine days.

• Book 4.190–219

  Machaon is summoned to treat Menelaus' arrow wound: he draws the arrow, sucks out the blood and applies healing herbs.

• Book 5

  Diomedes' rampage: detailed anatomical wounds, and the healing of the wounded gods by the divine physician Paieon.

• Book 11.504–520

  Machaon is wounded and carried from the field; the healer is said to be worth many men.

• Book 11.828–848

  Patroclus cuts the arrow from Eurypylus' thigh, washes the wound, and applies a bitter, pain-killing root.

• Book 18.22–35

  Achilles learns of Patroclus' death: he pours ashes on his head, tears his hair and groans so terribly that Antilochus fears he will cut his own throat.

• Book 19

  Achilles refuses food before battle; Athena sustains him with nectar and ambrosia.

• Book 24.1–18

  Achilles, sleepless, weeps and drags Hector's body around Patroclus' tomb each dawn.