Book Report: Iliad
Author: Homer
Pages: 419
Date: 3/2/25
I read a much simpler version of this story in grade school, saw the movie Troy with Brad Pitt and wanted to read it again to get a better understanding of it, as well as the follow-on book, The Odyssey.
A couple interesting things about this book are written below:
1) The book does not cover the entire war, but begins nine years into the siege when everyone is growing restive and tempers are flaring. In fact, it only covers 55 days of the final days of the war between the Greeks and the Trojans & covers a small geographical area. In fact, of the 24 chapters in the book, chapters 3-8 cover one particular battle, chapters 11-17 another battle and chapters 20-22 basically shows the entrance of Achilles into the war and his ultimate killing of Hector of Troy during single combat. The book alludes to what happened in the years before, but doesn’t cover it.
2) The book does not actually talk about the Trojan Horse. The original Iliad ends when Hector’s body is given back to the Trojans and buried. There were several sequals to the Iliad that cover the list below. Somehow during modern times, we lumped them all together into one book.
a) Aithiopis describes more of the war and ends with the death and funeral of Achilles.
b) Ilias Parva (Little Iliad) focuses on the Trojan Horse as a means to enter Troy.
c) Iliu Persis (The Sack of Troy) covers the actual taking of the city and massacre that followed, the killing of Hector’s father (King Priam), Hector’s son Astyanax and when Hector’s wife becomes the concubine of a son of Achilles. The next book in the series is The Odyssey.
3) While the book covers the various battles between the Greeks and Trojans, it shows to a greater extent who the various gods favor and how they are assisting one group or the other — fighting vicariously through men. Listed below are the gods and who they favored. Zeus tends to be neutral and attempts to keep the characters listed below as neutral, with limited success:
Favors the Greeks
a) Poseidon – king of the sea
b) Hera – daughter of Cronus and wife of Zeus
c) Athene – daughter of Zeus
d) Hephaestus – son of Zeus & Hera
Favors the Trojans
a) Apollo – son of Zeus & Leto
b) Artemis – daughter of Zeus & Leto
c) Aphrodite – daughter of Zeus & Dione
d) Ares – God of War and son of Zeus
e) Hermes – son of Zeus
I learned the following from this book:
1) At the end of each battle, the winners of that battle would remove the armor of all the fallen warriors (even their opponents) to take back with them. I suppose during that time, metal was hard to come by and therefore important to be recycled. During that time, iron only appeared to be used in cooking pots.
2) There are so many well known names from the Greek’s side – probably because they were the winners of the war: Achilles, Ajax & Odysseus. Probably the only name from the Trojan side would be Hector, but I doubt most people would know that name. I wonder how many people would remember the name of the person who started the war: Helen.
3) The success of each battle largely depended on which gods were involved in the war and the extent of their involvment.
I learned the following from this book that will increase my prospects for success after prison. There were some similarities to this book and my life, which are outlined below.
1) Just as the Trojans held on to Helen for better or worse over ten years of battle, even though the Greeks has asked them to give her up multiple times; I held onto Glycerin Traders for too long. I should have sold it several years when I had the chance to sell it and pocketed the money and gone onto something else. By trying to grow it, I doomed it to failure. I valued it at too high of a price just like the Trojans put too much value in Helen, which ultimately led to the entire city being sacked and destroyed.
2) Being so certain of something, as Hector & Paris were, leads to much destruction. So many lives lost due to their stubbornness and excessive confidence. Likewise, I was stubborn and now so many dollars lost (ultimately bankruptcy) as a result of my inability to seek outside counsel and be open to the opinions of others.
3) I don’t know that I learned much else from this book. I think it might have helped if I would have read a more abridged version that was easier to read as opposed to reading an original translation from the 1800’s. My goal was to read a more original text and I achieved that goal, even though it was very difficult & time consuming.
