The Iliad is the story of the Wrath of Achilles – the greatest warrior among Greeks. It is a distillation of the war against Troy. It is an exploration of the heroic ideal. Achilles’ wrath played a major part in the poem that opens in the very first verse of the epic.
In the first book, Achilles sets free a maiden Brisels from his hut on King Agamemnon’s order, but feels insulted. He quits the battlefield and calls his mother Thetis. He begs her to persuade God Zeus to vindicate his honor by granting victory to the Trojans. Thetis prays to Zeus on her son’s behalf. That night Zeus sets upon Agamemnon a deceiving dream, promising victory. The king takes a wrong decision and marches towards Troy. Zeus sends Iris to warn Trojans in the form of the son of King Priam. From the Trojan side, Hector – a Trojan hero leads forth the battle. Paris proposes a duel between Menelaus and himself to decide the whole issue of the war and the fate of Helen. If Menelaus would win, Helen and her wealth would be restored, and if Paris would win, the Achaeans would sail back home. Menelaus wins the battle and Helen would now have to go back to her husband to end the war.
But the Gods hold a council and Goddess Hera tells Zeus not to let the Ilios escape as she hates them the most. Disguising herself as a Trojan citizen, she tells Pandarus to shoot a treacherous arrow at Menelaus. Some Trojans also violate the truce. King Agamemnon renews the conflict. Hector hastens back to Troy and reproaches Paris to fight again as his countrymen were dying for him. Hector then turns around homewards to bid farewell to his wife Andromache.
Paris and Hector return to the war field and engage in a big fight. Zeus forbids the Gods to fulfil his promise to glorify Achilles. He himself sits on the summit of Mount Gargarus and frightens Diomed’s horses with a thunderbolt. Agamemnon assembles his hosts and decides to call Achilles back. Odysseus, Ajax and Phoenix find Achilles but he remains implacable. The war takes a turn for the worse. Patroclus enters the war and is killed in a combat. Achilles weeps on the seashore till his mother Thetis rises from the deep sea to comfort him. He changes his mind and decides to wage the war. Thetis brings arms for Achilles and he is reconciled with Agamemnon. A great combat ensues between Achilles and Hector in which the latter is killed mercilessly. Achilles filled with fury trails Hector’s body behind his chariot round his comrade’s tomb for 12 days. Hector’s body then is brought back to Troy and burned.
Thus, The Iliad is the story of combats and wars of Gods and men. If there is any ‘theme’ applicable to the epic, it is ‘Achilles Choice’. Achilles left with a choice either to be a great hero by taking side of the Greeks or to live a long, happy life without any lasting fame by deceiving the Greeks. He decided to live a long life without fame but he was forced to enter the war because of his friend’s death. His decision changed the entire war scenario. Hence, the main theme of the Iliad is ‘The Choice of Achilles’. Though he chose to be famous for ever, he was tragically killed by a poisonous arrow.
An Enigma
The time, birthplace and life of Homer are enigmatic. There is neither any historical evidence about the correct period of the creation of the two epics nor any mention of time and birthplace of the creator itself. Previously it was believed that he lived in the 12th century BC around the time of the Trojan War. From the style of his poetry, his birth period was once put as far back as 1200 BC. There are different opinions about the life of the composer of the Iliad and The Odyssey. It is even difficult to state with certainty that the same poet had composed both works. Uncertainty is the main feature of any scholar who tries to deal with Homer’s era of Greek history.
Herodotus (400 BC) placed Homeric age about 400 years before his own time, that was about 850 BC. That period is accepted as the most probable period on the whole. Though the age of Homer is a matter for deliberation, it was certain that he lived long before 776 BC, the commencement of Greek chronology by Olympiads.
Greek historians were far less certain about the dates of Homer’s life. Some historians regarded him as a contemporary to the events of the Iliad, while some placed him half a century, a century or perhaps several hundred years there after.
Hence, most scholars agreed that Homer was an Ionian of 8th or 9th century BC. He must have lived not much later than the ‘Trojan War’ about which he had sung the most.
The place of birth is also uncertain, probably a Greek Colony on the coast of Asia Minor. He settled in an Ionic settlement either Chios or Smyrna. Similes in the Iliad and the Odyssey gave references of the lives of farmers and artisans. An east Aegean environment is suggested for the main author of the Iliad by certain references in the poem.
The references derived from the poem are the peak of Samothrace just appeared over the intervening mass of Imbros, seen from the plains of Troy, the birds at the mouth of the Cayster near Ephusus and the storms of Icaria and northwest winds from Trace. In the Odyssey, East Aegean coloring was fainter, which was set primarily in Western Greece. But above all examples, the position of Ithaca from the further side of the Greek World was sure to be incompatible with the idea that the poet was an inhabitant of Ionia. His descendants – the Homeridue lived on the Ionic island of Chios that was for sure.
Homer did not live during the Trojan War period, which was named after him. He was believed to have lived 300 years after the Homeric Age of which he wrote about, in his epics. He was considered the most important literary source of knowledge of that period where history, religion, myth and lore of many generations were combined. There are certain elements of the poetic language that were never exactly reproduced in speech, indicative of the epics of the post Mycenaean era in composition and later became the foundation of the first Ionian settlements in Asia Minor dated about 1000 BC. Many scholars placed the epics both stylistically and metrically not long after 700 BC.
On the other hand the role assigned to the Phoenicians as traders suggested the time span sometime after 900 BC. A new form of debating started, based on the development of special armor used by hoplites – the foot soldiers in epics. There was a reference of the Gorgon Mask as a decorative motif, which pointed the time span after 750 BC.
The poems contained many archaic and traditional elements in language and material background. Modern archaeological research had uncovered artifacts described in the poems, providing evidence that Homer was an Ionian of the 8th or 9th century BC.
There also was a mystery regarding Homer’s life and birthplace. But almost all traditional sources agreed upon the fact that he was blind. He traveled from one place to another reciting his poems. He inherited most of the material of his epics from generations of bards before him. It was believed that in the late Greek Dark Ages, a community of wealthy people would have gathered in for an evening’s entertainment. The professional story-tellers could sing the stories of the Greek heroes and the Trojan War. These stories were so long that it would take days to complete. Homer – a blind man probably was the greatest of such story-tellers. He would have gathered the different stories so artistically that they were eventually credited to him.
The Iliad
The Iliad is the story of the Wrath of Achilles – the greatest warrior among Greeks. It is a distillation of the war against Troy. It is an exploration of the heroic ideal. Achilles’ wrath played a major part in the poem that opens in the very first verse of the epic.
In the first book, Achilles sets free a maiden Brisels from his hut on King Agamemnon’s order, but feels insulted. He quits the battlefield and calls his mother Thetis. He begs her to persuade God Zeus to vindicate his honor by granting victory to the Trojans. Thetis prays to Zeus on her son’s behalf. That night Zeus sets upon Agamemnon a deceiving dream, promising victory. The king takes a wrong decision and marches towards Troy. Zeus sends Iris to warn Trojans in the form of the son of King Priam. From the Trojan side, Hector – a Trojan hero leads forth the battle. Paris proposes a duel between Menelaus and himself to decide the whole issue of the war and the fate of Helen. If Menelaus would win, Helen and her wealth would be restored, and if Paris would win, the Achaeans would sail back home. Menelaus wins the battle and Helen would now have to go back to her husband to end the war.
But the Gods hold a council and Goddess Hera tells Zeus not to let the Ilios escape as she hates them the most. Disguising herself as a Trojan citizen, she tells Pandarus to shoot a treacherous arrow at Menelaus. Some Trojans also violate the truce. King Agamemnon renews the conflict. Hector hastens back to Troy and reproaches Paris to fight again as his countrymen were dying for him. Hector then turns around homewards to bid farewell to his wife Andromache.
Paris and Hector return to the war field and engage in a big fight. Zeus forbids the Gods to fulfil his promise to glorify Achilles. He himself sits on the summit of Mount Gargarus and frightens Diomed’s horses with a thunderbolt. Agamemnon assembles his hosts and decides to call Achilles back. Odysseus, Ajax and Phoenix find Achilles but he remains implacable. The war takes a turn for the worse. Patroclus enters the war and is killed in a combat. Achilles weeps on the seashore till his mother Thetis rises from the deep sea to comfort him. He changes his mind and decides to wage the war. Thetis brings arms for Achilles and he is reconciled with Agamemnon. A great combat ensues between Achilles and Hector in which the latter is killed mercilessly. Achilles filled with fury trails Hector’s body behind his chariot round his comrade’s tomb for 12 days. Hector’s body then is brought back to Troy and burned.
Thus, The Iliad is the story of combats and wars of Gods and men. If there is any ‘theme’ applicable to the epic, it is ‘Achilles Choice’. Achilles left with a choice either to be a great hero by taking side of the Greeks or to live a long, happy life without any lasting fame by deceiving the Greeks. He decided to live a long life without fame but he was forced to enter the war because of his friend’s death. His decision changed the entire war scenario. Hence, the main theme of the Iliad is ‘The Choice of Achilles’. Though he chose to be famous for ever, he was tragically killed by a poisonous arrow.
The Odyssey
The Odyssey does not have the supreme moments of the Iliad but it remains more perfect as a whole. It describes the return of the Greek hero Odysseus from the Trojan War.
The epic starts with events in Heaven. Goddess Athene requests Lord Zeus to grant freedom to the forgotten hero Odysseus. His 19 years of absence has left his wife and son at the mercy of some chiefs in his native land, who are seeking his wife’s hand and wealth. His son tries to search his lost father. Odysseus is kept from home by two nymphs, Calypso and Poseidon. Calypso loves him very much but Poseidon hates him for blinding his son Polyphemus. Athene tells Zeus that wise and God fearing Odysseus should be set free. She also encourages Telemachus, Odysseus’ son to get justice in guise of a Taphian chief. Telemachus – with his new found courage warns the suitors who try to woo his mother Penelope. He travels alone to Grey Sea and prays to Athene. She promises to find him a ship and crew for the search. Penelope is in despair on hearing of her son’s voyage, but Athene comforts her in a dream.
Here, Calypso brings cloth for Odysseus’ boat to sail. She also gives him corn, wine and water. The sea-goddess Leucothea and Athene help him on his journey. Nausicaa, the daughter of Queen Arete saves him, provides him clothes and presents a ship to reach his native land. The king loads him with rich gifts. Demodocus talks about the wooden horse episode of the Trojan War. How the Acheans built it and hid within their bravest heroes, and how the Trojans in their blindness dragged the horse into the city and Troy fell. Odysseus, listening to the story weeps reveals the truth about himself and his many adventures.
The Phaeacians were so delighted after listening to his story that they load him with many gifts and he sails again to his city. Disguised as a beggar he meets his son Telemachus. Finally, he slaughters the suitors with his son’s help and is reunited with his wife and father. Peace is finally restored.
The Odyssey is about the love of the hero for his wife and home. It seems a perfect whole. For most critics the scenes in Ithaca, adventures of Odysseus on the high seas, seem too unreal.
It is the work of an aging genius. Like Shakespeare, for Homer, the supreme human quality is loyalty. The Odyssey is a tale of loyalties.
Both the epics have an elaborate style, much impersonal and formal language, use dactylic hexameter, and are metrical in form. The Iliad deals with passions and insoluble dilemmas. The Odyssey deals with what is right and rational. The Iliad has no real villains but the actors are caught up as victims in a cruel tragic world. The Odyssey has wicked characters destroyed by the hero’s courage, patience and self-control. Achilles seems to be a more striking, brilliant warrior. Odysseus is more patient, loving and courageous. The Odyssey touches modern readers more with the love of a man for his wife and home in spite of all the struggles, hardships and dangers than of the false lust for battle and blood of the Iliad. The participation of the Gods, Goddesses – the supernatural characters like Lord Zeus, Goddesses Thetis, Athene etc. – is completely enchanting and in true Homeric style, reflecting the taste and capacity of the composer. The Iliad and The Odyssey remain creative pieces of art, have a formulaic style and brilliant personal vision.
Homeric Style
Homer is believed to be a bard, who wandered from one place to another reciting his stories. He composed his poems orally. It is certain that he had not memorized his poems, instead, he had understood the essence – the outline of the events and each time he sang the poems, he would have filled the gaps and made his poems colorful. He did not have a choice but to tell whatever his patrons liked.
The bards used several typical, descriptive words to make their jobs easy. They chose the descriptive phrases depending on how much of the meter was left. Homer also used the same style. He also has used several descriptive phrases instead of simple adjectives for main characters and important events to fit the meter. He has used the dactylic hexameter to compose his poems. Dactylic hexameter means there are five dactyls followed by a sixth foot, which does not have to match with the rest of the line. This style is regarded as one of the most beautiful meters of the Greek language as it is next to impossible to compose in English.
Homer introduced the concept of a different style of poetry. It is based on the use of repeated verses or group of verses. These are fixed phrases employed again and again to express a similar idea in a similar part of the verse. Each major God or hero possesses a variety of epithets. Odysseus is referred to as ‘divine Odysseus’ – much enduring divine Odysseus, many counseled Odysseus etc., simply to be fitted into the remainder of the hexameter (six foot) verse. To go with the rhythm a ship is described as black, hollow, symmetrical ship. It is not to distinguish any particular ship from other ships but to fill up the rhythmic context. The fixed phrase units are used because of the oral nature of the epics, in which memory, practice and improvisation take place through use of pen and paper.
Homer built a tendency of all known oral heroic poetry towards elaboration and expansion. The singers did not simply memorize the songs but adjusted the verses from their existing store of phrases, themes and matter. They tend to replace the things unfamiliar to them by adding or discarding the material according to their requirement. According to Aristotle, Homer was the poet of ‘living words’. An arrow is "impatient" to be on the wing, a weapon ‘thirsts’ to drink the blood of an enemy. His measures were always ready to run along to represent his notions. His harmony makes us confess that he had not only the richest head, but the finest ear in the world. His similes are like pictures with corresponding images.
There are few very important words used repeatedly throughout in the epics. They are time, arete, kleos, akleos etc. Time for him was honor and virtue or greatness was arete. Arete also meant excellence. In Homeric poems, even non-human things possess arete or greatness. The noble horses and powerful Gods show greatness.
To having arete is like achieving something at war as a soldier, as an athlete in peace, as a noble in his skills. Finally, arete was enlarged to have noble action and noble mind – intellectual and physical excellence. Kleos means fame – the reward for great honor and virtue. And akleos means dying without acquiring fame. Achilles in book XI of the Iliad discusses about kleos that he would rather prefer to be alive on earth than dead and famous. Thus, the word arete would mean to die for kleos rather than to live as akleos.
Homer’s poems are filled with conflicts of Gods, victories and defeats of men, battles between two cities, heavenly beauties and varied imagination. Everything is imaginable, moving and in action. The reader is not just informed by the poet as a third person when a battle is fought or a council is called in the poem. But he becomes a listener, a spectator and an integral part of the poem. This fire is discerned in Roman poet Virgil – author of Aeneid, but not as truly seen through a glass, reflected in Homer.
Homer created a world for himself in the invention of fable, which according to Aristotle was ‘the soul of poetry’. The marvelous fable included the wars, the supernatural, the machines of Gods. Homer seemed to be the first to bring in the system that includes the deities into the literature with great importance and dignity. His supernatural characters are so perfectly pictured that mankind feels to follow them. His Gods continue to this day – the Gods of poetry.
Yet, apart from the minor inconsistencies regarding oral poetry and medium scale elaboration, the overall impression of the Iliad and the Odyssey is one of a powerful unity, which places the epics at the highest pedestal in form of poetry.
Homer And The Greeks
Homer is universally acknowledged to have created the best form in literature by any writer in Greek language. The Greeks regard the epics not just as a piece of literature or a symbol of heroism and Hellenic unity, but also as a source of moral and practical standard.
From centuries and ages, Greeks not only learnt the epics by heart but included them in their curriculum. The Greeks believed the Trojan War as the defining event of their culture. They had gained their collective identity as Greeks after the Trojan War. The Trojan War was the first moment in Greek cultural history and racial identity where they were known to come together as one race with a common purpose. After the Trojan War, they started forming government, small cities and states under the flag of Greek culture, though they were small and disunited. They did not follow the Homeric poems as just sacred and divine, but also as a piece of great literature. They found their collective identity not from the religious texts like most ancient cultures but from Homeric literature. The Greeks continued to narrate the Homeric stories down the ages. The history of the wars was propagated from mouth to mouth – from person to person. The short stories sang by the bards and story-tellers eventually combined into long narratives.
By the end of the Greek Dark Ages and at the dawn of urbanized Greek culture, these story-tellers would have become the cultural attractions in the court of kings and at the places of the wealthiest people, as entertainers.
Greece had not actually reached its royal grandeur and stately existence during that period. The political and economic systems were in their primary development period. It did not even bear the collective identity as Greece. It was a society of tribals ruled by Basiles as the controllers. They observed the duties as a king, judge, religious leader among others in general. Women enjoyed free and advanced status and participated enthusiastically in sports and athletic competitions. Slavery was in vogue. The nobles hired men and slaves. Their main occupations were agriculture, fighting, hunting etc. It was after the Iliad and the Odyssey that the Greeks established as ‘Greek Character’. Their cultural identity changed and they regarded the epics as the milestone in their literature as well as in their culture.
Homeric Question
For centuries there have been continuous debates and arguments on the ‘Homeric Question’, namely by whom, how, when and where the Iliad and the Odyssey were composed. The modern text of the Homeric poems comes from medieval and Renaissance manuscripts, which themselves were the copies of ancient manuscripts of the epics, which is now all but lost. A generally accepted answer is yet to be found. Analysts of the 19th and 20th centuries have argued that the inconsistencies in the work show that the works were just collections of short, simple poems independently composed by different poets. There have been long ranging arguments over whether the works were by the same hand or have their origins in the days of Homer and his followers (Homerides). His many readers have believed that the epics were written by different people, because stylistically no real distinction can be made between the two works. There is a difference of genre as the Iliad is martial and heroic and the Odyssey is picturesque and often fantastic.
The scholars have researched the theories about Homer and his relationship with his works. Some suggest that he was someone who followed oral tradition of story-telling or he never existed. The epics attributed to him were the patchwork efforts of generations of bards. Many classicists believe that the epics were composed by several individuals. While another set of scholars accept the overall Greek idea of a single author.
This ambiguous situation has raised a pertinent discussion about the existence and authenticity of Homer as a single poet. This typical situation is called ‘The Homeric Question’ or ‘The Homeric Problem.’ F A Wolf has written a small book called Prolegomena ad Homerum, published in 1795 AD. This book provided the base for an ongoing debate among the critics from all around the world over ‘The Homeric Question.’ The English translation was titled, The Homeric Problem.
Over two centuries, groups of scholars attempted to convince each other that their viewpoint was correct. Almost all historians slightly differed from each other. There were several possibilities but three most popular seem worthwhile to be discussed about. The first and the most popular theory the world followed before 1795 was that there is only one great creator of the two epics and that is Homer. The second theory that gained currency after 1795 was after the publication of Prolegomena ad Homerum, where most of the scholars did not agree that Homer was the sole composer. They believed that there were actually many men who composed the works, which got accredited to Homer.
The third and final theory was the view that the creator of the two epics was only one person but it was not Homer. Someone else would have composed the poems who never got the credit, which later was credited to ‘Homer’ – just an imaginary character. The third theory is the most obscure theory and only a small number of people believe in it. Most of the people who read Homer’s works were divided into two groups, namely believers of ‘One Homer’, or ‘Many other poets’ theory.
One Homer Theory
Until the publication of Prolegomena ad Homerum, there were very few people who doubted the existence of Homer. The Greeks and Romans were convinced about ‘One Homer Theory’. The two epics provided the basis of Greek education and cultural activities throughout the classical age and formed the backbone of humane education down to the time of the Roman Empire and the spread of Christianity. The absence of hard facts did not deter the Greeks.
Herodotus seemed absolutely convinced about the single poet theory. The scholars who believed in this theory gave more proofs that the epics were divided into several parts. The poems contained about 12,000 lines each. It took a complete day to perform the entire epic. Homer as a story-teller himself would have divided the epics into several parts, so that he could perform each part on an evening. It was also suggested that the blind bard Demodicus in Odyssey (books VII - IX) was Homer himself – self portrayed. In fact, this is where the idea spread that Homer was blind. Looking up to the language of the epics, they were all written in the Ionian dialect.
This suggested that Homer was from Asia Minor, presently Turkey. And if this is accepted it is most likely that he begged his earning through seven cities – all of them claimed Homer as their native after his death and his name gained fame. And if he was a blind bard and a story-teller he must be the single composer of the epics.
All of these suggest that Homer truly got credit as a single composer and ‘One Homer Theory’ is truly justified.
Many Poets Theory
On the other side of the debate, there were many evidences to boost up the many creators theory. Though Herodotus has discussed about Homer and placed his time span, he has very little to say about Homer and doubts whether Homer had written all of his works. He could probably have been the first person to doubt it. The critics who advocated the 'One Homer Theory' also seem to be convinced that the original Odyssey ended in book XXIII – line 269. Both the groups are convinced on this point. So, the advocates of ‘Many Homers Theory’ argued that the rest of the book XXIII and book XXIV must have been added later on by other poets. This extra work was credited to Homer. So, it can be concluded that the entire Odyssey might be composed in parts by different authors and later on accredited to Homer.
It is assumed that originally there was a ‘kernel’ with all essentials of the story that were later built up by different authors in its present day epic form. The entire theory was based on the differences between The Iliad and The Odyssey. Both the works have different social milieu. There are many errors and vast differences of vocabulary. In Iliad the Trojans built the wall until the ninth year, while it should have been built in the first year of the war. A man, who was killed in book Vth, later appeared in book XIII. In Odyssey, some parts of book I are repeated in book V.
There are irregularities in social settings. Sometimes it refers around 8th century BC which was the probable composition time, while the Trojan War occurred over 400 years prior to that. Military tactics from different centuries were adopted. In Odyssey, style and dialect changes are omnipresent. Both early and late Greek languages were used suggesting that the Odyssey must have been written over an extended period of time. From these evidences, it can be simply concluded that perhaps many people had written the poems separately, which probably had been put together under one author’s name – Homer – perhaps in Alexandria.
Thus, both the theories have strong arguments and interesting opinions. They have come to stay as the hottest arguments among the scholars.
Homer And The Critics
There are no authentic manuscripts of the Iliad or the Odyssey that were preserved. This raised a continuous debate on the existence of the author until in 1870, when a German businessman Schliemann started digging the hill of Hissarlik to find Homeric Troy. Many scholars believed that Troy and Homer were alike fables. Yet, after moving mountains of soil from Hissarlik for many years without losing faith, Schliemann and his wife unearthed not one but seven Troys and the treasures of ‘Homer’s Golden Mycenae', and the palace of ‘Tiryans of the mighty walls’. Schliemann’s dream became reality that ‘Homer’s world was not a dream'. Before that though Goethe, Schiller, Tennyson were less convinced, Coleridge accepted the idea and believed that "A masterpiece involves a master."
The Duke of Buckingham in his excellent essay on Homer praised him as :
"Read Homer once, and you can read no more,
For all books else appear so mean, so poor, Verse will seem prose, but still persist to read,
And Homer will be all the books you need."
Spenser in his Ruins of Time truly justified Homer as,
"For not to have been diet in Lethe Lake,
Could save the son of Thetis from to die,
But that blind bard did him immortal make
With verses, diet in dew of castaly."
Keats praised Homer in To Homer as,
"Age on the shores of darkness there is light,
And precipices show untrodden green,
There is a budding morrow in midnight,
There is a triple sight in blindness keen,
Such seeing hadst thou as it once befel,
To Dian, Queen of Earth, and Heaven, and Hell."
Conclusion
Thus, Homer and the Iliad and the Odyssey are bound to remain forever as the symbol of great unity, heroism, morals and works of art. Homer is for ages, second only to the books of Moses. The two epics are the focal point of Greek culture. Homer is immortal by the essential poetry of his men and women and his vision of the world. The epics are the most important literary source for knowing history, religion, myth and culture of many generations. They have formed the foundation for all the western literature.
HOMER
Homer’s invention of style of epic poetry has remained unrivalled. Whatever praises bestowed upon him are truly justified. To Alexander Pope, his work was like a copious nursery that contained the seeds and first harvests of every kind of literature. According to Aristotle, "The soul of poetry was first breathed in by Homer." He further expressed, "Everything in it has manner that is, everything is acted or spoken." Longinus opined that Homer principally excelled in sublimity and in spirit of his thoughts. Homer made us not merely readers but hearers. Duport in his Gnomologia Humerica collected innumerable instances of Homer’s sentiments in his work. Homer was the father of poetical diction, the first who taught ‘the language of Gods’ to men. Aristotle had reason to say that, "Homer was the only poet who found living words."
•2000 BC. First evidence of the Greek Civilization.
•1300 BC.
Beginning of Homeric Age.
•1200 BC.
Fall of Troy. First Greek settlements in Asia Minor.
•750 BC. Greek writing lost during Dark Ages, finally rediscovered.
•400 BC. Herodotus lived and composed The Histories. Homer’s works studied and taught in Greek schools.
•323 BC.
Death of Alexander the Great and beginning of the downfall of the Greek Empire.
•300–100 BC.
The conferences held to find original Homeric texts in Athens and Alexandria.
•1795 F A Wolf brought up the ‘Homeric Problem’ in Prolegomena ad Homerum.
•1870 – 75 Schliemann dug out Troy.
• "The tongue of man is a twisty thing, there are plenty of words there of every kind."
• "Once harm has been done, even a fool understands it."
• "Beyond his strength no man can fight, although he be eager."
• "Too much rest becomes a pain."
• "The man does better who runs from disaster than he who caught by it."
• "A decent boldness ever meets with friend."
• "To alcohol ! The cause of and solution to, all of life’s problems."
