Homer

Important Terms• Hero• Epic• Heroic Poetry• Iliad• Odyssey

Invocationsrhapsode

Muse

• Prayer• Request for inspiration• Summary/introduction

Invocation in the Iliad

Sing, Goddess, sing of the rage of Achilles, son of Peleus—that murderous anger which condemned Achaeansto countless agonies and hurled many warrior soulsdeep into Hades, leaving their dead bodiescarrion food for dogs and birds—all in fulfillment of the will of Zeus.Start at the point where Agamemnon, son of Atreus,that king of men, quarreled with noble Achilles.Which of the gods drove these two men to fight?

Iliad I.1-10

In medias res

• landing at Troy

• nine years of indecisive warfare, including raids by the Achaeans on Troy's allies

• The Iliad – quarrel between Achilles & Agamemnon

Grand Assembly

Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (1696-1770)

William PageQuarrel of Achilles and Agamemnon, ca. 1832

Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (1696-1770)

Arming Scene

Two-handled jar (neck-amphora) depicting the arming of Achilles. Archaic Period, about 550 B.C. By the Camtar Painter. Attic ceramic, Black Figure. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Inscriptions: "Achilleus," "Thetis”

Hephaistos and Thetis, tondo, Attic Red-figure cup by the Foundry Painter, from Vulci, ca. 490-480

BCE

Thetis at Hephaestus' forge waiting to receive Achilles' new weapons. From the triclinium of House IX.I.7, Pompeii.

Jan Van Dyck. Thetis Receives the Arms and Armor for Achilles from Hephaestus (Venus at

the Forge of Vulcan). 1630-32.

Elaborate DescriptionAchilles’ Shield

Jean-Dominique Ingres,Achilles Greets the Ambassadors of Agamemnon (1800-1801)

Embassy Scene

Battle Scene

Menelaus (centre-left) pursues Paris (centre-right) as Aphrodite (left) and Artemis (right) watch on. Side A from an Attic red-figure kylix, ca. 490–460 BC. From Capua. Douris Painter.

Hector at death of Patroclus, ca. 500 BC, in Agrigento

Epithets

• Origin I Home: 'spearmen who lived on the fertile soil of Larisa'

• Patronymic: 'Achilles son of Peleus'. • Appearance/State: 'white-armed Andromache; 'fair-

haired Menelaus'. • Skill/Art: ‘resourceful Odysseus’; 'swift-footed

Achilles' .• Position: Agamemnon, king of men'; 'sacred herald'. • Heroic quality / General: godlike Epeios’; p.2O3

'strong Diomedes’

Similes“Diomedes of the great war cry shivered as he saw him,and like a man in his helplessness who, crossing a great plain,stand at the edge of a fast-running river that dashes seaward,and watches it thundering into while water, and leaps a pace backward, now Tydeus’s son gave back, and spoke to his people:‘Friends, although we know the wonder of glorious Hektorto be a fighter with the spear and a bold man of battle,yet there goes ever some god beside him, who beats off destruction, and now, in the likeness of a man mortal, Ares goes with him.Come then, keeping your faces turned to the Trojans, give groundBackward, nor be we eager to fight in strength with divinities’” (5:596-606).

Catalogue

Homer's Iliad and the Catalogue of Ships

Divine Machineryin Homeric Epic

The Divine AssemblyParthenon FriezeAthena

Games

A pottery fragment 580 – 570 BC (Sophilos)

François VaseMuseum: Florence, Museo ArcheologicoSize: 66cm. (volute-crater)Function: convivialTechnique: black-figureStyle: Miniature black-figure Subject/s: seven figure friezes on the body above one animal frieze; pygmies fight cranes on the foot

Funeral Scene

Jacques-Louis DavidThe Funeral of Patroclus (1779)

KatabasisDescent into the Underworld

Odysseus and Tiresias

Odysseus and Elpenor

Odysseus also meets Agamamnon and AchillesSee Odyssey XI

Vision of the Future in the IliadPost-Iliad Stories

• arrival of the Amazons as Trojan allies

• death of Penthesileia, their queen (killed by Achilles)

• assistance of the Ethiopians on the Trojan side

• death of Memnon king of the Ethiopians8

• death of Achilles (shot by an arrow aimed by Paris & Apollo)

• contest for the arms of Achilles between Odysseus & Ajax (see Ovid for details)

• suicide of Ajax

• arrival of Achilles' son Neoptolemus (or Pyrrhus-"red-haired)

• successful attempt to get the bow & arrows of Heracles9

• death of Paris (killed by Philoctetes with Heracles' bow)

• marriage (?) of Helen & Deiphobus, another of Priam,s sons

• theft of the palladium (statue of Athene) by Odysseus and Diomedes

• strategy of the wooden horse

• story of Sinon & death of Laocoon, priest of Poseidon

• FALL OF TROY

• death of Priam at the altar (killed by Neoptolemus)

• escape of Aeneas

• rape of Cassandra by lesser Ajax

• sacrifice of Polyxena to Achilles' ghost

• murder of Astyanax

• enslavement of the Trojan women

Epic Scenes and Features• invocation• in medias res• grand assemblies• arming scenes• elaborate descriptions• embassy scenes• battle scenes • epithets• similes• an epic catalogue or list• divine machinery • epic games or contests• funeral scene • a trip to the Underworld• a vision of the future