The Iliad of Homer

by Richmond Lattimore

  Since 1952 (the year after Lattimore’s Iliad translation was published), historians also have possessed another source for studying the actual basis of Homer’s world: the earliest writing in Greek, from a period before the Trojan War. That year saw the decipherment of the mysterious Linear B script, a form of writing using eighty-nine different signs, incised on thousands of clay tablets that had been found at Knossos in Crete starting in 1900, and later at Pylos, Mykenai, and other palace sites on the Greek mainland. The tablets, which date to the end of the thirteenth century, had been preserved only because they were baked by the fires that destroyed their palatial surroundings. Michael Ventris, a young British architect and amateur linguist, made the remarkable discovery, thereby recovering voices from a civilization that had been known since Schliemann’s excavations. Thanks to Ventris, it could be shown that the Mykenaians spoke an early dialect of Greek. Equally surprising was the content of the newly readable texts: meticulous tabulations of supplies and personnel, from grain and sheep to chariots and fighters, all tied into a complicated bureaucracy that most closely resembled the palace-centered economies of larger Near Eastern kingdoms. Unlike the archives of those kingdoms, however, the Mykenaian storerooms (at least those found so far) do not also contain personal or literary texts such as prayers, hymns, letters, or epics. Nevertheless, the Linear B tablets still offer precious insights into the daily life of a civilization that ended around the time of Troy’s destruction.

  The society revealed had several layers of authority. A king figure (wanax) ruled from a central palace, supported by “knights” with whom he apparently had feudal relations requiring them to furnish supplies and men. Local administration officials included several called basileus—the later Greek word for “king.” Slaves were plentiful, and the gods had priests and priestesses dedicated to the functioning of shrines. Beyond this, we lack signs of social institutions, but that could just reflect the limitations of archival lists.

  The Linear B picture offers a clear contrast with Homeric usage. In the Iliad, all the heroes are technically basileis (plural of basileus), although there does seem to be an executive council of eight or nine more important leaders (Nestor, Odysseus, Menelaos, et al.) who make decisions that the broader assembly of troops will then hear and ratify. Homeric Greek generally reserves the old word wanax to designate the “lord” of a house, master of a horse, or a divinity. It is not impossible, however, that the relationship between Agamemnon—often called wanax andrôn (“lord of men”) and Achilleus recalls a Mykenaian feudal arrangement. In the Linear B tablets, there is no sign of a political function for the general populace (although this body, already called the damos, has common-land allotments). But in the assemblies of the Iliad, we can catch a faint glimmer of the future city-state with its politically involved, vocal citizen body, the dêmos that eventually will be enshrined in dêmokratia “rule by the people.” It is difficult to say whether or not the audience for Homeric poetry already is aware of functioning predemocratic city-states, while the poet suppresses details in order to recreate what he imagines was a simpler, earlier era.

  The Mykenaian tablets show that palace culture depended on long-distance networks and made extensive use of writing, although perhaps the skill was restricted to the palace scribes who tracked invoices. By contrast, in the Iliad and Odyssey, even kings live in what seem to be modest houses with a single large room at the center and a few servants. The form of the Mykenaian great hall is continued, surprisingly, by Greek temple architecture of the eighth century BC and later—not by royal homes. The basileis are still depicted as having control of extensive territories (Agamemnon promises Achilleus seven citadels at 9.291). But this is most likely an exaggerated, semi-imaginary portrayal. In reality, after the fall of the Mykenaian palace culture around 1200 BC (close to the time Troy underwent major destruction), a “Dark Age” of Greek culture set in, lasting nearly four hundred years. Large stone buildings were no longer constructed; the arts of pottery and implement making declined; populations shrank, and there were large-scale migrations. The darkness was not uniform: Athens, in particular, seems to have retained traces of the older high culture longer into the eleventh century; Euboea, Crete, and Cyprus offer further traces of continuity between the Mykenaian period and what archaeologists identify as a “renaissance” of Greek culture in the eighth century BC.

  The discovery that at least some Greek speakers in the thirteenth century, before the decline, had access to a writing system presented the starkest contrast with Homeric epic, because nowhere in the poems is writing clearly mentioned. No one reads; messages are reproduced orally by heralds; there are no book scrolls, inscriptions, or clay tablets. Only once does awareness of something like writing seem to surface, at 6.168, which refers rather uneasily to the “mysterious symbols” scratched on a tablet and meant to order secretly the death of the bearer. This seems to represent the incomprehension and suspicion of people at a time when the old sign-based writing was no longer understood, and the new system (with a sign for each sound, rather than for every syllable, as in the rebus-like Linear B) had not yet been carried to Greece from its place of origin further east. Or perhaps the epic poet himself knows about writing but wants to paint an archaizing portrait of a period when heroes were ignorant of the skill. Scholars still debate the exact century when a form of the west-Semitic alphabet used by Phoenicians was first used to record Greek; the earliest surviving inscriptions date from the second part of the eighth century BC (and oddly enough, are used to scratch onto vases a few poetic lines not unlike Homeric verses). If Greek speakers used the art of writing before that, the evidence for that skill remains hidden. Most likely, when the palace economies of the Mykenaian period collapsed, the highly specialized scribal art was no longer practiced; a population with very simple needs could get along without elaborate recording systems.

  Yet, because knowledge of writing seems to have vanished in the Dark Age (1200–800 BC), it is all the more striking that some real features of the earlier, Mykenaian culture do survive intact within the Iliad. These must have been remembered and passed down for generations, by word of mouth (see “Homeric Questions and Some Modern Answers” below). The heroes of the Iliad fight with bronze weapons, whereas iron was the most commonly employed metal in the post-Mykenaian period. The head-to-foot body shield used by Aias (7.219), though visible in Mykenaian art, was later replaced by smaller, round shields (more frequently used in the Iliad). The cup of Nestor (11.632–35) resembles elaborately decorated vessels from the early Mykenaian period. Like the cup, the boar’s-tusk helmet worn by Odysseus (10.261–65), granted a long genealogy by the poet, may have been an heirloom piece that survived the Dark Ages into a later era.

  Some of the places named in the Catalogue of Ships (book 2) as supplying troops and ships were abandoned after the twelfth century, so a Dark Age poet or one composing later could not have known firsthand of their importance. Eleon (2.500) was otherwise unfamiliar until the discovery in the mid-1990s of tablets at Thebes with the place-name e-re-o-ni (Ft 140.5) on a list of grain supplies. Other citadels—Pylos, Mykenai, Thebes—survived as settlements after the Bronze Age, but with none of the prestige they possess in the epics.

  Alongside these reminiscences of a distant past that probably coincided with the period of Troy’s greatness, there are other equally clear markers of a later date. Although chariots occur frequently in the Iliad, the poet seems unclear about their proper use. In Bronze Age cultures of the east, warriors clashed in ranks of opposed chariots, but in Homeric poetry the heroes ride them into the fray, then step down to engage in battle with swords and spears. The style of fighting that the Iliad chooses to depict is largely man-to-man combat on foot, across a broad front. Scant attention is paid to the rank-and-file movement of troops toward one another, except when it sets the stage for single combat. Nestor’s advice (2.362–63) that the troops should fight in formation by “phratry” (“brotherhood”) is approved by Agamemnon but then ignor
ed in the subsequent fighting. This formation foreshadows the vocabulary and style of heavy-armed fighting techniques adopted by the Greek city-states in the eighth or seventh century; it is likely to afford a glimpse of the latest stages of the poem’s composition. Carrying two javelins, wearing crested helmets, and using shields with a central Gorgon head ornament, among other martial customs (5.741, 11.36), are among the signals (like the reference to the wealth of Egyptian Thebes at 9.382) that date the world of the Iliad to the mid-seventh century, in the view of many scholars.

  Two other periods were important in shaping the poem. A key phase was the eighth century BC, when, after the years of Dark Age isolation that followed the collapse of Bronze Age palace complexes, various Greek communities began to share new institutions. This century saw the beginnings of the polis (“city-state”), a central urban space with associated rural territories. In time more than seven hundred such poleis developed. Dedication of votive objects at Apollo’s shrine in Delphi also dates to this century; the Iliad knows of the temple’s wealth (9.404). Delphi had a major role in organizing colonies sent by Greek cities, starting in the 700s, to the further reaches of the Black Sea, North Africa, and what is now southern France. The Odyssey especially seems aware of this phenomenon and the information thereby gained about regions even beyond the Mediterranean. The story of the Iliad, about an expedition from all parts of Greece to the coast of Asia Minor, may well have been elaborated in the context of broader “Panhellenic” movements of the eighth century. An eighth-century beginning to the process of composition would fit with the estimate of Herodotus (2.53) concerning the lifetime of Homer.

  Finally, we cannot ignore the evidence for a quite late phase in the crystallization of the Iliad, at Athens in the sixth century BC when Peisistratus was the unelected, nonhereditary ruler (“tyrant” or turannos). A fairly plausible tradition holds that even a generation before the time of Peisistratus, the famous Athenian magistrate Solon inserted line 2.558 to support the claims that Athens made to sovereignty over the nearby island Salamis. An ineradicable Athenian dialect coloration seems to support the notion that the poems were ultimately written down in, or at least transmitted by way of, Athens.

  The world of the Iliad extends beyond bronze weapons and fighting formations, into the realms of thought and behavior. The Linear B tablets, being so narrowly focused, reveal nothing about the morals or manners of Greeks in the Mykenaian period. On the other hand, the Iliad and Odyssey contain enough material to enable reconstruction of a number of customs, beliefs, and institutions. At least, one can glimpse the imaginary social world that must have been accepted as reasonable to generations of Greek audiences, since the poems continued to attract attention and be transmitted, even when writing was not an option.

  First, its inhabitants live without formal, written rules established and enforced by legal authorities. But justice does not require law. In fact, the Greek word dikê, most often translated as “justice,” is closer to the ideas of custom, habit, and propriety. The way things normally are, when family, community, and world are in order, is the way things should be. The running of society is subject to unwritten traditions of proper order (encapsulated in the Greek word themis—both common noun and name of a goddess). Dikê, in this archaic Greek sense, can even describe the working of nature; humans and animals sometimes go beyond the boundaries of this natural “justice.” They do so when they disturb the order of things, either by refusing to give others their rightful due, or by trying to take somebody else’s goods or honor. Such actions—the opposite of dikê—are called in Greek hubris.

  Overstepping the limits eventually brings reprisal. In the Odyssey, the depredations of the suitors in his house brings down the wrath of Odysseus, as the agent of such divine justice. The Iliad complicates the question of justice, since its protagonist seems to reject the whole system of compensation accepted by his community. Some interpreters try to make this rejection a sign of a hubristic overstepping on Achilleus’ part, but it is impossible to disentangle the act from the natural character of the hero. Similarly, the revenge of Achilleus for his companion’s death has the feel of completion, a “just” readjustment of the balance of forces; his subsequent maltreatment of Hektor’s corpse, however, once more throws the system into disorder. Like the Odyssey (and so many dramas in later Greek literature), the Iliad concludes with the intervention of the gods to restore social stability, however temporary.

  If there is an ideological excuse for the presence of thousands of Greeks besieging Troy to recover one man’s wife, it is given in the name of dikê. On the level of human ethics, Paris violated the sacredness of the relations between host and guest (the institution called xenia) when he ran away from the palace of his host Menelaos with the host’s wife, Helen—even though Aphrodite, we are led to believe, instigated the episode. The father of gods, Zeus, had a special title, Xenios, to denote his role as protector of this institution. Any infraction was thus an offense against the chief god. So Agamemnon and his fellow chieftains can claim that their mission to punish Troy has the blessing of Zeus. The further notion that a criminal brings pollution (miasma) on his entire community underlies the assumption that all of Troy must suffer for the delict of Paris.

  Xenia represents one aspect of a larger cultural requirement for reciprocity. This greater principle can be seen at work in a number of other areas alluded to by the Iliad. Animal sacrifice, prayer, and warfare were based on the idea that equilibrium must be maintained by giving or paying back either favors or hostility, either among humans or between humans and gods. The reciprocal expectations underlying xenia can explain the semantics of the term. Just as any “stranger” was a potential “guest”—and had to be so treated—any “guest” was by implication a potential “host,” as he was expected to pay back whatever treatment was received. By honoring his “guest-friend” with expensive gifts, an aristocrat could display his wealth and honor (the two were virtually synonymous). In book 6 of the Iliad, Diomedes and Glaukos agree not to fight one another because their ancestors had once entered into a guest-friend relationship.

  Alongside this legal-ethical-religious current, and constantly intersecting it, runs the rich stream of actual Greek practices regarding the gods. The vision of how the divine operates, in the world of epic, accords in one central way with what is known of Greek ritual: reciprocity predominates. But in other domains, the archaeological and historical record does not offer immediate help to interpret the poems. Major differences between the two fields occur in terms of emphasis. Thus, in the historical context of Homer, the major temple sites of Zeus, Athene, and Hera played a role in organizing the community. Apollo’s oracles in Delphi and Asia Minor had a significant presence starting in the eighth century BC, but we hear little of these. Chryses is his priest, but oracles are not mentioned in this connection; Achilleus alludes to Delphi at 9.405 without commenting on the function of the shrine. In the Iliad, we see that Athene’s shrine is at the center of Troy (disconcertingly, since she is opposed to the Trojans). Dionysos, worshiped as early as the Mykenaian period and extremely popular, does not appear and is hardly mentioned in the poem, except for a mythic reminiscence in book 6 (132–40). The same goes for Demeter, whose mystery cults and women’s rituals at Eleusis, Athens, and many other sites argue for a much greater role in real Greek life than one would imagine for her, given only the Iliad. Hermes and Hephaistos do get cameo roles in the Iliad, but their presence, especially in Athenian worship, was much greater.

  Of course, war conditions prevail, meaning that the Greeks are removed from their own territory: consequently, we do not see “normal” religious behavior, or get only a stylized, brief look at it. The sacrifices to gods that occur in the poem (at oath-taking, for example) in actual Greek practice would have been a regular part of starting military campaigns and seeking success while in progress. From later sources, we know that seers (like Kalchas) did interpret omens; that feasts and drinking parties accompanied sacrifices (as
in the Greek camp); and that prayer, with vows to dedicate and with liquid libations, were deeply embedded in the rituals of Greek life.

  Overall, the delicate stirring of reality into fiction within Homeric poetry means that it is almost impossible to separate out ingredients, much less date them. Although the institution of hero cult had been recognized as having some relation to the imagined heroes of the Iliad, for centuries it was thought that such heroic burials in the poem as that of Patroklos were mostly fantasy. In 1980, archaeologists working at Lefkandi on the island of Euboea found within a large mound the grave of a man and woman, along with signs that they had been buried inside a monumental building, resembling a later Greek temple. The tomb complex has been dated to around 950 BC, the Dark Age between the end of the Mykenaian kingdoms and the eighth-century “renaissance” in Greece, or between the fall of Troy and the rise of Homeric poetry. The man’s ashes, wrapped in a cloth, were kept in a bronze amphora imported from Cyprus; a sword and other weapons lay nearby. The uncremated remains of the woman (a hero’s consort? Or was he hers?) were accompanied by expensive jewelry, again imported, and including a Babylonian gorget, apparently a centuries-old heirloom at the time it was buried. Bones of four horses that had apparently been sacrificed were also in the tomb. The whole scene strikingly resembles that of 23.164–77. Does this mean that the Iliad poet knew somehow of extraordinary burial customs at least two centuries before his time? That would be the most positivist sort of answer, taking poetry as a secondary receptor of historical events. Conversely, could the elite residents of Lefk andi already have been listening to heroic poetry, not unlike our Iliad, that inspired them to copy what they believed had been the habits of Mykenaian-era royalty? This approach would incorporate “mentalities” into our view of the Greek past. Most likely, the truth lies in the constant interplay of fact and fiction, “real” practices and imagined, “history” always being not just material (urns, burials, buildings) but “spiritual,” too—the poetry and song through which people live. In this sense the Iliad itself was a historical phenomenon with its own power to make things happen.