Homer's Iliad: The Glory or the Grief of War?

It's been over two weeks since I posted, humblest apologies! I've been quite the busy bee. I'm back with one of my favourite topics of discussion: whether Homer portrays himself as anti or pro war in his epic poem: The Iliad.

The Horrors of War by Peter Paul Rubens

A quick side note, Peter Paul Rubens (painting above) has to be one of my favourite artists of all time. His work literally overwhelms me!

It really is a difficult question to answer. Throughout the Iliad, Homer provides spectacular imagery of the battlefield, mainly through epic similes. When he performed his poems, he would often have an audience that included women and children who would have had no idea what life was like at war, and so he would compare it to things they would understand, such as the weather or animal characteristics. Some more glorifying than others, it leads us to question what Homer's personal opinions on the subject were. Did he think that wars were just, that they defined our heroes, that they were for the greater good? Or did he think that they were in fact unjust, a sphere full of grim death and grief, a brutal waste of time?

Achilles Slays Hector by Peter Paul Rubens

Fundamental evidence of Homer glorifying war in the Iliad is by constantly stressing the concept that in no other situation can warriors get such a chance to prove themselves as honourable heroes. The entire epic is hinged on whether these soldiers abide by something called the Heroic Code. The Heroic Code, to put it simply, is embodied by four Greek words: aristos (being the best at whatever is called for by the situation), aristeia (highest peak performance), arete (merit that is bestowed by others - it's all about what others think of you, not what you think of yourself) and kleos (fame and glory, can only be achieved through action). There are other elements, such as hospitality (xenia) and homecoming (nostos), but we won't go into too much detail.  He shows us that the significance of kleos has no match: Book 1 shows us the fury of Achilles when Agamemnon confiscates Briseis, who was a war prize. The prize was not Briseis herself, and instead it was the glory that Achilles had achieved, and she was just a symbol of it. Homer puts those who follow the Code in the best light, often giving them epithets such as "Hector of the flashing helmet" and "Diomedes, master of the war cry) which highlight the importance of war in their being, thus leading us to believe that Homer thought war was honourable, and a fundamental part of these heroes' lives.
The scenes that take place on the battlefield give us a good idea of Homer's thoughts on war: they are, naturally, the most dramatic sections of the epic, and the worthiness of the warriors is determined on the battlefield, portrayed through similes, epithets and stories of their family line. Many characters have no relevance to the story, but are named nonetheless purely to showcase the honour they achieved at war. Similes like "like a high-flying eagle" emphasise the idea of glory, and is such with glorifying weapons of war, like "spear like a star". We're getting a pretty good idea that Homer thinks glory is of the utmost importance, and implies that war is the only way of obtaining it.


Alternatively, however, we have a lot of evidence to suggest that Homer was actually anti-war. Despite seeing the emotive language that may glorify war, the vivid descriptions and graphic similes may  tell us otherwise. Let me put it this way: when you're being told a story, it is common for it to be told in a way which allows you to visualise it as an onlooker or as someone watching from afar. How do you visualise the following quote?  "Idomeneus stabbed Erymas in his mouth with the pitiless bronze. The bronze spear passed right through and up under the brain, smashing the white bones. His teeth were knocked out and both his eyes flooded with blood: wide-mouthed he spurted a well of blood through nostrils and mouth: and the black cloud of death covered him over." (16. 346-350) You really can't get much closer. You are literally being pulled into imagining the interior of his helmet, watching his head get mangled by a spear in the most gruesome way. Was Homer trying to make his audience feel uncomfortable? He could have easily just said "and then Idomeneus stabbed Erymas in the head and he died." but the fact that he puts so much detail into the method in which he was killed perhaps implies that he wanted us to feel pity and discomfort upon visualising the scene. He often portrays battle as unheroic and unfair, using the humanisation of individual warriors that are only mentioned once in the poem as vehicles to accentuate the realities of war. He provides a background story for every man, often sentimental, that can range from just a patronymic (eg. Thestor, son of Epos 16.413) to a run-down on how the man was still young and unmarried (Simoisius 4. 472) or how he was a kind, hospitable man that looked after all passers by (Axylos 6. 12). Again, Homer could have just said "and then Axylos died," but instead he provides us with an outline of character and history and thus humanising them, magnifying the sympathy that the audience endure. Following from this point, Homer effectively makes us see the devastating effects of war through his focus on family life: particularly Hector's. His brief meeting with Andromache in book 6 shows a side of Hector that does not live up to his famous epithet: Hector of the glinting helmet. Instead, we see him as a husband and a father, and his prediction of the fall of Troy and the effect it will have on his wife and son is pretty heartbreaking. Later in the poem when we begin to see Priam as a broken man through the loss of many of his sons, where we witness real grief and sorrow. It would be difficult to argue that Homer did not intentionally use the familial element to highlight the grievances of war.
Before this becomes a novel and not an essay, I must finally point out how Homer writes about nostalgic times prior the Trojan War, where both the people of Ilios (Troy) and Greece were at peace. From lovers walking through fields of green, to women washing their hair in the river and the birth of Simoisius by the banks of the river he was named after, we are told  much about what happened before these poor men were sent away to battle. The shield that Hephaistos forges for Achilles in book 18 does not emphasise the glories of war, but in actual fact the better, more peaceful times where normality could take place. We really can see that the beautiful details on the shield represent an anti-war message by Homer.

Achilles Lamenting the Death of Patroclus by Nikolai Ge

If you're still reading, good on you and happy analysing! But in conclusion, despite the whole story being about the honour and glory obtained from war and the way in which Homer stresses the importance of the Heroic Code, we can see that Homer puts his emotive skills to better use in convincing us that war is unfair and unjust. He makes it easier for the audience to visualise life on the battlefield as horrific and often quite unheroic.


Again, apologies for not posting for a while. I will put as much effort as possible to keep posting regularly!

Thanks for reading!