The Iliad Summary: Achilles, Anger and the Last Weeks of the Trojan War
What The Iliad is about
The Iliad is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is among the oldest works of literature still widely read, and it is often called the first substantial piece of European literature. The poem is divided into 24 books and runs to 15,693 lines in its standard edition. It was written in dactylic hexameter and was probably composed around the 8th century BC, though some scholars argue for the mid-7th century BC.
The story is set towards the end of the Trojan War. This was a ten-year siege of Troy by an alliance of Greek states. The poem covers the war's final weeks and follows one thread above all: the anger of Achilles, the greatest Greek warrior.
Many people expect the wooden horse. They will not find it here. The Iliad does not show the fall of Troy or mention the Trojan Horse. Those stories come from later sources.
What happens (no spoilers)
The poem opens with an appeal to the Muse. After nine years of fighting, the Greeks (Homer also calls them Achaeans, Argives or Danaans) have captured two young women, Chryseis and Briseis. Agamemnon, king of Mycenae and commander of the Greek armies, has taken Chryseis. Achilles has taken Briseis.
Chryses, a priest of Apollo, offers a large ransom for his daughter Chryseis. Agamemnon refuses and insults him. Apollo answers the priest's prayer with a plague on the Greek camp. After nine days Achilles calls an assembly. Agamemnon agrees to give Chryseis back. In return he takes Briseis from Achilles.
Achilles sees this as a public dishonour. He declares that he and his men will stop fighting. He then asks his mother, the sea nymph Thetis, to persuade Zeus to let the Trojans drive the Greeks back to their ships. Only then, he reasons, will Agamemnon see how much he needs him. Zeus agrees.
What follows is a run of battles and bargains. Paris, the Trojan prince who took Helen from her husband Menelaus in Sparta, fights Menelaus in a duel meant to settle the war. When Paris loses, the goddess Aphrodite whisks him away. The gods argue. Hera persuades Zeus to hold out for Troy's destruction, and Athena prompts a Trojan archer to wound Menelaus. The truce collapses.
The Greek hero Diomedes goes on a rampage and even wounds two gods, Aphrodite and Ares. Hector, Troy's champion, visits the city and says goodbye to his wife Andromache and their son Astyanax on the walls. He then duels Ajax until nightfall stops them. Both sides pause to bury their dead. The next morning Zeus bars the gods from interfering. The Trojans gain the upper hand and push the Greeks back to the wall around their camp.
How it ends (spoilers)
Stop here if you want to read the poem fresh. The Iliad traces Achilles's anger from his quarrel with Agamemnon through to the death of Hector, the Trojan prince.
The main characters
Achilles leads the Myrmidons and is called the best of the Greeks. His wounded pride drives the whole story.
Agamemnon is king of Mycenae and commander of the Greek alliance. His treatment of Chryses and Achilles sets everything in motion.
Hector is the hero of Troy and brother of Paris. He rallies the Trojans in the field and is also shown as a husband and father.
Paris and Helen are the cause of the war. Menelaus is Helen's husband. Priam is king of Troy.
Odysseus returns Chryseis to her father and keeps the army from deserting. Diomedes is a fearless Greek fighter.
The gods matter just as much. Zeus, Hera, Athena, Apollo, Aphrodite, Ares and Thetis take sides, rescue favourites and settle private grudges through the war.
The themes
War and death. The poem describes ancient warfare in close detail, from tactics to equipment. Its battle scenes are full of named men who die.
Power. The central quarrel is about who commands and who must obey. Agamemnon holds rank. Achilles holds the strength the army depends on. The common soldier Thersites speaks against Agamemnon's war, and Odysseus beats him for it.
Justice and honour. Wrongs are paid for with ransom, compensation and revenge. Chryses is wronged and a god punishes the whole camp. Achilles is wronged and he lets his own side suffer.
Scholars also point to kleos (glory), pride, fate and wrath. The poem is usually called a heroic epic, built around the heroic code. Yet it also has moments of comedy, and it moves between the battlefield and quieter scenes inside Troy and the Greek camp.
Why it still matters
The ancient Greeks held The Iliad in high regard. It formed part of their standard education, and professional reciters called rhapsodes performed it at festivals such as the Panathenaia. Its mix of regional dialects, and its picture of different Greek peoples uniting against Troy, gave it wide appeal across the Greek world.
It remains central to the study of classical languages and literature. Questions about who composed it, and whether it survived through oral or written tradition, are still debated. Together these are known as the Homeric Question.
It suits readers who want the source of stories retold for nearly three thousand years, or who are drawn to war writing that looks hard at pride and loss. Be ready for a long poem with many names and frequent divine meddling. The reward is a story about anger and its cost that sits at the root of European literature.
