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The Iliad as heroic poetry
driving force of a small group of men, the heroes. No one else is of serious
consequence. 13
The protagonists in the underlying story were not fighting in order
to seek honour but to defend it, the Atreidai by recovering Helen, the
Trojans by preserving their city. Others were at Troy because, as Hesiod
explained, they were bound by their oath as Helen's suitors; Aineias joined
in because he had been attacked by Akhilleus. Thus far we are in the world
of heroic poetry, where the deeds of the heroes are celebrated and awkward
questions are not asked. What an epic poem can do, or should do given its
greater scale, is to explore as well as celebrate the ideology of heroism.
Accordingly the Iliad turns its focus upon a hero the sole purpose of whose
existence is the pursuit of glory. When the poem begins Akhilleus has no
injury to avenge, no city or family to defend, but a knowledge that fate has
assigned him a short life. He has therefore the strongest of motives for
seeking fame and nothing to detract him from it. His ruthlessness is essential
to his tragedy, but until the end it excludes two qualities that enter into the
Iliad's concept of true heroism, ai6cos and eAeos (24.44). Outside the Iliad
Akhilleus seems to have been a more sympathetic character, sparing suppliants
and accepting ransoms, and within it the qualities he lacks are given
to his alter ego, the kindly Patroklos, and sometimes even to his antagonist,
Hektor (both of whom are also capable of violent action - see Kirk, HOT
Stripped to its essence the creed of heroism is that the fame of great deeds
defeats death. Loss of life is compensated by honour received and fame to
come. Death is ultimately certain, for it is part of the uolpoc of men; but what
matters for the hero is that life is uncertain. A quiet, long life is not a realistic
option, for ten thousand dooms of death stand over a man (12.326-7), so
that the heroic course is to make a bid for fame and die, if it must be, having
done some great deed. In simpler terms the ocpiOHreus has a duty; TOV 8E U&ACC
Xpeco I £0Td|J6vai Kporrepcos (11.409-10) in the face of danger. Such a creed is
not easy to live by in practice, for even ten thousand dooms of death do
not amount to an absolute certainty; to save their lives Iliadic heroes
call for aid, withdraw, and on occasion run away. But one hero could not
look upon failure as a temporary setback; for him death - early death - was
a certainty. He had traded life for honour (9.410-16), and his anger was
all the deeper when the honour was not forthcoming. That is the uniqueness
of Akhilleus.
13 The world of the similes (and the Shield of Akhilleus) is a very different place or the
same place from a very different viewpoint: there are no heroes and not many persons of rank.
The Odyssey takes a more generous view of where moral worth may be found.
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