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The Iliad as heroic poetry
Where folktale and heroic poetry merge success may come to the hero
relatively easily with the aid of superhuman endowments or special weapons.
The cyclic epics and, especially, the Argo story contain many examples
of these derogations from pure heroism: the flying sons of Boreas, the
eyesight of Lunkeus, invulnerable heroes, impenetrable armour (probably),
the talismanic bow of Philoktetes, numerous prophecies and oracles (seventeen
are noted by Kullmann, Quellen 221) and exotic figures like Kuknos,
Memnon, and Penthesileia who are not part of this world. In the Iliad
heroes have only enhanced muscular power and strength of will. 14
The tradition of the cyclic poems - and some asides in the Odyssey -
undercut the creed of heroism by softening the horror of death. Heroes,
however, are as great as the stakes are high; hence a widespread feeling,
most conspicuous in the Germanic concept of heroism, that a hero is a tragic
figure whose nature dooms him to an untimely death. The Iliad makes
Herakles the supreme example of mortality: OU8E yap ou8£ |3ir| 'HpOKAfjos
cpuye Kfjpa | 6s irep cpiATcrros ECTKE AH Kpovicovi dvoocn (18.117-18), the
Odyssey in a tour deforce of eschatology puts his ei8coAov in Hades and his
person (OCUTOS) on Olumpos (Od. 11.601-3). Menelaos was promised an
afterlife in Elysium (Od. 4.561-4), a privilege extended to heroes in general
by Hesiod (Erga 167-73). Zeus immortalized Memnon, and Thetis removed
Akhilleus from his pyre to the White Island in the Aithiopis. The
Cypria granted immortality on alternate days to Kastor and Poludeukes.
The Telegony devalued the motif by immortalizing all the survivors of his
family after Odysseus' death. In the Iliad even a temporary resurrection by
necromancy seems to be excluded; once the pyre has done its work there is
no return (23.75-6). The price that must be paid for glory is thus clearly
defined, without compromise. That is the uniqueness of the Iliad.
The slaying of Hektor was a great deed of war on a par with Akhilleus'
victories over Penthesileia and Memnon. The Aithiopis, having told those
exploits, went on to relate the death of Akhilleus, but as far as is known the
poem did not bring its three major episodes into causal connexion. For
articulation it relied on an external structure, balance and contrast. To
some extent the Iliad does the same, most obviously in the balance in theme
and detail of the first and last Books, 15 but the Iliad also has an inner logic
and develops in the person of Akhilleus a causally connected nexus of ideas,
those of glory, vengeance, foreknowledge, responsibility, and shame. (See
introduction to book 9.) In the end Akhilleus cannot wreak a vengeance
14 The suppression of magical elements is part of the Iliad's avoidance of fantastic and
romantic episodes, as critically set out by J. Griffin, JHS 97 (1977) 39~53-
15 Whitman, HHT 257-84, explores the Iliad's symmetries in detail. His analyses are not
always convincing, but the principle is correct. See also N. J. Richardson in vol. vi, Introduction,
ch. 1.
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