{"id":1028,"date":"2023-07-17T11:56:02","date_gmt":"2023-07-17T18:56:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/scrippsjournal\/?p=1028"},"modified":"2023-07-17T11:56:02","modified_gmt":"2023-07-17T18:56:02","slug":"homeric-war-by-anushka-shah","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/scrippsjournal\/homeric-war-by-anushka-shah\/","title":{"rendered":"Homeric War by Anushka Shah"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rage. So begins the <\/span>Iliad<\/span><\/i>, calling on the Muses to sing of the \u201cmurderous [and] doomed\u201d rage of Achilles (1:2). The <\/span>Iliad <\/span><\/i>begins and ends with Achilles\u2019 Rage. But it also includes scenes of the exact opposite. Brotherhood. Humanity. Family. Contrasting and extreme emotion is but one of many ideas the <\/span>Iliad <\/span><\/i>explores. The duality between the elements is seen everywhere. The concepts of good and evil are not completely clear or unambiguous. The gods and mortals, while on two different extremes, are eerily similar. White and black are replaced with shades of grey. It is with this same perspective Homer looks upon War.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Homer\u2019s ultimate attitude toward war is ambiguous. War is presented as a spectrum of thought and emotion. No extreme can encapsulate it. Just as War is barbaric, it is also beautiful. Just as it is inevitable and fated, it is also flawed and avoidable.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The <\/span>Iliad <\/span><\/i>does not shy away from graphic descriptions of death in War. Warriors are disemboweled and skewered. Victors vaunt as their weapons cut through veins, arteries, tendons, and bones. Both armies are callous and indifferent to the men they kill. While the barbarity astonishes modern readers, their battle-lust is even more frightening. Amidst the blood-soaked field, men are \u201cmad for war and struggle\u201d and their \u201clust for battle ris[es]\u201d with each victim (2:536, 14:520). War is barbaric and exalting because of that. The brutality of War is especially apparent in Hector\u2019s defilement. In dragging Hector\u2019s body, Achilles treads on the fine line of humanity. Even the Gods speak in outrage \u2013\u2013 asking \u201cWhat good will it do [Achilles]? What honor will he gain?\u201d (24:62). Despite the brutality of war, there is a humanity that must be preserved. Contrasting the scenes of messy death are the raw, vibrant passions of War. Family is central. One of the <\/span>Iliad<\/span><\/i>\u2019s most tragic scenes is Hector playing with his son. Achilles agrees to wait until dawn before leaving after Phoenix\u2019s request. However, more common in the <\/span>Iliad <\/span><\/i>than familial bonds are bonds of friendship. The brotherhood of War \u2013\u2013 shared memories of slaughter and death \u2013\u2013 resonates among warriors. Ajax pleads with Achilles to remember \u201chis comrades\u2019 love\u201d and consider the request of his \u201cclosest, dearest friends\u201d (9:769, 9:785). Patroclus yearns to fight upon seeing Eurypylus\u2019 injuries, claiming the \u201cpersuasion of a comrade has its powers\u201d (15:474). The greatest example of brotherhood is Achilles\u2019 agony after Patroclus\u2019 death. Achilles is inconsolable, having \u201clost the will to live\u201d and determined to die for the brother he loved (18:105). Achilles\u2019 agony is palpable \u2013\u2013 his rage the essence of the epic. Occasionally, the shared brotherhood of War also transcends enemy lines. Achilles and Priam sob together, acknowledging the \u201cpain to break the spirit!\u201d that deaths in War cause (24:605). For a brief, and fleeting, moment shared grief bonds the two men. The consequences of War are not unique to one side. Death in War is horrific and brutal. But the shared bonds of brotherhood are only found in shared pain.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

If the consequences of War are beautiful and barbaric, its causes are fated and preventable. Free will exists in Homer\u2019s <\/span>Iliad <\/span><\/i>\u2013\u2013 until the Gods and Fate say otherwise. Gods influence the affairs of humanity and men are bound by the decision. As Agamemnon claims, \u201cA god impels all things to their fulfillment,\u201d driving madness into the hearts and actions of men (19:105). In this, he is not wrong. The fate of mortals is destined by the whims of Gods. The War begins when Paris steals Helen away, challenging Menelaus and the Greeks. Yet Helen is one of many \u201clovely gifts\/of golden Aphrodite\u201d Paris receives (3:77-78). As Paris recognizes, \u201cthe gods give of their own free will,\u201d and men cannot refuse their gifts. He cannot refuse Aphrodite\u2019s will, and his acceptance causes the War. The Gods enthusiastically continue their interference and favoritism throughout the War. As Apollo reflects, the skirmishes of men break an otherwise monotonous immortal life. He compares mortals to \u201cleaves, no sooner flourishing, full of the sun\u2019s fire, \/feeding on earth\u2019s gift, than they waste away and die,\u201d finding no value in them except as pawns in the Gods\u2019 game (21:529-530). All Gods demonstrate a similar indifference toward man. Aphrodite prevents a decisive truce, disregarding the future loss of life. The daily tides of War are dictated by the whims of Zeus. The ending \u2013\u2013 Hector\u2019s death and Priam\u2019s request \u2013\u2013 is decided callously by the Gods. War is a choice of the Gods, preventable if they choose otherwise. However, despite their otherworldly power, the Gods are neither omniscient nor omnipotent. Even Zeus, the most powerful, is bound by a higher power. In deciding the fate of Achilles and Hector, Zeus uses \u201chis sacred golden scales [\u2026 and \u2026] places two fates of death\u201d (22:249). With this, Homer implies a limit on the powers of the Gods. Some unknown force \u2013\u2013 Fate \u2013\u2013 can dictate their actions. Even if Zeus\u2019 \u201cheart grieves for Hector\u2026 a man [he] love[s]\u201d (22:201, 202), the decision of Fate requires Zeus to act decisively. The \u201cfather of men and gods\u201d is not alone in acknowledging the presence of a higher power (22:200). Apollo entertains the question \u201cwhat if the Argive forces stormed [the city\u2019s sturdy walls] today \u2013 \/ against the will of fate?\u201d acknowledging Fate as an entity beyond the Gods (21:594-595). He subsequently fights in the battle to execute the will of Fate. Within the <\/span>Iliad<\/span><\/i>, Homer never clarifies the powers of Fate. It is a power beyond the Gods, yet it can be defied by man. If the whims of Gods make War preventable, then Fate makes it inevitable.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Homer\u2019s ultimate attitude toward War is not clear. In some cases, it is brutal and inevitable. In others, beautiful and preventable. Characters are rarely only good or evil. Free will exists until it does not. However, it is this equivocal interpretation that makes the <\/span>Iliad <\/span><\/i>a masterpiece. The audience is called to examine the duality of life. It is asked to understand how without one extreme, there is no other.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rage. So begins the Iliad, calling on the Muses to sing of the \u201cmurderous [and] doomed\u201d rage of Achilles (1:2). The Iliad begins and ends …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":35,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,51,1],"tags":[59],"class_list":["post-1028","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-non-fiction","category-online","category-1","tag-anushka-shah"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/scrippsjournal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1028","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/scrippsjournal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/scrippsjournal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/scrippsjournal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/35"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/scrippsjournal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1028"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/scrippsjournal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1028\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/scrippsjournal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/scrippsjournal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/scrippsjournal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}