Homer
The poem "Iliad", told by Homer of an Ancient Greek war is a story within a story. There are many lessons to be learned deep within the artificially entertaining poem. Although it may seem as an ordinary story of pride and senseless death, Iliad gives its readers or listeners an intense look at Greek culture and lifestyle of the early centuries. A life style based on gaining power and respect, or as they liked to refer to it "Time". Iliad also gives a look into the relationship the early Greeks had with the mythical "Gods" we are all familiar with through the world famous Greek myths. The story of Iliad has a basic plot of a long lasting war getting the best of the soldiers that have fighting it for many years. In the begging of the story, the war had already been going on for nine years between the Achaeans and Trojans. Agamemnon, who is the chief commander of the Achaean army, takes as a war prize the daughter of a high priest of the Trojans and Achilles, the best soldier of the Achaean army takes another girl for himself. We then see the first interference of a God, Apollo, who the high priest
A God is not supposed to take sides, or decide who wins a battle simply because he feels like it. This poem was obviously told not a history lesson but as a culture lesson. It is hard for an average person of the 21st century to comprehend the ancient Greek idea a God. When two soldiers would fight, each one risked his life and his armor, the winner of the battle would take the armor as a sign of victory and therefore would gain time and move up in the eyes of other soldiers. Agamemnon's demand for Achilles to hand over his war prize caused a great embarrassment to Achilles and almost cost Agamemnon his life. The idea of a Greek God might in some way represent a President of a country today, able to bend the rules to his own advantage without going as far as breaking them. This is only the first book of the poem and we already see two major interferences by the Gods. Apollo sends a plague upon the camp of the Achaeans and demands the return of the girl that Agamemnon took. Homer goes out of his way to emphasize the feelings and emotions of Gods as well as the human characters. They are most of the time the ones making the rules and the rules seem to be benefiting them the most. The idea of Time revolved around a very basic formula. The Gods had a code to follow, which was created by the King of the Gods, Zeus. Although one important factor was that they never interfered too much.
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