My friend Neil Gussman, the foremost of the people who inspired me to read The Iliad, tells me that it’s a book about the messy realities of war, a story for and by soldiers. I finally saw what he was talking about in Book 4.
There’s an intro where the gods decide to force the Trojans and the Achaeans to war for their own petty reasons. Athena comes to the field of battle and convinces a Trojan archer to break the truce and shoot an arrow at Menelaus. The arrow flies, but Athena flies faster and makes sure the arrow doesn’t kill him. Instead, he’s wounded in the goolies or somewhere just north thereof.
Then follows a military motivational treatise. Here we have the archetypes from every movie you’ve seen where a commander to rallies his troops. Some appeal to pride. Some insult and shame. Some deploy rational, measured argument. Some wave the bloody shirt.
And then the war begins. Homer spares the reader no gory detail as men are speared, pierced, and ground into the dirt to die. It’s a horror show that becomes its own motivator, even to the most chickenhearted troops. Twice, Homer concludes a set piece with “…and the dark came swirling down across his eyes.” (Actually, “whirling” in one, “swirling” in the other.) It’s death as the culmination of chaos.
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