Iliad Notes

Iliad

Book1
Agamemnon takes Chryseis the daughter of chryses after the achaens sack a Trojan-allied town and capture two beautiful women. Then chryses ask for his daughter back offering a ransom but was refused. He then prays to Apollo for help and Apollo listens and sends plague to the camp causing many deaths. After 10 days of suffering Achilles calls assembly and ask for deity to tell why its happening. Calchas the seer told that he needs to return chryses, but Agamemnon became angry and would return only if Achilles gives him briseis. Achilles who is proud became angry and threatens to pull back his army. With athena’s guidance Achilles succeeded to not fight Agamemnon. Due to sending chryses back Achilles refuses to participate in battle and after 12 days, thetis makes her appeal to zeus as promised.
Iliad is about the rage of Achilles. Trojan war going on for ten years. Apollo was responsible for the conflict between Agamemnon and Achilles. Zeus in the end who refuses to help the Trojans, helped the Trojans because of a favor he owes thetis.

Book2
To help Trojans zeus sends a false dream to Agamemnon in which a figure in the form of nestor persuade Agamemnon that he can take troy if he launches a fullscale assault on the city’s walls. Calchas tells that nine years would pass before the Achaeans would finally take troy. Agamemnon, proud and headstrong, and Achilles, mighty but temperamental, whose quarrel dominates the epic. Odysseus and nestor confirm their reputation as the achaens’ most talented rhetoricians. Shows how dire the greek system has become: even Agamemnon has failed to recognize the low morale of the troops. Second, by pointing out the intensity of the greeks’ suffering the episode emphasizes the glory of the greeks’ eventual victory. Third the fight to the ships indirectyly results in the famous catalog of the Achaean forces. Nestor’s advice that the troops be arranged by city ensures that the soldiers will be motivated: by fighting side by side with their closest friends, they will have an emotional investment in the army’s success, and their leaders will more easily be able to identify them as either cowardly or courageous.

Book3
Paris steals Helen from Menelaus and then they fight. The fight was to restore peace between the Trojans and the achaens. Paris who later was about to lose to Menelaus was helped by Aphrodite and was sent back to his room magically where Helen was also there. They then made love in the room. Agamemnon insists that Menelaus has won the duel and he demands Helen back.

Book 4
Zeus argues that Menelaus has won the duel and that the war should have end as the mortals had agreed. But hera who has invested much in Achaean cause, wants nothing less than the complete destruction of troy. Then zeus sends Athena to end conflict and Athena convinces pandarus to shoot an arrow to Menelaus. Menelaus was later only wounded as Athena wants merely to give the Achaeans a pretext for fighting. Agamemnon now rallies the Achaean ranks. He meets Nestor, Odysseus, and Diomedes, among others, and spurs them on by challenging their pride or recounting the great deeds of their fathers. Battle breaks out, and the blood flows freely. None of the major characters is killed or wounded, but Odysseus and Great Ajax kill a number of minor Trojan figures. The gods also become involved, with Athena helping the Achaeans and Apollo helping the Trojans. The efforts toward a truce have failed utterly.
Trojan hated paris because of his cowardness.
Iliad does not show who is bad.
Divine intervention here where Athena commands pandarus to shoot Menelaus only to wound him shows that gods want to see pleasure in the conflict and the mortals like toy soldiers provide hera and Athena an easy way to settle their disagreement with zeus.

Book5
Pandarus wounds diomedes and diomedes prays to Athena for revenge. He then got an enlightment from Athena and rush to kill all the Trojans and finally killed pandarus and even injured Aphrodite whom Athena said is the only immortal he came wound. He also wounds aenas whom he’s not suppose to. He also wounds Apollo and rouses ares for fighting on the Trojans side. This rages the Trojans in which Hector and Ares who proves to be too much for the Achaeans to handle. Then hera and Athena with the permission of zeus helps diomedes. Diomedes then with the help of Athena wounds ares. And ares later complains to zeus, but zeus says that he deserved that injury.

Book6
Without the gods the Achaeans overwhelm the Trojans who draw back toward the city. Hector and ajax fighting in the duel (ajax through random pick). The two then end duel with pact of friendship and exchange gifts. The Trojan king priam ask paris to return Helen to the greeks but he refuses and only returns the loots that he took with her from Sparta.

Book22
Melanthius was the last of the suitors to be killed by hanging
Eurycleaia was the unloyal servant of odysseus.

Ancient greek philosophy
1) thales, Anaximander, and anaximenes were all from the city of miletus in Ionia( now the western coast of Turkey)

2) Thales Anaximander Anaximenes