Retro Rants: The Iliad

Or Why You Should Never Accept Golden Apples From Strangers

I can still remember when I first heard about the Iliad.

I was about eight years old when my oldest sister stopped home from college, bringing a copy with her to work on a paper. It was a hardcover, the bindings worn. The pages were yellowed and the cover was a sun-faded aqua marine with the title listed in gold lettering.

It was a beautiful book, dear reader. It had a whiff of something archaic, ancient, and wonderful.

My sister, however, fucking hated it with every fiber of her being. She didn’t like the story one lick, thought the characters shallow and, I feel, held my dear little hardcover personally responsible for the lack of its contents entertainment value.

Funnily enough, the more she talked about why she didn’t like the story the more I wanted to read it.

And how could I not? It had beings with super powers for pity’s sake! There were gods, armies, duels. There were heroes ripping rocks out of the ground with their bare hands. Not to mention the very presence of Achilles, a near-impervious warrior who in a single afternoon killed so many Trojans that their bodies formed a dam in a nearby river, allowing the Greeks to walk from one side to the other without getting their feet wet (and causing the river gods themselves to throw a tantrum at his refusal to stop the slaughter).

Spears got rammed through eyeballs! Fields of corpses were created where the blood ran up past people’s ankles!

I ask you: what was a young child like myself not to love?

Oh, yeah. That’s the stuff.

For those of you not in the know, The Iliad was written by the Greek poet Homer to tell the story of the siege of Troy (a city thought to be located somewhere near the Dardenelles in modern day Turkey) by the Greeks. It was said that this was the biggest war the world had ever seen.

The reason? Apples. Golden apples to be precise. You see once upon a time when the Greek gods were partying up on Mount Olympus they purposefully forgot to invite the goddess Eris (she of discord and perpetual angst). Being the only god not invited, Eris got into a snit and decided to stir the proverbial pot. So, seeking to piss on someone’s parade by means of petty revenge, Eris showed up anyway and brought with her a golden apple. An apple, dear reader, that she claimed would go only to the most beautiful goddess present. While all the goddesses started fighting amongst themselves all the gods conveniently found other things to do, leaving the final three goddesses standing (Aphrodite, Hera, and Athena) without a judge to break the tie.

Enter the unlucky asshole known as Paris, Prince of Troy. Long story short: Paris chooses Aphrodite because he’s the human embodiment of a libido in overdrive and the other goddesses swear undying enmity toward him and everyone he’s ever loved (not exactly atypical for the gods).

As a “reward” for choosing her, Aphrodite…well depending on how you translate certain words and phrases, she either convinces Helen of Sparta to succumb to Paris’ advances while he was in Sparta on a peace delegation before absconding with him back to Troy or, you know, helped Paris rape Helen before aiding in his kidnapping of her. Bit of an important distinction to make when speaking of one of the foremost romances of all time but I digress.

Regardless of how that particular relationship dynamic is translated the fact of the matter is no one likes being a Cuck and so the King of Sparta, Menelaus, went to his brother, Agamemnon (also a very powerful king), and asked him to go to war with him to reclaim his wife and honor (and not necessarily in that order).

And so all of Greece was summoned to war, with famous heroes like Odysseus, both Ajaxes, Achilles, and Hector making an appearance as, in the background, hundreds if not thousands of warriors fought and died for the honor of their kings and the honor/beauty/booty of Helen of Troy.

Way to go Paris. You dick.

For ten years the two armies fought before the walls of Troy….and boy does Homer go into detail on the fighting! As I said, when I was eight the fighting was the main draw. It was like comic-book characters who killed each other for Pete’s sake! Trust me, dear reader, that’s an apt comparison because not only the people of Greece went to war, but their gods.

Funnily enough the Greeks and Trojans worshipped the same pantheon and so when war broke out battle lines were drawn in heaven as well as on earth. Some gods favored the Greeks, some favored the Trojans, and some tried to hedge their bets and play both sides. It’s gloriously absurd. People could be crushed by rocks or brained with a mace and have a god go “hey fates, I know Testichles was maybe-kinda-sorta fated to die right there but, you know what? I like really liked that goat he sacrificed to me the other day so…..can we give him a mulligan?” and then with a wave of their fingers they’d bring the mortal back to life.

In fact if memory serves there’s several scenes where a Greek or Trojan soldier gets pissed and complains to his own deific-sponsor because he keeps killing a dude only to have the man instantly come back to life to keep fighting.

Imagine, if you will, that you’re in a duel to the death and you crush your opponent’s skull (complete with visceral descriptions of how his brains shoot out his ears) not just once, but again and again and again only for his head to go “poof” back to normal after each blow.

Disquieting? Yes. Fair? Absolutely not. Morbidly entertaining? You bet your ass!

Time and time again the mortals would clash and their gods would aid them. Now, mostly the gods resigned to flit about unseen over the heads of their chosen mortals, diverting an arrow here, blunting a sword edge there. And, while for the most part they agreed to not directly confront each other, when they did the results were often hilarious.

My personal favorite is when Aphrodite (goddess of lust) gets into it with Athena (she who embodies wisdom, war, and all around kick-assery). In summary: Athena laughs at Aphrodite for playing at war, Aphrodite does a girly-slap that knocks Athena’s tiara slightly askew, and then Athena uses Aphrodite’s tits like a punching bag, causing her to run from the field and go cry to Zeus.

Yup, you read that right. In one of their highest artistic accomplishments the ancient Greeks took it upon themselves to include a scene where one of their goddesses racks another one.

Truly a wondrous people.

While there’s certainly no shortage of entertainment in this story, as I grew older I began to appreciate the tragedy. Suddenly the Iliad had depth, humanized inhuman characters.

Patrochlus sacrifices himself to rally the Greeks. Hector goes to face a god-like opponent, giving his wife and son what he knows is likely a final kiss. Achilles weeps beside the father of the man he mutilated in a rage.

It’s tragedy as only the Greeks can do it.

There are so many human moments snuck into this narrative where the warrior-heroes, these larger than life figures who’ve obtained near comic levels of battle prowess, stop killing to look about the death and destruction surrounding them and think “dear god I just want to go home and see my family again.”

These are the heroes of ancient Greece! The champions! And they’re battle worn and tired, and sick of the blood and the gore and they break down and cry hot bitter tears for the want of seeing their sons and daughters grow or holding their wife again.

It comes out of nowhere sometimes, a heady reminder that even back then war was hell.

Then two goddesses blow into the scene and bop each other in the tits.

Talk about juxtaposition!

While not a quick read by any means, if you haven’t already you really should give this story a try, dear reader. If you’ve already read it why not give it another look?

You’ll be surprised what you may have missed