Eurolit Homework 9/11/18

Read Iliad Books V and VI

Eurolit Notes 9/11/18

Review: 

The Homeric Pattern:

1 Arete (a character strives for excellence)

2 Hubris (a character possesses excessive pride)

3 Ate (a character exceeds the bounds meant for them by the gods/universe)

4 Nemesis (a character pays the price for committing Ate)

The Homeric Pattern is demonstrated by Achilles and Agamemnon, as well as other minor characters. 

The Iliad was composed around 850 B.C.E. and sung by rhapsodes for about 700 years. It chronicles events that happened in about 1250 B.C.E. The Trojan War was the first great world war - it involved Troy and multiple Greek city-states and involved “1,000 ships”. 

Cuirass - large metal buckle that guards the torso. 

Most soldiers can’t afford swords, therefore not anyone could be a warrior (it was expensive).  This was during the Bronze Age. 

The warfare itself would have been like football - one line against one line. It was not heroic (no Arete) to try to outmaneuver the enemy by flanking them. This was the way war was fought until the American Civil War. 

The History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides is a good resource. The Peloponnesian War occurred between 431-404 B.C.E. It is featured in many Greek plays. 

The translation of The Iliad by Lattimore is a good resource if you want to read a more exact version of Homer’s work. 

Homer uses understatement to describe Helen’s beauty. He also employs similes and extended similes frequently. 

Odysseus’ epithet is “of the nimble-wits”.

The Fates have decreed that Troy must fall because Paris has not obeyed the dictates of Zeus. 

Asclepius is the god of medicine and physicians in Ancient Greece.

Diamedes is the closest there is to a “white knight” in The Iliad. He will come into the story later on.