Aristotle’s Opinion of Homer

                                                       Aristotle’s Opinion of Homer

Alexander the Great carried a copy of Homer’s Iliad with him everywhere he went because the epic served as his personal guide, inspiration and blueprint for heroic leadership. The Macedonian conqueror saw himself as a modern-day Achilles and he emulated the Greek hero and his glory and bravery as he sought his own Kleos or immortal fame during his extensive campaigns. He kept a copy of Homer’s work under his pillow, a copy that had been annotated by his famous tutor Aristotle. Since books, as we know them today, did not exist, it would have been impossible for Alexander to have taken the entire Iliad with him and therefore we can only assume that he had some abbreviated version of key points of advice that had been prepared for him by Aristotle.

But the fact remains that Aristotle had introduced the work to Alexander when he had been invited to become the boy’s tutor by his father King Philip of Macedon and that Homer’s work had a profound effect on the young lad. While on his campaigns, he visited the grave of Achilles and the city of Troy and had the corpse of Batis, one of his enemies, dragged behind his chariot in the same way that Achilles had treated the body of Hector. After he defeated Darius III of Persia, he had his personal annotated copy of the Iliad enclosed in a valuable golden coffer that he had confiscated from the enemy king. Alexander’s reverence for all things Homeric was a direct mirror of the high esteem that Aristotle held for the bard himself.

Aristotle’s first mention of Homer in his Poetics was praise for the poet who imitates men who were better than ourselves, as opposed to someone like Cleophon who presented men who were like us, or Hegemon and Nichocares who imitated men who were worse. He also praised him for his ability to be able to focus on only one specific point of a long and drawn out war and to make that shorter period of time come alive in the minds of his listeners. He said that Homer appears divine among the others because he did not attempt to celebrate the whole war. He could have done so but the result would have been too long, confusing and difficult to take in at one view.

Aristotle also praised the structural perfection of Homer’s works. In the words of Aristotle (Poetics XXXIX):

An epic poem ought also to have the  same forms as a tragedy; that is, it ought to be simple, complex, moral, or pathetic; its parts too, except melody and scenery, ought to be the same, for it should possess, peripatie, recognition, and passion, and it ought to be noble in its sentiment and diction; all which Homer first made use of, and with sufficient correctness. For each of his poems is composed in this manner; the Iliad, as a simple and pathetic, and the Odyssey, as a complex (for recognition runs through the whole of it) and moral. Moreover he excels all in the nobleness of his sentiment and diction.

Aristotle saw Homer as the master of dialogue and noted the bard’s ability to take a back seat to the narrative and to avoid placing himself in the middle of the action. His stories were not told from a first person perspective and other than for the initial invocation to the Muse for guidance, Homer’s tales are told in the third person. Aristotle viewed many other poets as failing in this regard. (Poetics XLII)

Homer, indeed, is deserving of praise in many other respects, and particularly because he alone of the poets is not ignorant of what he ought to do. For the poet should himself say as little as possible, as it is not by this means that he imitates. The others, however, carry on the action in person throughout, and therefore imitate few things, and that rarely; whereas he, having said a few words by way of preface, immediately introduces a man or woman, or something else possessed of manner, and nothing without, but something which has; and makes it speak for him.

Strangely, Aristotle also praised Homer for his ability to teach other poets how to tell a lie correctly. To make his point, he provided us with two examples:

This will be evident if we bring forward examples, with which Homer himself supplies us. When that poet represents a horse as speaking, we know that he affirms what is physically impossible, but we believe it, because he introduces Minerva as endowing it with that power. Again, when he tells us that Hector ran away from Achilles, we have much more difficulty in believing it, because although the thing is not like the other, in direct opposition to an established law of nature, yet it is so very different from what we would expect, that we give credit to it with extreme reluctance.

Aristotle saw Homer as a creator of believable worlds who, though he sometimes presented falsehoods like talking horses, in the main crafted dramatic reality and logical inferences. For example, Homer represents Diomede as sleeping on an ox's hide, and his men round him with their spears stuck in the ground. Had his object been to draw a picture of men who were always ready to fight, he would have done it more effectually had he represented each man as sleeping with his spear by his side. But this is not the case, for he only imitates what was a real practice.

Aristotle held Homer in extremely high regard and saw him as the supreme model for epic poetry. He viewed him as a godlike teacher of ethics and culture and a master of the poetic art. He praised him for his skilful use of imitation, plot unity and the creation of highly believable characters. Aristotle often drew upon Homer’s works for examples of the mechanics of good writing technique and no doubt passed on his thoughts to his student Alexander. But it is interesting to note that Alexander did not appear to be interested in the structure and form of good literature. His focus was on the content and as a young boy, was more taken with a swinging sword and a head rolling in the dust, rather than the purity of Homer’s dactylic hexameter.

I think that the following AI-Generated summary of Aristotle’s opinion of Homer is a good way to conclude and covers the key points well:

Key Aspects of Aristotle's View:

·         Master Imitator: Homer was praised for minimizing his own narrative voice and instead letting characters speak, creating vivid, dramatic scenes, which Aristotle saw as the highest form of poetic imitation.

·         Structural Genius: Despite the vastness of the Iliad and Odyssey, Aristotle considered them perfectly structured, with each poem imitating a single action, demonstrating epic's potential for unity.

·         Character Development: He admired Homer's ability to create characters with distinct personalities, even while depicting flaws, noting how Homer makes even bad characters engaging.

·         Teacher of "Lying" Skillfully: Aristotle saw Homer's ability to present plausible impossibilities and falsehoods (like the gods' intervention) as a positive, demonstrating the poet's skill in making the unreal believable.

·         Cultural & Ethical Guide: Homer served as a fundamental source of wisdom, ethics, and understanding the Greek world for Aristotle, who frequently cited the epics for philosophical and political insights.

·         Model for Tragedy: Because Homer achieved so much in epic, Aristotle used him as the benchmark against which to measure and elevate tragedy as a superior art form.  

In essence, Aristotle saw Homer not just as a storyteller but as the ultimate poetic craftsman and cultural touchstone, whose works were rich enough to be analyzed critically while retaining the highest standard for artistic achievement in poetry.

A Bad Rap for Heinrich

 

 A Bad Rap for Heinrich

I think that poor old Heinrich Schliemann (1822-1890) has gotten a bad rap over the years. His detractors have focused on his seemingly destructive approach to archaeology, his misattribution of finds and their faulty dating, his lack of formal training and ignorance of professional and scientific standards, and his removal of valuable objects from Turkey without permission. Despite these criticisms, the fact remains that he was the visionary who unearthed Homer’s Troy for the world and brought us to the understanding that the Iliad was as much a history book as it was a story book.

The main accusation levied against Schliemann was the fact that he drove a deep and destructive trench through the mound of Hisarlik and in doing so, damaged the archaeological context of the site, to the extent that much of the valuable evidence of the various levels of Trojan history was lost forever. The problem with that condemnation is that Schliemann is being judged for his actions based on today’s standards of archaeology. Indeed, Schliemann had no formal training in the science of archaeology, but that science was just in its infancy. We cannot condemn the man for his lack of knowledge about stratification, ground-penetrating radar, Lidar, Carbon-14 dating and all the other modern scientific tools and methods that are brought to bear at modern archaeological digs. These things simply did not exist and for the most part, neither did archaeologists. Most history buffs in Schliemann’s day were known as antiquarians and not scientists. They were the precursors to modern archaeology and were generally enthusiasts, collectors or scholars of antiquities who had the time, passion and money to pursue their hobby. Their sole purpose was to put shovels in the ground, unearth the past and find hidden treasures to add to their collections. They seldom recorded what they were doing or the results of their actions. We may question their methods today, but we do so with highly informed and scientific hindsight.

The second accusation against Schliemann was that he misidentified many of the most significant objects that he found and was far off the mark with his attempts at dating. For example, the gold and jewels that he discovered at Troy and called the Treasure of Priam of the Jewels of Helen actually dated from approximately 1,000 years before the time of the Trojan War. We now believe that Homer’s Troy was Troy VI or perhaps VII and the treasure in question was dug out of the rubble of Troy II. Likewise at the site of Mycenae in the Greek Peloponnese, what Schliemann discovered at the bottom of the shaft graves in Grave Circle A, and especially the famous Death Mask of Agamemnon, actually dated to a period several hundred years before the time of the famous king of the Late Bronze Age. But as far as dating is concerned, Schliemann had no access to or knowledge of modern dating methods such as Energy Dispersive X-ray Spectrometry, or scanning electron microscopy or the measurement of isotope ratios. He was simply looking to prove the historical fact of the city of Troy and the people and war that led to its destruction and the objects which he found fit neatly with his argument. He may have jumped to a wrong conclusion about the objects that he held in his hands, but the fact remains that he actually uncovered them in the first place and for this we must give him full credit.

Schliemann is also accused of some shady dealings, especially when it came to spiriting objects out of Turkey without the official permission of the Turkish authorities. First of all, let us bear in mind that the government of Turkey took an adversarial position against Schliemann from the very start and did everything in its power to delay the issuance of his firman or official dig permit. After the government had eventually given its permission for the dig at Hisarlik, it posted guards at the site and watched Schliemann’s every move to ensure that half of everything that was gathered from the site was allocated to the Turkish government. Schliemann’s attitude towards the Turks was typical of that held by many Europeans and was intensified by the way that he felt he had been treated by them. The Turks or the Ottomans were frequently seen as barbarians, infidels and a threat to European civilization. They were seen as non-white, non-Christian foreigners whose empire was stagnant and backward and ruled by a cruel and despotic regime. During the Balkan revolts of the 1870’s, there were several reports of Ottoman atrocities against Christian subjects and this fueled extreme outrage. Europeans viewed Turks, Arabs, Egyptians and Africans as lesser beings worthy of exploitation, colonization and even enslavement. Schliemann’s attempts to get the upper hand, though certainly not praiseworthy or acceptable by modern standards of morality, were certainly in keeping with the general opinion of the day among his peers.

Heinrich Schliemann was a man with a mission. He set out to prove to the world that the city of Troy was more than a fanciful place in an old story and that Homer’s Iliad was based on facts and was not fiction or mythology. He proved conclusively that the mythical city existed and he single-handedly brought ancient history to life through his excavation of all nine layers of the Trojan city. Though his methods now seem crude to us, he was one of the founding fathers of the science of archaeology and his work at Troy, Mycenae and Tiryns paved the way for future scholars.

Schliemann was a wealthy businessman who funded his own archaeological dreams. He had made two fortunes and was lucky enough to be able to retire and pursue his passion. He was an amateur archaeologist who was obsessed with Homer and the civilizations of the ancient Mediterranean and Aegean. He had vision, passion and determination and the money to act. He was accompanied by his Greek wife Sophia at every step along the way. He did not have any formal training but was a master of languages and knew how to write well. It is said that he could learn a new language in the space of three weeks. He published his findings freely and in fact was awarded a PhD in absentia by the University of Rostock for one of his books that he had submitted to them as a dissertation. Heinrich and Sophia had two children, interestingly named Andromache and Agamemnon. Heinrich died on Christmas Day in 1890 in Naples while on a journey to visit Pompeii.

Many of the criticisms of Schliemann and his work come from scholars like Calder writing in 1972, or a National Geographic article in 2002, or Professor Brian Rose in 2004. In each case, the accusations and criticisms leveled against Schliemann are based on modern approaches to the science of archaeology and fail to take into account that Heinrich Schliemann was truly a man of his times and operated within the framework of what was deemed reasonable in his day. He may not have been what we would today refer to as an archaeologist of the highest order, but the fact remains that he was a genius who gave life to Troy and the Iliad. He did not seek treasure for his own gain. He sought the truth and we are today grateful that he did.

The Sound of Music

 

  The Sound of Music

In the always popular musical hit from 1994, Julie Andrews sings in the title song, “The hills are alive with the sound of music.” For Homer’s epics from more or less 2500 years before, we would have to change the words to “The halls are alive…” Homer’s works echo with the sound of music and we know that the Iliad and the Odyssey were actually were sung in the palace halls of ancient Greece and not recited. They were presented by a minstrel or bard who most often accompanied himself with a lyre. Homer’s initial invocation to the Muse provides us clear evidence of the fact these were sung narratives based on a long oral tradition. In fact, the word ‘Iliad’ means song of Ilion.

Let wrath be your song O Goddess! Sing of the accursed rage of Achilles, son of Peleus, which brought untold woes to the Achaeans and banished to Hades many stalwart souls of heroes, turning them into carrion for dogs and birds of prey, thereby bringing to final fulfillment the plan of Zeus. Begin your song, O Muse, at that first sign of strife between the son of Atreus, lord of men, and the divine Achilles.

The Odyssey begins in a similar manner with the words, Sing to me Muse of that man of many ins and outs who traveled far and wide after he had sacked the lofty citadel of Troy.

            As Cam Rea succinctly points out for us in a 2001 article in Ancient Origins,

Early Greek historians were primarily bards. Bards were unique professional storytellers, who compartmentalized and composed poetic songs of stories through the oral transference. The duty or art of the bard was to tell stories of various events, whether small or epic, as in the case of the Iliad or Odyssey. These bards would travel from town-to-town, entertaining people with primordial tales about the struggle between men and gods. The bard would train a younger person in the stories he was taught as a young man and thus the story lived on through generations of bards, for the bard was a walking history book seeking an audience interested in being entertained by the stories of yesteryear.

            The bard sang about the deeds of gods and men, sometimes as the storyteller of things that happened in the long distant past, and sometimes recounting more recent events, like a modern newscaster reporting the daily news. In an exchange between Telemachus and his mother Penelope in their palace at Ithaca, we learn how the stories sung by the bard Phemius affected those who were listening carefully to tales about the Achaeans and their tribulations at Troy and their journey home.

After the suitors had had their fill of food and drink, their desires turned in other directions, to dancing and to singing which are the highlights of any feast. A herald placed a very beautiful lyre into the hands of Phemius who was compelled to sing among the suitors and he played lovely music for them.

The famous minstrel was singing for them and they sat in silence listening. He sang about the mournful homecoming of the Achaeans from Troy, that Pallas Athena had prescribed for them.

Shedding tears, Penelope spoke to the godlike minstrel. “Phemius, you know many things that are charming to mortals, the deeds of men and gods that you make famous in song. Sing about one of these as you sit here and let them drink their wine in silence. Cease this baneful song for it distresses my dear heart and above all other women it brings me sorrows that cannot be forgotten. It reminds me so much of that dear head, my husband, whose fame is so well known in Hellas and throughout the middle of Argos.”

Then the wise Telemachus answered her back. “Mother dear, why do you bear ill-will towards the minstrel who wishes to sing in whatever way his spirit moves him? It is not the minstrel who is to blame but Zeus who is to blame, he who fetters men who are wage earners, to each one as he pleases. You cannot be angry with this man if he sings about the dreaded fate of the Danaans, for men praise to the highest those songs that are newest to their hearing.”

“Suitors of my mother, you bear overwhelming insolence. For now, let us gladden ourselves with feasting and abandon this clamour for it is a good thing to listen to the song of this minstrel, he who has a voice like unto the gods.”

            Not only did Phemius have a voice like unto the gods, but it was commonly felt in ancient Greece that the talent for singing was a gift from the gods themselves. The blind bard Demodocus in the palace of the Phaeacian King Alcinous in Scheria was referred to as godlike and the recipient of just such a gift. In his case, his great singing talent was seen as a compromise provided to him by the gods in recompense for having lost his sight.

Also summon here the godlike minstrel Demodocus for to him above all others has the god given the gift of song and he gives delight no matter what he chooses to sing.

Then the herald came along, leading the trusty minstrel who was regarded with great affection by the muse who had given him both good and evil, for she had taken away his sight but had given him the gift of music.

The muse urged the minstrel to sing of the glorious deeds of warriors and their fame that had reached into the broad heavens.

            The minstrel’s stories were so heart-rending that they reduced the attentive Odysseus to tears. In the midst of his sorrows, Odysseus finally revealed his true identity to his hosts.

The renowned minstrel sang this song but Odysseus grasped his swirling cloak with his hands and draped it over his head in order to hide his handsome face for he was ashamed that the Phaeacians might see him shedding great tears. As often as the godlike minstrel would stop singing, Odysseus would wipe away his tears and draw the cloak back off his head and taking a two-handled goblet, would make a drink libation to the gods. But he would start up again and the best of the Phaeacians would encourage him to sing because they took pleasure in it and once more Odysseus would cover his head and groan mightily.

            Throughout the entire Iliad and Odyssey, we see clear indications that music and song were integral parts of everyday life for the ancient Greeks, whether used at happy or mournful occasions. The minstrel played at the wedding in Sparta when Telemachus arrived and Nausicaa was leading her handmaidens in song when Odysseus emerged naked from the bushes. Happy times were celebrated on the famous shield of Achilles:

In the one there were scenes of weddings and feasts and by the light of blazing torches they were leading the brides from their inner rooms into the town and the sound of the wedding song rose high. The young men were spinning around dancing and the sound of flutes and lyres rang out in their midst and the women stood on each side of the doorway and marvelled.

            Briseis sang a lament over the dead Patroclus and Thetis sang mournfully with her Nereids. Helen noted that the bad things that she and Alexander had done would be remembered forever in the songs of men. Sad occasions, such as the funeral of Hector, also featured singing and music:

The others, when they had brought him to the glorious house, laid him on a bed of cords and beside him they placed minstrels of the dirge who sang a song of lamentation and led the dirge while the women sang along in lament.

Even the gods on Olympus celebrated with song:

They feasted the whole day long until the sun went down and they had plenty of everything, food for the banquet, the sound of the lyre which Apollo held and the sweet songs which the Muses raised on high.

            The immortals took their music seriously and you certainly did not want to challenge their ability to sing, as we discover in the story of Thamyris and the Muses from the catalogue of the ships.

The men of Pylos were there and beautiful Arene, and Thryon where you ford the river Alpheus. They came from well-built Aepy, Kyparisseis, Amphigenea, Pteleon, Helos and Dorion, where the Muses met Thamyris and put an end to his singing forever. He was returning from Oikhalia where Eurytos lived and was leader and he bragged that he would best even the Muses, daughters of aegis-bearing Zeus, if they should sing in contest with him. As a result, they became provoked and wounded him. They took from him his divine power of song and from that point on he could no longer play the lyre.

            Homer displayed a certain prejudice when he sang about people engaged in singing and dancing. All of the happy times like banquets, weddings and social gatherings were celebrated by the Achaeans with song, and music seemed to play a part in the world of the Trojans only in unhappy times like funerals. Homer depicted the Trojans as a warlike race that would rather fight than sing and therefore somewhat less civilized than the Greeks.

In such a way you show favour to men who are evil, even the Trojans whose might is always presumptuous and they can never get enough of the din of battle. Of all things there is an abundance, of sleep and love and sweet song and goodly dance. Man would rather have his fill of these things rather than war, but the Trojans cannot get enough of battle.

            In Homer’s tales it is not only the bards who take to song. When Achilles was slighted by Agamemnon, he retired from the battle and sat in his tent, playing his lyre and singing to amuse himself and his companions. There he was found by the delegation that was sent to persuade him to return to the fighting.

They then came to the encampment and the ships of the Myrmidons and there they found Achilles playing on a lyre that was beautifully wrought and had a bridge of silver. It was part of the spoils that he had taken when he sacked the city of Eetion and he was now gladdening his heart with it singing about the exploits of men. Patroclus sat in silence and alone across from him waiting for the son of Aiakos to finish his song.

            In the Odyssey, the Sirens sang to Odysseus in an attempt to destroy the hero and his crew. He had his men fasten him to the mast and fill their ears with beeswax to avoid the temptation of the Sirens. They sang to the ship as they sailed past.

Come hither as you go, much-praised Odysseus, great glory of the Achaeans, stop your ship so that you can listen to our voices. For never before has a man sailed past this island in his dark ship, without first listening to the melodious song from our mouths. He is gladdened by it and goes away a better man for hearing it.

            The sorceress Circe sang as she worked at her loom and later enticed Odysseus’s crew to enter her home at the beckoning of Polites. There they fell under her spell.

They stood in the entrance of the house of the goddess with the beautiful locks and from within they heard Circe singing with a lovely voice as she went back and forth at her great immortal loom creating a web of shimmering glory such as only a goddess could create.

O my friends, within the house someone is weaving a great web and singing beautifully so that the whole house echoes her sweet voice, either some goddess or some woman. So come now quickly and let us call to her.

            Calypso was another one who made lovely music and Hermes discovered her in her home singing while she worked. Her enchanting ways convinced Odysseus to stay with her for seven years.

But when he had reached the far away island, he came from the violet sea to the land and went to the great cave where the fair-haired nymph lived and he found her there. A great fire was kindling in the fireplace and over the island lay the smell of cut cedar and juniper as they burned. She was inside the cave singing with a sweet voice as she worked back and forth at the loom with a golden shuttle.

            Echoing what Helen had told Hector about her future and her bad reputation living on, when Odysseus visited the underworld, the spirit of Agamemnon assured him that the deeds of men, whether good or bad, would be sung forever by generations to come.

Then the spirit of the son of Atreus answered him. “Blessed son of Laertes, resourceful Odysseus, the wife you acquired was full of great goodness and the prudent Penelope, daughter of Icarius, had good understanding in that she was loyal to you Odysseus, her wedded husband. Therefore her fame will never die out but the immortals will create for the men on earth a pleasant song of the virtue of the constant Penelope. Not even did the daughter of Tyndareus devise such evil deeds when she killed her wedded husband and hateful is her song that is sung among men and she has created a bad reputation for women, even for those who are doing good deeds.”

In many ways we can look at Homer’s songs as precursors to what we have come to know as Old World Ballads. These were traditional narrative folksongs that were passed down orally from one generation to the next. They originated in Europe and many of them came from the British Isles. These were timeless stories about love, tragedy, historical events or the supernatural. These ballads were part of the oral tradition and often changed slightly as they passed from one bard to the next. They were narrative in style and used simple language, rhythm and rhyming schemes, making them easy to sing and to remember. The major difference between what Homer did and these Old World Ballads was the fact that a single bard narrated Homer’s epics, whereas the more modern ballads were often communally sung. But whether it was the Iliad or the Odyssey in ancient Greece or Barbara Allen, Scarborough Fair or Greensleeves more recently, telling stories with song has always been a vital part of the peoples’ lives.

The Family Jewels

 

 

 The Family Jewels

When you walk into the Mycenaean Gallery in the National Archaeological Museum in Athens, your eyes are almost blinded by the light reflecting from the countless number of gold and precious items gathered from the palaces and citadels of Mycenae, Tiryns, Pylos and other ancient sites in the Peloponnese. There is much evidence displayed there to indicate that the culture of the Mycenaean Bronze Age was a rich one indeed. Likewise when you see the 1874 picture of Sophie Schliemann wearing the gold diadems, earrings and necklaces which her husband Heinrich discovered and named the Jewels of Helen or Priam’s Treasure, you instantly reach the conclusion that the Kingdom of Troy was also immensely wealthy. That being the case, why are there so few references to jewelry in Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey? One would expect to find the women of the two epics dripping with jeweled treasures, but that is not the case.

There are any number of references to gold sceptres, drinking cups, goblets, craters and mixing bowls in the Iliad as well as mentions of gold, silver and bronze-adorned weapons, shields and armour. Most items of this nature appear to have been fashioned by the god Hephaestus but there is little additional mention made of jewelry, other than for golden clasps on breastplates or belts. Helen, the Queen of Sparta, and Hecuba who is Queen of Troy are not shown by Homer as being adorned with gold and jewelled finery and neither is Andromache, the wife of Hector. Chryseis and Briseis, the sex slaves of Agamemnon and Achilles are likewise lacking in finery.

The only divine being in the Iliad who was wearing any jewelry was the goddess Hera. In the hope that the Achaeans would gain the upper hand without his involvement in the war, Hera hatched a plan to seduce her husband Zeus and lure him off to the bedroom so that he would forget about the battle being waged below on the plains of Troy. Hera prettied herself by putting on her finest, including one of Athena’s gowns, and she borrowed a number of items from Aphrodite to make herself more appealing.

Then she put on an ambrosial gown which Athena had fashioned, richly embroidered by her cunningly skillful hands and she then fastened it to her breast with golden brooches. Around her waist she placed a girdle with a hundred tassels and in her earlobes she placed earrings set with three globes and many graces shone forth from them. And on top of it all, the glittering goddess placed a veil, shining and white as the sun. Under her shining feet she placed well-oiled sandals.

She topped it all off with a highly-embroidered leather strap, inside of which were all kinds of alluring charms including love, desire and sweet talking and beguilement that fools even the mind of the wise.

In the Odyssey, Homer makes reference to a single piece of jewelry that Odysseus wore, a golden brooch of unique design. He tells us of no other pieces of finery except for the fact that the King and Queen of Phaeacia sent him away with many fine gifts as he set off for his home in Ithaca.

The godlike Odysseus wore a double-folded upper cloak of purple fleece, fastened on the front with a golden brooch with double clasps and on the front it was cunningly engraved. In the forefront a hound held a spotted fawn in its paws and pinned it as it struggled. All the men marveled at this and they were made of gold and the hound was strangling the fawn and it was gasping to get to its feet and was trying to flee.

There are no references in the Odyssey to jewelry being worn by the nymph Calypso or the sorceress Circe and likewise Queen Arete and her daughter the princess Nausicaa never appear with jewels. The only mention of jewelry comes in the Odyssey when Alcinous, the leader of the suitors, sent the hopeful would-be grooms in search of elaborate gifts to present to Penelope in the hope that she would judge which one offered the finest and then choose that individual to be her new husband. The display of wealth was quite extensive.

Thus spoke Antinous and his words pleased them all and each man sent out a herald to bring forth his gifts. For Antinous the herald brought a large and beautiful robe, all richly embroidered and containing twelve gold brooches fitted with curved clasps. And right away another one brought a chain for Eurymachus, all made of gold and strung with amber beads and as shining as the sun. His squires brought Eurydamas a pair of earrings, well-fashioned into three teardrops and with great grace shining from them. And from the house of lord Peisander the son of Polyctor, his squire brought a most beautiful and glorious jewel of a necklace. And so each one of the Achaeans brought one lovely gift after another. But afterwards the fair lady went up to her upper chamber and her handmaidens bore the beautiful gifts there for her.

We need to ask the question as to why there are so few references to jewelry in the two epics. There could be a number of answers. Perhaps this was one of Homer’s anachronisms and he mistakenly described the culture of the period of Greek history in which he wrote, rather than the Bronze Age timeframe of the events that he was portraying. Perhaps he knew nothing of the enormous wealth of Mycenae and Troy, examples of which had been unearthed by Schliemann. Then again, perhaps the Greeks and Trojans of the Trojan War period had little or no wealth. Perhaps the answer is a combination of these factors. Let’s look at each proposition.

 Overwhelming archaeological evidence proves that enormous wealth must have been present in Mycenaean Greece and Troy. Two treasure troves of precious objects were discovered by Heinrich Schliemann during his digs at the sites of ancient Troy and the citadel of Mycenae in the 1870’s. Despite his assertions to the contrary, accurate dating of the objects places the death mask of Agamemnon and the other items found in the shaft graves at Mycenae to a period preceding Agamemnon by several hundred years. Likewise, the Treasury of Priam or Jewels of Helen were found at Troy at a level dated at more than 1,000 years earlier in time than the Trojan War and well below the city known now to archaeologists as Troy VI. Homer would have had no knowledge of such treasures since they were far underground at both the time of the Trojan War and at the time that he composed his epics, and they were not unearthed until the 19^th century.

Whether Homer knew about wealthy artifacts from Mycenae and Tory or not, the fact is that he chose not to write about them. As indicated above, there are indeed very few references to jewelry in the Iliad and the Odyssey. Homer’s writings reflected the cultural norms of his own time and not the time of the Trojan War in Bronze Age Greece. His failure to mirror what was common in olden times was another of his literary anachronisms. In ancient Greece, and especially in the time of Homer, men were expected to dress rather simply. For a man to wear elaborate gold ornaments beyond a simple signet ring was considered effeminate or barbarian. One’s weapons, armour, horses and chariot were considered the true symbols of status and power for citizens and heroes. Women in Homer’s time wore some jewelry but never to excess and did not want to be seen as displaying ‘trinkets’ of foreign trade. Jewelry was regarded as not essential in establishing one’s status in society or prowess on the battlefield.

But we also have to consider the possibility that Homer’s lack of reference to jewelry in the epics might have truly been an accurate representation of the facts. Perhaps by the time the Trojan War broke out, the Achaeans and the Trojans had no wealth to display fashionably. Maybe both cultures were financially destitute and the war was fought for economic reasons rather than to seek vengeance for the kidnapping of Helen. Putting the story of Helen to one side, scholars have noted that there were compelling underlying economic reasons for the Greeks to launch an invasion of Troy. The city of Troy had control of the Dardanelles Strait and could exact a toll on anyone passing through that critical trade route. This would have been a tremendous source of wealth for the Greeks if they were able to wrest control of the straits away from the Trojans. The Black Sea routes provided the gateway and access to key resources that were critical for Bronze Age cultures, especially raw materials like tin which was crucial for making bronze. At the time, Troy was considered a wealthy city and if taken by the Achaeans, could provide them with much plunder, slaves and ongoing tribute. In addition, destroying a major player like Troy would provide the Greek alliance an opportunity to become the major player in the Aegean.

So perhaps the Achaeans were penniless and in dire economic straits and launched an invasion of what they considered to be a wealthy land in order to build their own diminished treasury. Perhaps when they got to Troy, they found that the Dardanians were in no better shape economically than the Greeks were. They spent ten years frittering away their scant remaining resources in trying to capture the citadel of Troy. When they finally did accomplish their mission, they must have found that their return on investment was minimal and then were forced to return home with little more than what they came with. This scenario makes perfect sense when we consider that within approximately 50 years of the end of the Trojan War, all of the cities and citadels of the Late Bronze Age around the entire region collapsed. They were all tottering financially and fell into ruination. Climate change, natural events, famine and invasions by hostile strangers spelled an end to all these cities, including Mycenae and Troy. Homer didn’t mention any jewels, because by this time, with the exception of the treasures buried in the Mycenaean shaft graves and at the site of Troy II, all awaiting the arrival of Heinrich Schliemann a couple of millennia later, any remaining treasures and jewels were probably all hocked in some Dorian or Sea Peoples’ pawn shop.

The Achaean Plague

 

The Achaean Plague

When the Iliad opens, the stage is set for a terrible onslaught against the Achaeans. The arrows of their enemy rained down upon them and the number of dead and the dying were uncountable. But in this case, the enemy was not the army of Troy. No, it was the god Apollo himself who delivered destruction to the Achaeans in the form of a devastating plague. His priest Chryse had beseeched the god to punish the Greeks because their leader Agamemnon had refused the ransom that the holy man had offered for the return of his daughter and had humiliated the priest in front of the troops. Apollo heard his prayer and acted accordingly.

Thus was his prayer made known on high and Phoebus Apollo heard him. He stalked down from the summit of Olympus, troubled deeply in his heart and bearing with him his bow and covered quiver. As he moved, the arrows rattled on the shoulders of the angry god. As the far-darting one swept by, his coming was like the night. Then he crouched down among the ships of the Greeks and let fly an arrow. Terrifying was the sound that arose from his silver bow. The mules he attacked first and then the swift dogs. Next on the men themselves he rained down his terrible shafts. The corpses of the dead burned constantly.

Highly enraged, the old man retreated and Apollo heard him praying since he favoured him greatly and in answer he sent an arrow of pestilence upon the Argives. The people were dying left and right as the darts of the god fell on all sides of the army of the Achaeans.

            As the story unfolded, we know that the pestilence continued until such time as King Agamemnon changed his mind after nine days of death and terror and sent the girl Chryseis back to her father in the company of an embassy led by Odysseus. He had been warned by Calchas that the pestilence would continue until he returned the girl and appeased the priest and Apollo.

“It is not with a vow or a sacrifice that the god takes exception, but rather because of the priest whom Agamemnon dishonoured by not accepting the ransom and releasing his daughter. For this reason the far-shooting god has delivered woes upon you and will continue to do so. He will not relieve the Danaans of this loathsome plague until we deliver back to her father this un-bought and un-ransomed captive bright-eyed maiden and present a magnificent sacrificial offering to Chryses. Perhaps then we might be able to appease and win over the god.”

Chryseis was returned to her father, an appropriate sacrifice was offered to Apollo and the priest was appeased. He then prayed to the god to have the pestilence lifted from the Achaeans.

Then Chryses offered up a great prayer on their behalf and raised his hands to heaven. “Hear me o god of the silver bow who protects Chryse and holy Cilla and rules mightily over Tenedos. Indeed you heard me praying before and you honoured me by answering my prayer, but you have inflicted great hardship on the people of the Achaeans. I ask that you now grant me this wish, namely that you ward off this unholy pestilence from the Danaans.”

            Scholars have debated for a long time about the true nature of the plague or pestilence that was inflicted upon the Greek army. This would not be the only time that the people of ancient Greece would suffer from horrendous outbreaks of disease. The most famous Greek plague was the Plague of Athens which raged for four years starting in 430 BCE. By the time it was contained, it is estimated that between 75,000 and 100,000 people had succumbed. There have been a number of theories put forward about the exact cause and scholars debate between typhoid fever, smallpox and influenza. The historian Thucydides gave such a complete description of the symptoms of the Athenian plague in his History of the Peloponnesian War, that most commentators feel that the correct answer is Typhoid Fever. Homer does not describe any specific symptoms of the Achaean plague in the Iliad, and since at least two pestilences have such remarkable identifiers that certainly would be worthy of comment by the author, we can likely rule out both Typhoid and the Bubonic Plague as the sources of the problems for the Achaeans fighting at Troy.

            The Achaean plague of the Iliad first affected mules and dogs as Homer told us. It was a disease that was zoonotic, meaning that it was capable of being passed from animals to humans. We are talking here about large animals in the transmission phase, not for example a flea bite from an infected rat. The disease showed a rapid onset and was of relatively short duration. Homer said that the pestilence raged for nine days. The mortality rate was very high and it would appear that the disease quickly ran its course. There are two specific diseases that fit these particulars and both were common in ancient Greece. The two prime candidates for the Achaean plague are Anthrax and Glanders.

            On their website, The Centers for Disease Control include the following information about Anthrax:

Anthrax is a serious disease usually caused by Bacillus anthracis bacteria. The bacteria are found naturally in soil around the world and commonly affect livestock and wild animals. People usually get sick with anthrax if they come in contact with infected animals or contaminated animal products. People can breathe in anthrax spores, eat food or drink water contaminated with spores, or get spores in a cut or scrape in the skin.

Livestock and wild animals can become infected when they breathe in, eat, or drink spores in contaminated soil, plants, or water. These animals can include cattle, sheep, goats, antelope, and deer.

The type of illness a person develops depends on how anthrax enters the body: through the skin, lungs, or gastrointestinal system. All types of anthrax can cause death if they're not treated with antibiotics.

            Glanders, also called Malleus, is not as well known as Anthrax. It is a contagious infection similar to Anthrax and affects domestic animals as well as dogs and cats and is transmissible to humans. There has not been a case of Glanders reported in North America since 1945, but historically it was a serious illness that plagued armies at war from the Middle Ages to the 1900’s. It was so contagious and deadly that attempts were made to cultivate its bacterium as a biological weapon or bioterrorism agent.

            The fact is that we will never really know the exact nature of the plague that struck the Achaeans. What is indeed more important than identifying the disease, is gaining an understanding of its significance in the story. The plague was first and foremost a divine punishment sent from the gods and not just a random virus that found its way into the human population. It was a deliberate act on the part of the divine, paying the Achaeans back for the insult that had been rendered to Apollo and his priest by Agamemnon’s refusal to return Chryseis to her father. This act of disrespect and the events that followed it, principally the seizure of Briseis, triggered the central conflict between Achilles and Agamemnon and gave birth to the wrath of Achilles, the central point upon which the entire narrative is based.

            The Greek plague is a metaphor for war and the arrows of pestilence that were shot by Apollo mirror the arrows of battle that were launched by both sides, all of which mowed down fighting warriors. The fact that the initial plague originated with the gods underscores the fact that it is always the gods who are in control and who decide the action. Men are seen as pawns of the gods and their fate has been pre-determined. The solution to the plague was religious and not military. Suitable sacrifices and prayers were offered to Apollo and he in turn, at the request of the priest Chryse, lifted the pestilence from the Achaeans. Likewise the Trojan War was concluded, not so much because of the military prowess of one side over the other, but because the various players carried out the actions that were deemed necessary by the gods to fulfill their individual pre-fated destinies.

            The plague itself served as a catalyst for the central conflict of the narrative and highlighted the themes of divine intervention, human error and the breakdown of basic human values. The devastation of the plague directly mirrors the devastation of war, both of which are powerful forces that lead to indiscriminate destruction, immense suffering and death. By positioning the plague at the very beginning of the epic, Homer set a very dark tone for the entire story and its depiction of the sorrow and pain of war. Plague, whether medical or military in nature, was the central theme of the Iliad.

A Poke in the Eye

 

  A Poke in the Eye

The expression, “Better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick” is attributed to the Reverend Threshem Gregg who uttered the memorable phrase in 1855 when commenting on a bottle of porter. Personally I think the saying is quite a bit older than that and most likely was first pronounced by Polyphemus the Cyclops after his encounter with his arch-enemy Odysseus. Homer seemed to get particular joy out of describing gruesome head wounds that one warrior inflicted on another. Broken skulls, spurting neck wounds and heads rolling in the dust were all part and parcel of the bard’s narratives. Homer’s audiences must have sat on the edges of their seats, assuming that there were seats in those days, and listened intently to every gory and entertaining detail. The bloodier the better and I suppose that it is not too different than the reaction that viewers have today watching television shows like Bones and Silent Witness. Everybody loves a mangled body and a good autopsy, especially if it is a cold case. War wounds in Homer are described in such detail and with such accuracy that some scholars believe that Homer could very well have been a military surgeon.

A good case in point is the Polyphemus story. Homer carefully told us how the green olivewood stake was sharpened to a point and then hardened in the fire, and then what came next was almost beyond description, but Homer certainly rose to the occasion. You can just picture his wide-eyed, open-mouthed audience hearing these words. Anything would be better than this particular poke in the eye with a sharp stick!

They grasped the olive-wood stake, that was sharpened to a point, and thrust it into his eye and I leaned on it from the top and twisted it around, just like when a man bores a ship’s timber with a drill, while the others keep it spinning around with a leather thong attached to it and the drill keeps on turning. In the same way, we took the stake with the fiery point and kept it spinning in his eye and the blood flowed around the heated stake. All his eyelids and his eyebrows were seared by the flame as his eyeball burned and the roots of it crackled and sputtered in the fire. Just like when a blacksmith plunges a great axe or an adze into the cold water to temper it and from this comes the strength of the iron and there is a loud hissing of steam, so also did his eye hiss around the olive-wood stake. He cried aloud terribly and the rock rang with the sound and we all shrank back with fear. He pulled the stake out of his eye and it was all smeared with his blood and he threw it aside and waved his arms about and then he called to the other Cyclopes who lived around him in caves along the windy heights.

Let’s stay with the Odyssey for a while and turn to the events surrounding the attack which Odysseus launched against the suitors. After he had successfully won the archery contest, the first one that Odysseus went after was their leader Alcinous, and of course he aimed for his favourite target – anything above the shoulders.

But Odysseus took aim and hit him right in the throat with the arrow and the point of it went through the tender flesh of his neck. He fell over sideways and the goblet fell from his hands and out of his nostrils there rushed a thick stream of the blood of man.

There were a number of other heads wounds made during the melee. Leiodes begged Odysseus for mercy but to no avail. The twelve unfaithful handmaidens were strung up by the neck and Melantheus had his head and other parts disfigured. The entertainment went on and on for Homer’s audience.

So he spoke and he grabbed a sword that was left nearby when Agelaus was killed and had fallen to the ground and with it he slashed Leiodes in the middle of the neck and even while he was still speaking, his head rolled onto the dust.

Just like when long-winged thrushes or doves strike against an enclosure that is set up in a thicket when they try to reach their perches and hated is the bed that greets them, even so all the women held their heads in a row and around their necks nooses were placed so that they would die in a most pitiable manner. Their feet writhed for a short time but not for long.

Then they led out Melantheus through the doorway and into the court and they cut off his nose and his ears with the pitiless bronze and cut off his genitals and threw them to the dogs to eat and then cut off his hands and his feet in their anger.

Turning to the Iliad, it is safe to say that this epic is a veritable treasure trove of vivid descriptions of war wounds to the neck and head regions of the body. In a 2008 study entitled “Cranio-maxillofacial injuries in Homer’s Iliad” published in the CMF Journal, the authors detailed the numerical results of their study. There were 48 references to CMF injuries in the Iliad, with various regions of the head and neck being affected. Of these, 44 were fatal and 5 were decapitations. Spears were the cause of the injuries for 26 of the cases, sword for 13, arrows for 2 and rocks, stones or blows for the balance. Those delivering the blows were 17 Greeks and 4 Trojans while the injured or dead were 8 Greeks and 38 Trojans.

Homer did not spare any details when it came to describing the head wounds inflicted on the battlefield at the plains of Troy. The following are several examples:

Then Idomeneus struck Erymas on the mouth with a thrust of his pitiless bronze and the blade went right through his brain and cleaved asunder his white bones. His teeth were knocked out and both his eyes were filled with blood and he spurted blood through his mouth and nose as he gaped and death enwrapped him in a mass of black clouds.

Hector hit Coeranus on the jaw under his ear and the spear knocked out his teeth and sliced his tongue in half.

As he was coming at him, Achilles hit him straight away downwards on the head and he split his head in two and he tumbled to the ground and the godlike Achilles gloated over him.

Then Achilles approached Mulius and struck him on the ear with his spear and the bronze spear point went straightaway into one ear and out the other.

But Achilles struck him on the neck with his sword and tossed his head and his helmet afar. The marrow spurted out of his spine as his body lay stretched out on the ground.

In light of the horrific and gruesome nature of the wounds that Homer described in his works, and especially the head wounds that were inflicted on his victims, we have to re-examine the reasons why the author would go to such extremes. Without a doubt there was a certain amount of sensationalism involved and this was a way for Homer to gain and hold his audience’s attention. It was Teddy Roosevelt who said, “When you’ve got them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow.” Homer appeared to understand the significance of such an attitude and knew how to play the visceral card to get attention. But there was more to what Homer was doing than mere theatrics and sensationalism. The graphic realism of his descriptions served a very powerful literary and thematic purpose.

Homer’s graphic details underscored the absolute horror and pain inflicted by warfare and tended to negate the concept that war was glorified and was the medium by which heroes achieved their Kleos. Homer was emphasizing the suffering that war inflicts on people, whether they are warriors or their families. The fierce actions of the combatants, the nature of the wounds that were inflicted and the emotional and physical toll of war all served to point out dramatically that when man goes to war, he becomes a wild beast, and when he is struck down, he is nothing more than dead meat. Kleos is in fact linked to desecration, not everlasting glory. Homer portrays man at war as a tragic being and the battlefield as the stage upon which his tragedy is performed. He shows us that war is not a theatre where the audience rises and applauds after the performance, but rather one in which the viewer looks on the stage with horror and nausea. Once more, the greatest anti-war poet of all times has achieved his purpose.

Funeral Rites in Homer

 

  Funeral Rites in Homer

How people treat their dead is a cultural marker and one of the ways that scholars and researchers use to distinguish between civilizations. Death rites can be as simple as the historical Mongolian sky burial, where the body of the deceased was left wherever it bounced off a wagon in the wilderness and the elements and the wolves were left to do the rest. Parsi death rituals in India involved placing a body in a Tower of Silence and allowing it to be consumed by vultures. The ancient Egyptians practised elaborate mummification rites and interred the deceased in magnificent tombs like the Great Pyramids. Funeral rites are powerful cultural indicators that reflect the core beliefs that a particular civilization has about life, death, the afterlife and the structure of their society. Such practices helped the members of the community manage grief, assert social bonds and reaffirm their shared values. The treatment of the dead was a vital part of living and continues to be so today.

The Iliad and the Odyssey were composed or compiled in the late 8^th or early 7^th centuries BCE. The events of the two epics were set in the Late Bronze Age, around the 12^th or the 13^th centuries BCE. King Agamemnon of Mycenae was the leader of the Achaean forces that invaded Greece and precipitated the 10 year Trojan War. A visit to the remains of Agamemnon’s citadel of Mycenae today will provide clear evidence of the funerary practices that were in vogue during the time frame that is supposedly covered by Homer’s works. But the funeral rites that were actually taking place in Late Bronze Age Mycenaean Greece are fundamentally different from what Homer relates in his epics, and that difference has come to be known by scholars as Homer’s great anachronism.

One enters the citadel of Mycenae by walking up a ramp that is protected on both sides by Cyclopean walls. In front of you is the magnificent Lion Gate and when you pass through it and turn to your right, you will come upon Grave Circle A, a 16^th century BCE royal cemetery. It was originally situated outside the walls of the citadel and then enclosed within them when the acropolis was extended in the 13^th century BCE. Nearby Grave Circle B was found outside the walls. Grave Circle A contains six shaft graves and the famous Heinrich Schliemann found a treasure trove buried within them during his excavations in the late 1870’s. At the base of the citadel are found nine beehive tombs or tholoi, circular burial chambers covered with corbelled roofs. The most famous of these is known as The Treasury of Atreus, or The Tomb of Agamemnon. Whether the deceased was placed in a shaft grave or in a tholos beehive tomb, the fact remains that it was common practice in Mycenaean Greece in the Late Bronze Age for the dead to be buried. Homer’s great anachronism is centered on the fact that the bard does not mention inhumation at all, and the funeral rites that he described were quite the opposite of what was the general practice of the day. The dead in the Iliad and the Odyssey were cremated, a practice that was common in Homer’s time, but not at the time of the Trojan War, as evidenced by the graves and tombs found at Mycenae.

The practice of cremation only became widespread in the Aegean at a later date and was common at the time that the Homeric poems were composed and written down. The elaborate descriptions that Homer gives of funeral rites, funeral games and sacrificial offerings would have been familiar and meaningful to his audience and reflective of the cultural norms of his time. There was a specific process involved in preparing the body in an honourable fashion before the cremation and in handling the remains afterwards. Homer provides us with great insight into all the steps that were taken.

Both sides of a conflict were adamant that their dead be treated well and to this end, a short truce or ceasefire was declared so that the corpses of the dead could be gathered from the field of battle. The armour of a deceased warrior would often have been stripped from his body by his victor, but otherwise the corpse would have been left in place for subsequent recovery. It was right and just and part of an unwritten code of honour, that a fallen warrior, whether friend or foe, should be afforded the privilege of respectful treatment and a hero’s funeral. Achilles’ desecration of Hector’s body, dragging his naked corpse around the walls of Troy for days, and leaving his body exposed to the dogs and carrion birds would have been considered a highly unthinkable act. His actions served to highlight the exceptional grief that he experienced at the death of his friend Patroclus. Achilles seemed to make a habit of denying fallen warriors their right to a hero’s funeral. Remember how he treated Lycaon, the son of Priam.

Then Achilles grabbed his body by the feet and threw it into the river to float away. He gloated heartily over him and spoke with feathered words. “Float there among the fishes and let them lick the blood from your wounds, for your weeping mother will not be placing your body on a funeral couch. Instead, the eddying Scamander will be bearing you to your rest in the salty sea.”

Achilles must have had a reputation for dealing with the dead unfairly and with disrespect, a trait hardly worthy of a noble hero. Queen Hecuba attempted to warn her son Hector of the ignoble danger he faced in dealing with the man and indeed, when Achilles had struck him down and was standing over him, he begged his victor to allow his body to be returned to his people for a proper burial. We know that Achilles refused.

“Hector my child, have pity on me and show me respect if ever I nursed you and banished your cares. Be mindful my dear child and ward off that enemy from the wall and do not make a stand against him, cruel man that he is, for he will slay you and I will not have a chance to lay you on a funeral bed and lament you, born of my own body, and neither will your dear wife be able to as well, for far away, near the ships of the Argives, their swift dogs shall devour your body.”

After a hero’s body had been removed from the battlefield, it was washed and anointed and dressed in what Homer described as fine and fair woven garments. The body was then placed on a funeral couch and displayed for the gathered mourners for some period of time, in the case of Achilles, as we are told in the Odyssey, for 17 days. We learned from Priam, as he described how the Trojans would conduct Hector’s funeral rites, that the event would take a total of ten days, with the actual cremation taking place on the 10^th. For nine days we will mourn for him within the city and on the tenth day we will honour him with funeral rites and hold a banquet for the people and on the eleventh day we will erect his funeral mound.

For the cremation, the body was placed on a funeral pyre constructed with logs. Jars of honey and oil were placed around the corpse to add to the intensity of the flames. The pyre was built in a place where the winds could blow freely so that the fire could be adequately fanned. Libations of wine were poured on the ground around the pyre and sacrificial animal offerings were made and added to the bier. In the case of Patroclus, Achilles had the throats of 12 young Trojans slit in front of his beloved’s pyre. Patroclus had visited his friend Achilles after his demise and had begged him for the honour of a funeral so that his soul would be able to pass more easily through the gates of Hades. But surely Patroclus had no indication that the wrath of Achilles would result in the slaughter of the 12 Trojan youths. Such an action would have been seen as extraordinary, even for the Homeric world.

The funeral rites that Homer described were a reflection of how the gods wanted the dead to be treated and we know this from the command that Zeus gave to Apollo at the death of Sarpedon.

“Get up now my beloved bright one and having taken Sarpedon far away out of missile range, cleanse him of the black blood and wash him in the waters of the stream and anoint him with ambrosia and clothe him with immortal garments and give him to the swift guardians, the twins Sleep and Death, who will bear him quickly to the rich land of broad Lycia and there his brothers and kinsmen will give him a solemn burial and raise over him a memorial of stone, as is the duty owed to the deceased.”

After the flames had consumed the body, the fire was quenched with wine and the bones were gathered and placed in a sacred container.

First of all they quenched the flames of the pyre with burning wine wherever the fire had touched and the ashes had fallen deep. With much weeping they gathered the whitened bones of their dear comrade and placed them in a golden bowl and encased them in a double layer of fat and put the bowl in the tent and covered it with a soft cloth made of linen. Then they marked off with signs the foundation of a barrow around the pyre and at once piled up the earth there.

A barrow was erected at the site and a gravestone or marker was put in place. A funeral barrow and a marker were considered essential for preserving the memory of the deceased. It was also usual practice to erect a common mound near a battle site to honour all the fallen, presumably at the site of a common grave. A visit to the war cemeteries of northern France and Belgium or Arlington Virginia will show you that this practice is still common today. As Telemachus was preparing to visit Pylos and Sparta to seek news of his missing father, he was told what to do is he discovered that Odysseus was dead.

But if you hear that he is dead and gone, then return to your dear fatherland and erect a funeral barrow for him, give him the funeral rites that are due to him.

After the hero’s bones had been interred and his barrow erected, a funeral banquet was held for the mourners. In ancient Greece, the deceased was considered to be the host of the banquet and it was given in his honour as a way of providing thanks to all those who had participated in the funeral. The communal banquet also marked the end of the initial mourning period and featured libations, eulogies and songs sung in honour of the dead.

In special cases, funeral games were held in honour of a fallen hero. These were a series of athletic competitions and the two most famous in ancient literature were the games put on by Achilles to honour his fallen friend Patroclus, and the games hosted by Aeneas in honour of his father Anchises, as told by Vergil in his Aeneid. The host of the games provided rich treasures as prizes for the competitors. The purpose of such games was twofold. First of all they were held to honour the dead, and secondly, they were meant to propitiate the spirit of the fallen warrior. Many scholars believe that these funeral games, common in the Greek Archaic and Classical periods were precursors to the modern Olympic Games.

To summarize the full treatment of how a hero was cared for in death and the funeral rites conducted at his passing, we must turn to the Odyssey. In that story, the spirit of Agamemnon described for Achilles how he was honoured when he died at Troy.

…but after we had taken you out of the fighting and to the ships and stretched you out on a bed, we cleansed your fair skin with warm water and anointing oil and many hot tears were shed by the Danaans as they sheared their hair. Your mother came out of the sea with the immortal nymphs when she heard the news and a divine sounding cry resonated over the deep and trembling took hold of all the Achaeans…

…then for seventeen days and nights we mourned you in like fashion, immortal gods and mortal men alike and on the eighteenth day we delivered you to the fires and we sacrificed many fatted sheep and curved-horn cattle around you. So the fire consumed you in the clothing of the gods and in an abundance of fine oil and sweet wine… in the morning we gathered up your white bones and placed them in unmixed wine and oil. Your mother had given a two-handled golden urn, saying that it was a gift from Dionysus and a work of the renowned Hephaestus. In the urn are your white bones, glorious Achilles and mixed with them are the bones of the dead Patroclus, the son of Menoetius, and separate from them are the bones of Antilochus whom you did honor above all your other companions after the dead Patroclus. Over them we built up a huge and goodly burial mound, we who are the mighty throng of Argive spearmen. We built it on a tall promontory of the broad Hellespont so that it was conspicuous and could be seen over the sea by men living now and those to be born in the future. Your mother asked the gods for beautiful contest prizes and she placed them in the middle of the assembly for those Achaeans who excelled in valor. You have been present for the funeral games of many men who were war heroes, when at the death of a king the young men gird themselves and get ready to compete, but if you had seen that sight, your heart would have been amazed, for the silver-footed goddess Thetis had set out so many beautiful prizes in your honor, for you were very dear to the gods. Not even in death was your name forgotten, but you will always have a great reputation among men, Achilles.

Throughout the Iliad and the Odyssey, Homer provides us with a very complete picture and elaborate descriptions of the funeral rites afforded to fallen warriors. The trouble is that Homer got it all wrong and what he described in his narratives were common practices in his own time and not the usual funerary customs in the age of the Mycenaean Greeks of the Trojan War period. He tells us about cremation and yet burial was the common method, as indicated by the archaeological evidence of shaft graves and beehive tombs at Mycenae. Homer described the human sacrifice of the twelve Trojan captives at the funeral of Patroclus. This was not something that was common in either the Bronze Age or the Classical period and would have been seen as a barbaric act and forbidden by the laws of Solon. Funeral games would not have been common in Mycenaean Greece but became popular with the advent of historical athletic competitions, such as those that took place at Olympia. The first Olympic Games were said to have taken place in 776 BCE, right at the time that the Iliad was being composed and written down.

The discrepancies and anachronisms in Homer’s accounts tend to provide a blending of idealized customs from a past heroic age with contemporary customs that would have been well known and familiar to the bard’s audiences. So rather than being historically accurate, Homer created a composite picture of funerary practices from the Mycenaean period and his own Archaic Age. He blended traditional stories from the past with social and ritual customs that his audience could identify with, no doubt in an attempt to make his poetic offering more appealing to the public and as a consequence, more entertaining. This was an unusual move on Homer’s part, because for the most part, he tended to strive for historical accuracy throughout his epics. Why he would choose to stray from that direction with this topic is anyone’s guess.