60 Fun Facts About Iliad

The Iliad is traditionally attributed to which poet?

Herodotus reckoned he lived about 400 years before his own day, roughly 850 BC.

Into how many books is the Iliad divided?

The Odyssey has the same number, and both are in the same six-foot metre.

What is the poem's opening word, which sets its main theme?

The whole epic follows the anger of Achilles from his quarrel with Agamemnon to the death of Hector.

Contrary to popular belief, which of these does the Iliad NOT include?

The poem ends with Hector's burial; the horse and the sack of Troy come from later sources.

Which god sends a plague on the Greek camp at the start of the poem?

Agamemnon had insulted the god's priest Chryses by refusing to ransom his daughter, and the plague arrows fell for nine days.

Whose daughter does Agamemnon refuse to return, triggering the plague?

Odysseus eventually sails her home, and the plague ends.

Which captive woman does Agamemnon seize from Achilles as compensation, provoking his withdrawal?

Achilles then asks his mother Thetis to persuade Zeus to let the Trojans win until the Greeks realise how badly they need him.

Which common soldier is beaten with a sceptre by Odysseus after railing against Agamemnon in Book 2?

Homer calls him the ugliest man who came to Troy - bow-legged, lame and pointy-headed - and his deformity even became a medical eponym.

The long list of Greek contingents in Book 2 is known as what?

Its geography reflects Greece before the Dorian invasion rather than Homer's own Iron Age world.

In Book 3, Paris agrees to settle the war by duelling whom?

When he loses, Aphrodite whisks him off the field and into bed with Helen.

Which Trojan archer breaks the truce by shooting Helen's husband at Athena's prompting?

He is later killed by Diomedes during that hero's rampage.

In Book 5, Diomedes wounds Aphrodite and which other god?

Emboldened by Athena, he ignores a divine warning against fighting gods.

Diomedes and the Lycian Glaucus stop fighting after discovering what?

Glaucus then swaps his golden armour, worth 100 oxen, for Diomedes' bronze, worth nine - a byword for a bad deal ever since.

In Book 6, Hector bids farewell to his wife and baby son. What is the boy's name?

The child cries at his father's crested helmet, so Hector takes it off to kiss him.

Which Greek hero duels Hector to a draw in Book 7 until nightfall separates them?

The two exchange gifts afterwards - Hector's sword and Ajax's belt - both later linked to their deaths.

Which three men make up the embassy sent to persuade Achilles to return in Book 9?

Achilles refuses, telling them he faces a choice between a long obscure life and a short one with imperishable glory.

In the night raid of Book 10, Odysseus and Diomedes kill which Trojan scout?

They go on to slaughter the Thracian allies and steal their king's horses.

Which god disobeys Zeus and secretly rallies the Greeks in Book 13?

Hera then seduces Zeus and lulls him to sleep to give the sea god more time.

Which Trojan seer twice urges Hector to withdraw and is ignored both times?

His warnings come first at the wall and again after Achilles' terrifying reappearance.

Whose son, a leading Trojan ally, is killed by Patroclus in Book 16?

Zeus considers saving him but bows to fate after Hera objects.

Which Trojan wounds the stunned Patroclus at Troy's gates just before Hector's killing blow?

Patroclus had ignored Achilles' order not to chase the Trojans to the walls.

Who brings Achilles the news of Patroclus's death?

Achilles' cry of grief is heard by Thetis at the bottom of the sea.

Homer's description of Achilles' shield is the earliest Greek example of which device?

The device - a detailed description of a work of art - was copied by Virgil for the shield of Aeneas and reimagined by W. H. Auden in 1952.

Which of these is NOT shown on the shield of Achilles as Homer describes it?

The design moves outward in circles from the earth, sky, sea and stars, and it has been called the first cosmological map in Greek history.

In Book 19, what does Achilles' horse Xanthos do that is unusual?

Achilles shrugs off the warning and rides out with Automedon driving.

Which river god fights Achilles after he chokes the water with Trojan corpses?

Hephaestus's firestorm beats the river back.

Athena tricks Hector into stopping his flight around the walls by taking the form of whom?

When Hector turns to ask him for a spear, the 'brother' has vanished.

How does Achilles dishonour Hector's body?

The Trojan watches from the walls; Andromache faints when she sees it.

Which god guides Priam unseen through the Greek camp to Achilles' tent?

The old king clasps Achilles' knees and begs for his son's body; both men weep.

How many days' truce does Achilles grant the Trojans to mourn and bury Hector?

The poem ends with the funeral, not with the fall of the city.

The ghost of Patroclus asks Achilles for what?

Achilles agrees, cremates the body and holds a day of funeral games with prizes.

Roughly how many lines does the Iliad have in its standard edition?

That is around 3,000 more than the Odyssey.

The Iliad is composed in what metre?

The same 'grand style' metre carries the Odyssey and Virgil's Aeneid.

The Homeric Greek of the poem is a literary blend based mainly on which dialect?

Scholarly consensus dates its composition to the late 8th century BC, though some argue for the 7th.

The professional reciters who performed the Iliad at festivals like the Panathenaia were called what?

By the late 5th century BC, being able to recite Homer by heart marked a man of standing.

The earliest complete manuscript of the Iliad, Venetus A, dates from when?

Its margins preserve ancient scholarly notes and the only summary of most of the lost Epic Cycle.

The first printed edition of the Iliad appeared in 1489 in which city?

It was edited by the Greek scholar Demetrios Chalkokondyles.

Whose 1920s study of stock epithets showed the Iliad grew from oral composition?

He and Albert Lord tested the theory on living Serbian oral poets in Yugoslavia.

The debate over who Homer was and how the poems were composed is known by what name?

One strand asks whether the Iliad and Odyssey were even composed by the same person.

Which English playwright published the first great English Iliad, in 'fourteener' lines, from 1598?

Pope praised its 'daring fiery spirit', and Keats wrote a sonnet about first reading it.

Keats's sonnet 'On First Looking into Chapman's Homer' was written in a single night in which year?

His friend Charles Cowden Clarke found the poem on his breakfast table at ten the next morning.

Alexander Pope's Iliad, published 1715-20, drew which famous put-down from the scholar Richard Bentley?

Samuel Johnson disagreed, calling it a performance no age or nation could hope to equal; Pope earned 200 guineas a volume.

Whose 1951 'free six-beat' translation became the standard classroom Iliad for decades?

Fagles (1990) and Lombardo (1997) later pushed toward contemporary American idiom.

Who published the first full-length English translation of the Iliad by a woman, in 2015?

Emily Wilson's iambic-pentameter version followed in 2023.

Madeline Miller's 2011 novel The Song of Achilles won which literary award in 2012?

It centres on the romance between Patroclus and Achilles, drawing on Statius, Ovid and Virgil as well as Homer.

Simone Weil's 1939 essay called the Iliad 'the poem of' what?

She argued that war reduces victim and aggressor alike to things.

A story about which hero prompts Diomedes and Glaucus to swap gifts instead of fighting?

The exchange was famously unequal, and later became a byword for a bad trade.

Which goddess seduces Zeus and lulls him to sleep so Poseidon can help the Greeks?

When Zeus wakes he is furious, but reassures her that Troy is still fated to fall once Hector kills Patroclus.

Who drives Achilles' chariot when he finally returns to battle?

Achilles refuses to eat before the fight and shrugs off his horse's prophecy of his death.

Which god beats back the river Scamander with a firestorm during his fight with Achilles?

Once Zeus lifts his ban, the gods openly join the fighting and even brawl among themselves.

Which Trojan hero, rescued by Aphrodite from Diomedes, is spared by fate to survive the war?

His survival made him available for Virgil, who built the Aeneid around his later wanderings.

The historical backdrop of the poem is the collapse at the end of which era?

Homer is separated from his subject by roughly 400 years, a gap known as the Greek Dark Ages.

Which Shakespeare play draws its plot from the Iliad but portrays Achilles as a coward?

Often considered a comedy, it centres on a medieval love story between Priam's son and the daughter of the seer Calchas.

Roughly how much did the 2004 film Troy gross worldwide?

Its US take of $133 million fell short of a $185 million budget, but international audiences turned it into a commercial success.

Which poet's 1959 'account' of the Iliad, War Music, was begun as a radio commission?

He kept working on it until his death in 2011; Tom Holland called it one of the most remarkable works of post-war literature.

Alice Oswald's Memorial (2011) was withdrawn by its author from which award's shortlist?

The collection commemorates each named character whose death is mentioned in the Iliad; Oswald cited concerns about the prize's sponsor.

Emily Wilson's 2023 translation of the Iliad uses which verse form?

Rodney Merrill's 2007 version instead imitated the original's dactylic hexameter in English.

Which psychiatrist's 1994 book Achilles in Vietnam linked the Iliad to combat trauma?

He followed it with Odysseus in America in 2002, on the trials of homecoming and moral injury.

Pat Barker's 2018 novel The Silence of the Girls retells the Iliad from whose perspective?

The Guardian named it one of the best books of the 21st century; a sequel, The Women of Troy, followed in 2021.

The Iliad's title is an ellipsis of a Greek phrase meaning what?

Ilias is the feminine adjective from Ilion, another name for Troy.