110 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.

Which Hollywood star played Achilles in Troy, the 2004 blockbuster loosely based on Homer's Iliad?

Brad Pitt played Achilles opposite Eric Bana's Hector, and years later admitted he was disappointed with the film.

The mound of Hisarlik, long identified as the site of Homer's Troy, lies in which modern country?

Turkey holds the ruins, where archaeologists count nine layers, each one a city built on the remains of the last.

Later legend, not Homer's Iliad, made which part of Achilles's body his only vulnerable spot?

His heel became the weak spot only in later tellings: the Roman poet Statius, writing in the first century AD, has the earliest surviving version of the story.

Most ancient biographies of Homer, the poet credited with the Iliad, gave him which physical trait?

Blindness is how most ancient lives pictured Homer, and one tradition adds that he failed to solve a riddle set by fishermen.

Which conqueror took an annotated Iliad on campaign and saw himself as a new Achilles?

Alexander the Great was given the copy by his tutor Aristotle, and when he reached Troy he honoured the tomb of Achilles.

Homer's famous epithet for the sea, used in the Iliad, likens it to which drink?

Wine was Homer's comparison for the sea, and the British statesman William Gladstone combed the poems in 1858 and found no blue in them at all.

Homer's best-known epithet for Achilles, repeated across the Iliad, praises which physical quality?

His swift feet earn Achilles the tag 'swift-footed' even when he is sitting in his tent, because a Homeric epithet marks a fixed quality, not the moment.

What does Patroclus borrow in Book 16 of the Iliad so the Trojans will mistake him for Achilles?

His armour does the trick and the Trojans fall back, but Patroclus ignores a warning to return once the camp is safe and chases them to the city.

Which German businessman began digging at Hisarlik in 1870, sure that Homer's Troy lay beneath?

Heinrich Schliemann struck gold there in 1873 and named the hoard after King Priam, though it lay in a layer hundreds of years too early for the Trojan War.

Whom does the poet call on to sing the story in the very first line of Homer's Iliad?

The Muse is asked to sing the tale through the poet, an opening move that Virgil and Dante later borrowed for long poems of their own.

Homer's Iliad covers only a few weeks in which year of the long Greek siege of Troy?

The tenth year is the setting, and the core of the poem, Books 2 to 23, spans just four days and two nights of the war.

Helen, who left for Troy with Paris, had been queen of which Greek city-state?

Sparta was the home she left, and in Book 3 of the Iliad Helen yearns for her former husband, her city and her parents.

Agamemnon, who commands the whole Greek army in Homer's Iliad, is king of which city?

Mycenae later yielded a gold death mask that its finder named after Agamemnon, although it is 300 to 400 years older than any Trojan War.

What name does Homer give the fiercely loyal soldiers whom Achilles leads to Troy in the Iliad?

The Myrmidons were said to have begun as ants that Zeus turned into men, a tale spun from the Greek word for an ants' nest.

What does Achilles stage in Book 23 of the Iliad to honour his dead companion Patroclus?

Funeral games fill a whole day near the end of the poem, with Achilles giving out the prizes, and Virgil later had his own hero hold similar games for his dead father.

What does King Priam do on entering Achilles's tent to plead for the body of his son Hector?

Kisses his hands is what the old king does, the very hands that had killed so many of his sons, and the two enemies end up weeping together.

What does Hector take off in Book 6 of the Iliad because it has frightened his baby son?

His plumed helmet, with its nodding horsehair crest, makes the boy shrink back crying; his parents laugh, and Hector lays it on the ground to kiss him.

Which goddess, lover of the Trojan prince Tithonus, does Homer often describe as 'rosy-fingered'?

Eos, the dawn, won immortality for her Trojan lover but not eternal youth, so in the myth he simply went on ageing for ever.

What is Achilles doing when the Greek envoys reach his tent in Book 9 of Homer's Iliad?

Playing a lyre he had taken as plunder, Achilles is singing of the famous deeds of heroes while Patroclus sits opposite in silence.

In Book 22 of the Iliad, what does Zeus hold up to settle Hector's fate as Achilles chases him?

Golden scales tip against Hector: Zeus sets a doom in each pan, Hector's sinks toward Hades, and the god who had been protecting him leaves at once.

When Diomedes wounds Aphrodite in Book 5 of the Iliad, what flows from the goddess instead of blood?

Ichor is what Homer's gods have for blood because, the poet explains, they do not eat mortal food, which is also why they never die.

From which mountain near Troy does Zeus watch the fighting for much of Homer's Iliad?

Mount Ida gives Zeus a ringside seat from its peak Gargarus, and it is where myth has him snatch the Trojan boy Ganymede to be cupbearer to the gods.

Which name does Homer use most often in the Iliad for the army besieging Troy?

Achaeans far outnumbers Homer's two other names for the same army, Argives and Danaans, and often comes with the tag 'long-haired'.

Which Latin phrase, coined by the poet Horace, names the narrative technique that opens the Iliad?

In medias res, 'into the middle of things', was Horace's praise for poets who skip the backstory; its opposite, ab ovo, means starting from the egg.

Which Greek word names the undying glory that Achilles chooses over a long life in Homer's Iliad?

Kleos is the fame that outlives a hero, and in Book 9 Achilles says his mother told him the price: stay and win it, or sail home to a long, forgotten life.

What is Helen doing when she first appears in Homer's Iliad, in her room at Troy in Book 3?

Weaving at a loom, Helen is working the very battles being fought for her sake into a great purple cloth when she is called out to watch.

What does Achilles cut off and give to the dead Patroclus at the pyre in Book 23 of the Iliad?

A lock of hair that his father had vowed to a river god at home for his safe return goes to Patroclus instead: Achilles accepts he will never go back.

What do critics call the long comparisons, often to hunting lions, that run through Homer's Iliad?

An epic simile can run for many lines, and Homer's often lift the listener off the battlefield for a moment into a world of peace and plenty.

After Homer's Iliad was written down and divided into books, each book was labelled with what?

A Greek letter labels each book, and most scholars credit the division not to Homer but to the Hellenistic scholars of Alexandria.

What does Homer's Iliad call the entrance to Troy where Hector parts from his wife in Book 6?

The Scaean Gates open onto the battlefield, and the dying Hector foretells that Achilles himself will be killed in front of them.

In Book 22 of the Iliad, where on Hector's body does Achilles land the blow that kills him?

His neck is the one place left unprotected, and because the point misses his windpipe, Hector is able to speak and beg for his body to be sent home.

Which twin gods carry a slain Lycian king home from Troy on Zeus's orders in Book 16 of the Iliad?

Sleep and Death, the twins Hypnos and Thanatos, bear the washed and anointed body back to Lycia so that his people can bury him with honour.

Which American translator published a verse Iliad in 1990 and followed it with an Odyssey in 1996?

Robert Fagles won the Academy of American Poets' Landon translation award for that Iliad in 1991, and went on to translate Virgil as well.

Which poet's 1952 poem 'The Shield of Achilles' replaces Homer's scenes with a bleak modern world?

W. H. Auden made it the title poem of a 1955 collection that won America's National Book Award for Poetry the following year.

Which Greek term names a warrior's finest hour, like the rampage of Diomedes in Book 5 of the Iliad?

Aristeia literally means a moment of excellence: one warrior dominates the field and cuts down a string of opponents, sometimes at the cost of his own life.

Which tyrant of Athens did ancient writers credit with having Homer's poems collected and organised?

Pisistratus, who died around 527 BC, was said to have had the poems put in order at Athens, a story scholars call the Peisistratean recension.

Which lost Epic Cycle poem told how the Trojan War began, before the Iliad takes up the story?

The Cypria told of the Judgement of Paris and filled eleven books, yet only about fifty of its lines survive, quoted by other writers.

Which newly arrived Thracian king is killed in his sleep during the night raid in Book 10 of the Iliad?

Rhesus had only just arrived with the finest horses on the plain, and the two raiders who killed him drove the team back to the Greek camp.

Idomeneus, a front-rank Greek commander in Homer's Iliad, is the king of which large island?

Crete is his by descent from the legendary King Minos, and Mozart's 1781 opera Idomeneo tells the story of his return home from the war.

Which sea nymph rises from the waves in Book 1 of the Iliad to comfort her weeping son Achilles?

Thetis then goes to Zeus, clasps his knees and persuades him to let the Trojans win until the Greeks honour her son again.

Who is having a hot bath prepared for her husband Hector in the Iliad when she hears he is dead?

Andromache had already lost her father and seven brothers to Achilles, so with Hector gone she has no family left but her infant son.

Which queen in the Iliad bares her breast from Troy's ramparts, begging her son Hector not to fight?

Hecuba later tells Priam she could sink her teeth into Achilles's liver, so fierce is her grief for the son he killed.

Which aged king of Pylos keeps telling the Greeks in the Iliad about the better men of his youth?

Nestor has seen two generations pass and rules over a third, and Agamemnon says Troy would soon fall if he had ten advisers like him.

Which mortal king, the husband of a sea goddess, is the father of Achilles in Homer's Iliad?

Peleus is the absent father Priam invokes in the final book: asked to think of his own old father waiting at home, Achilles breaks down and weeps.

Which Greek seer reveals in Book 1 of the Iliad why a plague is ravaging the army?

Calchas first makes Achilles swear to protect him, knowing that the truth he is about to tell will enrage Agamemnon.

Which daughter of Priam, elsewhere a famed prophetess, first sees Hector's body return in the Iliad?

Cassandra spots the wagon from the citadel before anyone else, and her cry brings the whole city out to mourn Hector.

Which wind-footed goddess carries most of Zeus's messages to gods and mortals in Homer's Iliad?

Iris, goddess of the rainbow, even takes the shape of a Trojan princess in Book 3 to fetch Helen out to watch the armies.

Which herald in Homer's Iliad, as loud as fifty men, gave English an adjective for a booming voice?

Stentor is named only once, in Book 5, when a goddess takes his shape and his huge voice to shame the Greeks back into the fight.

Which goddess runs weeping to Zeus in Book 21 of the Iliad after his wife boxes her ears?

Artemis is beaten about the head with her own bow and flees in tears, leaving her scattered arrows for her mother Leto to gather up.

Homer's Troy stood near the mouth of which strait, known to the ancient Greeks as the Hellespont?

The Dardanelles let Troy control the traffic entering the strait, and the name is said to go back to Dardanus, a mythical son of Zeus.