The Iliad
c. 750 BCE (oral composition earlier) · Archaic Greek · Greece (Asia Minor tradition)
Book I — The Wrath of Achilles
Book VI — Hector and Andromache
Book XXIV — The Ransom of Hector
notes
The Iliad (Greek: Ἰλιάς) is the foundational epic of Western literature, attributed to Homer and composed in the late 8th century BCE, though drawing on oral traditions stretching back to the Mycenaean Bronze Age (c. 1200 BCE). Its 15,693 lines in 24 books narrate 51 days during the tenth and final year of the Trojan War — specifically the consequences of Achilles' rage after Agamemnon dishonours him by seizing his prize, the captive Briseis. The poem's emotional range is extraordinary: furious battle and tender grief, heroic glory and domestic loss, the pathos of Hector's farewell to Andromache and the reconciliation of Achilles and Priam. The Iliad does not describe the fall of Troy; it ends with Hector's funeral. The poem is remarkable for its humanity: the Trojans are portrayed with equal dignity to the Greeks, and the gods intervene often with mixed and sometimes comic results. Translation after Samuel Butler (1898). Public domain.
currently held: Manuscript tradition; oldest papyri c. 3rd century BCE
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