Essay About Such Behaviors And Greatest Glory

The Iliad
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The Iliad
Outline &explain the qualities of a “Homeric Hero”. Who best fits the bill? Why?
The Homeric hero strives to be the best among his peers. His goal is to achieve
the greatest glory in order to earn the highest honor from his peers, his commander, and
finally from his warrior society. He strives for excellence in particular areas of human
behavior, such behaviors are strength, skill, and determination. These are necessary on
the both the athletic and battlefields, it is known as the idea of arete.
The Homeric hero judges his own arete by what his warrior society thinks of him.
How well the Homeric hero will be remembered and honored is determined upon how
well he fights, how his heroic adversity is, and how well he faces death. He feels that
societys attitude towards him is more important than is own attitude. He chooses to act
in a way that will make him acquire public approval that he needs in order to have self-
esteem.
The greatest insult to a Homeric hero is to with hold the honor that he has earned.
He is completely shattered when honor is denied him. The honor that he would not have
received would be from a battle, not receiving an appropriate impressive prize, or being
judged a loser in a competition he should have won. The highest and most honored prize
is called the prize of honor. In the Iliad this prize is the most attractive, intelligent,
and skilled female captive. The most absolute honor is everlasting fame. It is the only
for of immortality that a mortal can acquire. This places the Homeric hero lower than the
gods, but higher than the ordinary man.
Achilles, Hector, Agamemnon, and Patroclus are considered Homeric heroes.
Achilles acted childish when he did not receive the appropriate prize. He said, “you
threaten to take away my prize of honor, which I earned and which the Greeks gave to
me. Whenever I sack a town, my prize is never as great as yours, even though I am the
greatest Greek fighter. Even so, my small prize is my own. So now I will return to my
homeland. I refuse to stay here, dishonored, in order to win greater wealth for you!” He
is upset that he did not receive a great prize as Agamemnon did. Achilles had worked so
hard to earn a prize and Agamemnon had taken the credit for it and gotten the better
prize.
Hector is considered a Homeric hero because he chooses between life and death.
He chooses even though an honorable death will bring the immortality of everlasting
fame. His death is in the hands of Achilles. This shows that Achilles is the greater
warrior and Hector is the greater man.
Discuss the functions of the gods in the Iliad. Name several occurrences that are a direct or indirect result of the gods wishes.
The functions of the gods were to participate in giving advice to mortals. The
advice was both good and bad. It supplied thoughts and ideas, strength and skill, courage
and determination, and by causing weapons to hit or miss their marks. The Homeric gods
certainly had favorites among the mortals and made an effort to help them. A mortal,
earned divine esteem and goodwill by the way he treats both the gods and other mortals.
The gods were partial to heroes because they appreciated and enjoyed heroic deeds.
His or her own personality and ability concluded a mortals actions. The gods
could not change a mortals life or death situation. If one was going to die, they could
not change their fate. The Homeric gods were ageless and immortal. The gods
possessed a great knowledge of the future. The gods are influenced by the request of
another and mortals prayers.
Achilles mother, the sea goddess Thetis, did not want to accept the fact that her
son Achilles was going to die someday because he was half mortal. When Achilles was
an infant, Thetis tried to burn away his mortality by secretly placing him in a fire. Peleus,
Achilles father found out about this and was outraged. Thetis was very upset and angry
at this so she left her husband to go back and live at her home in the sea. She had left
Achilles with his father until she would one day return.
One night, Thetis took Achilles down to the River Styx in the Underworld. She
then held him by his heel and dipped him into the water. Every part the river water
touched on his body, he would not be injured. The only way that Achilles could