Geeks logo

'The Iliad' (Pt. 2)

Part 2: Historical Accuracy

By Annie KapurPublished 5 years ago 6 min read
Like

First of all, we'll look at what the text tells us regarding date and time. Then, we'll match them up with the dates of the artifacts and sites that have been found regarding Troy and the war. The first source for the dates regarding Homer that we have come from the historian, Herodotus. The Pseudo-Herodotus text, Life of Homer, contains a section in which Herodotus places Homer 400 years before his own time. This would suggest that Homer was around in probably c.850 BCE. This would be fairly odd in suggesting the text's historical accuracy since Homer would've therefore existed 400 years after the historical pinpointing of the Trojan War, which is said to have taken place in the 12th century BCE. Or, as we know it today, the Late Bronze Age.

Bronze Age metallurgy appears on almost every page consisting of war in the text and the bronze swords, spears and shields are always a point of focus in the text. Each soldier's shield is designed with a particular method containing something incredibly personal. For example: the making of Achilles' shield which he takes into battle against Hector is described in a lengthy aesthetic appreciation. This matches up with the time in which the text was said to have actually taken place, however, many sections and specifics of the story do not.

Agamemnon and other characters carry silver studded swords that were rarely found during the time in which the war took place in Mycenaean Greece. They had fallen out of use hundreds of years before the actual war took place, and so it would seem impractical to have these items during warfare. It's like if England went to war today and took daggers and swords as opposed to guns and tanks—it is about the same time frame.

Again, we have mentioned the bronze shields and especially that of Achilles as being a marker point for The Iliad being dated to when it is. On the other hand, if you were to take a look historically, the type of shield Achilles carries hasn't been found in dig-sites earlier than the first millennia BCE.

However, it states in The Catalogue of Ships does not match regarding Geography and portrays Greece as it were before the Dorian Invasions that saw the Dark Ages out of Southern Greece, replacing them with Classical Antiquity that would've been around at the time of Homer.

Most scholars agree that there may have been an oral tradition of these tales from the Classical Antiquity era in which it is said that Homer is to exist. This is because of the repetition of words, phrases and even stanzas in order to commit the poem to memory and most people call these repeated phrases "formulas." These formulas would've existed in the era of classical Greece since this is the prime era of the oral tradition; The Iliad is said to have flourished in this particular era, being committed to writing in the 15th century.

It is said that the textual history of The Iliad includes a refinement that happened to the entire epic cycle in the 8th century BCE. This is a process of adaptation in which the poet adapts the tale from the standard tale and a group of performers standardise it even further in order to be able to perform it. This theory is more controversial; put forward by Albert Lord, the standardisation theory, normally called "million little pieces" stated that Homer may have borrowed most of his story, certainly adapting it for performance.

In this we also have the Homeric question: Who was Homer? This question can be answered by the etymology of the name "Homer," which is the Greek name "Homeros" which is identically to the word "hostage." These men were the sons of war prisoners and wouldn't be sent to war out of fear for their safety or their loyalty; they would instead recite poetry about the past events of war, committing it to memory before literacy was a normality in the area. Since this is a Greek name developed in the language of classical Greece, it is therefore clear that the recitation of The Iliad was happening around that time and technically about 400 years after the years of c.850 BCE. The fact that this is not the language of the Greek Dark Ages (normally called the Homeric Age) means that the theory of Homer/Homeros is slightly unstable in suggesting who Homer is, but is clear in suggesting when the war became popularly recited and performed. We can now work back and see when the war actually happened. Seeing as classical Greece existed in around 450 BCE and the Greek dark ages was around 850BCE, which is around 400 years after the Late Bronze Age (12th Century BCE), making the Trojan War come to the year of around 1250 BCE. Be that as it may, most scholars disagree on whether the Trojan War actually took place or not, they begin with the fabled existence of Homer.

There are many thoughts and theories on the belief of who Homer was and what he actually did, some sillier than the others and some partially believable. The general theories that are present state that he was one of the following: blind, profound, Sicilian, Swedish or that he was half pure poetry. These ideas are probably not true and have no documented backing for them; they come from unreliable sources and, in most part, we don't even know if Homer existed. So, these theories become invalid.

For the most part, we probably don't even have the real texts. What we have are translations from copies that are copied from various translations compiled before the time of translation itself. These stories were first recorded from performed recitations that came maybe 400 years after Homer's existence. Most historians agree that Homer was not one man but a collective term for many. These stories took thousands of years of recitation before they were written down. This was tradition and therefore, when they were written down, they were performed, modified and standardised. That's why we have very repetitive verses in the text; it was easier to remember and therefore, easier to perform in the tradition and culture that it existed within.

Poetically, we may not know who Homer is, but we know his meter. Homer, or the tradition of Homer, used a meter called "Dactylic Hexameter." Dactylic Hexameter typically goes like this: (Stressed, unstressed, unstressed). 80 percent of the Iliad is written in this way, which matches up historically and poetically with the traditions and cultures of poetry in that age. This would function to help memorise the poem along with the epithets for the characters such as: "swift-footed godlike Achilles."

Apart from memorisation studies that have been carried out in the modern age on this poem; the other conclusion can only be that 20 percent of the poem does not follow this pattern and is therefore, unaccounted for in the Homeric period.

Only if the older words that come from the age slightly before the one we are looking at were used would it match up entirely and the poem would be accurate poetically. This has lead many to analyse and conclude that 20 percent of the poem is older than the date that we have dated the Iliad at in terms of war, not poetry. Therefore, at least 20 percent of the poem is older than 1400BCE, maybe older still than the Late Bronze Age itself.

literature
Like

About the Creator

Annie Kapur

190K+ Reads on Vocal.

English Lecturer

🎓Literature & Writing (B.A)

🎓Film & Writing (M.A)

🎓Secondary English Education (PgDipEd)

📍Birmingham, UK

Reader insights

Be the first to share your insights about this piece.

How does it work?

Add your insights

Comments

There are no comments for this story

Be the first to respond and start the conversation.

Sign in to comment

    Find us on social media

    Miscellaneous links

    • Explore
    • Contact
    • Privacy Policy
    • Terms of Use
    • Support

    © 2024 Creatd, Inc. All Rights Reserved.