Ethical Concepts Of War Exposed In Homer's The Iliad

Little can be said about Homer, but whatever was thought of Homer’s existence, there are facts that firmly surrounded the composition of the Iliad. In its origin, the Iliad was an oral composition meant to be sung or chanted for an audience. This epic poem dealt with only a small portion of the Trojan War; in fact, it covers only a few months during the tenth year of that war. (Page 223) “Rage,” the opening terminology used indicated that Homer would use war principles in this work. It is evident that through the conceptualized thoughts of Homer, his audience is able to visualize the ethical war principles. Thus, the ethical concepts of war are expressed in Homer’s The Iliad, revealing that war has protocols.

One of those ethical concepts was the honoring of leadership. In Book I, “The Rage of Achilles,” it was thought that there was a lack of honoring

In this meeting, Priam becomes a surrogate for Achilles’ father and Achilles for Priam’s son. This recognition had an effect on Achilles, who at last came to terms with his wrath and his grief. A man accustomed with incorporating grief into anger, Achilles finally deals with the grief underlying his wrath, and is able to let go of both. This breakthrough allowed Achilles to exhibit communal maturity by eating with his enemy, by giving him lodging for the night, and by negotiating a temporary truce to allow Priam to bury Hector. He demonstrated his submission to the divine through his account of Zeus’ two jars of woes and one jar of blessing. It was a mark of his maturity that he could now accept the woes with the joys, as it exists within the Iliad. Achilles had a life that was short and violent, but he was able to achieve and transcend in life by recognizing his enemy and submitting to the ways of the gods. Thus he marked himself as the true hero of The