Values Notes

Heroes in the Iliad are driven by a need for respect, status, and honour, both in their own eyes and in the eyes of other men. They desire to be respected and honoured while alive, but they also want this to continue after they die: they want immortal fame. The fact that they are at Troy to win back Helen only covers a small part of their motivations, much more important is each character’s wish to gain both κλεος and τιμη. These factors push all the main leaders to act in the way they do, but it is particularly slights to honour that cause the characters to act in ways that drive the main narrative forward.

All the human characters in the Iliad accept that they have to die at some point, which is contrasted throughout the poem with the manifest immortality of the gods. In the Homeric world, there is little to be hoped for after death: there is no concept of a better afterlife (such as the Christian concept of heaven), and when Odysseus goes to the underworld in book 11 of the Odyssey he meets a miserable place, described by his mother as ‘ζόφον ἠερόεντα’.¹ This means that the only way of continuation after death is through one’s fame. Sarpedon says to Glaucus:

Dear friend, if by escaping this war we could go on to live ageless and immortal forever, I would not fight myself in the front rank, nor would I send you out to battle where men win glory; but since in truth the demons of death stand around us immeasurable, whom no man can flee or elude, let us go forth, whether we give some other man cause to boast, or he gives it himself.²

This illustrates the above: men fight because they want to be remembered after their deaths. Hence their mortality motivates them to fight in the Trojan war: they believe that if they do great feats in battle, tales of these feats will be multiplied both before their death, giving them greater prestige while alive, and after, meaning that they will be remembered through many generations.

‘κλεος’ is the Greek word for glory or reputation earned in battle, referring to what people say about you and what you have done, particularly after your death. This seems to be an ideal that is shared amongst all the main warriors, not just Sarpedon. Before he faces Achilles for the final time, Hector says:

μὴ μὰν ἀσπουδί γε καὶ ἀκλειῶς ἀπολοίμην,

ἀλλὰ μέγα ῥέξας τι καὶ ἐσσομένοισι πυθέσθαι.³

This is why the warriors go out day after day, for ten years, to put their lives on the line.

In each instance of mortal combat, the warriors are staking both their own life and their chance for glory. Though both winner and loser can win κλεος through the fight, simply by dying, the loser gives up the chance to win further κλεος in subsequent combat, whereas the winner, not only receiving greater κλεος by virtue of winning, also leaves himself the chance to increase his κλεος on another day. Hector in another passage shows how killing a man will bring him κλεος:

ἀνδρὸς μὲν τόδε σῆμα πάλαι κατατεθνηῶτος,

ὅν ποτ ἀριστεύοντα κατέκτανε φαίδιμος Ἕκτωρ.

ὥς ποτέ τις ἐρέει· τὸ δ ἐμὸν κλέος οὔ ποτ ὀλεῖται.⁴

The fact of the mortality of men is also compounded for many of the heroes by the fact that they are described as ‘divine’ or ‘god-like’, or have an immortal as a parent, such as Achilles or Sarpedon. This makes it doubly hard for them as they are closer than other men to the divine realm, but still are mortal. The tantalising proximity of Achilles’ life to his mother Thetis’ immortality is particularly pathetic because of their close relationship, which highlights the difference between what he is and what he could have been, and also because even though he has a divine parent, Achilles is fated to a shorter life than other men. This fact is frequently brought up, for example when he addresses Thetis in book 1: ‘μῆτερ ἐπεί μ ἔτεκές γε μινυνθάδιόν περ ἐόντα…’⁵.

Later, in book 9, Achilles describes the choice that he was given, between short life with everlasting glory and a long, but forgotten life:

μήτηρ γάρ τέ μέ φησι θεὰ Θέτις ἀργυρόπεζα

διχθαδίας κῆρας φερέμεν θανάτοιο τέλος δέ.

εἰ μέν κ αὖθι μένων Τρώων πόλιν ἀμφιμάχωμαι,

ὤλετο μέν μοι νόστος, ἀτὰρ κλέος ἄφθιτον ἔσται·

εἰ δέ κεν οἴκαδ ἵκωμι φίλην ἐς πατρίδα γαῖαν,

ὤλετό μοι κλέος ἐσθλόν, ἐπὶ δηρὸν δέ μοι αἰὼν

ἔσσεται, οὐδέ κέ μ ὦκα τέλος θανάτοιο κιχείη.⁶

Achilles chooses everlasting fame over mortal life, again showing the importance to all the heroes of κλεος. It is also because this is the closest thing he can do to reach the divine level.

If characters are motivated by how they will be remembered after death, then they are equally motivated by how others perceive them while they are alive. The concept of τιμη (often translated as honour) is very important in the Iliad. It encompasses all that is due in terms of social respect to a person; it is the public recognition of a hero’s achievements This Homeric concept of τιμη is not the same as modern concepts of honour: it is not an internal feeling or a sort of moral compass with which one validates oneself. It is material and physical, so it can clearly be seen who has more or less τιμη. A man with much τιμη gets apportioned much booty after the sack of a city; he sits in the best positions; others defers to him in public; he is rich and wealthy. Hector, when taunting Diomedes with what could happen if he fled and so lost τιμη, says:

Τυδεΐδη περὶ μέν σε τίον Δαναοὶ ταχύπωλοι

ἕδρῃ τε κρέασίν τε ἰδὲ πλείοις δεπάεσσι·

νῦν δέ σ ἀτιμήσουσι⁷

τιμη is also what is known as a ‘zero-sum system’, because there is a fixed quantity of honours such as riches, or seats of honour. This limited supply means for one person to gain τιμη, another one must lose out. Every man in the Iliad is motivated by τιμη; all wish to have their due τιμη, and are outraged when this is denied.

The main plot line of the story is greatly affected by characters’ perception of τιμη. The Greeks are fighting at Troy because Paris stole Menelaus’ wife, so he has dishonoured him. By sacking the city, the Greeks would...

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