Homer

This week, I listened to a lecture by Chris Mackie,  a professor at La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia. His lecture concerning Homer and The Trojan War was for a class entitled Ancient Greece: Myth, Art, War. The class can easily be found on iTunes U.

The lecture touched on all the basic elements of the Trojan was as told by Homer. The anger of Achilles is discussed in reference to Agamemnon taking away Bruceus as well as Hector killing Petroclus. Additionally, he talks about Achilles as the archetype of a the greek hero as well as the war hero people have attempted to emulate through out history. What I found most interesting in the description of Achilles was Professor Mackie's use of the Greek words to describe Achilles. First, the words Iliad comes from the Greek word for Troy. Rather than the epic being named after Achilles, it was named after the city that falls, curiously pointing to the fact that Achilles that is not the only hero. Also, the name Achilles comes from the Greek achos and loas meaning grief and people respectively. Achilles name essentially means grief for the people, which is interesting in that it seems to contradict Achilles motivations. His home region of Phthia means to whither away or die and his home people were called Myrmidons, meaning lamenters. Achilles, the greatest war hero of all time had no wealth or prestige from his home region to rely on, he simply had his military skill.

An interesting discussion mentioned in the lecture was the theory that Hector was created by Homer. Apparently there is a theory that in pre-Homeric tradition Paris was the original Trojan hero. Homer created Hector in order to make the Trojan hero similar to the typical Greek hero. Mostly I thought this theory compelling because it has merit, but at the same time I question why an epic written by and for Greeks would in ways weaken the Greek image.