Iliad

The epic poem ascribed to the poet, Homer, and thought to date from the eighth century BCE, the poem describes the final year of the ten year siege of the city of Troy by the Argives, i.e. the mainland Greeks.

The poem consists of approximately 15,691 lines and has been divided into twenty four books, presumably for each letter of the Greek alphabet; the name, Iliad, comes from one of the earliest names for Troy, i.e. Ilion.

Most modern translations are taken from the oldest complete manuscripts which date from the tenth century CE but there are papyri from the third century BCE that contain portions of the poem.

There has been a long-standing dispute as to the “true” author of The Iliad and also as to whether the original format of the poem was written or oral; the poetic consistency of the poem leads most researchers to assume that Homer was, in fact, one man and the author of the poem; the sheer length of the poem suggests that it was written and not oral but there are no definitive answers to these questions.

There are several excellent translations of The Iliad and many horrible translations; I suggest the translations of Richmond Lattimore (ISBN 0226469409) or Robert Fitzgerald (ISBN 0385059418); these books can be found at your library or you can order them from the Book Shop on this site which is linked to Amazon.com.