Iliad Violence Quotes

Violence in all its forms “All violence consists in some people forcing others, under threat of suffering or death, to do what they do not want to do,” –Leo Tolstoy. This quote discusses violence and fighting and how people force others to fight the battles we ourselves don’t want to fight. In the Iliad Book 1, translated by Robert Fagles, there are several accounts of fighting and violence. Here, the Trojans and Achaeans are at war, Agamemnon and Achilles are fighting over whether or not to return the two captured women back to their families in exchange for an end to the plague that is killing so many of their men. With so much fighting taking place between the Gods and humans, where does any of it stop? An analysis of Iliad Book 1 shows three different types of violence: physical, spiritual, and linguistic. To start the analysis of violence in Book 1, we’ll begin …show more content…
Most fights or battles take place because two people can’t agree on something. That was the case when Homer wrote the Iliad and that is still the case today. In Book 1 Achilles and Agamemnon can’t agree on whether or not to give the two captive women back or to keep them, which in the end leads to an argument. As stated by Agamemnon on page 83, “You are nothing to me- you and your overweening anger! But let this be my warning on your way:…I will be there in persons at your tents to take Briseis in all her beauty, your own prize- so you can learn just how much greater I am than you and the next man up may shrink from matching words with me, from hoping to rival Agamemnon strength for strength!” From this statement we can see how angry and violent Agamemnon is. At this point in the book there is no actual violent action taken by Agamemnon toward Achilles, but the linguistic violence is leading up to it. As you can see from the provided excerpt, Agamemnon shows us another form of violence, linguistic