This is not the first time I have read the Iliad. I took a course back in my sophomore year called Love and War in the Ancient World. After reading the Iliad for a second time, I realized something that I did not see when I read it the first time. I realized that the Greeks were not all that much different than myself. While reading the Iliad, I got a sense that there was a theme of God, Family, and Country. This reminds me of a lot of important in my own life. Let me explain the Greeks are more human than most might think. There is mention of the gods throughout the Iliad and how those gods interacted with the characters and their destinies. The characters referred back to the gods and asked them when they needed help. There were even instances
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As I had mentioned before, Cryses was determined to get his daughter back in Book 1. This showed his love towards him family and how he needed her back to regain sanity. The best example of love for family is the example in in Books 22 and 24. In Book 22, Achilles is so upset that his friend Patroclus was killed by Hector that he becomes enraged. Even though Patroclus was not his family, I get the sense that he was probably close enough to be a brother. This resulted in Achilles killing Hector because of Patroclus’s death. That isn’t the biggest evidence of love towards that family in the Iliad. Priam is so grieved over Hector’s death and that Achilles is abusing his body that he tries to get the body back from Achilles. Achilles did not want to until Priam brought up Achilles’s father. That is where these two men had a connection. The love between father and son was so strong that Achilles’s rage was extinguished and he let Priam have Hector’s body back to take to Troy. There is also the instance in Book 6 where Hector went to see his wife Andromache and their son before he went back to battle. Hector lifts his child up to the gods and asks that his son will become the same kind of man Hector is, strong in battle. The characters in the Iliad and myself both share the love of family and friends just like many others. It is the second dearest thing to them other than their gods. The scene with Hector, his wife, and their son is an image of how some of the people I know think. They believe that the son should follow in his father’s footsteps and continue the family
As I had mentioned before, Cryses was determined to get his daughter back in Book 1. This showed his love towards him family and how he needed her back to regain sanity. The best example of love for family is the example in in Books 22 and 24. In Book 22, Achilles is so upset that his friend Patroclus was killed by Hector that he becomes enraged. Even though Patroclus was not his family, I get the sense that he was probably close enough to be a brother. This resulted in Achilles killing Hector because of Patroclus’s death. That isn’t the biggest evidence of love towards that family in the Iliad. Priam is so grieved over Hector’s death and that Achilles is abusing his body that he tries to get the body back from Achilles. Achilles did not want to until Priam brought up Achilles’s father. That is where these two men had a connection. The love between father and son was so strong that Achilles’s rage was extinguished and he let Priam have Hector’s body back to take to Troy. There is also the instance in Book 6 where Hector went to see his wife Andromache and their son before he went back to battle. Hector lifts his child up to the gods and asks that his son will become the same kind of man Hector is, strong in battle. The characters in the Iliad and myself both share the love of family and friends just like many others. It is the second dearest thing to them other than their gods. The scene with Hector, his wife, and their son is an image of how some of the people I know think. They believe that the son should follow in his father’s footsteps and continue the family