Homeric heroism is savage and unforgiving. That is why the hero often finds himself in a pressure- filled kill or be- killed situation. Success means survival and greater honor; failure means death and elimination from the competition for honor. But victory in battle is not enough in itself; it is momentarily and can be easily forgotten. Therefore, the victor sought to acquire a permanent symbol of his victory in the form of the armor of the defeated enemy. While reading this book, I noticed that furious battles tend to break out over the corpse as the victor tries to strip the armor and the associates of the defeated warrior try to prevent it. Occasionally, prizes from the spoils of war are rewarded for valor in battle as in the cases of Chryseis and Briseis, who belong respectively to Agamemnon and Achilleus. The importance of these captive girls as symbols of honor is evident in the dispute, which arises in Book 1. The Homeric hero is also fiercely individualistic; he is primarily concerned with his own honor and that of his household, which is only an extension of him. As is particularly true of Achilleus, the Homeric hero is not likely to be as conernce about his fellow warriors as he is about himself and the members of his household. Loyalty to the community or city had not yet achieved the importance it was going to have in later
Homeric heroism is savage and unforgiving. That is why the hero often finds himself in a pressure- filled kill or be- killed situation. Success means survival and greater honor; failure means death and elimination from the competition for honor. But victory in battle is not enough in itself; it is momentarily and can be easily forgotten. Therefore, the victor sought to acquire a permanent symbol of his victory in the form of the armor of the defeated enemy. While reading this book, I noticed that furious battles tend to break out over the corpse as the victor tries to strip the armor and the associates of the defeated warrior try to prevent it. Occasionally, prizes from the spoils of war are rewarded for valor in battle as in the cases of Chryseis and Briseis, who belong respectively to Agamemnon and Achilleus. The importance of these captive girls as symbols of honor is evident in the dispute, which arises in Book 1. The Homeric hero is also fiercely individualistic; he is primarily concerned with his own honor and that of his household, which is only an extension of him. As is particularly true of Achilleus, the Homeric hero is not likely to be as conernce about his fellow warriors as he is about himself and the members of his household. Loyalty to the community or city had not yet achieved the importance it was going to have in later