The Iliad takes place over about three weeks towards the end of the Trojan War. The Greek commander-in-chief, Agamemnon, quarrels with Achilles, the Greeks’ best fighter. Angry because he has to return a captive girl to her Trojan father, Agamemnon takes another girl from Achilles, who then withdraws from the fighting. That fighting, which includes many single combats between bronze-age heroes, and a number of interventions by the gods on the Greek or Trojan side, turns in favour of the Trojans.
Led by Hector, a son of the King of Troy, Priam, the Trojans reach the Greek ships and begin to burn them. Still Achilles will not fight, but he allows his friend Patroclus to borrow his armour and take the field. Hector kills Patroclus: Achilles returns, kills Hector and dishonours his corpse. In grief, Priam visits Achilles in the Greek camp and persuades him to release Hector’s body. Hector’s funeral takes place and the poem ends. The poem does not describe the abduction of Helen of Troy from her husband Menelaus or other major parts of the traditional story – the death of Achilles, the Trojan horse and the sack of Troy – but the poem’s audience would have been well aware of them all.
Here as a taster are the opening lines in Greek.
See the illustrated blog post with a 4th century CE tableau of the opening scene of the Odyssey here.
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