Homeric Values
The poet Homer is said to have lived during the eighth
century BC just after the Dark Age. To him we attribute two great epic poems,
the Iliad and the Odyssey, which helped shape the Greek identity. For
centuries, Greek youngsters grew up reciting the Homeric epics and admiring the
Homeric heroes, who strove for honour and faced suffering and death with
courage.
For centuries in the West, it was believed that Homer was a
great poet, and that his epic tales were just that: stories with no basis in
historical fact. However, at the end of the nineteenth century, archaeologists began
to uncover evidence that the civilisations Homer described might actually have
existed. In 1868 a German archaeologist named Heinrich Schliemann claimed to
have found the ancient city of Troy, location for the Iliad, on a hilltop on
the Turkish coast near Istanbul. Later, he uncovered a vast walled city, a
palace and a wealth of treasures at another site in the south of Greece which
he claimed was the palace of Agamemnon, leader of the Greek army in the Iliad.
The significance of Schliemann’s discoveries, though
undeniably dramatic, have yet fully to be explored by modern scholars, and
there is no final decision on whether Homer was poet or historian. For the
ancient Greeks, however, the answer would have been clear: Homer was both an
individual speaking to them about their great and glorious past while
simultaneously revealing their deepest thoughts, feelings, and conflicts in a
few brilliant lines. For this reason, Homer's poetry became not simply a
treasury of ancient history but also a vital source of moral instruction for
the Greeks. Achilles and Odysseus, the two heroes of the two epics, became the
great role models in traditional Greek thinking about how one should live one's
life.
Homer’s Humanity
As an account of war, much of the Iliad is devoted to
descriptions of combat. However, interspersed between these scenes of action
and drama, Homer includes scenes of simple domesticity which serve to remind us
of our shared human values. One of the most famous takes place as Trojan
warrior Hector and Greek warrior Achilles prepare to do hand-to-hand combat
outside the city walls. Hector is well aware that the time has come for him to
fight and die and Homer includes a long scene in which Hector says a final farewell
to his wife and child. Another scene takes place during a large scale battle
between the Greek and Trojan armies in which two opposing soldiers discover
that their grandfathers enjoyed a friendship. Laying down their weapons, they
each swear to continue their ancestors’ bond.
Such depictions of humanity are typical of Homer’s style,
which often lingers on the simple, sensual pleasures of being human. As one
commentator observes: “Just how much of this poem is taken up with eating,
drinking, storytelling, listening to music, intimate conversations, warm beds,
perfumed baths, dancing, beautiful architecture and silverware—all the sensuous
detail that transforms everyday events into something joyful and worthwhile.”
Strife and Conflict
As the Iliad begins, the Greeks have just destroyed a town
allied to Troy. Achilles has taken a woman, Briseis as his lover but his
commander Agamemnon claims her for his own. Angry with his commander, Achilles
refuses to fight. It may seem odd to devote the opening scene of an epic
account of war to what amounts to a petty argument, but strife and conflict are
central to the Greek worldview world and play a symbolic role at the heart of
the Iliad itself.
Achilles' life begins with an unsuccessful attempt to avoid
strife. His parents, the goddess Thetis and the mortal Peleus, invite all the
gods to their wedding except Eris, the goddess of strife. Eris, however, like
the evil witch in fairy tales, attends anyway and throws out a golden apple
marked, "For the Fairest." The introduction of the apple has the
desired effect and the three major goddesses, Aphrodite, Hera and Athena argue
over who should be allowed to keep it. In the end, they consult future prince
of Troy, Paris, who at this early stage is a lowly shepherd boy. Each goddess
offers him a bribe to win his favour, and in the end Paris is won over by
Aphrodite’s promise to give him the most beautiful woman in the world.
Unfortunately, the woman in question, Helen, is already married to Menelaus,
King of the Greek city of Sparta. In helping Paris to steal Helen away from the
Greeks, one can argue that it was Aphrodite who started the Trojan war.
However, it was Eris the goddess of strife who originally set the story in
motion.
For the Greeks, to live in the real world was to accept the
inevitability of strife and conflict: to try to avoid strife was to avoid life
itself. It should therefore come as no surprise that although the Iliad begins
10 years after the abduction of Helen, it nevertheless begins with another
argument.
Arête, or Human Excellence
In ancient and classical Greece, a hero was something
quite specific. The interest for these heroes was not the common man, but
themselves. They lived for a single moment to prove their status, an instant
where they could stand out from the rest. The word for this moment, in Greek,
is arête, and it is perhaps the strongest and clearest value of Homeric Greek
culture. Translated as "virtue" the word actually means something
closer to "being the best you can be", or "reaching your highest
human potential". It also has strong associations with effectiveness, or
getting the job done. As Homer shows us through the two contrasting heroes of
Achilles and Odysseus, intelligence and cunning as much as strength, bravery
can be effective means of meeting with success. The importance of arête implies
that the Greeks saw their universe as one in which human actions are of extreme
importance – that the world is a place of conflict and difficulty, and human
value and meaning are measured against how effective each individual is in the
world.
