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Homer the Illiad

Homer was a Greek poet of the 9th or 8th century BCE. 

The Illiad has the famous line about the beauty of Helen “a face that launched a thousand ships”.

It is 24 books of didactic hexameter. 

The Trojan War supposedly took place around 1250 BCE to 1184 BCE 

The poem itself was written somewhere between 800- 700 BCE. 

The Iliad of Homer. Ireland: T. Becket and P.A. De Hondt, 1773. 

The Iliad and Odyssey of Homer. United States: Joseph T. Buckingham, 1814.

Homer. The Iliad of Homer. United Kingdom: University of Chicago Press, 1951. This is the Richard Lattimore Translation.

This is the Ennis Rees translation. Homer. The Iliad of Homer. United Kingdom: Oxford University Press, 1991.

Loeb Classic Library books 1-12

Loeb Classic Library Wyatt, William F.. I

Iliad: Books 13-24. United Kingdom: Harvard University Press, 1999.

The Iliad. United Kingdom: Penguin Publishing Group, 1998 Robin Fox Lane translation

This is a 2015 Simon and Schuster version of Homer’s Illiad and Odyssey

Importantly for my work is Thomas Hobbes’s translations 

Thomas Hobbes: Translations of Homer: The Iliad and the Odyssey. United Kingdom: Clarendon Press, 2008.

The character of Achilles comes up later as he was an embodiment or exemplar of a certain emotion — anger — 

Achilles is also the example used by Aristotle when he talks about the difference between courage and foolhardiness. The Aristotelian mean of right action example given is of the warrior, if he is afraid, that misses the mark of courage or bravery, but one can also miss the mark in the other way, by over-action with little reflection and that is fool hardiness. 

Achilles’s anger, death of Hector. 

The Trojan War ending to the story is told in later books, especially Virgil’s Aeneid. 

The feature photo I’m not sure where it comes from.  I got it from this facebook group

Along with the one below.  I believe the first is a cinematic reproduction and the second as well. More information of the origin of these images needed. 

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Jacques-Louis David’s eighteenth-century grand study Les Combats de Diomède (commonly known in English as The Combat of Diomedes), is a visceral, large-scale depiction of the Geek hero Diomedes’ martial exploits, and to an extent, of the setup of the entire Trojan War. Diomedes (or Diomede), was regarded as one of the greatest warriors in Greek mythology, second only to Achilles. The events of the Trojan War, immortalized in Homer’s epic poem Iliad, are generally dated by modern Hellenology at around 1200 BCE.

Jacques Louis David: Radical Draftsman. United Kingdom: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2022.

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Frontispiece of Chapman's Homer, the second English translation of 1611.

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Achilles fighting against Memnon Leiden Rijksmuseum voor Oudheden

It’s at this museum, and you can find out more how the collections came to be here. 

Scholars, Travellers and Trade The Pioneer Years of the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden, 1818-1840

Pots for the Living, Pots for the Dead. Denmark: Museum Tusculanum Press, University of Copenhagen, 2002.

Article within this text is The Trojan Cycle on Tyrrhenian Amphorae by Margit von Mehren 

Achilles fighting against Memnon Leiden Rijksmuseum voor Oudheden

Detail of Etruscan funerary urn depicting Achilles killing Troilus by walls of Troy

UNSPECIFIED – CIRCA 1900: Etruscan civilization. Funerary urn depicting Achilles killing Troilus by the walls of Troy. Detail. (Photo By DEA / G. NIMATALLAH/De Agostini via Getty Images)
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Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg, Germany

Fight of Achilles with the River Scamander (brown and white wash over pencil on paper) (Photo by Art Images via Getty Images)
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Musee Municipal, Soissons, France

Achilles Contemplating the Body of Patroclus (oil on canvas) (Photo by Art Images via Getty Images)
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Musee des Beaux-Arts, Pau, France

Achilles Defeating Hector, 1630-32 (oil on panel) (Photo by Art Images via Getty Images)
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Achilles trying to grasp at the shade of Patroclus, 1803, by Johann Heinrich Fussli (1741-1825), 91×71 cm. (Photo by DeAgostini/Getty Images)

ITALY – JULY 16: Achilles trying to grasp at the shade of Patroclus, 1803, by Johann Heinrich Fussli (1741-1825), 91×71 cm. (Photo by DeAgostini/Getty Images); Zürich, Kunsthaus (Fine Arts Museum). (Photo by DeAgostini/Getty Images)
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Achilles after the death of Patrocles

Achilles after the death of Patrocles. Character design after the production of the opera Achilles, for the Academie Royale de Musique, 1789. (Photo by Culture Club/Getty Images) *** Local Caption ***
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Musee des Beaux-Arts, Pau, France

Achilles Defeating Hector, 1630-32 (oil on panel) (Photo by Art Images via Getty Images)
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‘Priam and Achilles’, 17th century. Artist: Padovanino

‘Priam and Achilles’, 17th century. Priam, King of Troy, pleading with Achilles for the return of the body of his son, Hector, who Achilles killed in combat. Found in the collection of the Far Eastern Art Museum, Khabarovsk, Russia. (Photo by Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images)
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Priam tearfully supplicates Achilles, begging for Hector’s body, 1824. Artist: Ivanov, Alexander Andreyevich (1806-1858)

Priam tearfully supplicates Achilles, begging for Hector’s body, 1824. Found in the collection of the State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow. (Photo by Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images)
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Achilles Discovered by Ulysses Among the Daughters of Lycomedes at Skyros. Artist: De Matteis, Paolo (1662-1728)

Achilles Discovered by Ulysses Among the Daughters of Lycomedes at Skyros. Found in the collection of the Villa Margherita, Bordighera. (Photo by Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images)
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Achilles Discovered by Ulysses Among the Daughters of Lycomedes at Skyros, 1630-1635. Artist: Rubens, Pieter Paul (1577-1640)

Achilles Discovered by Ulysses Among the Daughters of Lycomedes at Skyros, 1630-1635. Found in the collection of the Museo del Prado, Madrid. (Photo by Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images)
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The Wrath of Achilles. Artist: Drolling, Michel Martin (1789-1851)

The Wrath of Achilles. Found in the collection of Musée d’art classique, Mougins. (Photo by Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images)
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The Anger of Achilles. Artist: David, Jacques Louis (1748-1825)

The Anger of Achilles. Found in the collection of Kimbell Art Museum. (Photo by Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images)
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Athene repressing the fury of Achilles – stock illustration

Athene (or Athena) repressing the fury of Achilles. From “Stories From Homer” by the Rev. Alfred J. Church, M.A.; illustrations from designs by John Flaxman. Published by Seeley, Jackson & Halliday, London, 1878.
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