The Iliad | Book Summary in English

0:03 greetings ladies and gentlemen and welcome to a new episode of great books in 10 minutes by the end of this episode you will know all that you need about one of the greatest epics of all time the iliad in the epic genre the iliad is undoubtedly among the greatest works ever written it was originally composed in the old ionic language which was one of the main four greek dialects it is an unparalleled literary achievement that after almost 30 centuries remains unrivaled in the western canon the main themes of the iliad are love honor friendship rivalry free will and fate the iliad was composed by the greek writer and musician homer except

0:51 knowing that he was born sometime around the 8th century bc everything else that we know about homer is almost entirely fictionalized today there are two major works attributed to homer the iliad and the odyssey but in antiquity a large number of other words were believed to be composed by him today however these claims are not supported by facts and were not supported by everyone in the ancient world either as with the multitude of legends surrounding homer's life they prove the importance and centrality of a person named homer that encapsulated the entire greek culture in his works so in a way we can argue that homer is the embodiment of ancient greek

1:38 culture he is the memory of ages through which all of the fables and tales of the old world survived and were transferred from one generation to the next the chief of gods and the immortal king of mount olympus held the celebration in honor of the marriage of peleus and thetus without inviting aerys the goddess of chaos it was in the middle of this feast that aerys arrived uninvited and resentful therefore to so discord among gods she threw a golden apple into the banquet and which was written for the most beautiful three goddesses demanded the apple era athena and

2:24 aphrodite zeus knowing that choosing one over the other two will result in more conflict assigned the task to paris prince of troy who had a reputation for being a fair judge among the gods as each goddess wanted to have the apple they each showed themselves to paris in all their beauty and appeared naked before him each of them then offered the prince a gift as an incentive in return for the apple hera promised him all the kingdoms of europe and asia minor athena offered him wisdom in battle and aphrodite promised him the love of the most beautiful woman in the world helen queen of sparta who was already married to kingman elias paris gave the

3:10 apple to aphrodite and asked for helen's love in return the story has it that when beautiful helen came to age every king and nobleman in the greek world wanted to marry her the competition became so fierce that to preserve peace and avoid bloodshed they made the pact that helen herself shall choose her suitor and she and her future husband must be both accepted and protected by the rest of the kingdoms and helen chose menelius when men elias found out that in his absence young paris had taken his wife helen to troy he raised a massive army from every corner of the greek world and gave its command to his ambitious brother agamemnon and that is

3:57 how the siege of troy started after 10 years of bloodshed and constant skirmishes the siege of troy resulted in nothing but carnage for the greeks the impenetrable walt of troy stood tall and behind them prion king of troy reliant on the bravery of his eldest son hector remained unabated and defiant in the face of the foe during this brutal year achilles the immortal hero of the greeks who was himself the son of goddess thetas conquered a small island near troy called cresa and enslaved its population among these newly captured people was a beautiful girl named astinham astinum's father was a priest

4:42 of the temple of apollo agamemnon demanded the girl for herself and refused every ransom that her father offered for her release when god apollo witnessed this he sends a deadly plague that ravaged the greek army and forced agamemnon to give astinum back displeased by the turn of events and vengeful towards achilles who brought the girl to agamemnon in the first place he compensated himself for this loss by taking another girl named gracias who was a subject of achilles a treacherous act that upset achilles so much that he refused to take any further part in the trojan war achilles mother thetis goddess of water complained to zeus

5:28 about agamemnon's betrayal and asked the great god to punish him zeus in return sent a false dream to agamemnon and convinced him that he would be victorious if he attacked the city's walls with all of his forces in the morning on the day of battle first menelaus king of sparta who had lost his wife to paris challenged the trojan prince to a duel harris answered the call but failed to defeat menelaus when he was about to lose his life aphrodite helped him escape and took him back to his room in his father's palace where he was joined by helen meanwhile among gods zeus argued that menelaus must be declared the winner and the war should end as the mortals had agreed before the

6:14 duel but hera who was still furious at paris over choosing aphrodite over her wanted nothing but the total annihilation of troy and persuaded zeus to rekindle the flame of war therefore athena disguised as a trojan soldier convinced the trojan archer named panderas to take aim at menelius and kill him however as pandarus shot the arrow athena deflected it so that it would only wound menelius and give the greeks a reason for war following this the greek army launched an all-out assault against the trojans and a bloody battle started the trojans under the leadership of hector pushed the greeks back to their ships and almost destroyed the greek camp right at this moment when

7:00 the greek army was losing heart achilles best friend and long time battle companion patrocles begged him to join the battle and save the day achilles who was still angry at agamemnon over kidnapping the girl refused to fight but agreed to exchange armors with his friend patroclus so that the greek soldiers would think achilles had returned to battle and rally around him with the arrival of petroclees in achilles disguise the turn of events quickly changed in favor of the greeks the trojans retreated to the city and petroclees pushed forward against the enemy and killed everyone in his way including the mortal son of zeus sarpidan vengeful zeus decided to kill police and tasked apollo with taking

7:45 revenge for him apollo first convinced hector to charge the enemy then appeared behind petroclees and wounded him when hector arrived heteroclase was on his knees defeated and ready to accept his destiny hector humiliated the fallen man and finished him off only to hear petroclees foretelling hector's bitter end with his last breath achilles wept so loud for his friend that his mother thetus heard his lamentations she appeared before him and promised him that if he delays his revenge for one day she will go to the temple of vulcans and return with a new powerful weapon for him to defeat hector zeus fearful of achilles rage summoned the gods to mount olympus and asked them to interfere in battle should achilles

8:33 tried to destroy troy before its time however upon arriving in earth the gods decided to stand on opposing hills and only witness the battle between the mortals achilles ruthlessly attacked the trojans and destroyed their formation after a short battle the entire trojan army that was camped outside the walls of troy routed before him finally the fateful hour when hector and achilles met face to face arrived hector at first tried negotiating with achilles but the greek hero did not show any interest in conciliation hector knew that he was no match for his opponent so he ran away and achilles chased after him at this moment zeus was determined to save hector but athena convinced the great

9:18 god that the mortals life must end zeus placed the destiny of both heroes on a golden scale and when the fate of hector sank lower he agreed with athena achilles chased hector around the city walls three times during hector's fourth circle around troy athena disguised as hector's friend diaphabus appeared before him and convinced the trojan prince that they could defeat achilles together at that moment hector stopped running and decided to face his enemy the two heroes finally engaged in battle for a while they fought with spears and neither one managed to overcome the other in his last attempt for glory and in a desperate effort to make up for fleeing hector charged achilles but he

10:04 was still wearing achilles armor that he took from patrick lisa's body achilles knew the weakness of the armor and in a swift move put his spear through hector's throat king priyam and the rest of the trojans who were witnessing the final chapter of hector's life wailed with grief and the sound of their morning rose to heavens after burying his friends patrickois's body achilles held a series of competitions in his honor hector's corpse however was dragged behind chariots and stabbed by every greek soldier finally apollo asked zeus to intervene and force achilles to return hector's body to his father following zeus's instructions king

10:52 priyam went to achilles with a chariot full of treasures then he tearfully begged the greek hero and asked him to think of the bond between him and his father achilles accepted the ransom and gave the body back amidst tears and wailing the trojans prepared nine days for hector's funeral on the tenth day they lit the pyre on fire and mourn the loss of their legendary hero the original epic of the iliad ends with hector's death and all the other stories that you might have heard or read in continuation of the iliad were written later by other writers especially virgil who centuries later wrote his famous sequel to the iliad titled a nait in

11:38 which he told the story of the famous trojan horse the conquest of troy and the death of achilles very well ladies and gentlemen we are at the end of this episode i hope you enjoyed my summary of the iliad please consider subscribing to my channel and seeing the next episode