Homer’s epic poem The Iliad dates from the 8th century BCE and tells the tale of the last few weeks of the Trojan War, when the Greeks finally captured the city of Troy after a ten-year siege. The plot centres around the hero Achilles, the strongest of the Greek warriors, who refused to fight after the Greek king Agamemnon dishonoured him by taking his war slave, Brieseis. Despite other soldiers’ efforts, the Greeks are unable to win against the Trojans without Achilles, so Patroclus (a close companion of Achilles) joins the battle. In a moment of disaster, Patroclus is killed by the Trojan Prince Hector, an event which triggers a vengeful Achilles to re-enter the battlefield in a monstrous rage. The whole Iliad has been leading up to this moment. The very first line of the poem highlights this rage: ‘Sing, Goddess, sing of the rage of Achilles’.
By keeping Achilles away from the spotlight for much of the poem, Homer has been amping up the anticipation for this hero’s ultimate, deadly contribution. When he re-enters the plot, the narrative begins to move towards its final denouement, which will see the Greeks triumph and Achilles die. To build suspense, Homer narrates a scene in which Achilles gets armed ready for the fight. Achilles’ normal armour had been worn by Patroclus when he went into battle without his friend, and it was subsequently seized by Hector as a trophy. As a result, Achilles needs new armour, so Achilles’ mother (the sea-nymph Thetis) asks the god Hephaistos to forge new weapons for her son. Amongst the armour is an elaborately decorated shield, and Homer gives a long description of this in Book 18 (lines 478-608):
An artist’s impression of the Shield of Achilles, based on Homer’s description in Iliad, Bk 18.
‘First he made a shield, great and sturdy, adorning it cunningly in every part, and round about it set a bright rim, threefold and glittering, and from it he fastened a silver baldric. Five were the layers of the shield itself; and on it he made many adornments with cunning skill.
On it he fashioned the earth, on it the heavens, on it the sea, and the unwearied sun, and the moon at the full, and on it all the constellations with which heaven is crowned—the Pleiades and the Hyades and mighty Orion and the Bear, that men call also the Wain, that circles ever in its place, and watches Orion, and alone has no part in the baths of Ocean.
On it he made also two fair cities of mortal men. In the one there were marriages and feastings, and by the light of the blazing torches they were leading the brides from their rooms through the city, and loud rose the bridal song. And young men were whirling in the dance, and with them flutes and lyres sounded continually; and the women stood each at her door and marvelled….
On [the shield Hephaistos] set also soft fallowland, rich soil and wide, that was three times ploughed; and in it many plowmen were wheeling their teams and driving them back and forth. And whenever after turning they came to the end of the field, then would a man come up to each and give into his hands a cup of honey-sweet wine; and the ploughmen would turn in the furrows, eager to reach the end of the deep soil. And the field grew black behind and looked as if it had been ploughed, though it was of gold; that was the great marvel of the work.
On it he set also a king’s estate, in which laborers were reaping, holding sharp sickles in their hands. Some handfuls were falling in rows to the ground along the swath, while others the binders of sheaves were binding with twisted ropes of straw. Three binders stood by, while behind them boys would gather the handfuls, and carrying them in their arms would continually give them to the binders; and among them the king, staff in hand, was standing in silence at the swath, glad at heart. And heralds apart underneath an oak were making ready a feast, and were dressing a great ox they had slain for sacrifice; and the women sprinkled the flesh with white barley in abundance for the workers’ meal.
On it he set also a vineyard heavily laden with clusters, a vineyard fair and golden; black were the grapes, and the vines were set up throughout on silver poles. And around it he drove a trench of cyanus, and about that a fence of tin; and one single path led to it by which the vintagers went and came whenever they gathered the vintage. And maidens and youths in childish glee were carrying the honeysweet fruit in wicker baskets. And in their midst a boy made pleasant music with a clear-toned lyre, and to it sang sweetly the Linos song with his delicate voice; and they beating the earth in accompaniment followed on with skipping feet and dance and shouting. And on it he made a herd of straight-horned cattle: the cattle were fashioned of gold and tin, and with lowing hurried out from stable to pasture beside the sounding river, beside the waving reed. And golden were the herdsmen who walked beside the cattle, four in number, and nine dogs swift of foot followed after them. But two terrible lions among the foremost cattle were holding a loud-lowing bull, and he, bellowing mightily, was being dragged by them, while after him pursued the dogs and young men. The lions had torn the hide of the great bull, and were devouring the inner parts and the black blood, while the herdsmen vainly sought to frighten them, sicking on the swift hounds. But they shrank from fastening on the lions, but coming very close, they barked and sprang aside.’
Sections from the description of the shield of Achilles (Ill.18.478–608)
On first impressions, the Iliad can come across as a story that glorifies war. Its characters frequently express a desire to perform heroically in battle, so that they can be immortalised in memory for posterity, and some of these heroes are described with awe-inspiring similes. The narrative rehearses common justifications for war, as well as depicting individual battles in dramatic, engaging ways. However, it has been read by many as an anti-war poem. Homer does not shy away from depicting the horrors of conflict, nor their impact on civilian and domestic spheres. Battle scenes are filled with gory descriptions of death and pathos-filled accounts of dying soldiers. This is highlighted through the intense, soul-crushing mourning evoked for fallen heroes such as Patroclus and Hector. Homer further gives voice to those outside the battlefield, showing how domestic life gets shattered and women’s lives are destroyed by war (notably through the lament of Andromache in Book 6). It is notable that even the central hero, Achilles, who is fated to gain honour through war, laments war as a destructive force.
Despite its focus on war, the Iliad is not entirely devoid of images of peace; indeed, ‘pockets of peace’ are sometimes used to contrast with the horror and tragedy of war. This is often seen through smaller, more intimate moments, such as a joyful feast shared amongst the Greek soldiers, or Hector gently removing his helmet to play with his son within the walls of Troy.
The shield of Achilles arguably represents the most extensive image of peace in the Iliad. It offers some fascinating insights into ancient habits of visualising peace, combining images of natural abundance with human collaboration, agriculture and thriving social and cultural traditions. There is a strong ‘grassroots’ element to the picture it paints of a city at peace: we read of a working justice system and an active, participating community, with young and old, men and women, working together. The natural marvels of the cosmos are quickly followed by other marvels: humans ploughing, dancing, feasting and flourishing in harmony. What stands out to me personally is the centrality of people and human society. Whether they are actively working to protect their city from conflict or simply finding peace through the enjoyment of life and others, this description of Achilles’ shield makes it clear that people are at the centre of a peaceful society, even as nature provides a helpful counterpoint and framing.
However, this is not an abstract depiction of peace, designed for some leisured, civic setting. The scenes of peace described here decorate a tool fashioned explicitly for war. The shield is also being made for the most fearsome warrior, who will soon go on a killing spree whilst carrying it. War also threatens to disrupt the images of peace in the shield almost as soon as they are narrated. As you can see in the quotation below, marriages, feasting, dancing and marvelling rapidly give way to violence as strife breaks out. And civil disputes and legal conflict are then framed by references to military activity, with two armies of warriors circling the city. The idyllic image of a society bonding in happiness morphs horribly into civic tensions, and then into full-scale war:
‘But the people were gathered in the place of assembly; for there a strife had arisen, and two men were striving about the blood price of a man slain; the one claimed that he had paid all, declaring his cause to the people, but the other refused to accept anything; and each was eager to win the decision on the word of an arbitrator. Moreover, the people were cheering both, showing favor to one side or the other. And heralds held back the people, and the elders were sitting on polished stones in the sacred circle, holding in their hands the staves of the loud-voiced heralds. With them then would they spring up and give judgment, each in turn. And in their midst lay two talents of gold, to be given to the one who among them should utter the straightest judgment.
But around the other city lay two armies of warriors gleaming in armor. And two plans found favor with them, either to lay waste the town or to divide in two all the substance that the lovely city contained. But the besieged would not hear it, but were arming to meet the foe in an ambush. Their dear wives and young children were guarding the wall as they stood on it, and with them the men whom old age held; but the rest were going out, led by Ares and Pallas Athene, both fashioned in gold, and of gold were the clothes with which they were clad. Fair were they and tall in their armor, as befits gods, clear to view among the rest, and the people at their feet were smaller. But when they had come to the place where it seemed good to them to set their ambush, in a riverbed where there was a watering place for all herds alike, there they sat down, clothed about with ruddy bronze. Then two scouts were by them set apart from the army, waiting till they should have sight of the sheep and sleek cattle. And these came soon, and two herdsmen followed with them playing on pipes; and of the guile they had no foreknowledge at all. But the ambushers, when they saw them coming on, rushed out against them and speedily cut off the herds of cattle and fair flocks of white-fleeced sheep and slew the herdsmen. But the besiegers, as they sat before the places of assembly and heard much tumult among the cattle, mounted immediately behind their high-stepping horses, and set out, and speedily came on them. Then they set their battle in array and fought beside the riverbanks, and were ever striking one another with bronze-tipped spears. And among them Strife and Tumult joined, and destructive Fate, grasping one man alive, fresh-wounded, another without a wound, and another she dragged dead through the melee by the feet; and the raiment that she had about her shoulders was red with the blood of men. Just like living mortals joined they and fought; and they each were dragging away the bodies of the others’ slain.’
Sections from the description of the shield of Achilles (Ill.18.478–608)
In the first of the two paragraphs above, internal tensions threaten to boil over; in the second, Strife and Tumult are personified and wreak havoc, bringing bloodshed to the city described on the shield in a terrible parallel of the events surrounding the shield’s creation – the Trojan war itself.
In other words, Achilles’ shield depicts some momentarily peaceful scenes, both rural and civic; but it also depicts the fragility of peace, which is framed by the constant threat of civic strife and bloody conflict. The shield itself it both a protective piece of equipment, designed to preserve life, and a tool that is only needed in times of war. For me, that paradox is at the heart of the Iliad‘s tragic representation of (brief) pockets of peace. As others have argued, Homer’s Iliad is not a glorification of war, but rather a warning against it. The object itself and the scenes depicted on the shield pierce the argument (made multiple times throughout the Iliad) that violent conflict is the best way to resolve disputes, and also wakens us to the tragic fact that episodes of co-operation and peace can be quickly shattered by the violence that lurks close by. This makes the shield an incredibly sad object, evocative of the human tragedy that underpins both war and peace.
What do you think?
What difference does it make to our reading of Homer’s Iliad to pay more attention to its depiction of peace?
How positive or negative do you think Homer’s depiction of peace is in his description of the Shield of Achilles and the wider poem?
Is Homer’s representation of war and peace an inevitable consequence of what we might call a ‘warrior society’, or is that too simplistic an explanation for the ways in which the Iliad visualises conflict?
What impact might it have on a society if their most influential piece of storytelling focuses on war more than peace?
The Iliad ends with the immediate aftermath of the Trojan War. Why do epic poems like the Iliad not spent more time narrating the complexities of post-conflict peace-building?
