Chap 10 Flashcards
what is the main theme of Iliad?
force, focused on problems of heroes that bravery or Trojan war.
what are the similarities between Achilles and Ajax based on their pic of dive-playing?
Both have massive shield which few others are able to carry, super powerful on the battlefield and exerts deadly power when he takes an offensive position.
both are often tasked with protecting the injured and the dead behind their shields, and thus they often witness the suffering that men endure in battle.
what is the first line of the Iliad about?
announces the epic’s main topic—anger—and its source, Achilles.
what is the perspective of Simone Weil about force?
“force” is the real subject of Homer’s poem.
Weil defines force—roughly an unlimited power over other human beings—as elusive and arbitrary; no person can maintain force, or raging anger, for a sustained period of time.
> In exercising force over others, a hero will eventually succumb to the force that another will exercise over him.
what is the historical significance of Homer’s poem according to Herodotus?
Homer’s poems provided a touchstone for considering how Greek men ought to act in political groups and on the battlefield. Referring to Greek and Persian war.
where the Trojan Heroes lived?
Cities where they had cult shrines
why did the Judgment of Paris caused the Trojan war for Greeks?
the story of the Judgment of Paris expresses the fickleness of the gods, the vanity of all females, and the dangers of divine patronage, a violation of hospitality coupled with the fact that the epics were populated by gods and goddesses who were worshipped, made Homer’s epic a shared heritage that defined national borders and cultural values for its ancient audiences..
what is the Eric H. Cline’s summary about Homer’s poem?
Homer’s poem “was not meant to be a history book but rather a national epic.” The term “Homeric society” refers to the world created in Homer’s poetry; it suggests that this society is mostly fictional and that some of its features may be historical.
what is the argument of James Redfield about Greek heroes?
The leading men of the Greeks and Trojans are aristoi “excellent ones.”
His community sustains him and sends him to his destruction. On behalf of community he must leave his community and enter a realm of force. The warrior can protect the human world against force only because he is willing to use and suffer force.
> agrees to the Weil’s concept of force.
what are the 3 concept that defined a hero?
- A hero experiences an aristeia (moment of excellence)
- the hero achieves kleos (reputation or fame)
- Time (honor and status that other give him) also a price that people pay the hero and his family.
how Redfield describes the 3 criteria of hero?
a hero gathers and maintains his social value and honor (timé) through his actions and his possessions. His reputation or fame (kleos), often earned during his aristeia, describes him during his life and lasts beyond it in song and cult worship. Kleos ensures the hero’s immortality.
Time is a valuation while Kleos is a description of the hero.
what is the five points that Homeric definition of heroism overlaps?
1.A hero or heroine was understood to be a human being who had died
2.Heroes and heroines perform extraordinary deeds that may or may not be moral.
3.Heroes and heroines die prematurely and violently
4.Heroes and heroines were worshipped at their gravesites
5.Heroes and heroines obtain a form of immortality through cult and song.
what is the standpoint of Redfield on aspect of heroism?
the greatness of the Homer’s heroes is a greatness not of act but of consciousness … there is a nobility in men’s capacity to act and at the same time comprehend themselves and their situation. Homer’s heroes have the power to step back and conceive themselves
who was Agamemnon?
King of Mycenae with unstoppable force on the battlefield, thereby approaching the status of the gods during his aristeia (moment of excellence).
His aristeia also illustrates the extraordinary, not moral, deeds associated with heroes
what is the parentage, Offspring and cult Shrines of Agamemnon?
PARENTAGE: Atreus and Aerope
OFFSPRING: Orestes, Electra, Iphigeneia, Laodike, Chrysothemis
CULT SHRINES: Mycenae and throughout the Peloponnese
describe the violence in Agamemnon’s family?
Two incidences involving food stand out. Menelaus and Agamemnon—often called the Atreidae because they are the sons of Atreus—are the descendants of Tantalus, who, much like Prometheus, set out to trick the gods and goddesses by killing, cooking, and serving Pelops, his own son, to them as a meal.
> Tantalus was condemned to spend eternity in the Underworld in water with fruit hanging overhead.
> Atreus and Thyestes, the sons of the ivory-shouldered Pelops, fight over the kingship of Mycenae that culminates in a gruesome feast.
> Atreus, kills, cooks, and serves Thyestes’s two sons to him.
> Thyestes, lacking the wisdom of the gods, eats his sons and is exiled for this (inadvertent) impiety.
> Atreus secures the kingdom of Mycenae, which Agamemnon, following him, rules; Menelaus rules Sparta.
how the abduction of Helen by Paris effect the Menelaus?
diminished Menelaus’s honor (timé) and reputation (kleos). Thus, the governing principles of Homeric heroism compel Menelaus to respond to Paris’s actions
who participated in Trojan war from Greece?
Agamemnon, Menelaus along side with local leader such as Odysseus, Achilles, or Ajax, who is considered a king in his own region.
how is Agamemnon’s first appearance in Iliad?
by his response to Achilles’s challenge to his kingly authority. Agamemnon has taken Chryseis as a war prize, and Chryses, her father and local priest, supplicates Agamemnon and begs for her return. Agamemnon returns Chryseis but because his honor has been diminished, he takes Achilles’s war prize, a young woman named Briseis.
how Agamemnon was presented in the first 2 books of Iliad?
as a king who can barely manage the generals and troops who serve him.
what is the significance of Diomedes in Iliad?
offers a “how to become a hero” manual, soldiering and learns which martial behaviors are to be avoided and which are acceptable and necessary parts of an aristeia.
how is Diomedes described in Homer?
Homer says that he shines as bright as the brightest star, Sirius. Notably, he is joined by Athena herself, who enables him to see immortals on the battlefield. He is granted an extraordinary vision that elevates him above all other humans. With Athena’s help, he also wounds the goddess Aphrodite and the god of war, Ares.
what is the essentials of Diomedes?
PARENTAGE: Tydeus and Deiphyle
OFFSPRING: Comaetho and Diomedes
CULT SHRINES: Adriatic coastline of Italy
what event concludes the aristeia of Diomedes?
He meets an enemy soldier named Glaucus and learns that their grandfathers were friends. The two men exchange armor rather than fight. This encounter compels Diomedes to turn his attention to family generations and friendship, and thus concludes his aristeia.
When Diomedes kills Rhesus, the king of the Thracians, during a night raid, is it acceptable action of Aristeia?
no, When warriors go into battle and achieve an aristeia, they shine and gleam like stars in the sky and become godlike in appearance and ability. Here we see three men leave the human sphere and become animal-like. Decapitation, the murder of defenseless sleeping men, and theft characterize this misadventure.
Who was Achilles?
from a goddess (Thetis), Thetis attempts to burn off (or, in some versions, boil off) the mortal parts of Achilles in order to make him immortal. She held him by the heels over a fire or a boiling cauldron, and thus they are his point of mortal vulnerability.
how Achilles is killed?
Achilles is killed by Apollo or, in some versions, by Paris, both of whom are archers and shoot him in the heel.
