Further, the text illustrate was the Mycenaean population believed from a religious perspective. It shows what was expected of people with religious beliefs and the level of importance that was placed upon adhering to traditions, such as the proper treatment of a dead body in the case of Achilles and his treatment of the body of Hector.
3. To what extent is the world we find in The Iliad historical? Can Homer's Iliad be used to supplement archaeological finds to tell us about the Mycenaean world, to reconstruct a world extant during the Dark Ages or give us some information about Greece in the 8th century BC?
Any piece of writing, whether fictional or not, is an historical artifact of a kind. Historians can uncover pottery or architecture and bones, but that will not be enough to completely understand a society which has long since been out of existence. Literary works on the other hand clearly present evidence of what the society was like in terms of the social, economic, religious, classist categorizations. Although The Iliad likely does not...
In the modern moment, we understand the unlikelihood of direct divine intervention in warfare and accept that the outcomes of any events are based upon strategizing and successful fighting of the opposition, as opposed to being decided by God or gods. Reading texts such as these allow scholars, historians, and those interested in the topic what life might have been like in the time of the Ancient Greeks in a way which could not be understood through any other artifact or means.
Works Cited
Bryce, T 'Troy's role and status in the near eastern world', The Trojans and Their Neighbours,
Routledge, London, pp. 107-126.
Finley, MI 1977 'Bards and heroes', The World of Odysseus, 2nd ed. Chatto & Windus, London,
pp. 26-50.
Morris, I 1986 'The use and abuse of Homer', Classical Antiquity: California Studies in Classical Antiquity, 17, 1, University of California Press, pp. 81-93.
