Homer's Iliad vs. Virgil's Aeneid: War and Nation

Introduction: Two Epics, Two Nations

Both the Aeneid of the Roman poet Virgil, as translated by Allen Mandelbaum, and the Iliad of Homer, as translated by Robert Fagles, chronicle tales of nations. The Aeneid, although it comprises many tales of war and warriors as well as travel and lovers, is fundamentally a positive story of nation-building — namely, the founding of the city of Rome. The more mournful and elegiac Iliad is a tale of a nation's imminent destruction, that of Troy, and thus carries a far less positive tone toward the theme of war and warfare.

Neither text is anti-war. The theme of a male's need to prove himself in warfare runs through both epics: Paris is criticized by Homer's Greeks for his reluctance to fight for Helen's hand, and Aeneas is reproached for lingering too long with the Queen of Carthage, the lovely Dido. However, the Aeneid focuses mainly on an individual's positive quest to establish the Roman capital, as opposed to the more diffusely focused Iliad, which chronicles the petty squabbling of the Greeks and Trojans and the ultimate futility of their aims. The conflict in the Iliad is one neither side has much desire to win, given that it is fought over a woman no warrior may enjoy — even her rightful husband has lost his drive for Helen.

Attitudes Toward War and Warriors

The spare, fierce, and elemental poetic diction of the Greek author stresses the futility of war in contrast to the elevated, varied language and themes of the Aeneid. The Aeneid also brings themes of travel and romance, as well as relationships between men, to the forefront of the narrative. In the Iliad, by contrast, disputes over women are of interest only insofar as they affect the war and create conflict between men.

Even the repetitive references to the characteristics of the different warriors in Homer's text underscore the cyclical and repetitive nature of violent conflict, as opposed to the more elegant and varied style of Virgil. The Roman author's greater variety and cleaner sentence structure creates a more propulsive narrative and a more complex sense of character. That psychological complexity, however, is not simply the result of Virgil's verbal skill; it also reflects the Aeneid's singular focus on the central, founding figure of Aeneas, while Homer must balance two opposing sides of the Trojan War.

In one representative battle scene, Homer's skill as a critic of war through style and imagery becomes unmistakably clear. Ajax, one of the greatest warriors, is described as follows:

Poetic Style and the Repetition of Violence

"He brought him down with a glinting jagged rock, massive, top of the heap behind the rampart's edge, no easy lift for a fighter even in prime strength, working with both hands, weak as men are now. Giant Ajax hoisted it high and hurled it down, crushed the rim of the fighter's four-horned helmet and cracked his skull to splinters, bloody pulp…" (Iliad, Fagles, 12.435–443)

Homer's Visceral Battle Imagery

There is nothing beautiful or glorious about a man being killed by a rock thrown by a stronger man. This is not a fair fight, and the description of how the fighter's helmet offers no defense against Ajax's boulder would have been horrifying to Homer's listeners just as it is to a contemporary reader. Even if one accepts that Homer's age was more barbaric than our own, the passage conveys nothing of a balanced match between equals — only blood and death. This is not to say that the Iliad is without tales of great warriors, but rather that Homer was not so enamored of conflict that he was blind to its uglier dimensions. Ajax's display of strength is impressive, and the man earns the epithet "Great" because of his size and power; yet his deployment of that strength in brutal fashion does not receive the same admiration granted to warriors who fight fairly, with proper weapons and with valor. As scholars of epic poetry have long noted, the Homeric tradition measures heroism by a complex standard that includes both might and moral conduct.

In contrast, Virgil's chronicle of the sacking of Troy — even in the words of one who suffered greatly because of the unfair, deceptive destruction of his native city by means of the infamous wooden horse — seems almost beautiful by comparison. While sailing away from the ruined city that was once his homeland and facing turbulent waves stirred up by Poseidon, Aeneas cries:

"O, three and four times blessed were those who died before their fathers' eyes beneath the walls of Troy. Strongest of all the Danaans, o Diomedes, why did your right hand not spill my lifeblood, why did I not fall upon the Ilian fields, there where ferocious Hector lies, pierced by Achilles' javelin, where the enormous Sarpedon now is still, and Simois has seized and sweeps beneath its waves so many helmets and shields and bodies of the brave!" (Aeneid, Mandelbaum, 1.130–144)

Conclusion: Purpose, Tone, and National Myth

Virgil. The Aeneid. Translated by Allen Mandelbaum. New York: Bantam Books, 2003.