“Aphrodite”
I see now why my early education left out a study of The Iliad. This epic poem is 15,693 lines describing slippery, bloody gore interspersed with sexual violence against women. So nauseated was I with this reading that I stopped at the seventeenth book and just listened to summaries of the remaining seven books.
I did a study of reasons why this poem is so important to a good classical education. I couldn’t really find any reasons that sat right with me. One reason that kept coming up is that it teaches us about the suffering that war causes. Ya think? I don’t think that was the reason the author/s (Homer might have been a bunch of people) wrote this poem. I don’t think he/they even had this in mind. Homer wrote this for a particular audience: a patriarchal warrior culture that loved this kind of story telling.
So what does this say about us Westerners as descendants of ancient Greek culture? I tried to google how many people in Europe ever died in war. I could not find a total without having to add up the estimated death count of dozens and dozens, if not hundreds of wars.
And let’s not get started on violence against women in our culture.
I don’t think, as a culture, we have learned a darn thing.
On to The Odyssey. I hope this is not a disappointment too.
ljg 2023
Miss Pelican's Perch 
March 29, 2023 at 6:07 pm
I appreciate your take on this. I have not read either work, though I’m acquainted with their contents (more the Odyssey than the Iliad). I agree that just because something is ancient doesn’t make it enlightened. I keep hoping someday human civilization will quit thinking that death and destruction solves anything. “Gee, I won the war and look at this wasteland I’ve conquered!”
March 29, 2023 at 6:49 pm
This was my gut reaction. I might actually learn to appreciate ancient Greek culture as I read and study other texts.