Ilíada

The Iliad is the oldest poem in Western literature and is considered one of the great works of our tradition. This Greek epic—which, like the Odyssey, has been attributed to Homer—sings of the glorious and tragic conclusion to the Trojan War. In antiquity, it was believed that the poem was based on actual history and that the characters within it served as models of conduct and heroism. The events it recounts take place over the final fifty-one days of a conflict that spanned ten long years, and they unfold around the figure of the Greek hero Achilles, "he of the swift feet." Throughout the work’s more than fifteen thousand verses, Homer evokes concepts central to ancient Greek culture, such as homecoming, glory, respect, rage, and fate.