Leaders of Men? Military Organisation in the Iliad
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 9370071 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Hans Van Wees (UCL Australia, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1986 |
| Volume | 36 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 285-303 |
| Publication date | 1986-12-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The Classical Quarterly (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0009-8388 • E-ISSN: 1471-6844 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/s0009838800012052 |
| OpenAlex | W2048273498 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 20 |
| References cited | 12 |
At a time when the Greek army is on the verge of annihilation, the Iliad tells us, two warriors have detached themselves from the fight. Idomeneus, having accompanied a wounded man back to the ships, and Mērionēs, on his way to fetch himself a new spear, meet at the former's hut. They stand and talk for a while, assuring one another that they are afraid of nothing and no-one, and finally decide to plunge into battle again, though only after discussing at some length whether to go to fight in the centre or at the left of the front line. At first sight their behaviour might not seem particularly strange, but when one realises that the poet has told us more than once that these two are the leaders of the Cretan contingent, some four thousand warriors strong, one may begin to wonder. How could a poet, if he had even the slightest notion of what armies and battles were like, let these men behave as if they were alone on the field, leaving the fight for trivial reasons, re-entering it when and where it suits them, not even bothering to return to their own leaderless countrymen? Such doubts have led scholars to argue that, in fact, the poet did not have the slightest notion of what he was talking about. Some seek to show that epic society is vague and unreal — ‘Homeric kings are like the king and the prince in Cinderella — they reveal nothing about any social structure in the real world’ — and have suggested that the historian may dismiss it as literary fiction
Ancient history · Art · Battle · EPIC · Front (military · Literature · Nothing · Physics · Sight · Wonder · Classical Antiquity Studies · Contemporary and Historical Greek Studies · History · Philosophy
Warfare in ancient literature
Military forces
Battle
Warfare and the state
Reconstructing ancient warfare
Military forces
War and society
Warfare and the state
War
International relations
International relations
Battle
War
The modern historiography of ancient warfare
War and society
The Psychology of the Athenian Hoplite
The Cambridge Guide to Homer
The Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Warfare
Warrior Ants
Kings in Combat
| Citations per year | 0.19 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 1920 - 2020 (101) |
| Highly cited | No |