Iliad: Book Five

This is the fifth of the twenty-four books of Homer’s Iliad and joins the first four books, in a series of illustrated translations, gradually being made available by me from June 2016. This particular book has 74 illustrations and as with the previous four books, all have been prepared on an iPad using the ArtStudio app.


The battle provoked in Book Four is in full swing and Book Five features exploits of one of the foremost Greek warriors, Dio-madas, who despite being injured by an arrow, is able to rampage through the Trojans. He is able to do this because he is aided by Athena, who encourages him to attack a fellow goddess Affrodita as she carries her wounded son Ai-neias from the battle-field. The book features many appearances of various of the gods and the ways in which they interact with humans. 


Indeed it concludes with a serious assault on the god Ares by Dio-madas as guided and assisted by Athena. 


Otherwise there are many individual conflicts involving other major players, such as Odysseus and Ai-as, in which many Trojans appear briefly and are then brutally put down. To a modern-day reader one rather repugnant aspect of warfare as depicted in Iliad is the stripping by the victors of the armour from the victims of their violence. 


The overall picture that it presents of a battle is oddly desultory and fragmented and is many leagues distant from what one might expect in a modern work trying to invoke the actual nature of the experience of hand-to-hand warfare. 


Brian Dawkins

July 2016