Iliad: Book Four

This volume is the fourth of a projected series of twenty-four, each to contain an illustrated version of my translation of one of the books of Homer’s Iliad. 


The violence characteristic of Iliad commences in earnest in this book. The first actual battle-field death occurs late in the book and this signals the more or less unrelieved flood of blood that flows through the rest of the poem. 


The principal event in the book is the misguided attempt to assassinate Menelaos, and the consequences of the failure of this attempt. Full-scale war is resumed after the truce declared to allow the inconclusive duel between Menelaos and Alexandros in Book Three. 


An interesting side-light is that Agamemnon is again shown to be a less-than-perfect, not to say inept, commander-in-chief of the Greek army. 


Brian Dawkins, June 2016