Iliad: Book Ten

This is a version of the tenth book of the twenty-four books of Homer’s Iliad. It has been translated and illustrated by me and joins the previous nine books already available. It has long been regarded as spurious by some and has even been excluded from some versions. 


It largely concerns a night raid on the camp of the Trojan army carried out by two pre-eminent Greek warriors, Dio-madas and Odysseus. In the course of this raid the two raiders kill a Trojan sent to spy on the Greek camp, an act that would probably be classified as a war-crime today. They go on to slaughter a dozen or so sleeping allies of the Trojans, including their king Rhasos. They then steal his horses which they use to return to the Greek camp, the only instance of actual horse-back riding in Iliad since elsewhere horses only appear hauling chariots about the plain. 


This might be seen as supporting the claim that the book is spurious, but what that means in this context is somewhat problematic, given that we don’t know the provenance of the poem in any case.