A History of Greece
by Charles William Chadwick Oman (9780217152747)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. THE HOMERIC POEMS, AND THE GREEKS OF THE HEROIC AGE. Long before the authentic history of the Hellenes begins, we can catch glimpses of their manner of life from the evidence of monuments and excavations, from ancient customs which survived into later times, and?though here the greatest caution must be used? from their inexhaustible store of myths and legends. But the twilight glimmer which these researches shed upon the prehistoric age in Greece is sheer darkness compared with the flood of light which is thrown upon it by the immortal works which pass under the name of Homer. The Iliad and the Odyssey are a pair of lengthy epic poems, which deal with two episodes in a great war. The Greek princes, we read, were once gathered together by Agamemnon Tbe IUad King of Mycenae, the greatest sovereign in the land, to and the aid him in an expedition to Asia. Paris, son of Priam the Teucrian, had stolen Helen, the wife of Agamemnon,s brother Menelaus, and borne her off to his father,s city of Troy. The Greeks accordingly sailed to punish the seducer, and beleaguered Troy for ten long years. But it is not the whole of the war with which the Iliad deals. "Achilles, a prince of Phthiotis, was the bravest and most beautiful of the whole Greek host, but he was proud and headstrong, and was drawn into a bitter quarrel with King Agamemnon. He retired from the battle, and sat sullenly brooding in his tent till the Greeks were driven back to the water,s edge, and his own bosom friend Patroclus had been killed by the Trojan prince Hector. Then Achilles arose in wrath, hunted down and slew Hector, and shut up the Trojans within the wallsof their city." Such is the plot of the Iliad; for, though abounding in digressions, it takes the wrath of Achilles as its main subject, and i...

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