Iliad Values

The purpose of this essay is to discuss the values that were portrayed from the writings of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey. Further more, it was also to compare the values from the writings to the attitudes of modern sports. From reading both of these excerpts it can be concluded that multiple aspects from the Greek athletics are prominent in modern sports. These examples range anywhere from awards, pride, religion, trash talk, and even betting. Even the emphases of importance of sports in society were evident during the Greek athletic period, which is also a societal norm in today’s athletics. In the grand scheme of things, athletics of the Greek period were extremely similar to the sports that are played today. The beginning of the Iliad refers

Religion plays a tremendous role in the Greek athletics. Odysseus performs a prayer to Athena prior to his foot race with Ajax. “Hear me, Goddess, be kind to me and come with extra strength for my feet.” In today’s sports prayer is still conducted prior to the beginning of a game. It may be on an individual level or as a team. During a game there might also be some negative things said from one competitor to the next. Epeios one of the boxers from the Iliad informs the crowd that whoever he is competing against should just accept defeat. Athlete’s or competitors in today’s society have similar traits to Epeios. Confidence is portrayed by the use of verbal communication, or in other words “trash talk.” Lastly, betting is very common amongst modern sports. In the Ilaid there was an interesting conversation between Ajax and The lord Cretans. The dispute was over who was winning the chariot race, which would eventually lead to Cretans saying, “now put your money where your mouth is and bet me a tripod-cauldron.” Achilles settles the quarrel between the two men and it does not mentioned if the bet was