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The Virtue In The Iliad And The Bible

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Through “The Iliad”, Homer builds his ideal society as Arete, meaning excellence of all kind. He emphasizes that in order to have a good life, one needs to own as many virtues as one could and avoid all the vices. Shalom is the Biblical ideal society that simply means “what it is supposed to be”. According to the bible, it should be sinless and peaceful just like times before the Fall. In both texts, wise characters can be found. I argue that wisdom is described as a virtue in both “The Iliad” and Bible because characters who are acting wisely in “The Iliad” achieves Arete, and the ones in Bible achieves Shalom, and vice versa.

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Areté was important to the Greek culture because it allowed them to be all they can be from fighting in battle, to making statues, and to architecture. Areté was shown through the arts by sculptures, pottery, and temples. Many pieces of art were even made for public display so the artists would put a marvelous amount of pride in it for the citizens. The ancient Greeks put lots of areté into architecture like the Parthenon, which is considered the finest example of Greek architecture. The author Homer is a great example of what virtue looks like in his poems the Iliad and the Odyssey, which tell the story of the Trojan War and the Greek hero Odysseus journey after the fall of Troy.

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Heroism, tends to be difficult to define and remarkably ambiguous in literary works. In the Odyssey, however, Homer clearly defines a hero as a humble, determined, and loyal individual; thus, according to Homer, it is not enough to claim to be a hero, but it is also important to exhibit those qualities that Homer values as heroism. Odysseus, despite claiming heroism, upholds these traits inconsistently, as seen in his taunting of Polyphemus. In contrast, Telemachus, Odysseus’ overlooked son, dramatically grows up over the course of the epic and ultimately reveals his truly heroic qualities by the end of the poem. Thus, because Odysseus claims to be a hero, but fails to remain humble, determined, and loyal throughout the epic, he is not a hero.

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Bryce, I concur with your opinions on how different the two poems are from one another and the difference between the main characters as leaders. With the tone of The Iliad, you could definitely pick up of the aggressive and more intense war scene. The rage that the first line speaks of represents the whole poem itself. The examples that you used to support your evidence of the epic being dark was also genius considering you included details about Hades being mentioned along with murderous and other dark words. I also agree with your observations of the Odyssey with the fact that the tone is nostalgic and adventurous which holds true throughout the whole epic.

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