The Iliad

by Homer

The Iliad is riveted on what may be called the enduring realities of war: the fact that an individual warrior must risk his life for a cause in which he does not believe, or must subject himself to the command of a lesser man; or that a successful warrior needs not only skill, but the good luck of being loved by the gods—and that these same gods are fickle, and the outcome of any combat mission is therefore fraught with mortal uncertainty; above all that war blights every life it touches.

Compassionate but clear-eyed, the Iliad evokes the bedrock fact of the human experience, namely that every mortal being, even the greatest—even an Achilles—cannot escape death. And this terrifying truth is seen in high relief because this is a war story, and tragic loss and mortality are never more nakedly revealed than in time of war.

This epic thus does not focus directly on the launching of fleets, or the fall and plundering of cities, but on the tragedy of the best warrior of the Trojan War, who, as the Iliad makes relentlessly clear, will die in a war in which he finds no meaning.

so that you will discern how much I am your better and so another man will be loath to speak as my equal, openly matching himself with me.”

Kleos as an external showing of glory

So the two men were stretched beside each other in the dust, both leaders, he of the Thracians, the other of the bronze-clad Epeans; and many others were slain around them. There, a man coming upon the scene would not make light of the work of war, someone still unharmed and unwounded by sharp bronze, 540 who whirled through their midst with Pallas Athena to lead him by the hand and to ward off the onslaught of spears thrown; for many Trojans and Achaeans on that day lay sprawled face down in the dust beside one another.

The Iliad does not glorify war. If anything, the futility of war and the loss of good men on both sides.

‘This is the memorial of a man who died long ago, a man whom, fighting his best, shining Hector slew in days of old.’ 90 So someone will speak one day, and my glory will never die.”

Kleos

they set out like two lions into the black night, through the carnage, through the corpses, through the war-gear and dark blood.

Agamemnon struck him in the face as he charged straight for him with his sharp spear; and his helmet did not hold off the bronze-weighted spear, but through it and through bone it went, and the brains were all spattered within it; so Agamemnon beat him down for all his fury.

Two kings, sent to war. This is one of the most concise descriptions of kleos in the entire book. Glory to be win in combat that ensures your immortality. Which immortality is gained by having people recount your glories through oral tradition (The Iliad predates a written history)