Honor And Glory In Homer's The Il

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In Ancient Greece, honor and glory is one of the most important things. Honor is high respect and esteem while glory is to receive honor from doing great achievements, such as dying for one's country. The story of the Iliad is about Akhilleus, a demigod and Greek warrior, and his fight in the Trojan war, along with the struggles between the Greeks and Trojans. The war was actually caused by dishonor when Paris of Troy had run off with Helen Sparta. The ideas of honor and glory play an important role in Homer's The Iliad. There are different aspects of honoring, such as honoring one's self. In this section of the book, Agamemnon had just given up his prize, Khrysêis back to her father in order to stop the mass amount of killings from the god, Apollo. After he gave up the girl, he says, “Your must prepare, however, a prize of honor for me, and at once, that I may not be left without my portion…” (Homer 2). This demonstrates honor because, in order to save his people, he had given up his most valuable prize, so he demands to be compensated in some way to restoring his honor. The demonstration of honor to one's self is one of the most important but is not the only way honor is …show more content…

After Agamemnon had given up Khrysêis, he demanded that his men go down to Akhilleus quarters and take his girl, Brisêis. After talking to his mother Thetis, she had agreed to Zeus to see if there would be any way he could help to honor Akhilleus for his loss. Thetis begins to say, “Lend the Trojans power, until the Akhaians recompense my son and heap new honor upon him”(Homer 4). In this example, Thetis is practically begging Zeus to have the Trojans win until the Akhaians honor Akhilleus. Since Akhilleus has refused to fight due to losing Brisêis, it seems as if the only way the Akhaians will win the war is if Akhilleus returns to battle. So, they must honor him to get him to fight for them once

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