The Iliad is an epic poem written by the Greek poet Homer. It tells the story of the last year of the Trojan War fought between the city of Troy and the Greeks. Achilles - Achilles is the main character and the greatest warrior in the world. He leads the Myrmidons against the Trojans.

The story covered by “The Iliad” begins nearly ten years into the seige of Troy by the Greek forces, led by Agamemnon, King of Mycenae. The Greeks are quarrelling about whether or not to return Chryseis, a Trojan captive of King Agamemnon, to her father, Chryses, a priest of Apollo. When Agamemnon refuses and threatens to ransom the girl to her father, the offended Apollo plagues them with a pestilence.

The Greeks, at the behest of the warrior-hero Achilles, force Agamemnon to return Chryseis in order to appease Apollo and end the pestilence. But, when Agamemnon eventually reluctantly agrees to give her back, he takes in her stead Briseis, Achilles‘s own war-prize concubine. Feeling dishonoured, Achilles wrathfully withdraws both himself and his Myrmidon warriors from the Trojan War.

Testing the resolve of the Greeks, Agamemnon feigns a homeward order, but Odysseus encourages the Greeks to pursue the fight. During a brief truce in the hostilities, Paris and Menelaus meet in single combat over Helen, while she and old King Priam of Troy watch from the city walls and, despite the goddess Aphrodite’s intervention on behalf of the over-matched Paris, Menelaus is the victor. The goddess Athena, however, who favors the Greeks, soon provokes a Trojan truce-breaking and battle begins anew.

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