ABSTRACT
A few years ago I found myself involved in a panel discussion at the London Barbican Centre. We were discussing ‘War and the Arts’. At one point a young woman from the audience, perhaps provoked by my undisguised admiration for Homer’s Iliad, was moved to ask: ‘Wasn’t Homer a militarist?’ I asked her why she thought so. ‘Doesn’t Achilles like war too much?’
