ABSTRACT
This chapter considers how the Iliad and its heroes inform us about the Greeks at war. The chapter describes historical Late Bronze Age warfare in the eastern Mediterranean, and to what extent the Bronze Age is reflected in the work of Homer. It then explores the figure of Homer himself, and the world of his heroes, before taking into account how Homeric poetry was received by later generations of Greeks. The chapter ends with a reconstruction of a duel and subsequent pitched battle in the Iliad, in terms of how later Greeks could reasonably interpret it.
