When Was the Iliad Written? Discovering When the Epic Was Penned
The Iliad is viewed as the one epic poem that has influenced generations of Western poetry and is considered a masterpiece among literature enthusiasts. The epic poem survived centuries of oral transmission before it finally got penned. However, when was the Iliad written and who wrote the masterpiece? Keep reading to discover the answer to these questions and many more.
When Was the Iliad Written?
Many people believe that the Iliad was written between the 8th and the 7th Century BC, however, as an oral tradition, the poem goes beyond that period. Some even state that the poem was penned somewhere between 750 BC and 700 BC, some think it was written before 750 BC.
What Are The Reason Why the Actual Date of the Written Iliad Is Unknown?
First, it is difficult to establish whether the writer, Homer, was a real person who really lived. Many books have been written purporting to give the biography of the Greek poet and all these books give about seven locations as Homer’s birthplace. Thus, if we can’t be sure of Homer’s biography, how can we say with great certainty when the Iliad was written? This uncertainty isn’t anyone’s fault as it was a common practice in ancient Greece.
Modern readers and audiences are concerned about the biographies of authors as much as they are enthused about their works. They enjoy the literature and go to great lengths to discover the personality of the author. However, these standards were not prevalent in Homer’s time. Ancient Greek audiences cared more about the poem and besides it was an oral tradition that had gone around so much of ancient Greece was aware of the storyline of the Iliad before it was penned.
Also, there was widespread illiteracy at the time, therefore, the audiences preferred to hear the Iliad than read it, further reducing the interest in authorship. Thus, the Greek audience might have lost interest in who wrote it, after all, the story had been around for centuries. Some scholars believe that Homer was not a real person and that the poems, Iliad and Odyssey, were only attributed to him.
The Earliest Surviving Copies of the Iliad
The earliest surviving copies of the poem were discovered between 150 to 200 BC in the Egyptian deserts. They were found in fragments scattered across an Egyptian cemetery that housed the mummies of Greek Egyptians and pieced together. The oldest complete Iliad is called Venetus A after it was discovered in the library of a doge (an Italian lord) in Venice. The discovery was made in the 18th Century by a French scholar who believed that the Venetus A came from Byzantium.
Investigations revealed that the Venetus A was made in 900 AD and it included notes of the editors popularly referred to as scholia. The scholia revealed how the editors of old understood and interpreted the Iliad. From Venetus A, scholars deduced that there was more than one version of the Iliad and the major difference was in the words that were used.
The Oral Traditions of the Iliad
In ancient Greece, the Iliad and the Odyssey were used to train special Greek poets known as rhapsodes. These poets had special ways of memorizing often long lines of poetry and were adept at composing their own. They went from town to town entertaining their audiences with their songs and chants sometimes accompanied by stringed instruments. The Rhapsodes also took part in the Panathenaic Games organized every four years in honor of the goddess Athena.
Hesiod claimed that he performed in one of these games against Homer though he fell short of mentioning his name in the text. According to him, he won the prize and was awarded a bronze tripod which he dedicated to the Muses. In 330 BC, the Greeks enacted a law that forced the Rhapsodes to narrate Homeric poems at every Panathenaic Games. The poems were too long for one rhapsode to perform so they were divided into parts and the rhapsodes performed them in turns.
These itinerant bards were often revered and given the best hospitality any town or village had to offer. In art, they were depicted wearing a cloak and holding a staff, which was part of the whole act.
What Is the Historical Authenticity of the Iliad?
There are different discoveries of the history of the time period of the epic book that has all the stories of the war and the gods of Greek Mythology, However, here are the times when this book’s timeline was able to be traced
Dark Ages
During the Dark Ages, the Greeks thought that the events of the Iliad, that is the Trojan War, were historical. The Greek historian, Herodotus, opined that the 10-year war took place but Homer added embellishments to enhance the narrative.
Herodotus even claimed that the Trojans couldn’t return Helen to the Spartans because she was in Egypt. The land demarcations espoused in the Iliad were even used to settle territorial disputes between the Athenians in the Megarans.
Roman Empire
During the Roman Empire, the Iliad was still viewed as a historical document and the topographic sites in the Iliad were discussed in geographical writings. The Greek historian and theologian, Eusebius Pamphilus, equated the city Troy to Abraham’s universal history of human origins in his work, Chronologia.
Nonetheless, one should keep in mind that the Iliad also influenced the mythological founding of the Roman Empire based on the Aeneid by Virgil, which means it was thought the era was of that time.
Medieval Period
The Europeans during the Medieval period believed in the historicity of the Iliad with some claiming that they descended from heroes of the Trojan War. For instance, Geoffrey of Monmouth in his Historiae Regum Britanniae claims some royal Britons descended from Trojans. Also, the chronicle of Fredegar narrates an origin myth that traces the Merovingian dynasty of the Franks to the legendary Trojan king, Franco. These were the doubts that they had regarding the era which the Iliad was written in.
However, all of these changed during the 17th Century as skeptics began questioning the historicity of the Iliad. The French mathematician and inventor, Blaise Paschal, cast doubts on the legend when he wrote that the Iliad was just a “romance” poem with no historical basis.
Modern Era
In the 19th Century, Heinrich Schliemann excavated a site called Hisarlik that had long been thought of as Classical Troy where the war took place. At Hisarlik, Schliemann discovered many settlements and concluded that one of them was Troy also known as Ilion.
However, other scholars have doubted the discoveries of Schliemann especially when other excavations revealed that the city existed about a millennium before other Mycenae cities. Still, there’s no consensus among scholars as to whether the events of the Iliad were historical.
FAQ
What Language Was the Iliad Written in?
The Iliad was written in the Homeric Greek dialect which is a combination of Ionic, Aetolian, Arcaddicypriot and Attic Greek. It was called Homeric Greek because it was used predominantly in Homer’s poems. Soon, it became the main dialect in which other epics were composed and the name changed from Homeric Greek to Epic Greek.
How Long is the Iliad?
The Iliad has over 15,600 lines and is made up of 24 books also referred to as chapters. The poem covers over 700 pages and it details the last 52 days of the Trojan War. In its original form, the Iliad can take you days to complete but there are easy-to-read translations that you can finish in a sitting.
Which Came First the Iliad or Odyssey, When Was the Odyssey Written?
The Iliad was written first before the Odyssey because the Odyssey narrates events that happened right after the Iliad had ended. The Odyssey was written in the same period as the Iliad between the 8th and 7th Century BC.
Conclusion
So far, we’ve read when the Iliad was written and the oral tradition that preceded it. Here is a summary of all that we’ve covered in this article:
- The consensus among scholars is that the Iliad was written between the 8th and 7th Century BC, however, some argue that it was later.
- The poem had existed centuries before it was ever penned down and the citizens were already familiar with the events of the Trojan War long before Homer was born.
- The authorship of the poem is attributed to Homer, but we can’t know for sure whether Homer was an actual person or a representation of ancient Greek society.
- The Historicity of the Iliad has always been a subject of debate since antiquity with some people believing that the Trojan War really took place without all of Homer’s embellishments.
- The Iliad was written in Homeric Greek which is a combination of Ionic, Aetolian, Arcaddicypriot and Attic dialects of the Greek language.
The Iliad is over 15,600 lines long and covers over 700 pages and was often performed by trained poets known as rhapsodes at the Panathenaic Games. The Iliad is regarded as one of the greatest poems of all time and has heavily influenced Western poetry over the centuries.
