The Iliad, or story of the fall of Ilium (Troy), is supposed to have been
written by Homer, about the tenth century B. C. The legendary history of
Homer represents him as a schoolmaster and poet of Smyrna, who while
visiting in Ithaca became blind, and afterwards spent his life travelling
from place to place reciting his poems, until he died in Ios. Seven
cities, Smyrna, Chios, Colophon, Ithaca, Pylos, Argos, and Athens, claimed
to be his birthplace.
In 1795, Wolf, a German scholar, published his "Prolegomena," which set
forth his theory that Homer was a fictitious character, and that the Iliad
was made up of originally unconnected poems, collected and combined by
Pisistratus.
Though for a time the Wolfian theory had many advocates, it is now
generally conceded that although the stories of the fall of Troy were
current long before Homer, they were collected and recast into one poem by
some great poet. That the Iliad is the work of one man is clearly shown by
its unity, its sustained simplicity of style, and the centralization of
interest in the character of Achilles.
The destruction of Troy, for a time regarded as a poetic fiction, is now
believed by many scholars to be an actual historical event which took
place about the time of the Æolian migration.
The whole story of the fall of Troy is not related in the Iliad, the poem
opening nine years after the beginning of the war, and closing with the
death of Hector.
The Iliad is divided into twenty-four books, and contains nineteen
thousand four hundred and sixty-five lines.
As a work of art the Iliad has never been excelled; moreover, it possesses
what all works of art do not,--"the touches of things human" that make it
ours, although the centuries lie between us and its unknown author, who
told his stirring story in such swift-moving verses, with such touches of
pathos and humor, and with such evident joy of living. Another evidence of
the perfection of Homer's art is that while his heroes are perfect types
of Greeks and Trojans, they are also typical men, and for that reason,
still keep their hold upon us. It is this human interest, simplicity of
style, and grandeur of treatment that have rendered Homer immortal and his
work imperishable.