Loyalty, Honor In The Iliad, And The Republic

Honor and glory are two important things for the heroes of Greece. Greek heroes live all their life to pursue honor and glory, and they always want the society to know their reputation. Honor and glory create many epic wars which take the lives of many people, and it exists at every stage. One of them is the fall of Troy, and it is “a thing… whose glory shall perish never” (Homer, Iliad 2.324). For the Greeks, they always appreciate the personal honor, family honor and the honor of the country, so they always try to do everything to achieve that goal. Even they want that after they die, the honor and the glory of them will persist forever. Honor and glory prove a hero, so those are the foundations for everything in the Iliad of Homer.

The importance of honor is shown when characters in the Illiad have chosen the glory of fighting, over their own lives. Two main examples are shown in Hektor and Achilles. Hektor is displayed

Honor is defined as a high respect given to an individual that brings credit. To receive honor is paralleled to being crowned with jewels and being regarded as a role model to all. The society that the Iliad portrays is “centered on the battlefield of achievement and its rewards” (Homer, xxi). The figures in Homer’s epic poem, the Iliad, partake in events that will allow them to “receive more honor and more material rewards” even if it means that they must indulge themselves in heightened risks that could end in death (xxiii). Hector, one of the most pivotal characters in the poem, illustrates the lust for glory and ignorance of everything else that holds just as much importance. As his character is strengthened, it can be seen that every

Aristotle believes that happiness is an activity “in accord with virtue.” Happiness is in accord with the most excellent virtue. All men agreed that happiness is to “live well”, but Aristotle expands this further into a whole

The heroic code in the Iliad is expressed by many characters throughout the book, whether it be through their actions, intentions, or teachings. The heroic code stems from the belief that honor is, above all, the most important virtue in life and all men must honor themselves, their families, and their fellow comrades through specific character traits and actions. This concept is the primary goal in a Homeric hero’s life. Specifically, courage in battle, even in the face of clear danger or death is an essential source of a man’s honor. Death, in the context of the heroic code, can be seen as a relief of the constant struggle these characters are up against in

Before his death the Trojan leader Hector exclaims, “Well let me die⎼but not without struggle, not without glory, no, in some great clash of arms that even men to come will hear of down the years,” (22.359-362). This proclamation reveals an important theme in Homer’s Iliad. Throughout the epic poem, the concept of honor and shame constantly reappears, from being the cause of the plot to personification as Greek and Trojan heroes to the dichotomy of honor and shame within the gods. Homer uses honor and shame as a major theme of the Iliad to show how important these attributes are to the human condition.

As is already known, Homeric literature served as the model for educating Greek boys and young men, as well male Roman citizens later on in Antiquity. The passages of Homer and Hesiod instructed a decorum which defined proper behavior as unyielding bravery in the field of battle, and the continuous desire for besting an opponent through strident competition, or agon in the Greek. Achilles defined this part of heroic conduct, while Odysseus, through his renowned ability for persuasion, defined the other. Ideally therefore, both ways melded together provided a path to immortality and glory, which was the ultimate goal for every male aspirant in Classical Athens. As can be witnessed in Homeric literature – especially the Iliad – the real meaning of this immortality lay in the recognition of one’s achievements by his peers. And while immortality naturally meant being remembered for one’s actions, the potential for infamy also was part and parcel of this method. Therefore, this path to everlasting glory may been seen as highly individualistic, with no lasting contribution to the society left behind. Yet this masculine-nihilistic

     Mortality, by its very nature, causes men's lives to be cut short at their primes.The Fates cut our lives short at any time, so the Greeks must have an example, a model mortal, to follow so as to make the "most of their lives."A model mortal is one who lives his life accumulating the most honor and glory: "he pressed for battle now where men win glory" (4: 259).By strictly adhering to the honor/heroic code, a mortal can raise himself to become the model mortal. This hero, Diomedes, is the model mortal of the Greeks.

When hearing words honor, shame, and fate, many people regard this concepts as a something that was only significant far back in the past. These concepts, however, always play a dominant role in a society because it provides different cultural values to each country. This function of honor, shame, and fate in the social life is where the individual sense of one’s identity comes from. In the works of The Iliad and Chushingura, this concept of honor, shame, and fate play different roles, therefore, separate one culture from the other, but these factors ultimately unites together to explain prominent social values in both cultures.

The world set up by Homer is not easy; the war certainly has no purpose, certainly not for the greater good, but merely part of the blind workings of an unfathomable fate. When warriors die, there does not exist Valkyries singing them to their rest, merely the bleak prospect of an ashen, ghostly, absence of meaning. The Iliad, therefore, presents a collective cavalcade of loss, the endless parade of men, equal in all forms, summoned briefly to the wonders of life only to be consigned to death by the horrors of fate. “Nothing precious is scorned, whether or not death is its destiny; everyone’s happiness is laid bare without dissimulation or disdain; no man is set above or below the condition common to all men; whatever is destroyed is regretted” (Weil).

The Iliad is a story about the war between the Trojans and the Greeks. They believe that if you fight in a war, this is how you prove ones honor and integrity, but to not fight would show cowardice or fear. During this time, the males were trained from a young age to assume a major role in the war efforts (Rosenberg, 1999, p. 119).

“Happiness in particular is believed to be complete without qualification, since we always choose it for itself and never for the sake of anything else. Honour, pleasure, intellect, and every virtue we do indeed choose for themselves (since we would choose each of them even if they had no good effects), but we choose them also for the sake of happiness, on the assumption that through them we shall live a life of happiness; whereas happiness no one chooses for the sake of any of these nor indeed for the sake of anything else.” ( Aristotle 10-11) Aristotle is the other view of happiness that will be discussed. With him and the Stoics, they are both kind of similar due to both believe in virtue for happiness, Aristotle says virtue a different way and other ways about happiness. Aristotle along with the Stoic’s believe that virtues is the same, but Aristotle says this about virtue “and if we take this kind of life to be activity of the soul and actions in accordance with reason, and the characteristic activity of the good person to be to carry this out well and nobly, and a characteristic activity to be accomplished well when it is accomplished in accordance with the appropriate virtue; then if this is so, the human good turns out to be

Aristotle begins his exploration into the most outstanding life by attempting to figure what the highest possible good achievable is for human beings. He comes to the conclusion that most people will agree that happiness is the most sought after good. Happiness is self-sufficient and is the complete end of things pursued. However, they cannot seem to agree how to achieve happiness and what happiness is. In order to figure out what happiness is, Aristotle must evaluate the true function of human beings. This true function, as seen by Aristotle, is the key to achieving happiness. Aristotle describes happiness by saying:

Now we move on to a more pressing question: how do you attain happiness? Aristotle holds that “perhaps we shall find the best good (happiness) if we first find the function of a human being” (1.7.1097b24). He explains that as trades-people have functions so must human beings have function. This function must also set humans apart form the vegetable and animal kingdoms in order to be a truly human function. “The remaining possibility, then, is some sort of life or action of the [part of the soul] that has reason”(1.7.1098a3).

Aristotle, one of the greatest philosophers of all time created an idea that happiness is the ultimate end goal. This world renowned philosopher argues that exercising a fulfilling life will lead to happiness. Likewise, happiness is said to be the ultimate end goal of all activities in life. Basically, Aristotle portrays every activity as a subordinate to becoming happy. He argues that being self sufficient, and leading a fulfilling life will create happiness through virtue. A virtuous person is noble and possess the ability to rationalize. In order to be noble one must posses the ability to create equilibrium of the soul. That is, staying within the mean. Similar to the mean, Aristotle depicts