The Role Of Women In The Iliad

Women are a very prominent part of the Greek society. Their role has influenced and shaped the Greek society to a very large extent. Women have been shown in many different lights in the Greek works of Odyssey and Iliad which we have covered in our class. The works that I will be citing in this essay, namely Homer’s poems Odyssey and Iliad talk about many prominent women such as Helen of Troy, Penelope and also many other Goddesses. Homer’s poems talk about the various traits of Greek women and portray their characteristics by describing their traits and the events they were involved in. Through this essay, I would like to illustrate how women were treated as objects of desire for

In The Iliad by Homer women in the Ancient World period were seen as possessions and property of men and consequently they were inferior to men. The Iliad begins in the 10th year of the war and starts off with Achilles and Agamemnon fighting over their war prizes, Chryseis and Brieseis. Chryseis’s father, priest of Apollo, asked Menelaus for his daughter back or he would pray to Apollo to send a plague to the Greek camp. Menelaus finally gives Chryseis back because

Women were not valued all that much in the time of ancient Greece. They were not allowed to leave the house most days, and were considered emotional and irrational. “Athenians saw women as beguiling creatures capable of causing considerable harm to themselves and others, and weaker in mind and body than men” (Thompson). With this in mind, it is strange that the people of Persia listen to her so much. They seem to value her as a person and she seems to have a great deal of power. This just further illustrates how far from reason they have fallen. Rational Athenians would not put a woman in power (McFerrin, Oct 9). Achilles also happens to give one woman in his life a lot of power over him. This woman would be his mother, Thetis. He talks to her often in the play, such as when he asks her to plead with Zeus on his behalf (Iliad 1. 424-509) and when she delivers Zeus’ message about Hector’s body (Iliad 24. 154-170). Thetis is, in fact, a goddess, so this does make her a little bit more valued in Greek society, but she is still a woman and therefore lesser than men in the minds of the Greeks. Both Achilles and the Persians respect a woman and put her in a place of power over them. This act humanizes Achilles, while it makes the Persians seem

When Achilles calls assembly to tell them that he is going to give the slave girl back to her father whose name is Chryses, Agamemnon takes it as an offensive act from Achilles challenging Agamemnon’s leadership and honor which later goes the opposite way because Agamemnon is the one who disrespects Achilles by taking the slave girl which also leaves Agamemnon in a bad situation because he does not have his best warrior without whom they might not be as successful as they were. Homer is showing that the pride which is a noble trait in the Iliad can be very dangerous when mixed with anger. In this part of the Iliad Homer is trying to teach the readers that they should always respect people that surround because they always can leave if you don’t honor them as they honor

The myth of how the war between the Greeks and the Trojans began, itself, shows women, in this case goddesses, in an unflattering light, fighting like vain beauty queens over which one is more beautiful. In fact, the very character of these three goddesses is at the least reprehensible and mirrors the conception of many ancient, male-driven societies of women being fickle, disloyal temptresses. Hera is the paranoid, jealous wife who viciously strikes out at her husband's lovers, Aphrodite is a kind of divine harlot, and Athena, although the most admirable of the group, nevertheless gives in to petty emotions and is an odd choice to be guardian of wisdom, since no women were allowed in the academies or thought of by men as being particularly wise. Thetis' intentions are the exception to the trivial designs of her immortal counterparts, for she is always the devoted mother of Achilles, trying to do what is best for her son. Athena may give aid to the Greek cause, but only because she was not picked by Paris as the most fair. The only mortal woman in the Iliad who seems to have any redeeming qualities, and to whom we are not introduced for any real amount of time, in contrast to Hecuba, is Andromache, who makes a brief, yet lasting appearance as Hector's wife. For the most part, however, women in the Iliad are placed decidedly in the background, at best shown as accessories to their male spouses.

During the time of the Ancient Greeks, women were treated very differently depending on the social class that they were in. However, a major similarity across all women regardless of class is that they were treated less than men in the patriarchal society. Women of this time had no rights and were not treated as citizens. They were controlled by men for the entirety of their lives (The Ancient Greek World, Daily Life: Women's Life). The

Women were responsible for providing the men with offspring and running the household. Women had very few rights and were mostly kept locked up inside their home. “In Athens, women were considered citizens, but they were barred from any political activity. Women were thought to belong in the house, caring for the children and the needs of the household,” (Spielvogel 84). This is how it was in ancient Athens, however unfair. Women should have had just as many rights as male citizens, because they did an equal amount of work, but as we all know, life isn’t always fair. “In classical Athens, a woman’s place was in the home. She had two major responsibilities as a wife—bearing and raising children and managing the household,” (Spielvogel 85). Women shouldn’t just be the property of their husbands only good for chores around their household. The women would barely be allowed outside the house, only to visit

The treatment of women in ancient societies was the same in nearly every ancient civilization. The majority of ancient Greece, especially Athens, was no exception. The treatment of women in Athens was the same as every other Greek city-state, except Sparta. Women’s rights in Athens and Sparta were completely different for a short period of time before it returned to how it was before Sparta conquered Messenia. Women in Sparta had rights women everywhere else in Ancient Greece, especially Athens, didn’t have. They had control over property, worked, and did basically everything men did before, rights that women could have never have dreamed of having before that time (Fleck and Hanssen, 2005).

The treatment of women has been an issue for hundreds of years. In ancient civilizations, women were seen as inferior beings. In Ancient Greece, women had no social, political, or economic importance. Socially, women were considered to be secondary to men, who were respected and honored. According to ancient Greek culture, women could not be independent, and relied entirely on the men in their lives. A woman’s role in ancient Greek society was to bear children, prepare meals, and watch after the household. A man however, fulfilled the “important” duties in Greek society. These duties included political advocacy fighting battles, protecting his family. In Ancient Greece, feminism was unheard of. Women lived in fear of speaking out against men, and would not dare contradict the ways of society. Women feared facing physical abuse, angering the gods, and sometimes death.

The role of women in the Iliad is a subject that remains open to debate. Lefkowitz, in her article The Heroic Women of Greek Epic, argues that without the role of women in the Iliad the story would not have occurred (504 ).

In the Iliad, there are a handful of women that do not possess agency or the ability to make changes. Though the book is based on the Trojan War that was started over Helen, a woman, she has no direct control over her position in the battle. One may argue that “the rage” that is so commonly referred to throughout the Iliad is the direct outcome of Agamemnon’s decision to take away Achilles’ prize, Briseis, meaning that women do have an effect, but this situation only emphasizes that Briseis is an object, in the eyes of Agamemnon and Achilles, that can be traded and stolen to measure the amount of honor a man holds. Throughout the Iliad, the reader sees a variation of women, some with prominent roles and others with minor roles; the difference in the amount of time Homer allows each female character to speak or be spoken about has absolutely no effect on the agency or influence a character has.

The Iliad and The Odyssey by Homer were both portrayals of men’s battles and journeys during the era of the Trojan War. Wherever there are men, however, a woman is always nearby in the role of mother, wife, or lover. Although both poems are centralized on the narratives of men, women were also shown to play important roles and were weaved into the tale just as tightly as their male counterparts. In The Iliad, within a male-central battle poem, females such as Hector’s mother and Priam’s wife Hecuba and Hector’s wife Andromache played secondary roles, showing the sensitive and compassionate sides of women in ancient Greece. Odysseus’s journey home after the end of the war in The Odyssey had him encounter the powerful sorceress Circe and ultimately

When Agamemnon states that if he gives Chryseis back, the girl he took from the Trojans, and the Argives give him nothing in return, he will take Achilles’s prize for himself. This surges Achilles wrath and he quarrels bitterly with Agamemnon calling him “dog-face”, “Staggering drunk”, “dog’s eyes”, and “fawn’s heart”. His overwhelming anger takes over him and as he is about to draw his sword and kill Agamemnon, Athena comes down from Olympus to stop him. The goddess Athena personifies Achilles’s conscious and human emotions. Then, still fueled with rage, Achilles withdrawals from the war stating that he would be called a “burnt-out coward” if he would “submit to you and all your orders."

Agamemnon, leader of the Achaeans, had taken the daughter of a Trojan priest for his concubine. The concubine, Chryseis, was an emblem of Agamemnon’s political power and status as a warrior. In book one of The Iliad he is offered a bounteous price for her safe return, which he refuses. “I scorn'd

While the idea of presenting women as prizes and objects is inconceivable in present time, during the time of the “Iliad”, this was the commonality and was seen as an acceptable compensation for winning a battle. So while Agamemnon had the right to take away Achilles’ prize, as he was his leader, Achilles had every right to be angry and frustrated. Agamemnon proves repeatedly that he is a greedy, shameless, and ungrateful leader, who takes advantage of his warriors and refuses to do any real work on his own, by relying on the men to carry out his battles.