Nostalgia for Heroes
Posted
on Medium July 7, 2023
Feedback welcome. seltzer@seltzerbooks.com
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An unobtrusive but persistent theme in The Iliad is the importance of individual prowess. It is imbued with a nostalgia for a time when the courage and abilities of individual fighters determined the outcome of battles rather than sheer numbers of nameless fighters. Perhaps there never was such a time, but Homer and fans of Homer log for it. A similar Nostalgia pervades other legendary tales like those of King Arthur’s Court and Robin Hood, tales of the America Wild West, ad evn today’s superheroes.
In
The Iliad, among the Greeks, Odysseus and Ajax son of Telamon
have
two of the smallest contingents — just 12 ships each.
Agamemno, the leader of
the Greek alliance, brought 100 ships, more than any other,
but his is never
portrayed as a fighter. Achilles, his rival and, without
question, the greatest
individual fighter, has half as many ships as Agamemnon. Radom
fighters who
ever distinguish themselves in battle come with more ships
that Achilles.
Clearly, there is no correlation between the size of the
contingent and the
importance of the leader. Your renown, your worthiness to be
remembered depends
instead on what you do on your own.
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Richard's Trojan novel Let the Women Have Their Say is available at Amazon.