The Iliad, War, and the Timelessness of Humanity

Recently, I reconnected with a friend from my past life to embark on a shared journey through Homer’s Iliad. I had told him that the poem was extraordinary—so extraordinary, in fact, that I’d already read it twice and wanted to experience it again, this time with him.

From the very first meeting, we were charged up! We began with the opening lines, discussing the “rage” of Achilles and drawing parallels between the Trojan War and our own modern conflicts. Despite our advanced tools and technologies, we realized that at our core, we remain the same humans—savage yet kind, brutal yet brave, capable of both cruelty and generosity. The gods of Homer’s world and their capricious interventions felt uncannily familiar too (as “fate” in our time), as did the conversations among the Achaeans and Trojans—eerily reminiscent of exchanges we’d had during our own times at war.

By our second meeting, we had read up to Book 13. After exchanging pleasantries over Zoom, my friend’s expression shifted. It was a look I recognized—a look that comes when memories of war resurface with intensity. We were discussing Sarpedon’s speech, that haunting moment when he reflects on the inevitability of death and chooses to face it head-on, by assaulting the Greek line. Sarpedon’s words are a call to courage: to accept the consequences of one’s actions, even when those actions will very likely result in annihilation. My friend shared a story from his own service—a mission where he and his dog had to make a similar decision. He described it as “that moment,” when you consciously step forward into danger while fully aware of the Grim Reaper’s scythe looming nearby. Sarpedon led a charge that broke the Greek wall, and he did so with the full knowledge that despite his best efforts he might fail and perish. The action in the poem mirrored the actions in my friend and I’s previous life.

That same evening, by sheer coincidence, I attended the “Mark Strand Memorial Reading” at Yale’s Beinecke Library. The featured reader was none other than Emily Wilson—the translator whose version of The Iliad my friend and I were reading together. Arriving early, I spotted her and couldn’t resist approaching her. I shared my story about reading her translation with my friend and thanked her for her brilliant work. Sheepishly, I asked her to sign my copy of her Iliad. She was gracious and humble, embodying the quiet power of someone who has given something profound to the world.

Her reading that night was unforgettable. In her offering to us, she brought ancient Greek and Roman poetry alive in its original languages—Greek and Latin rolling off her tongue with an elegance that transported us back millennia. But it was her final piece—a poem she had written herself—that struck me most deeply. It was raw and personal, born from a time when she had been caring for both a dying mother and a child in crisis. Her words carried a piece of her heart into the room, leaving us all profoundly moved.

This series of events reinforces my assertion that literature is “humanity’s connective tissue.” Through Emily Wilson’s work, my friend and I are connected not only to each other but also to Homer—and through Homer, to those ancient humans who lived in what we now call Turkey and Greece some 2,500 years ago. Reading The Iliad reveals how little we’ve changed since then; their fears, hopes, rage, and courage are still ours today.

If you doubt this timeless connection, read Emily Wilson’s translation of the poem—it is accessible yet profound, with an introduction that is itself a literary delight. These ancient works offer us something invaluable: fruitful insight into ourselves as human beings.