Abstract—The Iliad is an epic poem of Homer narrates The
War of Troy between Trojans and Achaeans which takes place
in ancient history and it is full of heroic stories. The Trojan War
is caused by the betrayal of Helen and Paris and the war is
concluded with the death of Hector and the collapse of Troy. In
Homeric society, wars and being a great warrior occupy a
significant place in their lives since great warriors are believed
as virtuous existences. That’s why, Homer tells the great stories
of great warriors. Alongside heroic stories, Homer also
indicates a path to be virtuous through Achilles’ rage,
dishonesty of Helen and voluptuous behaviours of Paris. He
underlines these elevated elements and gives lessons from each
of them to his society to praise ‘virtue’. However, it oversteps its
time and place and it is able to survive until the modern world
thanks to its moral messages which are still valid. In this paper,
Homer’s lessons through these elevated elements related to
‘virtue’ are going to be studied and depicted with
exemplifications from the poem.
Index Terms—Morality, honesty and dishonesty, rage,
honour, virtue.
Tugce Aras is with Altınbas University and Istanbul Aydın University,
Istanbul, Turkey (e-mail: tgcearas@gmail.com).
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Cite: Tugce ARAS, "The Elements of 'Virtue' in The Iliad," International Journal of Languages, Literature and Linguistics vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 163-167, 2019.