Twice a month, The duty challenges enthusiasts of philosophy and the history of ideas to decipher a topical issue based on the theses of a prominent thinker.
In addition to showing us what is ugliest in human beings, war is omnipresent in the chaotic history of the human species. Over time, like the many heads of the Lernaean Hydra that regrow as soon as they were cut off, it always ends up showing us one or another of its hideous faces.
In this context, should we be surprised that war is at the heart of this long poem that is theIliad of Homer, in this founding text of our civilization which, for thousands of years, has nourished Western thought? But what does the poet tell us about him? How does she qualify it? Is it possible to find in theIliad a lesson in wisdom that would help us think better about this war in Ukraine which is unleashed day after day before our eyes?
L’Iliad is not intended to give the glorious account of the Trojan War in its entirety. When the poem begins, the Greeks have already been fighting against the Trojans for ten years and when it ends, the city of Troy is still standing. In fact, the story of theIliadwhich takes place over a few days, focuses instead on this detestable anger of Achilles who, by his excessiveness, brought down into Hades an incalculable number of souls of heroes.
Ares, the most hated of the gods
Homer, or the collective that name represents, is a visual. Faithful to the oral tradition, he likes to illustrate in an explicit way the many scenes of fights between Trojans and “Greeks”, whom he designates in fact as the Achaeans, the Argives or the Danaens. In L’Iliad, necks are cut, the marrow squirts from the vertebrae and livers are perforated by the sword. However, if Homer takes the trouble to give us so many shocking details, it is not with the aim of extolling the merits of war, but rather of showing its abominable nature. It is no coincidence that Ares, the god of war, is presented by Zeus, who is nevertheless his father, as the most detestable of the Olympians: “Head to the vent, don’t come moaning here at my feet ! I hate you more than any of the gods who live on Olympus, because you only dream of discords, wars and fights. »
And the Homeric heroes are not always exemplary models. Sometimes they are fearful, cowardly, petty, boastful and above all ruthless and cruel. Thus, when Menelaus is about to allow himself to be convinced by the Trojan Adrastus, who implores him to spare his life in exchange for a handsome ransom, it is without pity that his brother Agamemnon gives him the following advice before cut off the captive’s neck: “Ah! brave Menelaus, why worry so much about these people? They have done a great job in your home, all those Trojans! May no one escape the abyss of death, nor our arms, be it a child in its mother’s womb, be it a fugitive? May they all disappear together from this city, without leaving any trace or regret! »
This ruthless behavior towards an enemy is reminiscent of the horror images of Boutcha which showed us the corpses of civilians, hands tied behind their backs and feet bound, killed by a bullet in the back of the neck. . One can imagine that they too may have implored their executioners to let them live before they were shot.
In addition to these scenes of extreme violence, the ultimate outrage that could be done to the enemy in the Homeric universe consisted in depriving the remains of the victim of a funeral ceremony, a ritual that allowed the soul of the deceased, his psukhe or his breath, to migrate to Hades. Three types of abuse could be practiced against the corpse of an adversary: dragging the body in the dust to make disappear its signs of youth; dismember his body to be devoured by beasts and, in ultimate outrage, leave the corpse to rot on the spot.
But in theIliad, each time a hero threatens his enemy to outrage his body once he has killed him, the remains of the vanquished always end up being protected by a deity. For example, despite the abuse that Achilles will inflict on him, the remains of Hector will be protected by Aphrodite and Apollo so that his body can finally be handed over undefiled to his father, the old Priam. It will be so with the body of Patroclus and Sarpedon. As we can see, the Olympians portrayed by Homer, either out of modesty or out of respect for certain sacred laws, could not bear to see human beings outrage the corpses of the victims.
Alas, from what the media reports to us, it seems that such levels of horror have been reached in different Ukrainian villages. All these bodies abandoned on the roads, left as food for stray dogs, thrown into mass graves or at the bottom of a well, prove to us that human beings can claim to be able to go to Mars, the fact remains that he continues to obey deep-rooted primal instincts when overwhelmed by fear, anger or hatred.
Achilles’ shield
It was not until canto XIX of theIliadthat Achilles decides to return to combat. However, he needs new weapons, because his own, which he had lent to Patroclus, now find themselves in the hands of Hector, the murderer of his best friend.
Faced with Achilles’ despair, his mother, the sea goddess Thetis, will quickly go to Olympus to ask Hephaestos to make him new weapons and in particular this famous shield on which the divine blacksmith will engrave a multitude of scenes which will be described at length by the poet. It is moreover in this passage of canto XVIII that Homer takes the opportunity to present his vision of the world to us and condemn the war, although in a poetic and coated way.
But before summarizing the content, it should be noted that the scenes that are usually found on the shields of the Homeric heroes always aim to provoke fear in the enemy. For example, in the center of the shield of Agamemnon and Athena, it is the head of the Gorgon which is represented, “that dreadful, terrible and grimacing monster” who petrified anyone who met his gaze. But nothing like that will appear on Achilles’ shield.
Thus, after having engraved the stars and various starry constellations in the center of the shield, the lame divine draws two cities, one at peace and the other at war. In the first, weddings are celebrated and feasts are shared. It is indeed a question of a conflict between two men, but it is by resorting not to force, but to a group of wise men that an honorable solution for both parties is sought. In the city at war, we find men who kill each other around the ramparts of the besieged city, a bit like Troy.
Besides these two cities, Hephaestos also draws a field that peasants are harvesting, a vineyard, a herd of oxen coming out of the stable, a large square in a village where a joyful crowd takes part in a feast, as well as several other scenes of country life.
With the exception of the city at war, which occupies a small place on the shield, everything exudes harmony, joy of life and satisfaction with the work accomplished. In fact, this description of Achilles’ shield can be seen as a parenthesis that the poet opens in the heart of the conflict between Achaeans and Trojans in order to put us in front of different life choices available to human beings: war or peace? An existence lived in excess that leads to suffering, despair and greed or a life in measure where human beings live in harmony with their fellows and the great cycles of nature?
announcing Works and Daysof Hesiod, these different paintings also come to signify that it is by working the land, and not by plundering the cities to appropriate the property of others, that human beings can live in harmony and thus find happiness. .
When Thetis places the weapons forged by Hephaestus at the feet of Achilles, the latter and all of his companions are seized with a feeling of fear provoked not by the horrible face of the Gorgon, but rather by this overflow of beauty that emanates from the work of the ugliest of Olympians. However, no comment will come out of Achille’s mouth. As he prepares to sow death in the camp of the Trojans thanks to his new weapons, he does not understand that it is precisely the war that destroys this beauty as well as this part of nobility in human beings.
But when we see the inhabitants of certain Ukrainian villages devastated by the bombs who hasten to bury the bodies of their loved ones, taking care to plant a small improvised wooden cross on their graves, we say to ourselves that war does not has not succeeded in totally eradicating this thin layer of civilization that the human species has been able to give itself over the millennia.
Despite this, however, we must recognize that the message that Homer tried to give us about war does not seem to have been understood by the ephemeral poor that we are. Although each era has tried to eradicate it by denouncing its deleterious effects, war always manages, like the Lernaean hydra, to present us sooner or later with one or other of its many ugly heads.
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