The iliad

These epics established a code of honor based on shame – where valor and the adherence to duty in the face of overwhelming odds were all important. Heroism is all the greater because a Greek will fight until the end; even though he loses, he will not lose his honor.

Yet what happened was shown to be to a large extent in the hands of what the Greeks called ‘fate’ or ‘the gods’. It was the Greeks’ poetic way of saying that things often work out randomly, according to dynamics that simply don’t reflect the merits of the individuals concerned. The great Greek tragedians – Aeschylus, Euripides and Sophocles –

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