Discuss the Idea of "kleos" and Its Significance in the World of Iliad

Discuss the idea of "kleos" and its significance in the world of Iliad.

Kleos is the Greek word often translated to "renown", or "glory". It is related to the word "to hear" and carries the implied meaning of "what others hear about you". A Greek hero earns kleos through accomplishing great deeds, often through his own death.

Kleos is invariably transferred from father to son; the son is responsible for carrying on and building upon the "glory" of the father. This is a reason for Penelope putting off her suitors for so long, and one justification for Medea's murder of her own children was to cut short Jason's Kleos.

Kleos is a common theme in Homer's epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey, the main example in the latter being that of Odysseus and his son Telemachus, who is concerned that his father may have died a pathetic and pitiable death at sea rather than a reputable and gracious one in battle. The Iliad is about gaining ultimate kleos on the battlefields of Troy while the Odyssey is the ten-year quest of Odysseus' nostos (or return journey). Telemachus fears that he has been deprived of kleos. This links to hereditary kleos. Kleos is sometimes related to aidos -- the sense of duty.

When we consider the Hero in ancient Greek culture, we must forget our notion of what a hero is. The ancient Greek concept of a hero was different from our own culture's. The motivation for any Homeric Greek is glory, or "Kleos", that is to be honored and respected among their people. Not only does kleos imply being honored and respected, it literally means 'to be heard.' Achieving kleos entails that your tale and ultimately you will live on forever. Kleos is essential to the Greeks and life would not be worth living without it. When a warrior or hero is advised to avoid risking their life in battle it almost drives them even further towards the deed. It is better to be killed in action rather than to live and be thought a coward. By our rational standards one would certainly not be thought a coward if they didn't rush into battle to almost certain death, the Greeks however, live by a different set of rules, a different set of standards and a different set of goals. In The Iliad, Homer explores the ancient Greek struggle for mortal men to attain immortality through glory in battle, and even death. Those who achieve great kleos in battle are respected and loved by their families and kinsmen, while those who turn away from it are scorned. When faced with inevitable death, the epic heroes of The Iliad choose war so they may realize immortality in their deaths.

The Iliad narrates the consequences of the anger or rage of Achilles. The Greek word menin ("wrath" or "rage") is the first word in the epic. Because of his anger, Achilles withdraws from the war and causes his comrades the Achaeans to suffer "countless losses" or deaths. Death is central to the poem. Seth Schein writes:

''The overwhelming fact of life for the heroes of the Iliad is their mortality, which stands in contrast to the immortality of the gods. We see the central hero of the poem, Achilles, move toward disillusionment and death to reach a new clarity about human existence in the wider context of the eventual destruction of Troy and in an environment consisting almost entirely of war and death. This environment offers scope for various kinds and degrees of heroic achievement, but only at the cost of self-destruction and the destruction of others, who live in the same environment and share the same values''.

As we will see when Odysseus visits the underworld in the Odyssey, the afterlife in Homer is a dull, shadowy, listless affair, in which empty and witless souls wander, shells of their former selves. Therefore, it is important that the hero achieve some meaning on earth by the way he conducts his life and achieves his inevitable death. Life becomes meaningful and valuable for the hero because he can win honor (in Greek, time)--the "public esteem" of his fellow-warriors in this life and glory (in Greek, kleos)--the "reputation" which poets will sing of after his death.

In book 12 of the Iliad, the Lycian hero Sarpedon begins a pep-talk to his friend Glaucus with a rhetorical question:

"Glaucus, you know how you and I

Have the best of everything in Lycia--

Seats, cuts of meat, full cups, everybody

Looking at us as if we were gods? "

Sarpedon then proceeds to tell why they are honored with "the best of everything:"

"Well, now, we have to take our stand at the front,

Where all the best* fight, and face the heat of battle, *aristoi

So that many an armored Lycian will say,

'So they're not inglorious after all,

Our Lycian lords who eat fat sheep

And drink the sweetest wine. No,

They're strong, and fight with our best."

Notice that the visible marks(*) of honor are gifts, expressed here as the best cuts of meat. The Greek word for honor, time, can also mean "price" or "value". Those who are the best fighters should receive the largest share or portion of the spoils of war. The more gifts, the more stuff a hero accumulates, the more honor he has. Somewhat paradoxically, one can also gain honor by being big and liberal and noble enough to give gifts to others. Notice also that Sarpedon implies that ordinary fighting men honor their leaders at least in part because these leaders protect them. When Achilles withdraws from the war, he allows his own personal sense of injured honor to outweigh his duty to protect the rest of his less-gifted, less-honored comrades. In contrast to honor, glory occurs mostly after death, when poets can sing of a hero's immortal deeds. In the world of the Iliad, the honors and gifts showered upon a hero come to an end with death, but his glory lives on forever in the stories that poets sing. By achieving imperishable glory, a hero ensures that his name and fame will live on after he has gone on to the rather meaningless afterlife in the underworld.

What are the Greeks fighting for? Yes they're fighting to get Helen back, yet on a broader and wider level, why are they fighting? What does an individual Greek warrior want to get out of battle, out of going to war in the