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THE CLASSICAL REVIEW 5
I L I A D 6
G R A Z I O S I ( B . ) , H A U B O L D ( J . ) (edd.) Homer: Iliad Book VI. Pp. x
+ 278. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Paper, 19.99, US $32.99 (Cased, 50, US$80). ISBN: 978-0-521-70372-7 (978-0-521-87884-5 hbk).
doi:10.1017/S0009840X12002077
Iliad 6 is one of the most beautiful, poignant and memorable books of the whole poem. It is the moment at which the Trojans, pressed by the Greeks and shattered by the onslaught of Diomedes, decide to send Hector back into Troy. Whilst Diomedes and Glaucus meet on the battlefield and enact an exchange of armour that represents in miniature the complex ethics of the Homeric honour code, Hector plunges headlong into a world of women.1 In the city of Troy, where the possibility of peace still lingers on the air, Hector meets his mother, Hecuba; his sister-in-law, Helen; and his wife, Andromache. Each woman, in their different way, makes her attempt to persuade him to stay, but it is the encounter with Andromache, Hectors wife and the mother of his son, that makes the real impact.2 As husband and wife stand on the walls of Troy at the boundary between the battlefield and the peaceful city, the tragic gap between the two worlds of the hero becomes more painfully apparent than ever before. Andromache and her son cannot enter into the world of war. Hector cannot change his commitment to the heroic code. And yet, despite this, for a single moment, as the war rages beneath the walls and the women pray in the temple for the Trojans safety, the two share a brief smile over their son, Astyanax. For a while, at least, the two worlds of Troy hang in the balance.
To this all-important and poignantly moving book, G. and H. bring their characteristic...