The Iliad Summary

The Iliad is a long epic poem traditionally attributed to Homer, the poet of ancient Greece. It is set during the Trojan War, when the Greek kings laid siege to the city of Troy. But the Iliad does not tell the whole war. It covers only a few dozen days in the tenth year of the fighting, and at its heart is one thing: the wrath of Achilles, the greatest hero on the Greek side.

Episode 1 adapts Book 1, where that wrath begins. Chryses, a priest of the god Apollo, comes to the Greek camp with a ransom to free his captured daughter, Chryseis. Agamemnon, the commander of the Greek army, harshly drives him away. Apollo hears the priest's prayer and, in his anger, shoots arrows of plague into the Greek camp. For nine days the fires burning the dead never go out.

At an assembly, the seer Calchas reveals the cause. Agamemnon agrees to give the girl back, but in exchange he says he will take Briseis, the woman awarded to Achilles as his prize. Furious, Achilles begins to draw his sword, but the goddess Athena stops him, and he swears to withdraw from the fighting. As he weeps on the shore, his mother Thetis appears and carries his plea to Zeus on Olympus. When Zeus nods, the mountain shakes, and hard days of battle are sealed for the Greeks.