What is Iliad?
[[File:THE ILLIAD OF HOMER (translated by POPE) p1.217 2d Book Page 89.jpg|thumb|THE ILLIAD OF HOMER (translated by POPE) p1.217 2d Book Page 89]] [[Image:Beginning Iliad.svg|thumb|right|250px|The first verse of the ''Iliad'']] [[File:Homeric Greece-en.svg|thumb|250px|Map of Homeric Greece.]] The '''''Iliad''''' <ref>{{lang-el|Ἰλιάς}}; spelled in English with a single '''l''', as in Greek. The word comes from ''Ileum'', an alternative name for Troy.</ref> is the oldest surviving work of Greek literature. It was an [[Oral history|oral]] [[epic poem]]. People spoke it without reading it. It was written in the 8th century BC. It is an epic (or very long) poem with 24 [[Chapter (books)|chapters]] written in [[hexameter]]. The poem includes early Greek [[myth]]s and [[legend]]s. It may have been based on a [[Bronze Age]] attack on the city [[Troy]]. People usually say that [[Homer]] wrote the ''Iliad''. However, [[scholar]]s are not sure that only one person really wrote the whole poem. The story happens during the [[Trojan War]], some time around 1200 BC. It talks about the confrontations of the [[warrior]] [[Achilles]] and [[King]] [[Agamemnon]]. The story is only about a few weeks at the end of the war, but it also talks about many of the Greek myths about the war. It tells the story from the [[Anger|wrath]] of [[Achilles]], to the death and [[funeral]] of [[Hector]] and the [[siege]] of [[Troy]]. Together with another of Homer's poems, the ''[[Odyssey]]'', it is one of the two major [[Ancient Greece|Greek]] epic poems. Some important characters in the ''Iliad'' are [[Achilles]], [[Odysseus]], [[Agamemnon]], [[Menelaus]], [[Priam]], [[Hector]], [[Paris (mythology)|Paris]], and [[Helen]]. == Plot == The poem starts with the god [[Apollo]] sending a [[plague]] to the Greeks, because they captured the daughter of one of his Trojan priests. Agamemnon is forced to give the daughter back. So that he has a girl of his own, Agamemnon takes the [[slavery|captured]] Trojan girl [[Briseis]] from her owner Achilles. Achil