![]() ![]() Achilles is a near-exception to the rule of mortality: by legend, his mother Thetis dipped him in the river Styx as an infant, giving him immortality except for his famous heel. The gods also serve as a counterpart for the fragility of men. The immortal gods may endow a man with nearly immortal powers for a day, such as Diomedes or Hector, but such moments of glory are ultimately limited. However, death in battle is also natural, as Glaucus indicates: “Like the generations of leaves, the lives of mortal men…as one generation comes to life, another dies away.” Homer frequently provides a small story of the life or family history of the deceased, a gesture that shows the tragedy of how much those soldiers leave behind them. The poem’s battles are filled with descriptions of the deaths of soldiers who only appear in the poem in order to pass away. ![]() As a story of war, the Iliad confronts the fact that all men are doomed to die. ![]()
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