Iliad Questions

BOOKS 1-8

1. What is the structure of Homeric society?

2. What is at issue between Achilles and Agamemnon?

3. What has happened to women?

4. What are the virtues of a Homeric hero?

5.  Who are the Gods?

6. What relationship to Agamemnon, Odysseus, and Achilles have to the scepter?  What does this indicate about the coherence of Homeric society?
BOOKS 9-16

1. In the embassy scene (Book 9), what does Odysseus leave out of his speech to Achilles?  Why?  How does Achilles know that he has left it out?

2. What is Phoenix's story in the embassy scene?  Why does it seem to move Achilles?

3. What does Aias say in the Embassy scene to move Achilles the most?

4. Who is Achilles?

5. Why do certain gods align with the Greeks and others with the Trojans?

6. What is the nature of force in the Iliad?

Books 17-24

1. How might what happens to Achilles upon learning of the death of Patroclus be seen as a ritual transformation?

2. What does the imagery on Achilles new shield mean?

3. What does Achilles fighting with the river Skamandros mean?

4. What does the death of Hector mean? (pay close attention to the armor)

5. What does the games of Book 23 indicate about the structure of a new society?  Look carefully at the chariot race?  Why do the contestants announce in the order they do?  What is the actual order of the finish?  the adjusted order?  the order of prizes?

6. What does the meeting with Achilles and Priam in Book 24 indicate about the possibility of human society?

 
Presocratics Questions

Day 1

1. How might Thales' statement that the first principle and basic nature of all things is water be related to ritual culture?  How does it represent a new way of being in the world?

2. How is the 'indefinite' (apeiron) of Anaximander a 'logical' advance over Thales' water?  How is Anaximander's fragment related to ritual culture?*

3. What do you think that Heraclitus means by 'logos' and how does it develop the metaphysics of previous presocratic philosophy and ritual culture?* (for advanced students)

4. Take one of Heraclitus' riddling statements and say both what you think he means by it and how he is using language to embody his philosophy.

 

 Day 2

Why, according to Parmenides, is there no such thing as change? How does his philosophy relate to ritual culture (see especially the prologue of his poem.
Herodotus Questions

Day 1:

1. What does the story about Candaules and his wife tell us about the kind of culture that lies just beneath the surface of history and the forces at work in history?

2. What is Solon's wisdom and how does Herodotus incorporate it in his history?

3. What is Herodotus' concept of historical forces such that oracles strange events and dreams play such an important role?

 Day 2:

1. What does the Xerxes' dream episode mean about the nature of Persia and the causes of history?*

2. What qualities of the Athenians allow them to defeat the much larger Persian forces at Marathon and Salamis? What qualities of the Persians lead to their defeat (look carefully at the events in Xerxes' march).*

3. Look carefully at the last scenes of the Histories on Masistes' wife and the last story.  What do these reveal about the way Herodotus conceives the workings of history and fate?*

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