Human Existence and War - the Homeric Poems and Aeschylus Oresteia - Essay Example

This paper is an attempt to discuss Homer’s and Aeschylus’s conceptions of war.

In the Iliad, war is portrayed as useless, violent, and dreadful. War negatively affects all those involved: the warrior, families, and communities. It only brings destruction. There are no definite victors in the Iliad. Vast portions of the population die for nothing due to some of the warriors’ conceit and sentimental choices. For instance, Achilles brings about the demise of his comrade by initially declining to participate in the war, placing the Greek army in a weak position, and afterward wrongly encouraging his comrade Patroclus to get involved in the war. Even the preliminary root of the war, the abduction of Helen by Paris, a lady from Greece, is an impulsive, unthinking, and self-centered action.

Even though the impact of war on is a main issue in Homeric epics, he did not venerate the idea of war and cruelty in his epics. Rather, he embodied the idea of warfare as a natural element of human existence, and that men are encouraged to participate in and that should not perhaps be taken for granted. Though revered war might appear throughout the three abovementioned epics, a comprehensive and detailed analysis of the epics unearths the inconsequential effect of war on warriors, families, and communities. Readers may think that war was a celebrated and adored element of society. Remarkable and brave warriors are treated like gods, and they are considered a supernatural generation of human beings. Nevertheless, in truth, all wars are staged because of personal motives, especially those related to self-indulgence and covetousness.
The moral premise given to the concept of war differs greatly from one scholar to another.

For instance, the Iliad views war as a requirement of human life and hence the war is a representation of human existence itself, an existence where the greatest values are demonstrated in tragic bravery. In the other Homeric poem, the Odyssey, there is a firm and obvious argument that the life of a warrior is a knowledge and skill that has to be learned or gained by someone desiring to leave his family for the sake of something ‘greater’. In the play Aeschylus, there is a powerful idea that war is a justifiable act of vengeance for the transgression of Helen and Paris against Menelaus. However, concurrently, Aeschylus argues that war is something families and communities loathe, for it reduces the younger population and weakens the political or public domain by depriving it of great leaders.

People see justice as a notion based on reason, established in their societies or communities, but they have a rigid feeling about justice as well, within the community and the family. The vengeance philosophy of war attached to those firm sentiments in the play of Homer and Aeschylus remains open to challenges. Read More