Poetry, as has been remarked on more than one occasion, is a metaphorical expression of life - and "War," says Thucydides, "is a violent teacher" (xxix). What better way to express the lessons of life that history encompasses than via the medium of epic poetry? This is what the ancient Greeks thought when considering Homer's Iliad (Knox 23). Indeed, even in the work of the seminal Greek historian Thucydides, credited by contemporary historians with "sweep[ing] myth away from old stories" (Woodruff ix), the comparison is made that his History of the Peloponnesian War bears strong resemblance to creations of the "tragic poets" (Woodruff ix). Taking the Greek orientation to history and epic poetry as a starting point, then, it is not a difficult stretch of the imagination to consider this proposition: What Athens was to the Peloponnesian War, Achilles was in The Iliad. Homer is our primary source for the Trojan War; Thucydides is the primary source for accounts of the Peloponnesian War. From the perspective of these two writers' works, the Achilles-to-Athens portrayal appears an accurate comparison. It will be the purpose of this paper to examine how the poetic metaphor supports the historical interpretation.
A few assumptions and qualifiers must be established at the outset. For the purpose of argument, it will be assumed that Homer is a single, historical persona. This is the consensus opinion among literary researchers, but it is by no means unanimous (Knox 8-10). The word "persona," then, is to be taken at its broadest interpretation; that, even if there are several contributors to The Iliad, the finished work as it has influenced subsequent millennia represents a fairly consistent, particular, essentially individual poetic and philosophical worldview. The assumptions for Thucydides' work, The History of the Peloponnesian War, are less complex. Thucydides died after the war's end - but before completing his chronicle ...