Immortality in the Iliad

We were excited to welcome Professor Bruno Currie to our classics centre yesterday to talk to sixth form classicists about immortality in the Iliad. Professor Currie focussed closely on passages in book sixteen which detail the death of Zeus' son Sarpedon, and showed how in another poem Aethiopis (now lost, though a summary remains) a similar narrative about the death of the hero Memnon indicates that Homer was purposefully removing the offer of immortality for the heroes in his poem. We discussed why, as well as wider topics such as the oral tradition, whether Homer wrote both the Iliad and the Odyssey, and even whether Virgil's Aeneid was propaganda for Augustus' regime or not! 

We are very grateful to Professor Currie for making the time to deliver his very interesting talk.