How Peace drew on The Iliad
A documented line of influence: Aristophanes demonstrably engaged Homer’s work. The commentary below is Gröblé’s, verbatim from each work’s page.
The source
The Iliad
Homer · c. 750 BCE
Ancient GreeceThe influenced
Peace
Aristophanes · 421 BCE
Ancient GreeceRelevance
6/10
On Peace’s page
- Aristophanes assumes you know your Homer — Peace names him twice and quotes the Iliad outright
- Trygaeus wields a line of Homer's against the warmongers, while a soldier's son recites the epic's militaristic verses to show war still owns the young imagination
- The Iliad behind you, the comedy's tug-of-war over Homer's legacy — peace vs. war, both claiming the poet — lands as the joke Aristophanes meant
On The Iliad’s page
- Three centuries on, Aristophanes turns Homer into a weapon for the antiwar side
- In Peace, Trygaeus quotes the Iliad by name — deploying Homer's own line against the warmongers — even as the Iliad's martial verses still fire up the next generation at the wedding feast
- The epic that glorified the rage of Achilles becomes the script both peace and war quote from