The Goriest Fight Scenes from The Iliad, Pt. 1

These people kicked the crap out of each other

“The Death of Hector”, by Peter Paul Reubens

The Iliad is a totemic work of early Western literature.

For good reason! It has moments of gorgeously observant poetry, as when Homer describes Achilles as a towering rogue wave rushing across the ocean, or a soldier toppling to his death as an ash-tree shedding its leaves. It’s an…