Composed sometime in the 8th century BCE, this epic poem tells of the final weeks of the Trojan War. Regarded as amongst the earliest and most important works in Western literary tradition, it has inspired writers and poets through the ages. It is attributed to the blind poet, Homer.

The legendary history of Homer represents him as a schoolmaster and poet of Smyrna, who while visiting in Ithaca became blind, and afterwards spent his life travelling from place to place reciting his poems, until he died in Ios. Seven cities, Smyrna, Chios, Colophon, Ithaca, Pylos, Argos, and Athens, claimed to be his birthplace.

In 1795, Wolf, a German scholar, published his Prolegomena, which set forth his theory that Homer was a fictitious character, and that the Iliad was made up of originally unconnected poems, collected and combined by Pisistratus. Though for a time this theory had many advocates, it is now generally conceded that although the stories of the fall of Troy were current long before Homer, they were collected and recast into one poem by some great poet. That the Iliad is the work of one man is clearly shown by its unity, its sustained simplicity of style, and the centralization of interest in the character of Achilles.

The destruction of Troy, for a time regarded as a poetic fiction, is now believed to have been an actual historical event that took place sometimes towards the end of the 13th century BCE. The whole story of the fall of Troy is not related in the Iliad - the poem opens nine years after the beginning of the war, and closes with the death of Hector.

In the modern, accepted version, the Iliad contains fifteen thousand six hundred and ninety-three lines. It is usually paired with the Odyssey, also attributed to Homer.

Presented here is the story of the Iliad as available in English in the public domain.