Why do they make us read things like The Illiad in high school? There’s no way someone still in their early teens has any way to truly comprehend the full scope of a story like this. You have to have lived a little, experienced some of life’s pain, hardship and hard-fought victories to truly appreciate a story such as this.

Achilles is the name most remembered from this epic tale. But Hector was the true hero. He had the valor, the integrity, the humility and the humanity to be a true king. Achilles was the tragic fool. He thought he was his own master, the slave of none, the one others turned to. But he was a prisoner to something far worse that a greedy king. He was a prisoner of his own anger, and his own insatiable appetite for lasting fame.

In the end what did the Greeks gain for all Agamemnon’s warring? A city in ashes, a dead king, a slain warrior and a people in desperate need of a true leader. They needed a king like Priam, King of Troy. A true hero and warrior, a kind yet strong leader, like his eldest son.

Odysseus prays that Achilles finds peace in death. My heart ached with overwhelming sorrow for this sad, angry man and I found myself wondering if God granted him peace and mercy in death. I realize he may never have really existed. He may merely be an amalgamation of several Greek warriors whose stories eventually blended into one mythic figure. But don’t you ever wonder about people like Achilles, who lived so long ago, in lands where the God of Abraham, isaac and Jacob was not known? What happened to their souls when their bodies died? Did God have mercy on them?

How much time have I spent living like Achilles, with all the anger of the world in my heart, and a foolish drive to ensure my name lives long after my bones have returned to dust? How sad it is that we can live our whole lives engulfed in our own small stories, when God is writing such a larger, grander one with mythic parts just for us. Hector saw the larger story — and he, like the wise man in Ecclesiates 9:14-15 (who was not remembered at all), is not remembered nearly as much as Achilles. Achilles, Agamemnon, Odysseus, those who are most remembered, lived their whole lives overwhelmed by their own small stories, never seeing the true scope of Life as Hector, Priam and eventually Paris did.

Perhaps that was Homer’s point… I guess it’s time to dust off my copy of The Illiad and find out.