Timeline

A false dream, a broken truce, the exploits of Diomedes, and Hector’s farewell to Andromache lead to a day on which Zeus weighs the fates of the two armies. The Trojans gain the upper hand and camp on the plain for the first time.

Agamemnon offers Achilles a vast compensation, but Achilles refuses every gift. The Trojans break through the Achaean wall, Hector reaches the ships and calls for fire, and the Achaean position becomes desperate.

Patroclus borrows Achilles’ armour to save the ships, kills Sarpedon, and disobeys the warning not to pursue the Trojans to the walls. Apollo stuns him, Euphorbus wounds him, and Hector kills him.

Achilles grieves for Patroclus, receives new armour from Hephaestus, reconciles with Agamemnon, and returns to the field. Hector waits outside the walls, is deceived by Athena, and is killed by Achilles, who drags his body behind his chariot.

Patroclus is buried with funeral games. Priam enters the Achaean camp by night, guided by Hermes, and begs Achilles for Hector’s body. Achilles remembers his own father, returns the body, and grants a truce for the funeral. The Iliad ends with Hector’s burial.

Later tradition tells what the Iliad leaves out: the deaths of Achilles and Paris, the wooden horse, and the sack of Troy. The Odyssey begins after the city has fallen, with the surviving heroes trying to get home.

Odysseus leaves Calypso, survives the sea, and tells the Phaeacians of the Cyclops, the bag of winds, Circe, the underworld, the Sirens, Scylla and Charybdis, and the cattle of Helios. He loses every companion and reaches Scheria alone.

Odysseus reaches Ithaca in disguise, is recognized by his son and his old nurse, strings his bow in the contest, kills the suitors, and proves himself to Penelope by the secret of the olive-tree bed. Athena stops the feud with the suitors’ families, and Ithaca is at peace.