The Iliad - Book 17 - Menelaus’ Finest Hour - The fight for Patroclus’s body

• Reading time: about 55 minutes but just read lines 1-240 and then 445-543 and then 618-675 and then 705 to the end

• We want to find out Achilles’s reaction to the killing of Patroclus, but this book holds us back from seeing that as the Trojans and Menelaus and Ajax fight over the body of Patroclus.

• The importance of cremation and burial.

• Without proper cremation and burial of the ashes, the Greeks believed the dead person could not properly go down to Hades.

• Achilles’ armor

• Patroclus went to battle wearing Achilles’ armor. Hector has stripped Patroclus of that armor, so Achilles, when he reenters battle, will have no armor.
• Book 18 will show us how Achilles got new armor. It will also give us a view of ideal Greek life in Homer's time.