Trojan War: The Podcast

THE STORY:  (46 minutes)   Ten years into the siege of Troy a priest of Apollo arrives at the command tent of Agamemnon, Commander in Chief of the Greeks.  The priest makes a simple request of Agamemnon. Agamemnon refuses, and Greek soldiers die in the thousands.  And then things turn truly ugly… THE COMMENTARY:  DID A GUY NAMED HOMER EXIST, & DID HE WRITE THE ILIAD?  (16 minutes; begins at 46:00)  This particular episode of Trojan War: The Podcast brings our story arc into Homer’s Iliad itself.  I use the post-story commentary to discuss “all things Iliad” including:  who was/was there a Homer; how was the Iliad composed; and why do we have copies of the Iliad today?  I begin by reminding listeners that the first ten episodes of Trojan War: The Podcast are not found in Homer’s Iliad.  Rather, they are part of what scholars refer to as the Trojan War Epic Cycle:  a jambalaya of stories, bits of stories, accounts of bits of stories, and references to accounts of bits of stories, that have managed to survive,