"So the immortals spun our lives that we, wretched men live on to bear such torment...." This one statement, made by the godlike Achilles to King Priam in the last chapter of the book, provides the reader a contextual summary of what the Greeks believed was their role in the universe. Robert Fitzgerald translated The Iliad, composed orally by Homer three thousand years ago. The Iliad, among many other themes contained in the poem, is …showed first 75 words of 714 total…

…showed last 75 words of 714 total…that Homer not only portrays the conflict and torment of man generated by war, but also by the very social structure adhered to by the Greeks. Their very nature and life was continuously challenged by their struggles with fate, the gods and their fellow man. And it was through these challenges that the torments bore on their lives. This was the fate of the human condition. "And fate? No man alive has ever escaped it."