The Iliad, composed by Homer in c. 650 BCE, is a cornerstone of ancient Greek literature and contains numerous descriptions of warfare. For many years, scholars argued that its portrayal of warfare in the Trojan War comes from accurately preserved traditions originating in Bronze Age Mycenaean Greece.
However, although some current researchers still argue for this, it has mostly fallen out of favor within serious Homeric scholarship. What do scholars now understand about the way that warfare is depicted in Homer’s Iliad?