The Fourteen Most Creatively Brutal Deaths in the Iliad (Part 1)

Classical literature gets a bad rap for being boring. People see 'Homer' and their minds instantly glaze over, pre-armoring the brain against an assault of 'so spokes', 'then speakings', and 'thuses' like some ancient and extra-wordy Shakespeare (sorry, Shakespeare). Sure, Homer might have some neat stuff about gods and goddesses, and he might get a little spicy about the ladies, but how cool can a dude who told stories almost 3,000 years ago possibly be?

Answer: incredibly.

As it turns out, Homer is so cool that he might as well have donned a pair of Thug Life sunglasses. Like an Ancient Greek Quentin Tarantino, the dude (although, fun fact, exactly who Homer was is up for a LOT of debate) loves violence, the wilder the better. Do you like action movies, starring The Rock? So does Homer — except his huge muscular giant, Ajax, murks people with actual rocks. Do you like The Fast and The Furious? So does Homer — featuring absolutely insane chariot battles that make Vin Diesel look tame. Do you like gruesome Mortal-Kombat-style deaths? So does Homer — and oh boy, does he serve them up with a vengeance, helped along by the fact that anatomical knowledge at the time was questionable at best. People don't just die in the Iliad, they are smashed, impaled, exploded, and dismembered in a variety of alarmingly creative ways. Ready for a glimpse of the carnage? Let's step into the first seven deaths of our top fourteen list of creative brutality.

#14: Rocked His World (Peiros takes out Diores)

"Now his doom caught fast Amaryngkeus’ son Diores, who with a jagged boulder was smitten beside the ankle in the right shin, and a lord of the Thracian warriors threw it, Peiros, son of Imbrasos, who had journeyed from Ainos. The pitiless stone smashed utterly the tendons on both sides with the bones, and he was hurled into the dust backward reaching out both hands to his own beloved companions, gasping life out; the stone’s thrower ran up beside him, Peiros, and stabbed with his spear next the navel, and all his guts poured out on the ground, and a mist of darkness closed over both eyes." (Homer, Iliad, book 4, lines 517-526)

Wow, this poor guy. What a way to go. First, Diores gets his shin/ankle zone smashed by a rock (and I like how it's specified that the boulder is jagged — Homer is like 'it's a boulder, but an extra painful one, in case you were wondering'), and then, while he's dying from that, he gets stabbed in the bellybutton and somehow loses ALL of his innards in one go. Both parts of this are honestly pretty wild. It seems like strong overkill that he would die from a crushed ankle (at least, he might bleed out, but probably not immediately), but we reach even greater levels of overkill when one spear thrust causes 'all of his guts' to pour out on the ground. ALL of them? How? Through where? Is Diores pressure-sealed? Is he an airplane? Also, if your companions stand by and chill while some guy hits you with a rock and then strolls over for a spot of disembowelling, they probably shouldn't be described as 'beloved'. Just saying.

#13: By the Skin of His Teeth (Meges chews up Pedaios)

"Now the son of Phyleus, the spear-famed, closing upon him struck him with the sharp spear behind the head at the tendon, and straight on through the teeth and under the tongue cut the bronze blade, and he dropped in the dust gripping in his teeth the cold bronze." (Homer, Iliad, book 5, lines 72-75)

Okay so, pain-wise, this doesn't seem like the worst way to go — assuming that current-day anatomical principles apply, and it sounds like they don't (I feel like Pedaios would have been dead basically immediately, and probably would also have a severed tongue). Honestly, though, what a completely badass death. You get speared in the back and you can't do much, but you do chomp the hell out of the spear that's just impaled your skull (probably disarming Meges too, because that spear sounds difficult to retrieve). Shine on Pedasios, you crazy werewolf diamond.

#12: Death Race (Antilochos Final Destinations Mydon)

"Antilochos struck down Mydon, [Pylaimenes’] charioteer and henchman, Atymnios’ brave son, as he wheeled the single-foot horses about, with a stone striking mid-elbow, and from his hands the reins pale with ivory dropped in the dust groundling. Antilochos charging drove the sword into his temple, so that gasping he dropped from the carefully wrought chariot headlong, driven deep into the dust his neck and shoulders; and there, since he chanced to light in a depth of sand, he stuck fast while his horses trampled him into the dust with their feet." (Homer, Iliad, book 5, lines 580-588)

Meet Mydon, the unluckiest guy on the battlefield. He may be brave, but he definitely isn't favored by the gods. First off, the guy whose chariot he's driving is killed, so Mydon pulls a swift U-turn to see what's happening. Unfortunately for him, Antilochos takes this moment to pitch a rock which hits Mydon on the elbow, causing him to drop the reins (a coincidence in itself). Amazingly, Antilochos is subsequently able to accurately feed Mydon a sword to the head despite the fact that Mydon is standing on a moving and totally uncontrolled chariot. No biggie, though. The sword to the temple doesn't actually kill Mydon. However, it does make him fall out of the chariot, managing to both pitch out headfirst and do a flip midair, somehow landing in quicksand (?) (note: I'm pretty sure this is the only quicksand ever mentioned, so maybe the only spot on the whole battlefield) and immediately sinking up to his shoulders. WHAT. Again, this doesn't kill him. What does kill him are his own horses, who somehow manage to pull U-turn #2 just to trample the shit out of Mydon. And they don't even sink into the quicksand while they're at it, which is further proof that Mydon is 100% cursed.

#11: Over the Shoulder Boulder Holder (Aias smashes Epikles)

"First to kill his man was Telemonian Aias. It was Sarpedon’s companion in arms, high-hearted Epikles, whom he struck with a great jagged stone, that lay on the inside of the wall, huge, on top of the battlements. A man could not easily hold it, not even if he were very strong, in both hands, of men such as men are now, but he heaving it high threw it, and smashed in the four-sheeted helm, and pounded to pieces the bones of the head inside it, so that Epikles dropped like a diver from the high bastion, and the life left his bones." (Homer, Iliad, book 12, lines 378-386)

What a cool name Epikles is, considering that the dude himself seems to just be a vessel to show how incredibly terrifying Aias (otherwise known as Ajax) is. And what a description. Homer can't just stick to 'crushed by a rock', can he? Hell no, he's too extra for that. Here we see the return of the 'jagged' rock (not just a NORMAL rock, an extra-ouchy JAGGED rock), and, not only do we get the description of Epikles' helm being crushed, we get the in-helm danger cam of the actual bones of his head being shredderated. Thanks, Homer. We absolutely couldn't have figured that out on our own. Finally, there's a very poetic description of the dude who was just crushed by a boulder 'dropping like a diver'. I suppose 'dropping like a stone' was a little too on the nose.

#10: Tap That Ass (Meriones nails Harpalion)

"As he went back Meriones let fly at him with a bronze-shod arrow, and hit him beside the right buttock, so that the arrow was driven on through under the bone to fix in the bladder. There, sitting among the arms of his beloved companions, he gasped out his life, then lay like a worm extended along the ground, and his dark blood drenched the ground in its running." (Homer, Iliad, book 13, lines 650-655)

WHAT A WAY TO GO. Holy heck. This dude has it the worst. (This also sounds like it would have taken a while, honestly, but let's hope it was over quickly). And, for his sake, let's also hope that 'beside the right buttock' doesn't mean 'slightly to the left of the right buttock' because . . . OOF. Safe to say there won't be a lot of songs written about this one. The insult to injury really gets me here as well — not only did Homer choose to murder this poor guy with an ass-arrow, but after his death he's described as 'like a worm'. Okay Homer, we know you hate him, you don't gotta rub it in. (Fun Homeric fact: due to the way in which these stories were told, this exact death, ALSO committed by Meriones but to a different victim, shows up earlier in the Iliad as well. However, that victim isn't described as a worm, so this one seemed more brutal. It's due to recycling in epic verse, but we can also take it as Meriones' passion for ass-assination).

#9: All Heads on Deck (Aias cuts off Archelochos)

"He hit him at the joining place of head and neck, at the last vertebra, and cut through both of the tendons, so that the man’s head and mouth and nose hit the ground far sooner than did the front of his legs and knees as he fell." (Homer, Iliad, book 14, lines 465-468)

This is such a Mortal Kombat/brutal action flick style death, it's amazing. WHAT AN IMAGE. It's not a terrible way to go, but it's just such a visual masterpiece. It seems like this dude's head bounces and rolls (?), and then, slllloooowwwlllyyy, his legs crumple and he falls to his knees. You can almost hear the announcer guy yelling 'FINISH HIM!', and I'm pretty sure I've seen this exact thing in at least three action movies. Little did they know they were taking a page out of Homer.

#8: The Eyes Have It (Peneleos shishkabobs Ilioneus)

"This man Peneleos caught underneath the brow, at the bases of the eye, and pushed the eyeball out, and the spear went clean through the eye-socket and tendon of the neck, so that he went down backward, reaching out both hands, but Peneleos drawing his sharp sword hewed at the neck in the middle, and so dashed downward the head, with helm upon it, while still on the point of the big spear the eyeball stuck. He, lifting it high like the head of a poppy, displayed it to the Trojans." (Homer, Iliad, book 14, lines 493-500)

WHAT THE HELL HOMER. This is just disgustingly brutal. Like wowwwww. I had to save this one for last because it is absolute crazypants madness. And the anatomy makes NO SENSE. If he's caught under the brow, that seems like he's getting speared in the face, which means the eyeball would have to go THROUGH HIS HEAD, which is definitely not gonna happen. And it's really difficult to imagine catching both the eye and the neck with one spear, unless there's a heck of an angle going on. I'm also having some issues figuring out why Peneleos breaks out a sword to cut the dude's head off. Is it also impaled on the spear? Doesn't seem like it, but, if it isn't, HOW? And Peneleos must be holding the spear in one hand and the sword in the other, which seems . . . iffy. (Also, shout out to the inclusion of Ilioneus reaching out for his eyeball while impaled on a spear, which is very impressive, considering how dead he must be at the time). And then Peneleos waves the eyeball around 'like a poppy'. Very poetic, Homer. Very poetic. Ending on a classy note. Nice.

Still with me, readers? Maybe feeling a lil' bit queasy? We definitely hit some extremely brutal stops today, and this was just Part 1! Heaps more to follow in Part 2 (bring your own Gravol). And, if you feel the need to go check out some Homer, the copy I'm reading from is 'The Iliad of Homer', translated by Richmond Lattimore. I totally recommend it! Some older translations can get a bit dry, but Lattimore's is fun and easy to keep up with (once you get past the Catalogue of Ships. Oof). Stay epic, and see you in Part 2!