“Then there arose together shouts and shouts of triumph, of men killing and of men slain, and the ground dripped blood.” At first glance, the Iliad appears to be an epic based on an idealized form of glory, the one that boys think of when they want to join the army. A place full of heroism and manliness where glory can be achieved with a few strokes of the sword and then you go home and everything is just lovely. Many people view the Iliad this way, based on its vivid descriptions of battles and apparent lack of remorse for the deaths that occur. But this is not how war is presented in the Iliad. Homer presents a very practical view of war, contrasting the achievement of glory with the reality of its price and the destruction it causes. It does this successfully by showing the value of the life of each person who dies and, in a sense, mourning their passing, describing the terror and ugliness of war and, through the characters of Achilleus and Hector, showing the high price of glory . .The Iliad is filled to the brim with epithets describing the many major and minor characters. These short descriptive titles contain themes ranging from a person's strengths to their family history. Many of the characters who receive them are only mentioned once, when they die. It gives a sense of sadness to these deaths, which would have been insignificant if nothing had been known about them. In book 4 this can be seen in Ajax's killing of a Trojan, Anthemonius' son Simoeisios. His death scene is described quite vividly as incredibly grotesque, but only after Homer describes his family and how he "could no longer care for his dear parents, for he was short-lived." Even... middle of paper... destined to return home and be forgotten, or to fight and die, achieving great glory and being remembered forever. The price that heroes pay for the glory they achieve is something that is easily forgotten if one does not read the Iliad in the context of the times. At the time of the Iliad, glory and honor were even more important than now. It is easy to get lost in the descriptive nature of the epic, which gives reason to believe that the Iliad is simply a glorification of combat, but this is not the case. The Iliad is based on principles much deeper than combat, glorifying the pursuit of honor and the sacrifices great men will make to achieve this honor. If Achilleus had not joined his companions, taking pity on them, he would never have been remembered even if he still had great valor in battle, because he did not use it to help his friends.