Six things I learned from reading The Iliad

He kicked down the wall of the Achaeans as easily as a child who, playing on the sea-shore, has built a house of sand and then kicks it down again and destroys it.

Can't blame them. Healthy outdoor fun AND an always handy metaphor for the transience of earthly things.

But father Zeus, when he saw Athena and Hera, was very angry… …’I will hurl them from their chariot, and will break it in pieces. It will take them all ten years to heal the wounds my lightning shall inflict upon them; my grey-eyed daughter will then learn what quarrelling with her father means. I am less surprised and angry with Hera, for whatever I say she always contradicts me.’

…like a lurid rainbow Zeus sends arching down to mortal men from the high skies, a sign of war or blizzard to freeze the summer’s warmth.

The fortunes of war have turned against us. Is this because of bad leadership, low morale, or because we are simply outnumbered? No, man, I'm telling you, it's because of tHe GoDs!!1! They're monitoring and controlling everything and selectively interfering at seemingly random times. And the only reason you can't see them is that they're so powerful they can make themselves invisible.

When the luck of battle changes every other moment in an inscrutable chaos and the guy who was just being blessed by the higher powers 10 minutes ago is now having a spear thrust through his liver and his skull crushed under a horse’s hoof, that's just because Ares was a huge fan of his but Athena hated his guts and they were just taking turns getting their way.

I never realized this:

The dead hero had had house-dogs; two of them did Achilles slay and threw upon the pyre; he also put twelve brave sons of noble Trojans to the sword and laid them with the rest, for he was full of bitterness and fury.

...and later:

He yoked his horses to his chariot, and bound the body of Hector behind it that he might drag it about. Thrice did he drag it round the tomb of the son of Menoetius, and then went back into his tent, leaving the body on the ground full length and with its face downwards.

And there's plenty where that came from. I was just waiting around for his inevitable demise and then the book bloody well ended before it even happened. Sheesh.