Literary Contexts and Attitudes towards War

Connecting a poem to its world

Literature about warfare does more than describe fighting. It can encourage courage, defend sacrifice or reveal what violence does to individuals and families. Historical and cultural context helps explain why a writer emphasises particular aspects of war.

A useful connection has three parts: a relevant circumstance or value, a specific detail in the text, and an explanation of the attitude that detail expresses. Equally important is the distinction between an ideal and reality. A poem urging soldiers not to flee shows that steadfastness was valued; it does not prove that soldiers always stood their ground.

Homer: honour, religion and the costs of battle

The Iliad, composed around the eighth century BC, presents the legendary Trojan War rather than a contemporary campaign. Its warriors inhabit a world in which family reputation, public honour and divine favour matter intensely. Battle offers opportunities for glory, but the poem also exposes the suffering that pursuit creates.

In Book 5, Diomedes' success combines personal courage with Athena's help: she strengthens him and guides the spear that kills Pandarus. Capturing Aeneas' valuable horses promises further glory. Yet the same fighting destroys families: Diomedes kills both sons of the elderly Phaenops, leaving their father grieving without heirs. Homer places military achievement beside its consequences for those left behind.

Religious belief also sets limits on violence. Athena permits Diomedes to wound Aphrodite, but Apollo warns him not to think himself equal to the gods. In Book 6, the Trojan women offer Athena a robe and promise sacrifices to protect their city; she refuses their prayer. Worship matters, but does not guarantee safety.

Other obligations can interrupt battle. Diomedes and Glaucus discover inherited guest-friendship between their families and agree not to fight each other. Their exchange of armour publicly recognises that bond. They still intend to kill other enemies, so this is a limited restraint, not a rejection of warfare.

Homer: duty can conflict with compassion

Hector's conversation with Andromache in Book 6 gives military duty a domestic setting. She has already lost her father and brothers to Achilles and fears becoming a widow. Hector understands her fear and anticipates her enslavement, but says that avoiding battle would shame him before the Trojans. His obligations as a defender pull him away from the household he wants to protect.

In Book 22, that pressure becomes dangerous. Hector fears criticism because he ignored Polydamas' advice to withdraw the army. He chooses to face Achilles rather than return in disgrace, although he then runs in terror. The poem recognises fear even in a respected warrior. Athena's deception and Zeus' weighing of the warriors' fates also show that the outcome is not determined by courage alone.

Achilles' revenge for Patroclus leads him to refuse Hector's request for proper treatment of his corpse and drag the body behind his chariot. Military victory becomes an act of humiliation that spreads grief through Troy. Book 24 offers a different attitude: Priam appeals to Achilles' love for his own father, and the enemies weep together. Achilles returns Hector's body in obedience to Zeus and with renewed pity, though his warning to Priam shows that his anger has not simply disappeared. Homer therefore presents glory, revenge, restraint and compassion within the same warrior culture.

Tyrtaeus: the Second Messenian War

Tyrtaeus wrote in the mid-seventh century BC and was probably Spartan. He is traditionally associated with the Second Messenian War, when the Messenians revolted against Spartan domination following Sparta's earlier conquest of their territory. The struggle put pressure on Spartan society as well as its fighters. Calls for loyalty and steadfastness belong to a community facing resistance to its rule, not merely to an abstract celebration of bravery.

His poetry remained influential long afterwards. Athenaeus, quoting the earlier writer Philochorus, reports that Spartans sang Tyrtaeus' poems on campaign after dinner and a hymn of thanksgiving. Such traditions suggest how poetry could reinforce military values, although their late recording means that precise performance practices and stories about Tyrtaeus' personal military leadership require caution.

The ‘fallen warrior’ poem begins by calling death noble when a man falls at the front defending his fatherland. The reason for fighting is collective: the soldier protects his city, its farmland and the people who depend on it. Tyrtaeus makes that connection concrete by describing the alternative—a displaced man wandering in poverty with his parents, children and wife. Losing a secure place in the community threatens a whole household, not just one fighter.

The contrast also uses honour and shame. The defender receives praise, whereas the wanderer suffers rejection and disgrace extending to his descendants. Tyrtaeus presents willingness to risk death as preferable to a life without security or respect. His language presents the Spartan cause as defence of home and family; it does not describe the conflict from the viewpoint of the Messenians resisting Spartan control.

Courage means standing together

Tyrtaeus tells young men to stand beside one another, avoid panic and not abandon older fighters. The closing image is physically precise: each man plants both feet firmly, stands with legs apart and bites his lip. Courage is represented through a stable body holding its position alongside others.

This emphasis connects with the principle of the hoplite phalanx: heavily armed infantry fighting close together depend on their companions remaining in position. Flight can endanger others, not just the man who runs. However, scholars debate the precise tactics reflected in Tyrtaeus' poetry, so these lines should not be treated as a complete description of a fully developed Spartan formation.

His graphic description of an older man dying exposed in the dust makes the consequences of abandonment disturbing. Its purpose is not simply to condemn warfare: it shames younger men into protecting their elders. By contrast, the young warrior is described as admirable while alive and beautiful when fallen at the front.

The poem thus combines the brutality of death with its glorification. Its central attitude is that the community's survival and honour justify personal danger, while flight betrays those who need protection. These are values Tyrtaeus promotes, not proof that all Spartans always welcomed war or death.

Horace: military values after Rome's civil wars

Horace's Odes belong to Augustan Rome. The recent civil wars had involved Romans fighting Romans; Augustus' victory over Antony and Cleopatra at Actium helped establish his dominance. Horace's poetry praised Augustus for bringing peace to a troubled people and supported his attempts to revive traditional customs and morality.

That background gives Odes 3.2 a wider purpose than encouraging battlefield success. Military discipline becomes part of rebuilding Roman moral strength. The boy must learn to make hardship his friend, live outdoors and face dangerous action. Horace presents service as an education in endurance rather than a comfortable route to prestige.

The young fighter is imagined as a horseman armed with a lance attacking the Parthians, an external enemy rather than fellow Romans. Seen from the enemy's walls, he inspires fear and admiration. Comparing him to a dangerous lion makes his aggression appear powerful and impressive, although ‘blood-stained anger’ also conveys its violence. This is an idealised picture of military strength, not a report of a particular victory.

Like Tyrtaeus, Horace praises patriotic sacrifice: ‘It is sweet and fitting to die for one's country.’ He denies that flight offers a secure alternative: death pursues the fleeing soldier and strikes his back or hamstrings. The bodily detail reinforces the argument that avoiding battle does not guarantee survival.

Horace: virtue extends beyond fighting

Horace then broadens the poem beyond military courage. Virtue retains its honour regardless of political defeat or shifts in popular opinion. The reference to taking up or putting down the axes connects the poem with public authority: true moral worth is more lasting than holding office. Courage belongs to a larger moral ideal, rather than depending on political success or applause.

The closing references to the secret rites of Ceres and punishment by Jupiter connect proper conduct with religious loyalty and divine justice. Horace praises keeping sacred secrets and warns that punishment can catch the wicked. In its Augustan setting, the poem's combination of courage, integrity and religious responsibility fits the promotion of moral renewal. It does not praise military aggression alone.

Virgil: legendary warfare and Augustan Rome

Virgil composed the Aeneid between 29 and 19 BC, in the aftermath of the civil wars and during Augustus' establishment of a new political order. Its story concerns the legendary Trojan Aeneas, who escapes Troy and travels towards Italy. These events belong to the mythical past, but prepare the ancestry and destiny of Rome and, eventually, Augustus.

The poem connects that new order with an older story of divine ancestry and destiny. Elsewhere in the epic, prophecies and visions celebrate Rome's future greatness; Aeneas' shield includes Augustus' defeat of Antony and Cleopatra. Yet the poem does not make Aeneas himself the founder of the city of Rome: his mission prepares its later foundation.

This political connection does not make every act of violence admirable. The prescribed Book 2 passage, lines 268–804, begins with Hector's ghost telling Aeneas to escape and preserve Troy's sacred objects. Saving the community now requires survival and continuity, rather than dying in an unwinnable battle.

Troy's fall: courage does not guarantee justice

Aeneas initially resists that instruction. Anger drives him to gather companions, and he thinks it beautiful to die fighting. Virgil shows the attraction of a glorious last stand, but also its limitations: the city is already lost, and courage cannot reverse divine opposition.

Coroebus proposes wearing captured Greek armour, asking who would question courage or deceit in war. The disguise brings temporary success, but then Trojans mistake the group for enemies and attack them. Attempts to rescue Cassandra end in slaughter. Ripheus, described as exceptionally just, dies, and Panthus' religious office cannot protect him. Goodness and bravery do not ensure survival.

The killing of Priam makes the difference between victory and moral worth especially stark. Pyrrhus kills Polites before his parents and then murders Priam at the altar. Priam contrasts this cruelty with Achilles' earlier respect for him as a suppliant. The comparison recalls Iliad Book 24: even enemies can recognise obligations that violent anger now destroys.

Aeneas: preserving a future amid loss

After Priam's death, Aeneas thinks of his own family, but anger again diverts him towards revenge against Helen. Venus stops him, reminds him of his dependants and reveals that the gods are destroying Troy. Fighting on cannot save the city.

The escape develops the Roman ideal of pietas: obligations towards gods, family and community. Aeneas carries Anchises and leads Ascanius, while Anchises carries the sacred objects because Aeneas' hands are polluted by recent slaughter. The flame on Ascanius' head and the celestial sign persuade Anchises that departure has divine approval. Escape is therefore not simply cowardly flight; it serves responsibilities beyond personal glory.

Nevertheless, the future comes at a cost. Creusa disappears, and Aeneas returns through danger to search for her. Her ghost foretells his life in Italy, but he cannot embrace her. The passage ends with him leading a displaced community away from Troy. Rome's future is prepared through bereavement and exile, not uncomplicated triumph.

Comparing attitudes without flattening them

Tyrtaeus and Horace both encourage soldiers to accept danger. Tyrtaeus particularly stresses collective resistance and protection of dependants; Horace connects endurance with lasting virtue and religious responsibility in Augustan Rome.

Homer and Virgil give more space to conflicting pressures and consequences. Honour can sustain courage, but also encourage disastrous choices; military strength can coexist with cruelty, while compassion and duty can restrain violence. Across these works, admiration for courage need not exclude awareness of suffering. A strong interpretation explains how those attitudes coexist rather than labelling each poem simply ‘pro-war’ or ‘anti-war’.