Holy Thebe

The Iliad conveys an impression of, infinite resources of storytelling. The scale is vast, in terms of the numbers of people and divinities involved and the range of places included: besides Troy and its immediate surroundings, and the divine vantage-points of Olympus and Ida, there are the Troad and nearby islands, scene of Greek raids during the long years of the wars against Troy, and the many cities of Greece associated with the different Achaean heroes. But all this material is handled in a strictly selective way, 1 and the effect is to concentrate and intensify, to give greater weight to those details that are chosen for attention. The terms ‘economy’ and ‘scope’, often used to characterise the system of formulaic composition, can just as usefully be applied to the narrative design.