Epic stories are not merely entertaining stories of legendary or historical heroes; they summarize and express the nature of ideals of an entire nation at a significant or crucial period of its history. Therefore, the characteristics of the hero of an epic are national rather than individual, and the exercise of those traits in heroic deeds serves to gratify a sense of national pride. .

             The importance of the Homeric poems for the history and culture of the universal civilization is rather considerable. Many of the legends portrayed in both the Iliad and the Odyssey have served the historical tradition and the popular fiction of the Greeks. Homer's epics are considered to be true in their essence, as they are based on verifiable historical data, but imaginative in their details, as the techniques used by Homer abound in spectacular and supernatural events.

             The Iliad is set in the final year of the Trojan War, which forms the background for its central plot. The Greek hero Achilles, insulted by his commander, Agamemnon, withdraws from the war, leaving his fellow Greek to suffer terrible defeats at the hands of the Trojans. When his companion Patroclus is slain by the Trojans, Achilles, full of remorse and anger turns his wrath against them, killing their lieder Hector. The poem ends as Achilles surrenders the corpse of Hector to his father Priam for burial. Although the poem is placed on a background of war, it has no real villains in the true sense of the idea; each of the characters is caught up in insoluble dilemmas. Achilles, for instance, even though he is praised as being "loved of heaven", considered to be the utmost example of human morality, he is willing to give up his place as the head of the army; yet he is aware of the fact that "I should be a mean coward," he cried, "were I to give in to you in all things. Order other people about, not me, for I shall obey no longer. Furthermore I say--and lay my saying to your heart--I shall fight neither you nor any man about this girl, for those that take were those also that gave.