The Illiad is a surprisingly good read, although I freely admit I skipped the one chapter that was just a big long list of ships and men. Oddly enough, I didn'

The Illiad is a surprisingly good read, although I freely admit I skipped the one chapter that was just a big long list of ships and men. Oddly enough, I didn't immediately recall any of the deaths mentioned as the top three grimmest in that infographic. It was the gruesomely detailed descriptions of disembowelments that got to me! The combat and gorily detailed deaths of the Illiad are so vivid that I've often wondered if Homer was himself an experienced combatant or, alternatively, when all that detail was added. The Illiad was passed down as an oral tradition before being written down, so many veterans of war could have added embellishments over the years, or perhaps the man who finally wrote it down was a soldier or physician (or possibly both)!