Troy, Trojans and Priam · Lexicon

From the book

Alcibiades II

Plato · Diotimos Editions · 2026

Orientation

At a Glance

The wordThe Trojans, holy Ilium and Priam appear in the Homeric passage about sacrifices the gods refuse.
In Alcibiades IIThe Trojans make camp and offer perfect hecatombs.
In this editionNote 36 assigns the quotation to Iliad 8.548–552 but says only line 549 stands at this location in the Homeric manuscripts; the last line also occurs at 4.47, 4.165 and 6.449.
A place to readSocrates introduces the Homeric parallel and the Trojans’ perfect sacrifices.

Meaning

The Trojans, holy Ilium and Priam appear in the Homeric passage about sacrifices the gods refuse. Ilium is Troy, and Priam is the named ruler whose people share the gods’ hatred. Their function is collective exemplification of religious expenditure that cannot purchase acceptance.

Use in the book

The Trojans make camp and offer perfect hecatombs. The savour reaches heaven on the wind, so the failure is not represented as a material failure to present the offering. The blessed gods refuse their share because the city, its king and its people are hateful to them. Socrates infers that the sacrificing and gift-paying were useless.

The scene answers the Athenian emphasis on magnificent religious provision. Perfect victims do not guarantee favour, while the allegedly maimed Spartan victims have not prevented divine preference for Spartan prayer. The contrast moves evaluation away from the material completeness of the gift toward the giver’s relation to the gods.

The adjective holy attached to Ilium should not be treated as a counter-proof that the Trojans satisfy the later condition of a holy and just soul. It is a poetic designation within the quotation, using a different Greek form. Nor does the dialogue specify the entire cause of the gods’ hostility or derive a comprehensive moral judgement of every Trojan. The limited inference concerns the impotence of gifts to compel favour.

Places to read

149c–149d2Socrates introduces the Homeric parallel and the Trojans’ perfect sacrifices.
149d–149eThe gods refuse the savour and are said to hate Ilium, Priam and his people.
149eThe failure of these gifts supports the rejection of a bribable divinity.

Translation in this edition

Note 36 assigns the quotation to Iliad 8.548–552 but says only line 549 stands at this location in the Homeric manuscripts; the last line also occurs at 4.47, 4.165 and 6.449. The other lines are known here through this dialogue.

Source note

The edition's note 36 warns that of the verses associated with Iliad 8.548–552, only the line turned into prose stands there in the surviving Homeric manuscripts. The final line recurs elsewhere in the Iliad. The passage's use of Homeric authority and the textual history of its quotation are consequently distinct questions; ‘perfect’ Trojan offerings may also answer the Spartan ‘maimed’ victims without that echo becoming a stated argument.