Toil and Trouble: The Acquisition of Spoils in the Iliad

Abstract

A warrior amasses spoils at (re)distributions, and the discrepancy over who allots the booty allows a speaker to focus on the group’s or the individual leader’s role as he sees fit. A warrior also garners spoils on his own by, for example, despoiling his enemies of armor. Seeing the two means of acquisition as modes of exchange elucidates the distinctions between them. Forms of individual acquisition immediately reward the warrior for his labor and exemplify what Maurice Bloch and Jonathan Parry call “short-term transactions.” A warrior also performs a “long-term transaction” when he toils in battle with a view to participating in a (re)distribution that is intended to perpetuate the longterm social and cosmic order. Achilles posits a long-term transaction based on warriors’ providing material for the (re)distribution from goods they have obtained through short-term transactions on the battlefield.

Conflict-related sexual violence: a review

“…Sexual violence has been a feature of conflict since ancient history 10. There are references to CRSV in the Old Testament and certain ancient Greek narratives openly describe women as the spoils of war 10–12. Subsequent accounts of CRSV are largely unreliable and often based on reports generated by one side accusing their opposition.…”