Homer's Iliad is full of brief references to named individuals, describing for example how those individuals kill or are killed in battle. Many of these individuals seem to appear only in these particular references, and are never referred to again in other, extant, ancient Greek literature (at least not in literature that is well known). The tendency is to skip over these names and forget about them. My guess is that these are not invented, fictional characters but actual people who lived somewhere in the ancient Greek world, possibly during a wide variety of different time periods. Has any research been published that seeks to explain the origins of this wide-ranging collection of little-known characters?
Iliad’s characters are fine examples of what in Greek comedies is described as “type”: for what concerns the real existence of those characters in ancient Greek history, It is clear that Homer shows an almost- historical theme (the defeat of Troy) through the presence of fictional elements derived from Greek myths (the intervent of gods, firstly). In conclusion, i don’t think that people depicted in Homer’s poem were real. They‘re just “types” that represent specific characteristics in relation to the hero‘s (or the opposite) code of Greek culture.
‘The Iliad’ is heroic age literature. Kings have poets who create praise poetry in their name, who then pass it on to other poets. Eventually, some of these works are coalesced into a cycle of stories, and these often have nothing to do with many of the characters involved. A good example of this is the dragon slaying adventure of Drest in Britain. In Ireland, Drest is reduced to a minor character without anything to do in Cu Chulainn cycle of Ireland.
In the case of ’The Iliad’, we have the joining of at least three different historical campaigns into Asia Minor as well as (likely) several stories from Greece. My guess is that originally Agamemnon, Odysseus, and Achilles led an expedition but it doesn’t really matter who did. The fact that in this story we are looking at three different cycles which have been masterfully put together is the important thing. That many of the characters in it don’t seem to have any real function is simply a bi-product of the process.
Nobody can categorically say whether the Iliad characters are real or fictional due to the incomplete record. We definitely know that many ancient publications (referred to by others) have been lost to fires, etc
I would prefer all named characters to be real, but cannot prove that. I know children learning about the Iliad are fascinated more than they do with superman and spiderman, because the Iliad has an underlining theme, a story that sounds very real.
There has been research done on similar processes within historical poetry in the UK. Although its been 30 years since I read it so can't remember the citation. The results suggested that there were 2 sources. The first was famous individuals. This is particularly noted in Anglo Saxon poetry were the most famous example of a nations ruler is cited as having ruled at the time the events occurred, even if they weren't contemporary. The second source is local aspirations. This has been particularly noted with reference to Clontarf fought in 1014. The battle became so iconic that every family had to have had an ancestor there, the result being that fictitious characters get added to the narrative as putative ancestors. The mechanism would be to 'prove' that your family were of ancient lineage by having an ancestor slain by one of the great heroes.
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