Homère face aux Grecs et aux Troyens ou comment dépasser l’altérité
Homer between Greeks and Trojans Or How to Overcome Alterity

Summary/Abstract: The Iliad stands as a privileged place for seeing how the Greeks conceived otherness. In the war between Greeks and Trojans, the poem emphasizes that, in the name of human beings, war only breeds deaths; it also reminds us that according to the whims of Fortune, the victors could have been the vanquished. Thus, the poem inquires about the excessive behavior of mortals, who are violent, reckless, sometimes xenophobic. The meeting of Priam with Achilles, where he returns to the old king the corpse of his son, shows that beyond the differences of people, race or culture, there is identity of nature between human beings. The awareness that the different, the other, could be oneself is the first step to understanding and respecting the other, our equal.

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