I never thought that the day would come, but here I am, much to my dismay, writing a largely unfavourable review of one of mankind's greatest achievements, Homer's `The Iliad'.

Contrast this with the dutiful willingness of Menelaus and Agamemnon to get their hands dirty, and the poem's honourable lack of partisanship, its scrupulous even-handedness. The story needs to be enjoyed taking into consideration the time it was written in, when things like slavery were totally acceptable in many ancient societies.

Martin Hammond's modern prose version is the best and most accurate there has ever been' - Peter Levi in the IndependentThe Iliad is the first and the greatest literary achievement of Greek civilisation - an epic poem without rival in the literature of the world, and the cornerstone of Western culture.

Although the transliterated form without any diacritic mark may well fit both meanings, this kind of misleading information should be avoided.

The story of the Iliad centres on the critical events in the last year of the Trojan War, which lead to Achilleus' killing of Hektor and determine the fate of Troy. With compassion and humanity, he presents a universal and tragic view of the world, of human life lived under the shadow of suffering and death, set against a vast and largely unpitying divine background.

A story that centres on the critical events in four days of the tenth and final year of the war between the Greeks and the Trojans. where the scholar has observed that a comparison of lions in Homeric similes and lions in Mycenaean iconography can also enable us to gain new insights into Bronze Age war and warfare. Apollo came against him hidden in thick mist, andstood behind him, and struck his back and broadshoulders with the flat of his hand, so that hiseyes spun round.

Martin Hammond is headmaster of the Tonbridge School and has translated Homer’s Iliad for Penguin Classics. Three times he charged with the headlong speed of Ares,screaming his savage cry, three times he killed nine men. Some of the translation’s notes are acute, explained in detail, and show an effort to avoid too modern and anachronistic interpretation. Forbidden before this to defile its crest in dust,it guarded the head and handsome brow of a god,a man like a god, Achilles.

I'm not sure about Fagles's translation, though, for all that the pages of praise from reviewers and scholars are almost as lengthy as the catalogue of ships in Book 2.His date too is uncertain: most modern scholars place the composition of the Iliad in the second half of the eighth century BC. Martin Hammond's acclaimed translation is accompanied by a full introduction and a comprehensive index.