Iliad's and Odyssey's connection to music

 Music was a significant part of Ancient Greek life. It accompanied them in their everyday activities, in different occasions such as rituals and ceremonies, where they had to express their feelings of, for example, grief or joy. Music was considered to be a form of communication, a unifying symbol while it simultaneously contributed to the shaping of people's identities.

Iliad and Odyssey are two of the most well known poems of Ancient Greek history and culture. Even in modern times, these poems are studied all around the world for the foundational cultural messages that are shared through them. Some of those messages are the importance of a leader respecting his/her soldiers, the significance of family bonds, the greatness of honorable acting, and many more other moral concepts and values that contributed, and continue to contribute, to the formation of people's "ethos". However, the first people who were influenced by them were obviously the Ancient Greeks. Iliad and Odyssey reveal and highlight the main aspects of Ancient Greek life, as they were written in those times, which include ancient mythology, art, literature, history and culture. Although these works do not have a direct connection to music, important characteristic of theirs constitute the rhythmic meter and the repetitive structure, which are usually used in the creation of music. There are in fact many poems that were "melopoeimena", in other words set to music by creating and adding melody to them. Because of that, the Ancient Greeks were able to memorize and remember the content of the Iliad and Odyssey easier. 

It is obvious that music affects people in a variety of ways. If it is not in an apparent manner, like through the lyrics, it is in a more concealed manner, like the one explained previously. Aspects of music can be found everywhere around us.