A podcast by Classics major Dan Plekhov (’14) about chariot tactics in Homer is the number one download on Dickinson iTunesU channel, beating out even the excellent content provided by our Admissions office. Chariots appear frequently in the Iliad, Dan notes, but Homer notoriously seems to have little idea of how they would actually be used in combat. He then points out the exception, a passage that does seem to describe realistic chariot tactics, and argues that it reflects memories of Mycenaean culture, not the experience of contemporary societies of Homer’s own day. The passage is Iliad 4.297-309. Dan discusses it, gives his own translation, and reads it aloud in the original Greek. You can find it on Dickinson’s iTunesU channel via the iTunes store, or listen here while looking at the associated images:Homer