In the following essay, Spires discusses some extra-literary concerns, including the historical and cultural importance of the Iliad, both in its own time and in the centuries that followed.

In one sense, it is unjust to give Homer all the credit for the Iliad, since it is all but certain that he had at least some "help" in composing it. Whether he merely cobbled together shorter poems into one epic work, or whether he improvised the majority of the Iliad from a pre-existing repertoire of themes, epithets, and episodes, Homer had the benefit of several centuries' worth of material to draw upon in composing his own poem.

Looked at from another perspective, however, it is no less unjust to refuse Homer the credit for his work. Surely there were other artists, now lost in the distant past, on whom Homer drew for inspiration, technique, or source material...