I started reading (or rereading) the Iliad in a fairly new translation weeks before the death of a retired English teacher I barely knew who had reread it repeatedly — along with the Bible, the Odyssey and other classics. Especially after attending his funeral today, I wish I had known him better.

One thing the Achaeans’ sacking of Troy — in Homer’s poem — may have in common with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is that both were entirely unnecessary except for the existence of armed camps, belligerent or ineffective leaders, mythology (ancient and modern), and goals of plunder. In the former case, Zeus didn’t favor the war but let two goddesses, his wife Hera and his daughter Aphrodite, have their way. Some 3,000 years later, Russia’s resources in a time of mounting global scarcity take the place of Troy’s riches; the Kremlin, witnessing encroachment on Russia’s periphery by a growing Western military alliance, the power of “neoconservatives” and weapons manufacturers in Washington combined with an anti-Russian coup d’état in Kiev seen as engineered by Western intelligence operatives, saw invasion as the only option after the failure of diplomacy. — Mark Channing Miller