Homer’s Iliad & Odyssey, translated by Thomas Hobbes, 1675.

In 1675, just four years before his death at the age of 91, Hobbes completed translations of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey. As students of Literature Humanities know well, the Iliad tells the story of the Trojan War fought between the Trojans and a coalition of Greek states, following the abduction of the Greek princess, Helen, by Paris of Troy. The Odyssey follows up the Iliad with an account of the hero Odysseus’s long and winding return trip to Ithica from the Trojan War. These translations, completed by  the octogenarian Hobbes, are a testament to Hobbes’s intellectual potency, even in the twilight of his long life. Recent scholars have finally set up on the overdue project of attempting to locate connections between Hobbes’s political theory and these translations of Homer’s great epics.