Trivia / The Iliad

• Referenced by...:
  • Isaac Asimov's "Little Lost Robot": The name/nickname for the robots in this story derive from The Iliad. Nestor was a man who enjoyed sharing long-winded insights to other people, just like the robots enjoy explaining (in detail) why they disagree with their human masters. While none of the people Nestor advised snapped at him, the titular NS-2 robot annoyed their primary owner enough to get yelled at for trying to redo an old experiment.
  • Isaac Asimov's The Rest of the Robots: During the preface of "Part II: The Laws of Robotics", Dr Asimov mentions The Iliad, citing Book XVIII, where Hephaistos has female servants built from gold.
  • Isaac Asimov's Words of Science:
    • The entry for "Amalgam" mentions The Iliad as an example of the Bronze Age, because all the armour was made of bronze.
    • The entry for "Thyroid" mentions The Iliad, albeit in the context of the historical period instead of as a fictional work.
    • The entry for "Volcano" mentions the god Hephaestus because he is assumed to use Mt Etna as a forge by The Iliad.

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