Reading The Iliad

It is March and it is twelve degrees. Today I did a great deal of nothing, and I did it in sweat pants. I am reading The Iliad, and there is a great deal of killing and armor rattling. The gods love screwing around with people, and there is a lot of describing people as "aegis-bearing" as in

"They call you the son of aegis-bearing Zeus . . ."

I’m trying to figure out what "aegis-bearing" is supposed to mean, and I've put off using The Google. For something written around 8 or 9 hundred years B.C., it is violent. It's like a prose version of the movie "300". As in:

"Meriones overtook him as he was flying, and struck him on the right buttock. The point of the spear went through the bone and into the bladder, and death came upon him as he cried aloud and fell forward on his knees."

Or:

"The son of of Phyleus got close up to him and drove a spear into the nape of his neck: it went under his tongue all among his teeth, so he bit the cold bronze, and fell dead in the dust."

Oh yeah.

And there is a lot of armor rattling:

" . . . and his armor rang rattling around him as he fell heavily to the ground."

Anywhoo, this Homer guy has a great future ahead of him, if he keeps this up.