More heated battle over Homeric heartland (6)
I believe the answer is:
warmer
'more heated' is the definition.
Both the answer and definition are comparative adjectives. Maybe you can see a link between them that I can't see?
'battle over homeric heartland' is the wordplay.
'battle' becomes 'war' (I've seen this in other clues).
'over homeric heartland' becomes 'mer' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'war'+'mer'='WARMER'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for warmer that I've seen before include "Having a higher temperature" , "Containing more heat" , "Closer to target" , "Less cold" , "Less cool" .)