This is one of a few posts dedicated to Iliad 24. 

After eight posts about Iliad 24, what more can there be to say?

The funeral games occupy the majority of Iliad 23, but the book begins with Achilles mourning the lost of Patroklos. At the end of the book, everyone else returns to sleep. Book 24 begins again with Achilles where he was at the beginning of 23: alone, at night, missing Patroklos:

Iliad 24.3-20

“…but Achilles
Was weeping while he recalled his dear companion, not even sleep,
That master of everything overtook him, but he turned here and there
Longing for Patroklos’ manliness and his spirit,
And all those things he endured with him and the pains they shared
In the wars of men and testing the troubling seas.

He let loose a warm tear as he recalled all this–
First he was lying on his side, then again on his back
And other times on his stomach. Then he stood straight up
And went grieving along the shore of the sea. Dawn
Was not yet about to sneak her way over the salt and sands.
But Achilles the yoked his horses to his chariot
And bound Hektor to be dragged behind the car
And pulled him three times around the grave of Menoitios’ dead son.
He stopped again near his dwelling and let Hektor lie there
On his face, stretched out in the dust. Apollo was holding
All disgrace back from the man’s skin, because he pitied
Him, even though he was dead.”

ὕπνου τε γλυκεροῦ ταρπήμεναι· αὐτὰρ ᾿Αχιλλεὺς
κλαῖε φίλου ἑτάρου μεμνημένος, οὐδέ μιν ὕπνος
¿ρει πανδαμάτωρ, ἀλλ’ ἐστρέφετ’ ἔνθα καὶ ἔνθα
Πατρόκλου ποθέων ἀνδροτῆτά τε καὶ μένος ἠΰ,
ἠδ’ ὁπόσα τολύπευσε σὺν αὐτῷ καὶ πάθεν ἄλγεα
ἀνδρῶν τε πτολέμους ἀλεγεινά τε κύματα πείρων·
τῶν μιμνησκόμενος θαλερὸν κατὰ δάκρυον εἶβεν,
ἄλλοτ’ ἐπὶ πλευρὰς κατακείμενος, ἄλλοτε δ’ αὖτε
ὕπτιος, ἄλλοτε δὲ πρηνής· τοτὲ δ’ ὀρθὸς ἀναστὰς
δινεύεσκ’ ἀλύων παρὰ θῖν’ ἁλός· οὐδέ μιν ἠὼς
φαινομένη λήθεσκεν ὑπεὶρ ἅλα τ’ ἠϊόνας τε.
ἀλλ’ ὅ γ’ ἐπεὶ ζεύξειεν ὑφ’ ἅρμασιν ὠκέας ἵππους,
῞Εκτορα δ’ ἕλκεσθαι δησάσκετο δίφρου ὄπισθεν,
τρὶς δ’ ἐρύσας περὶ σῆμα Μενοιτιάδαο θανόντος
αὖτις ἐνὶ κλισίῃ παυέσκετο, τὸν δέ τ’ ἔασκεν
ἐν κόνι ἐκτανύσας προπρηνέα· τοῖο δ’ ᾿Απόλλων
πᾶσαν ἀεικείην ἄπεχε χροῒ φῶτ’ ἐλεαίρων
καὶ τεθνηότα περ….

There are many things I find striking about this passage. Structurally, in the arc of the epic as a whole, it takes us back to book 1 where Apollo appears early as a guarantor of some kind of divine justice. In book 1, Apollo is summoned by Chryses to punish transgression against the reciprocal rite of supplication and ransom exchange. This open transgression is resolved when Achilles accepts Priam’s ransom of Hektor’s body. Within this meta-structural ring another theme is established as well: the right of all mortals to burial, supported in part by the truce in book 7 and Hera’s comments in book 16 that funeral rites are the geras thanontôn (“the honor-prize of the dead”).

Apollo serves a complementary but different role at the end of the epic: he appears again as an upholder of divine justice. This time, instead of punishing a transgression, he advocates for Hektor’s burial in a council of the gods that may anticipate or echo his juridical appearance in the story of the Oresteia (where he argues on Orestes’ behalf against the Furies). At the beginning and end of the epic, moreover, Apollo establishes the closest thing archaic poetry has on offer for a universal bill of human rights: the honoring of a suppliant and the burial of the dead. Note for modern comparison how children and parents are central in both instances.

A second thing to note about this passage is that ancient scholars marked some of the lines as spurious. The complaints fall into two broad categories: these lines are too simple or unpoetic; or they are in some way morally questionable.

Schol. A. ad Il. 24. 6-9 ex.

‘These four lines are considered suspect because they are simple and Achilles’ grief is more emphatic than it is depicted here [in lines 4-5]. People also complain that manliness and menos aren’t different at all. The poet rarely says manliness when he means braveness. It is also somewhat twisted up, when he ends with “remembering these things” when they already had “thinking of his companion” above.

Ariston. | Did. Πατρόκλου ποθέων (6) ἕως <τοῦ> τῶν μιμνησκόμενος (9): ἀθετοῦνται στίχοι τέσσαρες, ὅτι εὐτελεῖς εἰσιν, ἀρθέντων δὲ αὐτῶν καὶ ἐμφαντικώτερον δηλοῦται ἡ τοῦ ᾿Αχιλλέως λύπη· „ἀλλ’ ἐστρέφετ’ ἔνθα καὶ ἔνθα” (Ω 5), „ἄλλοτ’ ἐπὶ πλευράς” (Ω 10). καὶ τοῖς αὐτοῖς καταχρᾶται, ἀνδροτῆτα, μένος (6)· οὐδὲν γὰρ διαφέρει. καὶ οὐδέποτε ἀνδροτῆτα (6) εἴρηκε τὴν ἀνδρείαν, ἀλλ’ ἠνορέαν. ἔχει δὲ καί τι δυσεξέλικτον, τῶν μιμνησκόμενος (9)· καὶ γὰρ ἄνω εἴρηκεν „ἑτάρου μεμνημένος” (Ω 4).

Schol. bT. ad Il. 24. 6-9 ex.

“Those who marked these lines as spurious are not somehow crack-brained, since they take these lines as naughty and suspect verses like this—because he longs for a bed-mate, not in the style worthy of demigods nor even of half women? For if this is wholly suspect, then Patroklos would be his lover because he [Achilles] is younger and very beautiful.

The [verses are considered suspect] for these reasons. Manliness is the nature of the man. But he also says “noble menos” and the verb tolupeuse is not well put.”

οἱ δὲ ἀθετοῦντες τοὺς στίχους πῶς οὐκ ἐμβρόντητοι, ῥηματίων κακοσχόλως ἐχόμενοι καὶ τοιούτων ἐπῶν κατηγοροῦντες b(BE3E4)T ὅτι ὡς σύγκοιτον ποθεῖ, οὐχ οἷον ἡμιθέων, ἀλλ’ οὐδὲ ἡμιγυναίκων ἄξιον <ὄν>; εἰ γὰρ ὅλως τοῦτο ὑπονοεῖν δεῖ, ἐραστὴς ἂν εἴη Πάτροκλος ὡς νεωτέρου καὶ περικαλλεστέρου. T ἀθετοῦνται δὲ διὰ ταῦτα· ἀνδροτὴς γάρ ἐστιν ἡ τοῦ ἀνδρὸς φύσις· εἶπε δὲ καὶ μένος ἠΰ (6). καὶ τολύπευσε (7) δ’ οὐκ εὔκαιρον·

The second passage combines normative statements about poetics and ethics to explain why some ancient scholars athetized (literally “marked as out of place”) four of these lines. I have discussed elsewhere the relationship between Achilles and Patroklos and don’t need to belabor it further other than to say that the epic is at times unclear about their relationship, but this passage seems about as clear as it gets and resistance to its meaning is rooted in the normative values of audiences not epic itself.

When it comes to the suggestion that these lines are “simplistic” in some way and therefore questionable, I am similarly skeptical of the scholia. I suspect in part that this claim is made as in indirect way of rejecting the depiction of Achilles longing for Patroklos in erotic or overly physical terms. Even if we take the criticism seriously, however, I think it falls apart. When I read this passage now, I find it to be a vivid depiction of a human being in grief, incapable of sleeping, turning over and over until they give up and go out and try to act in some way. Achilles is both unmoored by grief (he has no direction) but he is also stuck in sorrow’s time-loop: he keeps returning to the same actions (crying and then mistreating Hektor’s corpse) because he cannot move on.

There’s a psychological realism here rooted in human embodiment that reminds me of one of the fragments attributed to Sappho.

Sappho fr. 31

That man seems like the gods
To me—the one who sits facing
You and nearby listens as you
sweetly speak—

and he hears your lovely laugh—this then
makes the heart in my breast stutter,
when I glance even briefly, it is no longer possible
for me to speak—

but my tongue sticks in silence
and immediately a slender flame runs under my skin.
I cannot see with my eyes, I hear
A rush in my ears—

A cold sweat breaks over me, a tremble
Takes hold of me. Then paler than grass,
I think that I have died
Just a little.”\

φαίνεταί μοι κῆνος ἴσος θέοισιν
ἔμμεν’ ὤνηρ, ὄττις ἐνάντιός τοι
ἰσδάνει καὶ πλάσιον ἆδυ φωνεί-
σας ὐπακούει

καὶ γελαίσας ἰμέροεν, τό μ’ ἦ μὰν
καρδίαν ἐν στήθεσιν ἐπτόαισεν,
ὠς γὰρ ἔς σ’ ἴδω βρόχε’ ὤς με φώναι-
σ’ οὐδ’ ἒν ἔτ’ εἴκει,

ἀλλ’ ἄκαν μὲν γλῶσσα †ἔαγε λέπτον
δ’ αὔτικα χρῶι πῦρ ὐπαδεδρόμηκεν,
ὀππάτεσσι δ’ οὐδ’ ἒν ὄρημμ’, ἐπιρρόμ-
βεισι δ’ ἄκουαι,

†έκαδε μ’ ἴδρως ψῦχρος κακχέεται† τρόμος δὲ
παῖσαν ἄγρει, χλωροτέρα δὲ ποίας
ἔμμι, τεθνάκην δ’ ὀλίγω ‘πιδεύης
φαίνομ’ ἔμ’ αὔται·

Sappho’s language evokes the physical indica of desire and anxiety. It is vivid and serves to bridge a connection between the embodied experience of the audience and the poet’s song: The poem’s depiction of the body creates a common ground between the poet’s story and the audience’s experience. In the same way, I think that Achilles’ restless night attempts to bridge that gap between epic narrative and human life. The Homeric narrator’s language is less figurative and more direct than Sappho’s, but I think this is in part a function of the genre of lament, typically more staid and somber than lyric reflections on love imperiled. Life’s greatest losses leave us exhausted and empty, yet still rooted in that moment of separation. The bereft are locked between what was and the absence of what will be. The busy actions of rituals that are aimed at bringing initial closure to loss—funerals, funeral games, wakes, sitting shiva etc.—create a social framework for experiencing grief, but they don’t erase grief itself or fill the emptiness left behind.

This is a powerful moment because we see the epic hero undressed, in a way, bereft of the trappings of leadership, the actions of war, and the ritual frameworks that have kept him in motion right up until this moment. Achilles tossing and turning at night brings to bear on the audience the force of his loss in a way that anyone who has grieved can understand: no matter what happens during the day, night leaves us along with our grief, turning this way and that, trying to think of anything else and failing.

This in part explains Achilles’ return to Hektor’s corpse, a kind of regression to rage that is no longer there because rage filled him. When the scholion objects to the repetitions of words of remembering (μεμνημένος…τῶν μιμνησκόμενος), it is missing out on the structural framing that homes in on the act of memorialization, the work of narrative. Achilles’ grief issues from his memory’s interaction with his loss and the parenthetical structure echoes the inside/outside experience of narrative memory. Achilles is an audience to his own grief.

If this assertion seems tenuous, consider that this scene almost immediately reminds us that audiences are in fact observing Achilles’ lament. Apollo watches and pities Hektor (ἐλεαίρων). The gods act as indices for external audiences. Just as we are reminded of this as an audience, we are invited to consider the emotional experience, to weigh what it means to pity another, and to understand the impact that grief has on the human body.

Other posts Iliad 24

1. 1. Disfiguring the Fallow Earth: Introducing Iliad 24: Divine Politics; the trial of Achilles; Apollo; Hesiod’s Theogony
   2. “As If He Were Going to His Death“: Priam and Katabasis in Iliad24: Katabasis; Ransom; Structural echoes; Hermes and Orphism
   3. “Blow Up Your TV“: Thetis, Achilles, and Life and Death in Iliad 24: Thetis and grief; Gilgamesh; John Prine
   4. Priam And Achilles, Pity and Fear: A ‘tragic’ end to Homer’s Iliad: Cognitive approaches to Homer; Tragedy and Epic; Aristotle
   5. Starving Then Stoned: Achilles’ Story of Niobe in Iliad 24: Paradeigmata, again; cognitive approaches to reading
   6. “Better off Dead”: Helen’s Lament for Hektor in Iliad 24: Laments; Praise; Memory; Helen
   7. Taking Helen Seriously: Trauma and the Iliad
   8. The Burial of Horse-Taming Hektor: Ending the Iliad: Hektor; Aithiopis; Ending Epic; Ibycus; Pindar; Kleos

This is one of a few posts dedicated to Iliad 24. 

I have written about trauma and the Iliad in several posts. Last year, I provided an overview of work on psychology and Homer. Part of what I explain there is that there was resistance in much of the 20th century to applying modern psychological notions to Homer thanks in part to the work of “progressivists” like Bruno Snell who argued that early texts show a more primitive approach to human thought and emotion. It took two generations to upend such mistaken frameworks that both overestimated the ‘evolution’ of human neurobiology over a few thousand years and tragically underestimated the significance of different cultural and aesthetic categories.

To put it simply, oral poetry and epic in performance convey the depths of human thought and emotion in its full range. But they do it differently from what we see in modern art and literature. To put it in a more contested way: interpreters in the 19th and 20th centuries were motivated in part by a teleological worldview that positioned their understanding and aesthetics at the peak of human development. In order to justify their own beliefs–both about their superiority to earlier cultures and their supremacy over other contemporary peoples–-they had to simultaneously raise up the achievements of their ‘cultural forebears’ while also emphasizing how they have superseded their exemplary predecessors.

That’s too many words to introduce how things changed: in 1994, Jonathan Shay published his Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character and completely demolished the prohibition against talking about Homer in terms shared with modern psychology. His follow-up, Odysseus in America: Combat Trauma and the Trials of Character, was somewhat less heralded critically, but has been part of a cultural shift in the way people talk about Odysseus. I don’t think that Passolini’s The Return or Epic: The Musical would characterize Odysseus the way they do without the larger cultural conversation about the trauma suffered by warriors and the literature about it.

One of the things that I worry about in my own book on Homer and psychology (now free in ebook form) is how we can talk about theories of mind and psychology in epic while only talking about warriors. Shay’s work is ground-breaking and arises from his clinical efforts with veterans, so it isn’t fair to criticize it for overlooking women, children, and enslaved people as well. But one of the powerful things about the Iliad and the Odyssey is how they show the impact of violence on entire communities.

In recent years, Franco Maiullari has written about Andromache as a traumatized character and Fabian Horn has discussed Hektor in similar terms. Each of these papers contributes to a growing bibliography charting the way that war warps bodies and scars minds. Late last year, Caroline Murphy-Racette joined this group with her paper “Helen and Trauma Narrative in the Iliad.”

This article is an important addition to the ongoing conversation for a few reasons. First, it takes Helen’s characterization seriously as “an abducted woman who lives in a war zone” (283). Second, it looks at Helen’s own speeches for evidence of trauma stress and sexual assault in the way she blames herself and engages in suicidal ideation. Third, it enters into a longstanding debate about Helen’s culpability and positionality that brings more range and depth to her character.

Murphy-Racette outlines her theoretical frameworks and potential objections to applying trauma studies to premodern texts in the first part of the paper, emphasizing, rightly, that “forms of trauma existed before modern theorizing” (285). In addition to post traumatic stress disorder, she also introduces studies from “continuous traumatic stress” which also helps us to frame Helen as someone who has not only survived harm but has suffered long term psychological strain from assault, the threat of violence, and the impact of a siege.

Much of the history of reflecting on Helen has not taken her experiences seriously. Countering this, Murphy-Racette suggest that “Helen faces multiple experiences that are potentially traumatizing: she is embroiled in a war, faces isolation and harassment from the Trojans, and is subject to sexual assault (see Roisman 2006.2, 7–8, 32)” (286). Murphey-Racette then analyzes Helen’s speeches in the Iliad to show the impact of sexual violence (3.399–412), the way Helen uses self-blame, which is a common response to sexual assault (e.g. 6.355–56) and how she engages in suicidal ideation (e.g.6.345–48). Murphy-Racette also takes a short detour to the Odyssey to suggest that her use of drugs there reflects an understanding of pharmacological responses to trauma.

As Murphy-Racette states in her closing, this study is limited, but it provides an important example for taking the depiction of women in Homer more seriously. I find it entirely persuasive, with the caveat that these depictions are also ambiguous. Rather than insisting that this is the only way to understand Helen’s depiction, this argument makes it clear that the experiences and understanding of the audience must be taken into account when interpreting Homeric characters psychologically.

Just as audience members today who are unfamiliar with vulnerability, sexual violence, or the expectation of subordinating one’s desires to someone stronger may see Helen in one way, so too would ancient women and enslaved people have understood rather different motivations for Helen’s actions than those in traditional positions of power. This article is both a corrective for masculine-centered readings of the Iliad and a guide toward recuperating the experiences of ancient audience members.

Ancient audiences had intimate familiarity with war and violence. Many people in the world today do as well; but many of us, in something of a historical accident, are voyeurs through traditional media and social media to violence and sieges meted out upon powerless populations. Our response to Helen’s character is as much an indication of how we see ourselves and the world as is our response to suffering dealt out by the powerful to those who can choose only between losing more each day or dying. Homer doesn’t make make Helen a victim or a villain, but we do, just as we explain away the violence done in our names by turning the innocent and disenfranchised into threats of our own making.

A short, incomplete bibliography on trauma and Homer

Christensen, Joel P.. The many-minded man: the « Odyssey », psychology, and the therapy of epic. Myth and Poetics; 2. Ithaca (N. Y.): Cornell University Pr., 2020.

Christensen, Joel P.. “ The Clinical Odyssey: Odysseus’s apologoi and narrative therapy.” Arethusa, vol. 51, no. 1, 2018, pp. 1-31. Doi: 10.1353/are.2018.0000

Horn, Fabian. “The psychology of aggression: Achilles’ wrath and Hector’s flight in Iliad 22.131-7.” Hermes, vol. 146, no. 3, 2018, pp. 277-289. Doi: 10.25162/hermes-2018-0023

Lesser, Rachel H.. Desire in the « Iliad »: the force that moves the epic and its audience. Oxford: Oxford University Pr., 2022.

Maiullari, Franco. “Andromache, a post-traumatic character in Homer.” Quaderni Urbinati di Cultura Classica, N. S., no. 113, 2016, pp. 11-27.

Murphy-Racette, C. (2024). Helen and Trauma Narrative in the Iliad. Arethusa 57(2), 283-316. https://dx.doi.org/10.1353/are.2024.a934136.

Nguyen, Kelly. “ Ocean Vuong, postmemories and the Vietnam War.” International Journal of the Classical Tradition, vol. 29, no. 4, 2022, pp. 430-448. Doi: 10.1007/s12138-021-00605-3

Pache, Corinne. “ weaving « nostos » in Homeric epic and in the twenty-first century.” Combat trauma and the ancient Greeks. Eds. Meineck, Peter and Konstan, David. New Antiquity. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. 67-85.

Shay, Jonathan. Odysseus in America: combat trauma and the trials of homecoming. New York: Scribner’s, 2002.

Sukava, Tyson. “ Singing a different body:anatomical descriptions in Chapman’s « Iliad ».” Mouseion, vol. 13, no. 1, 2016, pp. 7-34.

Tritle, Lawrence A.. “« Ravished minds » in the ancient world.” Combat trauma and the ancient Greeks. Eds. Meineck, Peter and Konstan, David. New Antiquity. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. 87-103.

Race, William H.. “Phaeacian therapy in Homer’s « Odyssey ».” Combat trauma and the ancient Greeks. Eds. Meineck, Peter and Konstan, David. New Antiquity. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. 47-66.

Russo, Joseph. “Re-thinking Homeric psychology: Snell, Dodds and their critics.” Quaderni Urbinati di Cultura Classica, N. S., no. 101, 2012, pp. 11-28.

Russo, J. A. and Simon, B.. “Homeric psychology and the oral epic tradition.” Journal of the History of Ideas, vol. XXIX, 1968, pp. 483-498.

Scodel, Ruth. “Homeric attribution of outcomes and divine causation.” Syllecta classica, vol. 29, 2018, pp. 1-27. Doi: 10.1353/syl.2018.0001

Shay, Jonathan. Achilles in Vietnam: combat trauma and the undoing of character. New York: Maxwell Macmillan, 1994.

Shay, Jonathan. Odysseus in America: combat trauma and the trials of homecoming. New York: Scribner’s, 2002.

Valle Salazar, Luca. “ the social psychology of Odysseus’ fake autobiographies (Od. 14 and 19).” Antichthon, vol. 57, 2023, pp. 1-17. Doi: 10.1017/ann.2023.9

This post is one of a few on Iliad 23.

Every time the Olympics come around, I find myself talking about ancient Greek athletics, even though the topic is a bit far outside my expertise. As a Homerist, these contests stick out in my mind because they are (1) part of the apparatus of Panhellenic culture with Homer that emerges before the classical period; (2) like Homer, they reflect a growing fantasy of a heroic age that appealed to elite culture in the Classical period; and (3) their spirit of competition and glory resonates with the questions that are posed—if never answers—by the Iliad and the Odyssey.

Both epics have athletic contests as scenes where internal (and external) audiences are invited to consider heroic ‘worth’ based on participation in games. In Odyssey 8, the young Phaeacian princes invite Odysseus to show what kind of a man he is by engaging in after-dinner competition. (He eventually bests them with a discus, after criticizing them for putting too much emphasis on appearances.) That epic’s centering of cleverness and de-centering of the conventional heroic physique is tied to the identity of its hero and the skills he needs to return home (as I try to tease out a bit in an essay on disability studies in Homer).

For the Iliad, the funeral games of Patroklos occupy nearly an entire book. In writing my posts for each of the Iliad’s books, I think I gave short shrift to the funeral games. This is a little ironic, since the final chapter of my dissertation focused almost entirely on the games and the job talk I developed from it certainly helped me get my first academic position! The games are central to the epic’s plot in allowing it to return to the themes of the conflict in book 1. Oliver Taplin has argued that “one of the main poetic functions of the funeral games [is] to show Achilles soothing and resolving public strife, instead of provoking and furthering it” (1992, 253) and other authors who write on politics in Homer have seen these connections explicitly, including, but not limited to, Donna Wilson, Dean Hammer, Deborah Beck, Walter Donlan, David Elmer, Elton Barker, and more!

Games are never just about play and fun! They are opportunities for individuals to compete, but when communities are involved, they are also a form of deferred or transformed strife, nearly always loci of political posturing and the exploration of inter-social hierarchies. One just needs to check out ESPN’s Medal Tracker from the last Olympics to note, even if superficially, that individual performance in the games is translated into some sign of collective worth or esteem. Further, we narrativize our own experiences and values through what happens on the screen: games are a place where we negotiate our differences and litigate what they mean. Consider recent controversies about gender, ongoing nationalistic feuds over clothing (though, mostly only what women are allowed to wear), and historical manipulation of the games.

The funeral games in Iliad 23 are an opportunity where Achilles experiments with new ideas about authority and the distribution of goods, resolving in part the conflict between him and Agamemnon lingering from book 1, but creating, I think a dissonance for external audiences about to what extent the solutions offered are available outside of epic.

I am not just reminded of the games because of the ongoing Olympics! In Charles Stocking’s Homer’s Iliad and the Problem of Force, which I have been reading and thinking about, the third chapter, “Force and Discourse in the Funeral Games of Patroclus”, presents an in depth reading of the games that adds to essential reading on the topic (work I have mentioned above, plus articles by Grethlein, Kelly and Kitchell cited below”.

Stocking opens the chapter looking at the “problem of force” in the famous advice Nestor gives Antilochus before the chariot race. The race is the central part of the games and takes the longest amount of story time. It initiates a series of disputes and a pattern. The disputes are about the outcome of the contest where the presumed “best” competitors failed to meet expectations because of adverse luck (or questionable tactics). Achilles intervenes in several arguments and proposes solutions that provide new prizes from his personal store to restore/maintain the positions and honor of the competitors.

This would be the equivalent of an official from the IOC adding new medals to the competition. Imagine if the US Men’s basketball team loses a gold-medal game and a shocked world clamors for them to receive the top prize because everyone knows they have the best players! So, the IOC introduces a platinum medal for the team with the most talent and hype. This is a simplified form of what happens in book 23.

But there are many turns. Stocking’s full-chapter treatment is one of the most extensive and detailed analyses of the conflicts and prizes in the games that I know of. he goes through each of the major conflicts with a careful reading of the context and the language that makes it possible. He also introduces some alter work by Michel Foucault in which he discusses the games as a crucial point in “western” history’s exploration of “the will to truth”. Working with and through Foucault’s frameworks, Stocking provides a fine reading of Antilochus’ dispute with Menelaos as a complex negotiation of the fact that “the final distribution of prizes does not match up with the expectations outlined by the original sequence” (138).

During the chapter, Stocking focuses less on “force” directly than in the hierarchy of status implicit in the notion of who is best and the implications of the tension between assumed ability or excellence and outcomes due to accident or fate. In his words, the games become something of a “non-contest” because Achilles intervenes regularly abandoning “the logic of competition a a means for determining or representing social order” (166). Achilles, Stocking argues following others, replaces the contest by creating or recreating the order through his own “verbal performance”.

In this last detail, Stocking may miss an opportunity to set this Achilles as equivalent to the Odyssey’s Odysseus. Both heroes bend the perception of the cosmos for their audiences to their own liking, but both end up creating additional fantasies that may not have equivalents in the external worlds. Part of the disjuncture is the world of plenty heroes have to deal with: Achilles breaks with Agamemnon in book 1 over a slight to his honor when a distribution of goods is recalled in the king’s favor, yet repeatedly redistributes prizes in book 23, drawing from a store of goods that has no end. Odysseus comes home to punish the suitors for consuming his wealth, but there seems to be no end of meat and wine for feasting on Ithaka either. The worlds of Homer’s heroes approach no material limit.

The absence of this limit has a strange relationship with competition: for a feat to have value, it needs a context—we communicate ours by historicizing records of accomplishments and commemorating with symbolic prizes. In the Iliad’s games, the heroic world seems to always be spilling over its ends. As Edith Hall argues in her forthcoming Achilles in Green, the world of Homer’s heroes is extractive and consumptive to the extreme, perhaps anticipating our own modern fiction of endless expansion, profits without end. Without a limit or canon for the heroic games, they become performances of identities reified by Achilles’ addition of prizes whenever the expected worth doesn’t play out as it is expected.

The tension here—I suspect—is that the goal of epic itself is compromised. While Achilles’ never clearly chooses kleos aphthiton in exchange for his war-shortened life, the Iliad leaves us to assume that he nevertheless receives it. But kleos without end is as problematic as human honors that do not change regardless of what actually happens in the games. As Glaukos says, the lives of men are like the leaves that grow and fall. They—and anything related to them—cannot truly be aphthiton, “unwithered, imperishable” because they are made of perishable stuff.

Perhaps the tension in the games relies in this: it is both about replaying the politics of book 1 and trying to approach the deep disappointment of being an example of human greatness, as yet subject to the failures of human life. Achilles’ management of the games is a navigation through personal as well as political value. It is a prelude to the contemplation of mortality in book 24, rather than an exultation in the variety and wonder of human achievement.

my old overview of the funeral games

Short Bibliography

n.b. this is not exhaustive. please let me know if there are other articles to include.

Deborah Beck. Homeric Conversation. Washington, D.C.: Center for Hellenic Studies, 2005.

Christensen, J. (2021). Beautiful Bodies, Beautiful Minds: Some Applications of Disability Studies to Homer. Classical World 114(4), 365-393. https://doi.org/10.1353/clw.2021.0020.

Dunkle, Roger. “Nestor, Odysseus, and the μῆτις-βίη antithesis. The funeral games, Iliad 23.” Classical World, vol. LXXXI, 1987, pp. 1-17.

Ellsworth, J. D.. “Ἀγων νεῶν. An unrecognized metaphor in the Iliad.” Classical Philology, vol. LXIX, 1974, pp. 258-264.

Elmer, D.F. (2013). The Poetics of Consent: Collective Decision Making and the Iliad. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press., https://doi.org/10.1353/book.21075.

Grethlein, Jonas. “Epic narrative and ritual: the case of the funeral games in Iliad 23.” Literatur und Religion: Wege zu einer mythisch-rituellen Poetik bei den Griechen. Eds. Bierl, Anton, Lämmle, Rebecca and Wesselmann, Katharina. MythosEikonPoiesis; 1.1-2. Berlin ; New York: De Gruyter, 2007. 151-177.

Kelly, Adrian. “Achilles in control ? : managing oneself and others in the Funeral Games.” Conflict and consensus in early Greek hexameter poetry. Eds. Bassino, Paola, Canevaro, Lilah Grace and Graziosi, Barbara. Cambridge: Cambridge University Pr., 2017. 87-108. Doi: 10.1017/9781316800034.005

Kenneth F. Kitchell. “‘But the mare I will not give up’: The Games in Iliad 23.” The Classical Bulletin 74 (1998) 159-71.

Mouratidis, Ioannis. “Anachronism in the Homeric games and sports.” Nikephoros, vol. III, 1990, pp. 11-22.

Mylonas, George E. “Homeric and Mycenaean Burial Customs.” American Journal of Archaeology 52, no. 1 (1948): 56–81. https://doi.org/10.2307/500553.

Rengakos, Antonios. “Aethiopis.” The Greek Epic Cycle and its ancient reception : a companion. Eds. Fantuzzi, Marco and Tsagalis, Christos. Cambridge: Cambridge University Pr., 2015. 306-317.

Roller, Lynn E. “Funeral Games in Greek Art.” American Journal of Archaeology 85, no. 2 (1981): 107–19. https://doi.org/10.2307/505030.

Scott, William C.. “The etiquette of games in Iliad 23.” Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, vol. 38, no. 3, 1997, pp. 213-227.

Stocking, Charles. Homer’s Iliad and the Problem of Force, Oxford, 2024.

Oliver Taplin. Homeric Soundings: The Shape of the Iliad. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992.

Christoph Ulf. “Iliad 23: die Bestattung des Patroklos und das Sportfest der “Patroklos-Spiele”: zwei Teile einer mirror-story.” in Herbert Heftner and Hurt Tomaschitz (eds.). Ad Fontes! Festschrift für Gerhard Dobesch zum 65 Geburtstag am 15. September 2004. Wien: Phoibos, 2004, 73-86.

Malcolm M. Willcock, ‘The funeral games of Patroclus’, Proceedings of the Classical Association, LXX. (1973) 36.

Donna F. Wilson. Ransom, Revenge, and Heroic Identity in the Iliad. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.

This is one of a few posts dedicated to Iliad 23. 

In the first post on Iliad 23, I provide a good deal of framing for understanding the funeral games from Patroklos from a thematic/political perspective. At some point, I think I planned to write a second post on that topic, detailing the exchanges during the chariot race as a recapitulation of the events in Iliad 1 and 2. I think that this work has largely been done and would refer to the bibliography there for further reading.

I remain interested—if not stuck—in how to understand the run-up to the games, which includes a lengthy burial ritual. This process is crucial for understanding Achilles’ character, but I think it can also help us think more about how epic poetry, about how much it tells and how much we assume it tells. The most prominent part of this, for me, is the human sacrifice that was promised in book 21. As I mention in that post, the seemingly casual presentation of the human sacrifice always reminds me of the murder of the suitors and the mutilation of the enslaved people in the Odyssey. Just as in that case, however, I think part of my/our sense that the acts are downplayed is connected to our cultural distance from ancient audiences.

As modern readers, we often find ourselves at a loss when it comes to evaluating epic actions without seeming terribly anachronistic or facing criticism for projecting our values on the past. The solution to this challenge is not maintaining neutrality, but allowing our responses to surface, interrogating them alongside the narrative, and using both ancient evidence and modern theoretical frameworks to ‘triangulate’ values. The point is not to cede evaluative ground, but to proceed with care, using transparency and owning our own perspectives to engage in a dialogue with the past rather than issuing a summary judgment.

My basic argument for both is that the non-combat murders that occur at the end of the Iliad and the Odyssey are certainly framed as excessive, if not transgressive, by each epic. These scenes contribute to an exploration of the dangers of the heroic figure who suffers and causes suffering. In the Odyssey, the slaughter functions, I think, to indicate the extremity of Odysseus’ vengeance and the stark violence endemic to autocracy. In the Iliad, we find the sacrifices as part of a narrative arc that takes Achilles far away from the realm of ‘civilized’ people and returns him again, if only briefly, to practices of reciprocity in book 24.

Arguments like this often encounter doubt, if not derision. This is why I think it is important to look at what the text does. In the case of the sacrifice of the twelve Trojan youths, the epic narrator marks it as “wicked” twice, once when the young men are captured in book 21 and again at the moment of their sacrifice in book 23. In between, Achilles calls them  “glorious children of the Trojans, I am ready to sacrifice because I am angry over your death” (23.22-23). When we get to the act nearly two hundred lines later, the narrator is subtle, but to my mind clear.

Homer, Il. 23.161-191

Once Agamemnon, the lord of men, heard [Achilles]
He immediately dispersed the army to their fine ships,
While those who were close to Patroklos stayed by and piled the wood.
They made a pyre one-hundred strides wide to all sides,
And placed the body on the top of it, as they grieved in their hearts.
They flayed and butchered many sheep and in addition
Many ambling cattle in front of the pyre. Then great-hearted
Achilles took the fat from all of them and covered the corpse.
He heaped it over the body from head to toe.
Then he added to the rest large jars of honey and oil,
Leaving them next to the platform. He toppled four, high-necked horses
On the pyre quickly while he groaned outloud.
There were nine dogs who waited at the table for the lord,
And Achilles added two of them to the pyre, after cutting their throats.
He slaughtered the twelve sons of the great-hearted Trojans
With bronze. He was contriving wicked things in his thoughts.
And he kindled the iron-strong power of the fire, so he could spread it around.
Then, indeed, he mourned out loud and called his friend by name.
“Hello, my Patroklos, mine even in Hades’ home.
I am finishing everything that I promised to you before.
The fire is consuming all of these men for you—the twelve
Fine sons of the great-hearted Trojans. I will not give Hektor
Up to Priam to put in the fire. I’ll give him to the dogs.”

So he threatened. But the dogs did not descend on Hektor.
No, Zeus’ daughter Aphrodite protected him from the dogs
All day and all night, keeping him anointed with rosy-olive oil,
Ambrosial stuff, so that he would not rip while being dragged.
And Phoebus Apollo cast over him a dark cloud
From the sky to the ground, and covered the whole land
Where the corpse stretched out, to stop the sun’s intensity
From drying out the skin still set on his muscles and limbs.

Αὐτὰρ ἐπεὶ τό γ’ ἄκουσεν ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν ᾿Αγαμέμνων,
αὐτίκα λαὸν μὲν σκέδασεν κατὰ νῆας ἐΐσας,
κηδεμόνες δὲ παρ’ αὖθι μένον καὶ νήεον ὕλην,
ποίησαν δὲ πυρὴν ἑκατόμπεδον ἔνθα καὶ ἔνθα,
ἐν δὲ πυρῇ ὑπάτῃ νεκρὸν θέσαν ἀχνύμενοι κῆρ.
πολλὰ δὲ ἴφια μῆλα καὶ εἰλίποδας ἕλικας βοῦς
πρόσθε πυρῆς ἔδερόν τε καὶ ἄμφεπον· ἐκ δ’ ἄρα πάντων
δημὸν ἑλὼν ἐκάλυψε νέκυν μεγάθυμος ᾿Αχιλλεὺς
ἐς πόδας ἐκ κεφαλῆς, περὶ δὲ δρατὰ σώματα νήει.
ἐν δ’ ἐτίθει μέλιτος καὶ ἀλείφατος ἀμφιφορῆας
πρὸς λέχεα κλίνων· πίσυρας δ’ ἐριαύχενας ἵππους
ἐσσυμένως ἐνέβαλλε πυρῇ μεγάλα στεναχίζων.
ἐννέα τῷ γε ἄνακτι τραπεζῆες κύνες ἦσαν,
καὶ μὲν τῶν ἐνέβαλλε πυρῇ δύο δειροτομήσας,
δώδεκα δὲ Τρώων μεγαθύμων υἱέας ἐσθλοὺς
χαλκῷ δηϊόων· κακὰ δὲ φρεσὶ μήδετο ἔργα·
ἐν δὲ πυρὸς μένος ἧκε σιδήρεον ὄφρα νέμοιτο.
ᾤμωξέν τ’ ἄρ’ ἔπειτα, φίλον δ’ ὀνόμηνεν ἑταῖρον·
χαῖρέ μοι ὦ Πάτροκλε καὶ εἰν ᾿Αΐδαο δόμοισι·
πάντα γὰρ ἤδη τοι τελέω τὰ πάροιθεν ὑπέστην,
δώδεκα μὲν Τρώων μεγαθύμων υἱέας ἐσθλοὺς
τοὺς ἅμα σοὶ πάντας πῦρ ἐσθίει· ῞Εκτορα δ’ οὔ τι
δώσω Πριαμίδην πυρὶ δαπτέμεν, ἀλλὰ κύνεσσιν.
῝Ως φάτ’ ἀπειλήσας· τὸν δ’ οὐ κύνες ἀμφεπένοντο,
ἀλλὰ κύνας μὲν ἄλαλκε Διὸς θυγάτηρ ᾿Αφροδίτη
ἤματα καὶ νύκτας, ῥοδόεντι δὲ χρῖεν ἐλαίῳ
ἀμβροσίῳ, ἵνα μή μιν ἀποδρύφοι ἑλκυστάζων.
τῷ δ’ ἐπὶ κυάνεον νέφος ἤγαγε Φοῖβος ᾿Απόλλων
οὐρανόθεν πεδίον δέ, κάλυψε δὲ χῶρον ἅπαντα
ὅσσον ἐπεῖχε νέκυς, μὴ πρὶν μένος ἠελίοιο
σκήλει’ ἀμφὶ περὶ χρόα ἴνεσιν ἠδὲ μέλεσσιν.

We should start by noting how much this passage is doing. Consider the multiple mentions of grief and lamentation, making it clear that Achilles is in an extreme state of mind. The focus on the process of sacrifice may in part be a reflection on the importance of the ritual for processing grief. As anyone who has lost a loved one has learned, the concrete steps funerary rituals give us in the immediate days after our loss provides us with a feeling of control, of agency at a moment when we have been reminded that we ultimately have anything but that (over death). Rituals provide an outlet for grief, but they also importantly provide us with something to do. From a neurobiological perspective, sudden loss and extreme grief triggers a survival impulse: Achilles’ lashing out and slaughter is probably too ordered to simply be this, but his adaptation of ritual and his slowness to proceed may be a reflex of traumatic shock.

But to focus on the possibility of narrative judgment: the poem itself increases the importance of the human sacrifice by placing it in an ascending scale with the other victims. We start with the normal sheep and cattle, followed by the surprise dogs, ending with the twelve Trojan youths who are called “fine sons” of the great-hearted Trojans here, when they were referred as boys in book 21 and mere children before. The relevance of that choice increases for me: the label of sons enters them into families, into relationships that are torn by Achilles’ acts and the use of the adjective recalls the heroic language of nobility in the exchange with Lykaon in book 21 as well. Achilles repeats this line when he mourns later on, and a scholion reports that the adjective esthlous may have been replaced in some texts with a simple demonstrative toutous “these sons”).

Regardless of the repetition (or lack thereof), the narrative’s description is followed by the clearest line of judgment in the epic, the statement that Achilles is “devising wicked deeds” (κακὰ δὲ φρεσὶ μήδετο ἔργα·). If there is any doubt that there is something off about this sequence, following the speech, Achilles has trouble lighting the pyre and must appeal to the gods for help.

The cumulative effect of the rhetorical treatment (placing the slaughter at the end of a list, in the longest description), the familial and qualitative description of the youths, in contrast with earlier lines, the narrative judgment on the deeds, and the appearance of divine dissatisfaction, is to mark the sacrifice as extreme and as a feature of Achilles’ particular excess in his grief.

The view from outside

My reading of this scene requires a little more work to support. The cultural meaning of human sacrifice may be different for ancient audiences, and it is important to measure our response against what we can reconstruct from theirs. As Dennis Hughes writes in his introduction to Patroklos’ funeral (1991, 49), ancient authors were perplexed, if not horrified by this scene: “This incident so distressed Plato that he simply denied that Achilles had committed the deed, and the reactions of many modern Homeric scholars have been similar: shock and distaste (reactions sometimes projected back onto the psyche of Homer himself), a quick dismissal, or, more often than not, complete silence”.

The specter of human sacrifice overshadows the Iliad. The Trojan War narrative centers the sacrifice of Iphigenia to start the war, but other traditions also have the Trojan Polyxena sacrificed for/to Achilles as well. War itself demands a kind of sacrifice from soldiers, but the Iliad in particular sets up the Achaeans to be ‘sacrificial victims’ to Achilles’ honor while the surrogacy of Patroklos has something of a ritual substitution sacrifice to it. (Margo Kitts’ work is particular good at summarizing issues regarding sacrifice in the Iliad)

There have been questions for some time about to what extent Achilles’ sacrifice echoes historical practices. In addition to myths of human sacrifice in Athens, as well as in Sparta and Syracuse, and more broadly in myth among the family of Lykaon, or the self-sacrifice of the Lokrian Maidens, there is some archaeological evidence of human sacrifice in ancient Greece and theoretical speculation that ‘scapegoat’ narratives may have been related to ancient sacrificial practices. Herodotus mentions it too, but as an extreme. There is some caution here though: As Albert Henrichs suggests, the evidence for human sacrifice outside of Greece is far better than inside it, during the bronze age.

As Dennis Hughes argues, our interpretations have tended to imagine that this sacrifice was like other animal sacrifices or performed to provide Patroklos attendants in the Underworld and that the Iliad’s composers had lost knowledge about the practice. The other possibility—that Achilles’ act is meant as extreme, as an extension of his rage, is reconcilable with human sacrifice as an actual or forgotten practice. As Hughes notes, it seems difficult to argue that Homer is “downplaying” the incident when he mentions it three times, goes to great length to describe it, and then leaves the human portion of the sacrifice in the rhetorically marked, final position. It is perfectly possible that Achilles’ sacrifice is both an extreme outlet for his rage and a recognizable ‘ritual killing’ with real world antecedents.

This last point is important: As Henrichs argues, from the perspective of Greek myth and tradition, human sacrifice can happen but it is extreme and ritual killing “is something which uncivilized men inflict upon one another but which no Greek in his right mind with contemplate” (2019, 63). Achilles is steadily depicted throughout the Iliad as someone who has withdrawn from the communion of human beings, flirting with the excesses of the god of war when he is not descending to the animal realm. Tamara Neal demonstrates that Achilles has a particular blood-lust, marked even for the Iliad, shared with Ares and predatory animals in similes. His rage pushes him to animalistic and supernatural extreme, but at this moment in the epic, the sense seems more of irresolvable grief.

The excess of the sacrifice functions in part to characterize the agent of the act. As Sarah Hitch argues, sacrifices in the Iliad are subject to a system of reciprocity that emphasizes the status of the doer. The sacrifice in Iliad 23 is an evocation not just of the magnitude of Achilles’ grief, but the otherworldliness of his character. To my mind, it is part of a larger motif exploring the threat that figures like Achilles represent to their communities. Achilles’ life (and death) is one of cosmic proportion and significance. This sacrifice shows that his loss is too.

A short Bibliography on the sacrifice

n.b this is not an exhaustive bibliography. If you’d like anything else included, please let me know.

Emily P. Austin, Grief and the hero: the futility of longing in the Iliad. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2021.

Bremmer, J. (1978) “Heroes, Rituals and the Trojan War,” Studi storico-religiosi 2, 5–38.

Burkert, W. (1966a) “Greek Tragedy and Sacrificial Ritual,” Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies7, 87–121.

Clement, P. (1934) “New Evidence for the Origin of the Iphigeneia Legend,” L’Antiquité classique 3, 393–409.

Compton, Todd M. 2006. Victim of the Muses: Poet as Scapegoat, Warrior and Hero in Greco-Roman and Indo-European Myth and History. Hellenic Studies Series 11. Washington, DC: Center for Hellenic Studies. 

Graf, F. (1978) “Die lokrischen Mädchen,” Studi storico-religiosi 2, 61–79

Henrichs, Albert. “3. Human sacrifice in Greek religion: Three case studies”. II Greek Myth and Religion, edited by Harvey Yunis, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2019, pp. 37-68. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110449242-003

Hitch, Sarah. 2009. King of Sacrifice: Ritual and Royal Authority in the Iliad. Hellenic Studies Series 25. Washington, DC: Center for Hellenic Studies.

Hughes, Dennis. 1991. Human Sacrifice in Ancient Greece. Routledge.

Kitts, Margo. “KILLING, HEALING, AND THE HIDDEN MOTIF OF OATH-SACRIFICE IN ILIAD 21.” Journal of Ritual Studies 13, no. 2 (1999): 42–57. http://www.jstor.org/stable/44368561.

Kitts, Margo. “SACRIFICIAL VIOLENCE IN THE ILIAD.” Journal of Ritual Studies 16, no. 1 (2002): 19–39. http://www.jstor.org/stable/44368624.

Lesser, Rachel. 2022. Desire in the Iliad: The Force That Moves the Epic and Its Audience. Oxford.

Mylonas, George E. “Homeric and Mycenaean Burial Customs.” American Journal of Archaeology 52, no. 1 (1948): 56–81. https://doi.org/10.2307/500553.

Neal, Tamara. “Blood and Hunger in the Iliad.” Classical Philology 101, no. 1 (2006): 15–33. https://doi.org/10.1086/505669.

Redfield, James R. The Locrian Maidens: Love and Death in Italy. Princeton, 2004.

Seaford, Richard. “Homeric and Tragic Sacrifice.” Transactions of the American Philological Association (1974-) 119 (1989), 87-95

“It is not possible to find medicine to bring life to the dead.”
 οὐκ ἔστιν ἀποφθιμένοις ζωᾶς ἔτι φάρμακον εὑρεῖν -Ibycos

“Only Zeus has medicine for everything”
Ζεὺς πάντων αὐτὸς φάρμακα μοῦνος ἔχει -Anonymous Elegy

After Zeus wakes up from his post-coital nap at the beginning of 15, he sees right away that his plans have been subverted and focuses in particular on Hektor. The narrator notes that he saw “Hektor lying there and his companions were /seated around him, as he struggled with a ragged breath / losing his mind a bit while he puked up blood” (15.9-12). Hektor’s health and survival is directly connected to the survival of the city and Zeus’ plans, So his wounding during book 14 and his declining situation is a clear reason for concern.

Yet, Hektor’s revival is not narrated in the same way as other. In other divine interventions (Paris rescued by Aphrodite or Aeneas rescued), the audience witnesses how a god’s agency changes the natural course of events. Even when Sarpedon nearly dies in book 5, the language of the scene is marked in such a way as to show it is remarkable. Yet, in this scene, we hear Zeus talking repeatedly about Hektor needed to be healed, only to have the action in some way skipped over. 

When we next see Hektor in the middle of the book, it is alongside Apollo who “found Hektor, the glorious son of god-fearing Priam / seated–he was no longer stretched out, but he was regaining his spirit again / he recognized the companions around him, and his gasping and sweating / was relenting, since the mind of aegis-bearing Zeus was awakening him” (15.239-242).

The phrase “the mind [noos] of Zeus” does not occur frequently in Homer, but it seems to indicate either a part of Zeus’ general plan or his intention in the moment. Consider 16.103 where the narrative says that Ajax did not remain because “the mind of Zeus and the proud Trojans hurling [weapons] overcame him” (16.103) or later in book 16 when the narrator laments Patroklos ignoring Achilles’ warnings and provides the proverbial sounding judgment “the mind of Zeus is always stronger than men” (688), a phrase repeated by Hektor when speaking to Glaukos in book 17 (176). Indeed, it appears that these references do seem to correlate to moments where the overall plan of Zeus is being enforced.

One of the most important parts of book 15 comes after Zeus awakens and summons Hera. As he upbraids her, he outlines the plot for the rest of the epic.

Homer, Iliad 15. 63-68

“[The Greeks] will fall among the many-benched ships of
Peleian Achilles, after they flee there. He will send out his friend
Patroklos. Shining Hektor will kill him with a spear
In ground of Troy after he has killed many other strong men
Among them will be my own son, glorious Sarpedon.
In a rage over him, glorious Achilles will kill Hektor.”

φεύγοντες δ’ ἐν νηυσὶ πολυκλήϊσι πέσωσι
Πηλεΐδεω ᾿Αχιλῆος· ὃ δ’ ἀνστήσει ὃν ἑταῖρον
Πάτροκλον· τὸν δὲ κτενεῖ ἔγχεϊ φαίδιμος ῞Εκτωρ
᾿Ιλίου προπάροιθε πολέας ὀλέσαντ’ αἰζηοὺς
τοὺς ἄλλους, μετὰ δ’ υἱὸν ἐμὸν Σαρπηδόνα δῖον.
τοῦ δὲ χολωσάμενος κτενεῖ ῞Εκτορα δῖος ᾿Αχιλλεύς.

Some Alexandrian editors marked this passage as questionable (athetizing up to 20 lines of this speech). “because [the poet] needlessly repeats about the events that will immediately proceed and the verses inside are simplistic in their composition” (Schol. A ad 15.56a). Within the scholia as well, however, is the proposal that this device is “foreshadowing” (προανακεφαλαίωσις) as when “Odysseus outlines to Telemachus the murder of the suitors”.

The primary point here is that there is an overlap between Zeus’ function as a divine figure and his control over narrative devices. In the Iliad his plan is one of the most important ‘maps’ for the epic’s plot. One way to think of his speech in book 15 is as a corrective measure, pulling things back into line and pointing them back on course. From a similar perspective, if we return to the idea of the Iliad being performed in three parts, this speech is prolepsis (foreshadowing) of the type that we might see at the end of a weekly television drama: NEXT TIME, ON the Iliad….

But we also can’t lose sight of the numinous impact of his speech. Zeus’ noos–his thought about the plot–is so potent that merely be articulating the future, he sets it into action. Hektor does not need healing because as soon as Zeus has articulated what will happen next, Hektor becomes what he needs to be to serve Zeus’ plan. It is almost as if the world itself at this moment of the Iliad is a story unfolding in Zeus’ mind, a dream corrected or altered upon waking.

A short Bibliography on Zeus and Hektor in book 15

n.b this is not an exhaustive bibliography. If you’d like anything else included, please let me know.

Barker, Elton. (2022). Die Another Day: Sarpedon, Aristodemos, and Homeric Intertextuality in Herodotus. 

Heiden, B. (1996). The three movements of the iliad. Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, 37(1), 5-22. Retrieved from https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/three-movements-iliad/docview/229178418/se-2

Hunter, Richard. “39 Some Problems in the ‘Deception of Zeus’”. The Layers of the Text: Collected Papers on Classical Literature 2008–2021, edited by Antonios Rengakos and Evangelos Karakasis, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2021, pp. 787-808. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110747577-039

De Jong, Irene. 2004. Narrators and Focalizers: The Presentation of the Story in the Iliad.

Book 8 of the Iliad can seem a bit oddly placed in the epic’s first half—it doesn’t hearken back to earlier moments in the war as books 1, 2, 3, and 7 do; instead, it provides an intense battle scene that helps to set the scene for the Achaean panic that motivates the embassy to Achilles in book 9. Structurally, it is similar to book 4 which starts with a speech by Zeus forbidding the gods from engaging in the war; but it also echoes book 1, in that it ends with another speech where Zeus anticipates the plot of the epic (laying out the general actions of books 9-16, in particular the death of Achilles.

The book’s action hangs on Zeus’ intervention—his tipping of the scales in favor of the Trojans, his thunder to frighten the Greeks, and an omen near the middle to provide different messages to each side. But a central theme of the book must be the characterization of Hektor. Books 6, 7 and 8 feature Hektor prominently: he is a son, brother, and father/husband returning to Troy in book 6; a warrior standing up for one-on-one combat in book 7; and a military leader in book 8.

Structure of Iliad 8

1-80     Divine Council: Zeus tells the gods to stay out of the battle and retreats to watch, tips the scales for the Trojans

50-245 Nestor gets trapped and Diomedes rescues him from Hektor; Hera rouses Agamemnon to stop Hektor from burning the ships

245-490          Zeus feels bad and allows the Greeks to push back; Hektor wounds Teucer; Hera and Athena talk about opposing Zeus’ will; Zeus tells Iris to tell them to stop and then lays out the plot of the Iliad through Patroklos’ death

490-565          Hektor assembles the Trojans and has them camp outside the city

Hektor’s decision to stay outside of the city and keep the pressure on the Greeks is all part of “Zeus’ plan”, in a way. But as with every major Iliadic action the motivation is not left to Zeus alone. Instead, we see Hektor making key decisions and rallying his troops in vain hope of victory and glory. The image we find of Hektor is polysemous, shifting on the audience. To the internal audiences (some of the gods and the Greeks), he has finally become the ‘man-slaying’ Hektor we are told they fear, despite his near loss to Ajax in book 7. For Zeus, he is an instrument of his plan to have the Greeks suffer for dishonoring Achilles. As an external audience, we know Hektor is doomed to fail and we know that the fears of the Greeks and the other gods about the Achaeans’ losing are (somewhat) unfounded (‘somewhat’ because myriads still die!). And yet, we are also treated to a more complicated hero than we might think.

When I try to imagine how ancient audiences responded to the characterization of heroes in the epic we have, I consider two kinds of performance axes: on one, we have the episodic performances of epic, focusing on popular scenes; on the other, we have a major performance of a song like our own, that pieces together a different type of character in a sustained treatment that strings together ‘traditional’ and ‘non-traditional’ scenes (if the latter is possible). The significance here is that meaning in storytelling is developed through contrast and context, just as in language. The tension—or collaboration—between axes I just mentioned could also be reframed as the alternation between diachronic and synchronic aspects of language. In any given utterance, our meaning (intended or otherwise) relies on prior use and prior experience of a lexical item or morpheme, but the immediate meanings build on the combinations. The diachronic axis informs the synchronic, but the performance in the moment is realized differentially based on the experience (and competence) of performer and audience.

When it comes to a traditional figure like Hektor, I think we need to credit the tension between conventional/formulaic elements (‘man-slaying’ Hektor) and the unfolding narrative of this particular poem. Hektor up to this point in book 8 has not been the most fearsome warrior in the epic (if anything, that title belongs to Diomedes and then Ajax). He has been a chiding brother, a retreating son, and a father struggling to balance the necessity of war and the inevitability of death against his role a leader of a besieged city’s armies.

Some of the tension in these roles emerges in two rallying speeches in the first third of book 8. First, Hektor addresses the combined forces of Troy and their allies:

Iliad 8.172-183

“Hektor was calling out to the Trojans, roaring:
Trojans and Lykians and Spear-fighting Dardanians
Be men, friends, and remembering your rushing valor.
I know that Zeus assented to me willingly
To have victory and great glory, to be a pain for the Danaans.
The fools who thought up these walls here,
Useless and worth nothing. They will not withstand my fury.
My horses will easily leap over this hand-dug trench,
But when I make it to the hollow ships,
Don’t forget the destructive fire at that time
So that I can set the ships alight and kill them,
The Argives, thunderstruck beneath the smoke by their ships.”

῞Εκτωρ δὲ Τρώεσσιν ἐκέκλετο μακρὸν ἀΰσας·
Τρῶες καὶ Λύκιοι καὶ Δάρδανοι ἀγχιμαχηταὶ
ἀνέρες ἔστε φίλοι, μνήσασθε δὲ θούριδος ἀλκῆς.
γιγνώσκω δ’ ὅτι μοι πρόφρων κατένευσε Κρονίων
νίκην καὶ μέγα κῦδος, ἀτὰρ Δαναοῖσί γε πῆμα·
νήπιοι οἳ ἄρα δὴ τάδε τείχεα μηχανόωντο
ἀβλήχρ’ οὐδενόσωρα· τὰ δ’ οὐ μένος ἁμὸν ἐρύξει·
ἵπποι δὲ ῥέα τάφρον ὑπερθορέονται ὀρυκτήν.
ἀλλ’ ὅτε κεν δὴ νηυσὶν ἔπι γλαφυρῇσι γένωμαι,
μνημοσύνη τις ἔπειτα πυρὸς δηΐοιο γενέσθω,
ὡς πυρὶ νῆας ἐνιπρήσω, κτείνω δὲ καὶ αὐτοὺς
᾿Αργείους παρὰ νηυσὶν ἀτυζομένους ὑπὸ καπνοῦ.

Almost immediately after this speech, he talks to his horses.

8. 184-197

“So he spoke and then he was calling out and addressing his horses:
Xanthus and Podargos, Aithôn, and glorious Lampos
Now is the time to pay me back for your food, the great heaps
Of it Andromache, the daughter of great-hearted Eetion
Set out for you foremost, the thought-sweetening grain
And the wine she mixed in for you to drink, whenever the heart compelled,
Before even me, I who claim to be her powerful husband.
Rush forward now and hurry so that we can grab
Nestor’s shield, the fame of which rises to heaven,
Because it is all gold and has straps made the same way
And the fine-worked breastplate of horse-taming Diomedes
The one Hephaestus wore himself out when he made it.
If we can take those two things, I think that the Achaeans
Will climb into their swift ships this very evening.”

῝Ως εἰπὼν ἵπποισιν ἐκέκλετο φώνησέν τε·
Ξάνθέ τε καὶ σὺ Πόδαργε καὶ Αἴθων Λάμπέ τε δῖε
νῦν μοι τὴν κομιδὴν ἀποτίνετον, ἣν μάλα πολλὴν
᾿Ανδρομάχη θυγάτηρ μεγαλήτορος ᾿Ηετίωνος
ὑμῖν πὰρ προτέροισι μελίφρονα πυρὸν ἔθηκεν
οἶνόν τ’ ἐγκεράσασα πιεῖν, ὅτε θυμὸς ἀνώγοι,
ἢ ἐμοί, ὅς πέρ οἱ θαλερὸς πόσις εὔχομαι εἶναι.
ἀλλ’ ἐφομαρτεῖτον καὶ σπεύδετον ὄφρα λάβωμεν
ἀσπίδα Νεστορέην, τῆς νῦν κλέος οὐρανὸν ἵκει
πᾶσαν χρυσείην ἔμεναι, κανόνας τε καὶ αὐτήν,
αὐτὰρ ἀπ’ ὤμοιιν Διομήδεος ἱπποδάμοιο
δαιδάλεον θώρηκα, τὸν ῞Ηφαιστος κάμε τεύχων.
εἰ τούτω κε λάβοιμεν, ἐελποίμην κεν ᾿Αχαιοὺς
αὐτονυχὶ νηῶν ἐπιβησέμεν ὠκειάων.

Where, we might expect Hektor to enter battle immediately or exhort a particular hero, instead, Troy’s champion turns to his horses Hektor and orders to pay him back for their care by helping him seize Nestor’s shield, an object endowed with kleos by its quality and owner, and Diomedes’ breastplate. This speech is marked as exhortative by these commands and the accompanying appeal to a reciprocal relationship. It is safe to say that Hektor anthropomorphizes the horses—Andromache mixes wine to make the wheat-meal sweet.  Typically, when a superior invokes prior meals as motivation for action the vertical relationship is direct—here, however, Hektor reveals that Andromache feeds the horses.

The invocation of reciprocity, however, is one-degree removed—run fast, he says, pay me back for the care Andromache gave you. In this passage we find themes typically associated with Hektor throughout the epic—he invokes kleos, reveals an optimistic, if not tragically mistaken, attitude towards the war, and defines himself in terms of his family.  In this passage, Andromache functions as a metonym for the Trojan city. It matters not if she actually feeds Hektor’s chariot team—Andromache represents the nurturing and nourishing figure who cannot fight, the women and children of Troy, in short, the city itself.

As Hektor initiates his offensive strategy, the characterization of his hopes and delusion is stable—kleos is there for the taking; the Achaeans can be repelled; the city can be saved.  The final lines depict Hektor’s battle-rush—winning the armor is metonymic language for killing Diomedes and Nestor, which surely would be a blow to Achaian morale, but this assertion is contained within a future-less vivid conditional statement (lines 196-7). Hektor’s speeches in the Iliad contain many impossible conditionals, reflecting the gap between the world Hektor desires and the one he finds. Note as well, the contrast between his boast about burning the ships to his assembled allies and his more modest wish to his horses for the Achaeans to sail home.

The position of this speech may add to its irony. In this sequence of speeches, Hektor insults the Achaeans, rallies his army and turns to exhort his own horses. Zeus’ intervention is accompanied by one of Hektor’s most awkward experiments in leadership. He uses the language of martial exhortation on creatures that not only cannot speak to him in return but whom the narrative does not allow to react. For comparison, consider Hektor’s speech to his allies in book 17

Iliad 17.219-233

Rallying, he addressed them with winged words:
“Hear me, you thousand tribes of neighboring allies.
For I did not gather each of you here from your cities
searching for a multitude or needing one,
but so that you might willingly protect the wives and innocent children
of the Trojans for me from the war-mongering Achaeans.
Considering these things, I have exhausted the host
with gifts and food, and I increase the spirit of each of you.
So, let everyone turn straightaway and either be killed
or be saved—for this is the seduction of war.
Whoever then now conveys Patroklos, even dead
to the horse taming Trojans and to whomever Ajax yields
I will split half the booty with him, and I will have
the other half and his kleos will be half of mine.”

τοὺς ὅ γ’ ἐποτρύνων ἔπεα πτερόεντα προσηύδα·
κέκλυτε μυρία φῦλα περικτιόνων ἐπικούρων·
οὐ γὰρ ἐγὼ πληθὺν διζήμενος οὐδὲ χατίζων
ἐνθάδ’ ἀφ’ ὑμετέρων πολίων ἤγειρα ἕκαστον,
ἀλλ’ ἵνα μοι Τρώων ἀλόχους καὶ νήπια τέκνα
προφρονέως ῥύοισθε φιλοπτολέμων ὑπ’ ᾿Αχαιῶν.
τὰ φρονέων δώροισι κατατρύχω καὶ ἐδωδῇ
λαούς, ὑμέτερον δὲ ἑκάστου θυμὸν ἀέξω.
τώ τις νῦν ἰθὺς τετραμμένος ἢ ἀπολέσθω
ἠὲ σαωθήτω· ἣ γὰρ πολέμου ὀαριστύς.
ὃς δέ κε Πάτροκλον καὶ τεθνηῶτά περ ἔμπης
Τρῶας ἐς ἱπποδάμους ἐρύσῃ, εἴξῃ δέ οἱ Αἴας,
ἥμισυ τῷ ἐνάρων ἀποδάσσομαι, ἥμισυ δ’ αὐτὸς
ἕξω ἐγώ· τὸ δέ οἱ κλέος ἔσσεται ὅσσον ἐμοί περ.

There is overlap across his exhortative speeches, but the contrast is telling as well: Hektor speaks to his horses as if to a close companion, a brother or a comrade in arms. His rallying speeches contain some of the same themes, but lack some of the intimacy of his address to his horses. There is a pathos because the expected exhortation here would be to one of his men, as Agamemnon speaks to Odysseus or Diomedes in book 4. Hektor’s speech to his horses may be said to emphasize his isolation.

There are three moments in the Iliad when heroes talk to horses. In their, Homer: The Resonance of Epic, Barbara Graziosi and Johannes Haubold describe Homeric heroes, especially Achilles, as occupying a midpoint between men and the gods. In a section entitled “God, Animals, and Fate,” they nicely describe the function of many animals in communicating divine will to mortal man through omens I would argue that horses potentially represent a midpoint between animals and men. In this scheme, Achilles’ conversation with Xanthus later in the epic (book 19) represents a mantic moment; Antilochus threatens his horses with starvation and abuse if they don’t win him the chariot race in book 23 (23.402-17). Achilles’ conversation with horses brings his his closeness to the gods into relief with his mortality; Antilochus’ youthful brashness towards his horses anticipates the conflicts that ensue at the end of the chariot race.

Hektor’s equine moment show the contrast between his public bluster and his more personal hope: he claims to all that they may win the war that day, but he asks his horses only to win some prize of renown. The stepped down ambitions of this close encounter echo his conversation with Andromache, the very present absence for Hektor’s speeches through the rest of the poem. But here, as when Hektor speaks to his own heart in book 22, he addresses an interlocutor who can or will not respond. Each of these scenes says far more about Just as Homeric figures may look above to see what they are not, we may imagine them looking down and discovering certain aspects of what they are.

For more on Hektor:

1. Wishing the Impossible: Hektor in Iliad 8: Hektor’s character in the Iliad (part 1)

When I teach and write about Iliad 6 I usually find myself spending too much time thinking about Diomedes’ exchange with Glaukos and then breaking hearts with discussions of Hektor, Andromache, and Astyanax at the book’s end. In talking about the former, I typically spend most of my time going through Glaukos’ remarkable story, both for its content (Bellerophon!) and its impact (Diomedes declares them guest-friends). But before Diomedes delights in Glaukos’ ancestry, he tells his own story from myth.

Homer, Iliad 6. 130-140

For not even the son of Dryas, mighty Lykourgos,
Lasted long once he began to strive with the heavenly gods.
He;’ the one who chased the nurses of maddening Dionysus
Down the Nysian hill–all of them were dropping
Their wands to the ground because they were beaten
By man-slaying Lykourgos with a cattle-goad.
And Dionysus was frightened, so he immersed himself
In the salty waves where Thetis rescued the frightened child.
A powerful tremor had overcome him from the man’s shouting.
After that, the gods who live easily hated him
And Kronos’ son left him blind. And he didn’t last very long
After that, once he became hateful to all the immortal gods.”

οὐδὲ γὰρ οὐδὲ Δρύαντος υἱός, κρατερὸς Λυκόοργος,
δὴν ἦν, ὅς ῥα θεοῖσιν ἐπουρανίοισιν ἔριζεν·
ὅς ποτε μαινομένοιο Διωνύσοιο τιθήνας
σεῦε κατ᾿ ἠγάθεον Νυσήϊον, αἳ δ᾿ ἅμα πᾶσαι
θύσθλα χαμαὶ κατέχευαν, ὑπ᾿ ἀνδροφόνοιο Λυκούργου
θεινόμεναι βουπλῆγι. Διώνυσος δὲ φοβηθείς
δύσεθ᾿ ἁλὸς κατὰ κῦμα, Θέτις δ᾿ ὑπεδέξατο κόλπῳ
δειδιότα· κρατερὸς γὰρ ἔχε τρόμος ἀνδρὸς ὀμοκλῇ.
τῷ μὲν ἔπειτ᾿ ὀδύσαντο θεοὶ ῥεῖα ζώοντες,
καί μιν τυφλὸν ἔθηκε Κρόνου πάϊς· οὐδ᾿ ἄρ᾿ ἔτι δήν
ἦν, ἐπεὶ ἀθανάτοισιν ἀπήχθετο πᾶσι θεοῖσιν.

This is one of the few times in the Iliad where we find Dionysus mentioned at all. Indeed, the absence of Dionysus in our extant epic poetry is so marked that it led earlier generations of scholars to buy in to the Dionysian narrative of “a new god from the east”. (This argument was largely dispelled by the decipherment of Linear B which, surprise, shows ample evidence of Dionysus). One explanation for this absence has been generic: according to some, epic is properly the province of more rational gods like Athena and Apollo and Dionysus is more proper to lyric and tragedy. I am uncertain about this for two reasons: Apollo is not necessarily rational and we do have epic fragments (e.g. Panyasis) that shows wine and the forces of Dionysus as alive and well in epic verse.

If I were forced to give an answer on the spot about Dionysus’ absence from epic, I would suggest two thematic answers. First, as Elton Barker and I explore in Homer’s Thebes, the Iliad is interested in establishing the metaphysical boundaries of mortal human life. Even Herakles, as Achilles opines, is subject to death in its world view. Dionysus, as a child of a mortal mother and Zeus who becomes a god, challenges this fundamental feature of epic poetry. If mortals can become immortal, what’s the point of fighting, dying, and earning kleos. My second ‘idea’, which is much less well formed and perhaps just nonsense, is that our notion of Dionysus’ importance to the Greek pantheon might be skewed by the Athenocentric nature of our evidence for ancient Greece. Dionysus was extremely significant in Athenian cult and ritual (especially around Tragedy). I have a suspicion that the gods present in Homeric epic are there as much for their Panhellenic appeal as their generic importance.

In her Homeric Encyclopedia (2011) article on the topic, Renate Schlesier notes that Dionysus appears only four times in the Homeric epics, typically in situations “loosely associated with love and/or violent death” (210; to be fair, most situations in Homer could fall under this category).She adds that Dionysus does not seem to be a wine go in Homer, but that the language and motifs around him does seem to imply a knowledge of Maenadism.

The passage in the Iliad is explained as part of Dionysus’ conventional exile from Thebes and journeys through the east. A scholion summarizes it. 

Schol. D ad, Hom. Il. 6.130

“Dionysus, the child of Zeus and Semele, happened to be receiving purification under the guidance of Rheat among the Kybeloi of Phrydia. Once he completed the rites and received his acoutrement from the goddess, he traveled all over the world. He obtained his choruses and honors, while people were leading him everywhere. When he was present in Tharce, Lykourgos, son of Dryas, caused him pain, Hera was despising him, and drove him from the land with a gadfly. She attacked him and his caregivers. They happened to be engaging in sacred rites along with him. Driven by a god-made whip, he was rushing to punish the god. But [Dionysus] leapt into the sea beccause of fear where Thetis and Eurynome accepted him. Lykourgos did not commit irreverance without punishment. He paid a penalty mortals do.–for Zeus took his eyes from him. Many record this story, but Eumelos told the story first in his Europia.”

Διόνυσος, ὁ Διὸς καὶ Σεμέλης παῖς, ἐν Κυβέλοις τῆς Φρυγίας ὑπὸ τῆς ῾Ρέας τυχὼν καθαρμῶν, καὶ διαθεὶς τὰς τελετὰς, καὶ λαβὼν παρὰ τῆς θεᾶς τὴν διασκευὴν, ἀνὰ πᾶσαν ἐφέρετο τὴν γῆν, χορειῶν τε καὶ τιμῶν ἐτύγχανε, προηγουμένων τῶν ἀνθρώπων. Παραγενόμενον δὲ αὐτὸν εἰς τὴν Θρᾴκην, Λυκοῦργος ὁ Δρύαντος λυπήσας, ῞Ηρας μίσει, μύωπι ἀπελαύνει τῆς γῆς. καὶ καθάπτεται αὐτοῦ καὶ τῶν τούτου τιθηνῶν. ἐτύγχανον γὰρ αὐτῷ συνοργιάζουσαι. Θεηλάτῳ δ’ ἐπελαυνόμενος μάστιγι, τὸν θεὸν ἔσπευδε τιμωρήσασθαι. ῾Ο δὲ ὑπὸ δέους εἰς τὴν θάλασσαν καταδύνει, καὶ ὑπὸ Θέτιδος καὶ Εὐρυνόμης ὑπολαμβάνεται. ῾Ο οὖν Λυκοῦργος οὐκ ἀμισθὶ δυσσεβήσας, ἔδωκε τὴν ἐξ ἀνθρώπων δίκην. ἀφῃρέθη γὰρ πρὸς τοῦ Διὸς τοὺς ὀφθαλμούς. Τῆς ἱστορίας πολλοὶ ἐμνήσθησαν, προηγουμένως δὲ ὁ τὴν Εὐρωπίαν πεποιη κὼς Εὔμηλος. 

Christos Tsagalis provides the most in-depth discussion of this passage (that I know of). In The Oral Palimpsest, Tsagalis treats this passage first as a mythological paradeigma but then charts the language, especially the participle μαινομένοιο. Christos combs through similar language in the iIliad  to identify a thematic pattern that shows “interplay between the Dionysias metaphor in the myth of Lycurgus…and the meeting between Andromache and Hektor” (37). He draws attention to both Lykourgos and Hektor sharing the epithet “man=slaying”, Andromache being compared to a maenad, the fear felt by baby Dionysus and Astyanax, and the liminal dramatic space where the action of the myth and the meeting of Hektor and Andromache take place. Tsagalis uses this analysis–and more that probes the couple’s connection to Thebes–to suggest both the Dionysus does in fact belong to other poems and non Ionian traditions. In addition, the association of Andromache with a maenad engages with a larger mythical tapestry, “ changing (as far as Andromache is concerned) an Amazon with maenadic and warlike origins into a suffering wife and mother” (64).

Tsagalis was not the first to treat this scene, of course. M.B. Arthur sees the comparison as indicated that Andromache is moved out of her normal state of mind by anxiety and grief. Charles Segal demonstrates how Homeric language has been shifted to accommodate this image. I think we also need to consider the valence of the image of audiences who would have been more familiar with the range of meaning associated with Maenads. Imagine an audience familiar with stories like the Bacchae. Andromache as a maenad may be out of her mind from an authoritative male perspective, but she may also be considered rightfully so from a cosmic perspective. Her out-of-mindness stands both to mark her straining to break from the limited agency the siege of Troy (and her marriage to Hektor) imposes while also anticipating her ultimate marginalization by grief and his loss.

If we treat the internal references as a kind of simile where Hektor=Lykourgos and Astyanax=Dionysus, there may be additional pathos to consider. Hektor is clearly not god-hated, but he is a king who cannot stay within limits. The difference here is that Hektor commits no sacrilege and the infant child does not go on to be rescued by a goddess of the sea.

Regardless of the precise interpretation we offer, this is a good example of how fluidly integrated the motifs and themes of epic poetry are on both large and small scales. The story of Lykourgos in Diomedes’ speech is a lesson about angering the gods that Glaukos picks up on and responds to in his own narrative where his Bellerophon becomes hateful to the gods despite performing heroic deeds. So, the story Diomedes offers Glaukos is not a simple message to his addressee, but it is a dynamic narrative Glaukos ‘reads’ and uses to ‘decode’ the challenge Diomedes presents in the text. The correspondence between this scene in the middle of book 6 and the later presentation of Hektor, Andromache, and Astyanax relies on audience memory and interpretation, triangulating a level of understanding that requires both a knowledge of poetic convention and a sensitivity to the stories at play.

A short bibliography

Arthur, M.B.  “The Divided World of Iliad VI.”  In Reflections of Women in Antiquity, Helene Foley ed.  New York: Gordon and Breach Science Publishers, 1981, 19-44.    

Lightfoot, Jessica. “Something to do with Dionysus ? : dolphins and dithyramb in Pindar fragment 236 SM.” Classical Philology, vol. 114, no. 3, 2019, pp. 481-492. Doi: 10.1086/703823

Davies, Malcolm. “Homer and Dionysus.” Eikasmos, vol. 11, 2000, pp. 15-28.

Segal, C. “Andromache’s Anagnorisis: Formulaic Artistry in Iliad 75 (1971): 33-57. 

Suter, Ann. “Paris and Dionysos: iambos in the Iliad.” Arethusa, vol. 26, 1993, pp. 1-18.

Tsagalis, Christos. 2008. The Oral Palimpsest: Exploring Intertextuality in the Homeric Epics. Hellenic Studies Series 29. Washington, DC: Center for Hellenic Studies. http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hul.ebook:CHS_TsagalisC.The_Oral_Palimpsest.2008.

Book 5 presents the first full aristeia of the Iliad as Athena supports Diomedes’ destruction of the Trojan lines and opposition to the gods. Athena provides Diomedes the ability to see the gods and points him directly at Aphrodite. Diomedes and Athenelos are pitted against Aeneas and Pandaros–in the first of two significant testings of Aeneas in the Iliad–and Diomedes prevails. He wounds Aphrodite when she appears to rescue her son (Aeneas), replacing him with a fake version. To balance this weighing of different heroic traditions, Sarpedon, a son of Zeus, encounters Herakles’ son Tlepolemos. Sarpedon wins but is wounded and has to be saved. The flow of the action angers Athena and Hera who prepare to battle Ares. Zeus permits them to harry him and Diomedes wounds Ares as well. The book ends with the gods pulling back from the battle field, leaving space for the more human plots of book 6.

Each of the major scenes in book 5 contributes critically to some of the major themes I have noted to follow in reading the Iliad: (1) Politics, (2) Heroism; (3) Gods and Humans; (4) Family & Friends; (5) Narrative Traditions. But the central themes I emphasize in reading and teaching book 5 are narrative traditions, heroism, and gods and humans. The paradigmatic consolation Dione offers Aphrodite when she is injured is structurally and thematically interesting, but the primary narrative entanglements of book 6 involve (1) Theomachy and (2) the characterization of Diomedes.

Theomachy and Homeric Gods

One of the chief themes of Book 5 is deferred theomachy. The gods engage in direct conflict elsewhere in the epic (most notably in books 13-15 and 20), but here we get a mix of theomachy by proxy (Diomedes wounding Aphrodite at Athena’s urging) and direct conflict (Athena vs. Ares) with Zeus intervening. The behavior of the gods in Homer, however, is crucial to understanding the epic’s messages about human beings.

The theme of theomachy (“war among the gods”) is integrated into the epic both to engage with its place in cosmic history and to appropriate themes from other traditions. For the latter, we have multiple echoes of earlier conflicts between the gods: the apostasy of Poseidon and Apollo that led to their service to build the walls of Troy (see books 7 and 12), reminders from Zeus of how powerful he is and how he punished them before (books 4, 8, 15) and reflections from other gods of how they settled and distributed their rights, alluding to moments that could be (but aren’t) represented in Hesiod’s Theogony. 

While the Iliad is not explicit about it, divine-conflict deferred or avoided is central to the Trojan War myth writ large, especially around the character of Achilles and his mother Thetis (on which, no one has yet improved upon Laura Slatkin’s elegant The Power of Thetis). The story is deep, but easy to summarize: Prometheus had the secret knowledge of a nymph who would bear a son greater than his father, endangering the cosmos if Zeus or one of his brothers ended up the daddy in question. Zeus releases Prometheus from his bondage and torture in exchange for this information, leading to the arranged marriage of Thetis and Peleus.

So, at the center of Achilles’ apostasy from Agamemnon and his mother’s intervention on his behalf (triggering even more conflict among the gods) is the traditional threat that Achilles’ birth averted: upheaval among the gods. Nevertheless, as a narrative tradition seeking to encompass if not surpass all others, the Iliad still tries to include themes and motifs that would be proper both to the story that was never told (Zeus overthrown by a son) and those that were (Gigantomachies, Titanomachies, etc.)

Book 5 is the first time the gods really get into the action in the Iliad. They stage manage it in books 3 and 4, but finally get their hands dirty here. And a lot of what they do seems pretty embarrassing or even sacrilegious to modern audiences. This connects with the other main function of the gods and theomachy in the Iliad: to elevate the human condition.

Xenophanes, fragments 10-11

“Homer and Hesiod have attributed everything to the gods
that is shameful and reprehensible among men:
theft, adultery and deceiving each other

*      *      *

How they have sung the most the lawless deeds of the gods!
That they steal, commit adultery and deceive one another…

Fr. 10

πάντα θεοῖσ’ ἀνέθηκαν ῞Ομηρός θ’ ῾Ησίοδός τε,
ὅσσα παρ’ ἀνθρώποισιν ὀνείδεα καὶ ψόγος ἐστίν,
κλέπτειν μοιχεύειν τε καὶ ἀλλήλους ἀπατεύειν.

Fr. 11

ὡς πλεῖστ’ ἐφθέγξαντο θεῶν ἀθεμίστια ἔργα,
κλέπτειν μοιχεύειν τε καὶ ἀλλήλους ἀπατεύειν.

Heraclitus, fr. 42

“He used to say that Homer was worthy of being expelled from the contests and whipped along with Archilochus too.”

— —τόν τε ῞Ομηρον ἔφασκεν ἄξιον ἐκ τῶν ἀγώνων ἐκβάλλεσθαι καὶ ῥαπίζεσθαι καὶ ᾿Αρχίλοχον ὁμοίως

Diogenes Laertius, 8.21 (Lives of the Sophists)

“Hieronymos says that when Pythagoras went down into Hades he saw the ghost of Hesiod bound to a bronze pillar, squeaking, and that Homer’s ghost was hanging from a tree surrounded by snakes. They were being punished for the things they said about the gods. And in addition he saw men who were not willing to have sex with their own wives. This is the reason, that Pythagoras was honored by the inhabitants of Croton. Aristippos of Cyrene in his work Peri Physiologoi says that Pythagoras was given his name because he spoke the truth publically [agoreuô] no less than the Pythian oracle.”

φησὶ δ’ ῾Ιερώνυμος (Hiller xxii) κατελθόντα αὐτὸν εἰς ᾅδου τὴν μὲν ῾Ησιόδου ψυχὴν ἰδεῖν πρὸς κίονι χαλκῷ δεδεμένην καὶ τρίζουσαν, τὴν δ’ ῾Ομήρου κρεμαμένην ἀπὸ δένδρου καὶ ὄφεις περὶ αὐτὴν ἀνθ’ ὧν εἶπον περὶ θεῶν, κολαζομένους δὲ καὶ τοὺς μὴ θέλοντας συνεῖναι ταῖς ἑαυτῶν γυναιξί· καὶ δὴ καὶ διὰ τοῦτο τιμηθῆναι  ὑπὸ τῶν ἐν Κρότωνι. φησὶ δ’ ᾿Αρίστιππος ὁ Κυρηναῖος ἐν τῷ Περὶ φυσιολόγων Πυθαγόραν αὐτὸν ὀνομασθῆναι ὅτι τὴν ἀλήθειαν ἠγόρευεν οὐχ ἧττον τοῦ Πυθίου.

There’s a tension between comments like those of Xenophanes and Heraclitus and the assertion by Herodotus (in book 2 of the Histories) that Homer and Hesiod Olympian Pantheon. I think a lot of this tension is a misunderstanding of what the gods in Homer are doing. They are simultaneously representations of divine beings (although not universal) and characters in a story. They do and do not reflect shared Greek beliefs about the gods. In addition, they serve as inducement for audiences to think about things like ‘fate’ and human agency. But they also serve to contrast with humans. The gods can do whatever they please because they face no consequences and live forever; by contrast, human beings face consequences for their actions and have a limited lifespan. The value of human life is thus actually increased by its scarcity and the importance of human choice and agency is all the more elevated by the fact that we can lose something so preciously limited at any moment. The gods end up looking somewhat distant and pathetic by comparison–but this is part of a general cosmic goal of justifying the separation between the worlds of gods and men.

People who focus on epic narrative have noted that the narrative worlds of gods and men overlap but are not coterminous.  Divine players can learn about everything that goes on in the mortal realm, but mortals know only what is directly revealed to them. The external audience witnesses everything. 

Why Diomedes?

Diomedes is a central figure in book 5’s allusions to theomachy and he helps defer these themes from god-on-god violence to god-by-proxy violence. Part of the reason Diomedes can function as a Theomahkos (on which, see Zoe Stamatopoulou’s great article cited below) is because he is also a substitute Achilles. But, because he is wholly mortal, he does not represent the same threat to the cosmic order. As covered a bit in posts on book 4, Diomedes is an important figure because of his place as a hero who was part of both the Theban and Trojan War traditions. 

In the Iliad, his character is adapted to tell a different story about the way a young hero might be part of a larger coalition. There is of course a lot going on with Diomedes from a mythographical tradition, and he channels that as the Athena-aided hero who does great things in book 5; but he follows an important pattern in the development of his political acumen.

I have written several times on the importance of Diomedes in the Iliad’s political arc (sorry to be obnoxious, but Christensen 2009, 2015, and 2018 below). Here’s a table of his political/forensic actions in the epic.

(1)             Diomedes (implicitly) witnesses the actions and speeches of Iliad 1-3

(2)             Diomedes shows he knows the appropriate parameters for political and martial speech (Il. 4)

(3)             Diomedes practices public speech and is acclaimed by all the Achaians in his refusal of Paris’ offer to return the gifts but not Helen (7.400-2). Acclamation (7.403-4):

(4)             Diomedes practices public speech in criticizing Agamemnon and is acclaimed by all (9.50-1) but is criticized by Nestor for not reaching the télos múthôn (9.53-62). Acclamation (9.50-1)

(5)             Diomedes practices public speech in reaction to Achilles’ rejection of the assembly (9.697-709) and is acclaimed by all the kings.

(6)             Diomedes volunteers to go on a nocturnal spying mission during the council of kings and is encouraged by Agamemnon to choose any companion he wants regardless of nobility (10.219-39)

(7)             Diomedes executes public speech at a critical moment and offers a plan (14.110-32). He is obeyed by all the kings and departs from the epic as a speaker. 

Book 5, of course, stands outside of this narrative arc. Here, he carries out the ideal actions of a god-aided hero, fully replacing Achilles in the ranks of the Achaean warriors, but only for a short time. As you follow Diomedes throughout the epic, note that as soon as Achilles returns, Diomedes recedes from the stage entirely. 

Some guiding questions

What is the relationship between Diomedes and Athena like in book 5?

How does the depiction of the gods in Book 5 contribute to their overall presentation in the Iliad?

How are stories outside the Iliad used in Book 5?

What is the impact of the violence in book 5?

Bibliography on Diomedes

n.b this is not an exhaustive bibliography. If you’d like anything else included, please let me know.

Andersen, Ø. 1978. Die Diomedesgestalt in der Ilias. Oslo.

Christensen, J. P. 2009. “The end of speeches and a speech’s end: Nestor, Diomedes, and the telos muthôn.”’ in K. Myrsiades, ed. Reading Homer: Film and Text. Farleigh.

Christensen, J. P. 2015. “Diomedes’ Foot-wound and the Homeric Reception of Myth.” In Diachrony, Jose Gonzalez (ed.). De Gruyter series, MythosEikonPoesis. 2015, 17–41.

Christensen, J. P. 2018. “Speech Training and the Mastery of Context: Thoas the Aitolian and the Practice of Múthoi” for Homer in Performance: Rhapsodes, Narrators and Characters, Christos Tsagalis and Jonathan Ready (eds.). University of Texas Press, 2018: 255–277.

Christensen, Joel P., and Elton T. E. Barker. “On Not Remembering Tydeus: Agamemnon, Diomedes and the Contest for Thebes.” Materiali e Discussioni per l’analisi Dei Testi Classici, no. 66 (2011): 9–43. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41415488.

Griffin, Jasper. 1986. “Homeric Words and Speakers.” JHS 106: 36–57.

Harries, Byron. “‘Strange Meeting’: Diomedes and Glaucus in ‘Iliad’ 6.” Greece & Rome 40, no. 2 (1993): 133–46. http://www.jstor.org/stable/643154.

HIGBIE, CAROLYN. “DIOMEDES’ GENEALOGY AND ANCIENT CRITICISM.” Arethusa 35, no. 1 (2002): 173–88. http://www.jstor.org/stable/44578455.

Martin 1989, R. The Language of Heroes, Ithaca 1989.

Morrison, James V. “The Function and Context of Homeric Prayers: A Narrative Perspective.” Hermes 119, no. 2 (1991): 145–57. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4476812.

Scodel, Ruth. “Homeric Attribution of Outcomes and Divine Causation.” Syllecta Classica 29 (2018): 1-27. https://doi.org/10.1353/syl.2018.0001.

Stagakis, George. “DOLON, ODYSSEUS AND DIOMEDES IN THE ‘DOLONEIA.’” Rheinisches Museum Für Philologie 130, no. 3/4 (1987): 193–204. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41233632.

Stamatopoulou, Zoe. “Wounding the Gods: The Mortal Theomachos in the Iliad and the Hesiodic Aspis.” Mnemosyne 70, no. 6 (2017): 920–38. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26572880

Stamatopoulou, Zoe. “Wounding the Gods: The Mortal Theomachos in the Iliad and the Hesiodic Aspis.” Mnemosyne 70, no. 6 (2017): 920–38. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26572880

Turkeltaub, Daniel. “Perceiving Iliadic Gods.” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 103 (2007): 51–81. http://www.jstor.org/stable/30032218.

Some more on the Gods in Homer and Theomachy

A W. H. Adkins. ”Homeric Gods and the Values of Homeric Society.” JHS 92 (1972) 1-19.

W. Allan. “Divine Justice and Cosmic Order in Early Greek Epic” JHS 126 (2006) 1–35.

Burkert, Walter.1986. Greek Religion. 119-125.

G. M. Calhoun. “Homer’s Gods: Prolegomena”.  TAPA 68 (1937) 24-25.

Jenny Strauss Clay. The Wrath of Athena: Gods and Men in the Odyssey. Princeton: Princeton  University Press, 1983.

—,—. The Politics of Olympus: Form and Meaning in the Major Homeric Hymns. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989.

Erbse, Hartmut (1986). Untersuchungen zur Funktion der Götter im homerischen Epos. Berlin: de Gruyter

Friedman, Rachel. 2001. “Divine Dissension and the Narrative of the Iliad.” Helios 28:–118.

Griffin, Jasper. “The Divine Audience and the Religion of the Iliad.” The Classical Quarterly 28, no. 1 (1978): 1–22. http://www.jstor.org/stable/638707.

Emily Kearns. “The Gods in the Homeric Epics.” In Robert Fowler (ed.). The Cambridge Companion to Homer. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004, 59-73.

Lamberton, Robert. 1986. Homer the Theologian: Neoplatonist Allegorical reading and the Growth of the Epic Tradition. Berkeley and Los Angeles.

W. F. Otto. 1954. The Homeric Gods The Spiritual Significance of Greek Religion. Trans. M, Hadas.

Pietro Pucci. “Theology and Poetics in the Iliad.” Arethusa 35 (2002) 17-34

Turkeltaub, Daniel. “Perceiving Iliadic Gods.” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 103 (2007): 51–81. http://www.jstor.org/stable/30032218.