My general argument in an earlier post, emphasizing that we need to understand the Homeric epics as objects that exist through time and different layers of reception only goes so far in helping current readers and teachers grapple with Homeric epic. Indeed, acknowledging that different audiences meaningfully engaged with the Homeric epics in very different modes does little to help first time readers make their way into the poems. A fear years ago, I posted somewhat problematic essays on how not to read Homer and on reading Homer. Those comments are somewhat more polemical and aimed at a particular cultural stance. Here, I hope to provide (1) more practical advice, followed by (2) some limited justification for that advice, before closing with (3) some recommendations for introductions to Homeric epic.

Some Practical Advice 

1. Prepare by reading something else: Ancient audiences grew up with the names of heroes and the basic plots in their minds. Modern audiences who are less familiar with the characters, the pantheon, and their narrative traditions are at a bit of a loss. Try preparing by reading something else first, like an overview or one of Gareth Hinds’ graphic novels first. Don’t read epic as if it is a modern novel full of twists and surprises. Read it like you’re attending a new Spiderman film and you have seen earlier reboots and maybe read the comic book once as a kid.

2. Follow a ‘rule of three’: Epic is full of place names, people, and stories that show up once or twice. Some of these references are subtle intertexts; others are about vibes or flavor. Very few are really necessary to understand the overall tale. So, even given the work done on #1, don’t sweat all the details on your first or even second reading. If a name or idea does not come up at least three times, don’t worry about it. This doesn’t mean it isn’t important, it just means that it is less important than the others.

3. Focus on the story being told: These details aren’t insignificant, but they can distract from the major plot. Remember that the Iliad is not the Trojan War: there’s no Trojan Horse, there’s no judgment of Paris; Achilles doesn’t even die. When people come to Homer expecting the whole story, they are confused or disappointed. In fact, it may almost be better to know less than more when starting the epic for the first time. While there are nearly endless references to and echoes of characters, events, and stories that are not in the Iliad and recognizing such references may enhance one’s enjoyment of epic over time, the story in its telling can appeal to multiple audiences simultaneously. The way I explain it is this: someone with little knowledge of baseball or American football can enjoy the competition, provided they know the basic rules. A home-run or a hail-Mary are no more or less majestic and exciting if you know advanced statistics and the history of the game. Allow epic’s game to unfold, and if you return to it again, bring some new understanding each time.

4. Court anachronism: it is certainly the case that Homeric characters are not “just like us”; but, by the same token, modern comic book characters are not like us either. The enduring power of epic resides in its ability to function as a vehicle for audiences with very different experiences and worldviews.

5. Don’t Read Homer Alone! Accept polysemy: Once you have started to do #4, also acknowledge that this might not be enough: test your responses against other peoples’ responses (both your peers and contemporaries and people over time). Many authors will gladly remind you of how brutal, savage, and different the Homeric heroes (and their anticipated audiences) are. Don’t ignore this, but don’t be shackled by it either. Any work of art that exists through time requires you to move around it, to look at it from different angles, to ask what other people think of it, and to weigh your responses against those from different times.

6. Code Switch: Learn enough about Homeric aesthetics to understand where they matter: The epics we have are assuredly ‘oral-derived’ and they were performed in front of audiences in their earliest periods. “Aesthetics”, or the set of cultural assumptions about style, form, and value that inform interpretation and judgment, vary from culture to culture and over time. Homeric language developed over time in concert with its rhythmic shapes. Rather than be concerned with individual words, good interpretation of Homer looks at partial lines, phrases, and their adaptation (and in this there is likely more common with music than what we think of as poetry). In general, Homeric poetry tends to have more repetition than a modern author would be comfortable with; it also tends to be additive (paratactic) because it unfolds in real time and performance, giving the (deceptive) appearance of simplicity. This does not mean that the repetition is meaningless or mechanical. One of my favorite takes on this belongs to John Miles Foley who argues that oral poetry works like any other language, just more so!

7. Learn about Metonymy: Metonymy is often paired with metaphor; the latter is figurative language that says something is something else; the former, metonymy, uses a part of a thing to evoke the whole. The very nature of epic is metonymic: the Iliad evokes the themes and motifs of a vastly larger and expanding story-scape of nearly 20 years (and countless characters) through something like 58 days. This structural relationship should be understood as operative the parts of each epic as well. 

   Because of its existence through and over time and its adaptive, generative nature, Homeric language and narrative are filled with potential meaning. A single word or sequence of words can invoke entire story-traditions. Never assume, as I once did, that a simple simile (e.g. Hektor went forth like a snowy mountain) is just waiting to be extended or elaborated. Instead, imagine that the complex story was there first and then compressed. Epic, as made clear from the comparative studies of Milman Parry and Albert Lord, advances itself through expansion or contraction (suppression) of various themes and motifs). 

8. When in doubt, read more Homer: In line with the ancient practice of “clarifying Homer through Homer”, many Homeric ‘problems’ can be resolved by looking at the practices within Homer, not adducing information from outside the epics. If things are really knotty, Homeric scholarship is deep and wide and chances are someone else has encountered the same problem you have.

Some Explanations/Justifications

1. Homer’s Early Audiences Engaged with Homer repeatedly, but rarely completely: 

The more I think about it and the more I have learned over time, I am convinced that a majority of audiences prior to the Hellenistic period experienced Homeric epic episodically and rarely in full, ‘monumental’ performances. After the Hellenistic period, I think that most engagements in writing would have been with popular passages mined for rhetorical examples and equally rare in full readings of the epic from beginning to end. For me, this distinction between ancient and modern practices suggests that we should modify our approach to reading Homer to include both sampling of famous passages and iteration/repetition. In addition, the origin of the Homeric epic in performance contexts recommends a form of reading that includes other people as part of the interpretive process. Homeric poetry developed within communities of performers and audiences and to this day relies on a community of readers to return them to life.

2. Ancient Scholarly Practice was to Make Sense of Homer Through Homer

Ancient scholarly practice commends a practice of iterative re-reading epic. Since Homeric poetry was–and is–somewhat sui generis, questions of style and content can be best answered only with reference to the epics itself. Below I have marshaled a few quotations on the practice of “clarifying Homer through Homer”.  Note, this practice of interpreting a text within its own terms through its own guidance became a foundational custom of Classical and Biblical philology (see, for example Martin Luther’s scriptura sui ipsius interpres [“scripture is its own interpreter”])

D Scholia to the Iliad (5.385)

“Aristarchus believed it best to make sense of those things that were presented more fantastically by Homer according to the poet’s authority, that we not be overwhelmed by anything outside of the things presented by Homer.”

᾿Αρίσταρχος ἀξιοῖ τὰ φραζόμενα ὑπὸ τοῦ Ποιητοῦ μυθικώτερον ἐκδέχεσθαι, κατὰ τὴν Ποιητικὴν ἐξουσίαν, μηδὲν ἔξω τῶν φραζομένων ὑπὸ τοῦ Ποιητοῦ περιεργαζομένους.

Porphyry, Homeric Questions 1.1

“Since often in our conversations with one another about Homeric questions, when I try to show you that Homer interprets himself for the most part, and we consider from every angle in most instances based on our training more than [simply] knowing what he says, you have considered it right that I write up the things we have said rather than allow them to fall aside and disappear because we’ve forgotten them.”

Πολλάκις μὲν ἐν ταῖς πρὸς ἀλλήλους συνουσίαις ῾Ομηρικῶν ζητημάτων γινομένων, ᾿Ανατόλιε, κἀμοῦ δεικνύναι πειρωμένου, ὡς αὐτὸς μὲν ἑαυτὸν τὰ πολλὰ ῞Ομηρος ἐξηγεῖται, ἡμεῖς δὲ ἐκ τῆς παιδικῆς κατηχήσεως περινοοῦμεν μᾶλλον ἐν τοῖς πλείστοις ἢ νοοῦμεν ἃ λέγει, ἠξίωσας ἀναγράψαι με τὰ λεχθέντα μηδὲ διαπεσόντα ἐᾶσαι ὑπὸ τῆς λήθης ἀφανισθῆναι.

Porphyry, Homeric Questions 1.12-14

“Because I think it best to make sense of Homer through Homer, I usually show by example how he may interpret himself, sometimes in juxtaposition, sometimes in other ways.”

᾿Αξιῶν δὲ ἐγὼ ῞Ομηρον ἐξ ῾Ομήρου σαφηνίζειν αὐτὸν ἐξηγούμενον ἑαυτὸν ὑπεδείκνυον, ποτὲ μὲν παρακειμένως, ἄλλοτε δ’ ἐν ἄλλοις.

This practice of analyzing Homer is multilayered as well; in keeping with Homeric poetry’s metonymic self-generation, its additive character and a scaffolding of shared characteristics from the level of the word all the way to the level of structure, the Iliad and the Odyssey in their entirety are assumed to be responsive to similar approaches. Indeed, Hellenistic scholars conceived of a scaffolded interpretive process

Dionysius Thrax, Ars Grammatica 1

“The art of grammar is the experience-derived knowledge of how things are said, for the most part, by poets and prose authors. It has six components. First, reading out loud and by meter; second, interpretation according to customary compositional practice; third, a helpful translation of words and their meanings; fourth, an investigation of etymology; fifth, a categorization of morphologies; and sixth—which is the most beautiful portion of the art—the critical judgment of the compositions.”

Γραμματική ἐϲτιν ἐμπειρία τῶν παρὰ ποιηταῖϲ τε καὶ ϲυγγραφεῦϲιν ὡϲ ἐπὶ τὸ πολὺ λεγομένων.   Μέρη δὲ αὐτῆϲ ἐϲτιν ἕξ· πρῶτον ἀνάγνωϲιϲ ἐντριβὴϲ κατὰ προϲῳδίαν, δεύτερον ἐξήγηϲιϲ κατὰ τοὺϲ ἐνυπάρχονταϲ ποιητικοὺϲ τρόπουϲ,  τρίτον γλωϲϲῶν τε καὶ ἱϲτοριῶν πρόχειροϲ ἀπόδοϲιϲ, τέταρτον ἐτυμολογίαϲ εὕρεϲιϲ, πέμπτον ἀναλογίαϲ ἐκλογιϲμόϲ, ἕκτον κρίϲιϲ ποιημάτων, ὃ δὴ κάλλιϲτόν ἐϲτι πάντων τῶν ἐν τῇ τέχνῃ.

3. Regardless of the period of its reception, Homeric poetry is aesthetically different from our own, but it guides us on its use

Homeric poetry is a language that developed from multiple dialects, selecting for morphologies and syntax over time to create a dynamic and flexible language. The rhythmic shape of the dactylic hexameter line is a natural part of the Homeric dialect, but not in the sense of functioning as a rigid or restrictive form. As part of the song culture of ancient Greece, Homeric poetry was (and is) capable of conveying a full range of ideas and emotions like any other language. The one thing I would add to the “clarify Homer through Homer” sentiment above works best if we understand Homer as part of a much larger song culture that includes all poetry from  ancient Greece.

As I note above, familiarity with ancient Greek poetry in general will help modern readers understand the structure and narrative flow of Greek epic. It accommodates, if not relies upon, repetitions and builds larger patterns out of doublets, rings, rising tricola (three-part statements with emphasis on the final) and more. 

Moving from epic to lyric and back again also helps us to see that Homeric epic is structured around devices that invite comparison from ‘outside the frame’ to inside. Consider speeches, omens, and similes. Each one of these devices that together make up the majority of the Iliad, has an opening (a speech introduction, a ‘like this, so that’ or something like it) and a closing statement around content that needs to be understood within the framework provided. So, speech introductions and conclusions give us information about how to understand the nature of the speech framed, while omen scenes (see especially Odysseus description of the omen in book 2 [Iliad 2.299–330 ] the debate in book 12 [12.199–257] over the omen of the snake and the eagle at the Greek wall) demonstrate debate over interpretation and similes demarcate boundaries between the ‘real’ and the ‘imaginary’ that nevertheless invite us to collapse the two to make meaning. 

It is my contention that Homeric poetry models and trains audiences on methods of interpretation, prizing judgment from without over the importance of detail within. This becomes clearest, I think, in moments where Homeric heroes try to use stories from their past to persuade their interlocutors. They make equivalences between the narratives they present and the actions around them that anticipate or echo similar moves made by external audiences. Phoinix makes this explicit when he speaks to Achilles in book 9 (see below, c) and Achilles himself acknowledges that his quarrel with Agamemnon will be an object of memory for years to come (below, b). But most importantly of all, when the epic asks its audiences to look outside of itself in book 18 at the cities on the shield Hephaestus makes for Achilles, the prize offered is for those who judge a quarrel most correctly.

In future posts, I will return to these questions again, particularly when assembling some notes on books 9, 18, and 19.

a.  Phoinix Prefaces his tale of Meleager, 9.524–526: This is the way we have learned from famous stories of the men who were before, the heroes, whenever a furious anger overcomes someone. They are amenable to gifts and persuaded by words.” οὕτω καὶ τῶν πρόσθεν ἐπευθόμεθα κλέα ἀνδρῶν / ἡρώων, ὅτε κέν τιν’ ἐπιζάφελος χόλος ἵκοι· / δωρητοί τε πέλοντο παράρρητοί τ’ ἐπέεσσι. 

b.  Achilles on the Conflict, 19.64–65: “This was better for the Hektor and the Trojans: I think that the Achaeans will remember our strife for a long time.” ῞Εκτορι μὲν καὶ Τρωσὶ τὸ κέρδιον· αὐτὰρ ᾿Αχαιοὺς / δηρὸν ἐμῆς καὶ σῆς ἔριδος μνήσεσθαι ὀΐω, 

  c. Il. 18. 496–508: “The people where gathered, crowded, in the assembly where a conflict (neîkos) had arisen: two men were striving over the penalty for a man who had been killed; the first one was promising to give everything as he was testifying to the people; but the other was refusing to take anything; and both men longed for a judge to make a decision. The people, partisans on either side, applauded. Then the heralds brought the host together; the elders sat on smooth stones in a sacred circle as they held in their hands the scepters of clear-voiced heralds; each one was leaping to his feet and they pronounced judgments in turn. In the middle there were two talents of gold to give to whoever among them uttered the straightest judgment.”

Some reading recommendations

Elton Barker and I wrote a beginner’s guide to Homer a decade ago, so I am including that in the list. Some other books here are good too!

Bakker, E. J. 1997. Poetry in Speech: Orality and Homeric Discourse. Ithaca.

A great introduction to Homeric language from a linguistic perspective. It is a bit complicated for people who have no experience with epic, but it is a great next step.

Barker, E.T.E and Christensen, J. P. 2013. Homer: A Beginner’s Guide. One world

Elton and I wrote this during a six month period in 2011. It was torrid and crazy and I think it is still a decent text that introduces Homeric language and both epics in a slim volume

Foley, John Miles. 1999. Homer’s Traditional Art. Philadelphia.

It is hard for me to pick one book by Foley. It is a close race between his Immanent Art (1991) and How to Read an Oral Poem (2002) and this book. A great overview of how orality matters to understanding the Homeric epics.

Graziosi, B., and J. Haubold, 2005. Homer: The Resonance of Epic. London.

While not an introduction to Homer, per se, this volume is a great introduction to archaic epic, cosmic history, and the relationship between Homer and Hesiod. Barbara Graziosi also has a very good Homer: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford, 2016)

Nagy, Gregory. 1979/1999. The Best of the Achaeans: Concepts of the Hero in Archaic Greek poetry. Baltimore.

This is a book that rewards, if not requires, rereading and introduces the broader mythopoetic world of ancient Greek heroes inside and outside of Homer

Schein, S. 1984. The Mortal Hero: An Introduction to Homer’s Iliad. Berkeley.

This is one of three books that sealed my fate as a Homerist

This post is a basic introduction to reading Iliad 3.

Book 3 of the Iliad provides another great example of Homeric style: first, while the catalogue of Greeks and Trojans in book 2 set us up to expect the beginning of actual fighting, the book delays it further by introducing a duel between Menelaos and Paris. Second,  the book introduces motifs or scenes that would not at all be appropriate in a logical sense to a war that has been ongoing for 10 years: it features an all-or-nothing duel between Menelaos and Paris (that fails), an introduction to some of the Greek leaders from the Trojan perspective, narrated by Helen (the so-called Teikhoskopia, or “viewing from the walls”), an introduction to Priam and Antenor, the elders of the Trojan people, a somewhat contentious exchange between Helen and Aphrodite about comforting Paris, and the subsequent, somewhat awkward sex-scene.

In my view on the reading and teaching and my general sense of the five major themes to follow in the Iliad book 3 emphasizes most epic’s dependence and divergence from narrative traditions, although politics and family & friends aren’t far behind. There’s a bit about the relationship of gods and humans in the exchange between Helen and Aphrodite (which could be taken psychoanalytically as an individual struggling with lust) that is crucial for larger questions about divine plan(s) and human agency.

But the dominant theme of the Iliad’s third book is the past. If the Iliad were prestige television like The Last of Us or, probably more appropriately, Band Of Brothers, book 3 would be a flashback episode. Epic narrative, however, seems to accommodate flashbacks primarily in micronarratives (cf. scenes like those of Philoktetes and Protesilaos in the Catalogue of Ships) and character speech, with the exception of a massive, stylized flashback like that of the end of book 2. In a way, the Catalogue of book 2 sets us up for thinking about the beginning of the war and questions of how we got here and who is involved.

There have been scholars who have seen book 2 as a pastiche of scenes from different epics or poems edited cleverly together. I think that this is partly right: it brings together images and ideas from a different timeline in the war and makes them somehow make sense to be told in this particular tale. The ordering is clever, but I don’t think we need to imagine the major scenes cut whole from other poems and stitched together like this. Instead, I think we can imagine popular song traditions and melodies deftly integrated into a much larger symphony.

Malcolm Davies (2007, 146) writes: 

It is well known that the Iliad’s poet ingeniously constructed entire episodes in his composition by transferring them from portions of the Trojan War that precede his actual plot. Thus, the Catalogue of Ships, the Teichoscopia, the duel of Menelaus and Paris, the love-making of the latter with Helen, and the truce and building of the Achaeans’ defensive wall and trench, all owe their existence to this device, and have inspired various qualms as to the propriety of their featuring at so late a stage as the War’s ninth year

But what does all this mean for our understanding of this poem? There’s a neat bit near the beginning of the poem where we get a bit of a metapoetic reflection of epic composition, centered on Helen in particular.

Homer, Il. 3.121-128

Iris then went as a messenger to white-armed Helen,
Looking for all the world like the wife of Antênor’s son, sister-in-law,
The wife of the lord of Helikaon, Antênor’s son, Laodikê,
The most beautiful of Priam’s daughters,
Who found her at home. She was weaving on her great loom,
A double-folded garment, in which she was embroidering
The many struggles of the horse-taming Trojans and the bronze-girded Achaeans,
All the things they had suffered for her at Ares’ hands.”

῏Ιρις δ’ αὖθ’ ῾Ελένῃ λευκωλένῳ ἄγγελος ἦλθεν
εἰδομένη γαλόῳ ᾿Αντηνορίδαο δάμαρτι,
τὴν ᾿Αντηνορίδης εἶχε κρείων ῾Ελικάων
Λαοδίκην Πριάμοιο θυγατρῶν εἶδος ἀρίστην.
τὴν δ’ εὗρ’ ἐν μεγάρῳ· ἣ δὲ μέγαν ἱστὸν ὕφαινε
δίπλακα πορφυρέην, πολέας δ’ ἐνέπασσεν ἀέθλους
Τρώων θ’ ἱπποδάμων καὶ ᾿Αχαιῶν χαλκοχιτώνων,
οὕς ἑθεν εἵνεκ’ ἔπασχον ὑπ’ ῎Αρηος παλαμάων·

Helen is creating an image here and it is poetic, although she does not sing her narrative as other female figures do (as noted by a scholion). (For more on women and weaving in Homer, see this post and the included bibliography).

Schol T ad. Il 3.125b ex: “She does not sing like Kirke and Kalypso, for they live without suffering and calmly.”

ex. ἡ δὲ μέγαν ἱστὸν ὕφαινε: οὐκ ᾄδει ὡς Κίρκη καὶ Καλυψώ· ἀπαθῶς γὰρ ἐκεῖναι καὶ ἠρέμα ζῶσαι. 

Helen is, as we will see from her comments in book 6, almost uniquely concerned about her future reception. But here she is taken for standing in a position similar to the Homeric narrator.

Schol. bT ad Il. 3.126-127: “The poet has shaped here a worthy archetype for his own poetry. Perhaps on this [s?]he is trying to show to those who see it the violence of the Trojans and the just strength of the Greeks.”

ex. πολέας δ’ ἐνέπασσεν ἀέθλους<—χαλκοχιτώνων>: ἀξιόχρεων ἀρχέτυπον ἀνέπλασεν ὁ ποιητὴς τῆς ἰδίας ποιήσεως. ἴσως δὲ τούτῳ τοῖς ὁρῶσιν ἐπειρᾶτο δεικνύναι τὴν Τρώων βίαν καὶ τὴν ῾Ελλήνων δικαίαν ἰσχύν. 

This is, of course, not a new or unpopular view, as clarified by George A. Kennedy (1986, 5):

“both the web itself and the subjects it depicts are in process. Helen is somehow like the bard, whose poem an audience is hearing or reading, though she is working in a visual medium, rather than in oral verse. Critics have reasonably concluded that her action should be regarded as somehow reflective of the poetic process. This view was already adopted in medieval scholia on line 3.126-7 which comment “the poet has formed a worthy archetype of his own poiesis.”

What I think is important here, is that before venturing to retell tales that belong in a flashback, the Homeric narrator provides this metapoetic breadcrumb for us to consider. As José González shows, following the work of Greg Nagy, in The Epic Rhapsode and His Craft: Homeric Performance in a Diachronic Perspective, stitching or weaving poetry together is a functional metaphor for what ancient audiences conceived of Homeric poets as doing. Derek Collins provides a nice bit from the scholia to Pindar in his Master of the Game:

οἱ δέ φασι τῆς ῾Ομήρου ποιήσεως μὴ ὑφ᾽ ἓν συνηγμένης, σποράδην δὲ ἄλλως καὶ κατὰ υέρη διῃρημένης, ὁπότε ῥαψῳδοῖεν αὐτην, εἱρυῶ τινι καὶ ῥαφῇ παραπλήσιον ποιεῖν, εἰς ἓν αὐτὴν ἄγοντας.

Some say that, since the poetry of Homer had not been brought together in one collection, and since it was otherwise scattered and separated into parts, whenever they would sing it rhapsodically they would do something similar to sequencing or sewing, producing it into one thing.

And this may help us understand the nature of Homeric poetry is, if we trust the etymology of Homer as one who fits “‘fits together’ pieces of poetry that are made ready to be parts of an integrated whole just as a master carpenter or joiner ‘fits together’ or ‘joins’ pieces of wood that are made ready to be parts of a chariot wheel.”

But, as Andrew Ford argues, ancient rhapsodes didn’t merely edit pre-existing material: there’s good evidence for the term applying to new compositions, “remixes” (my words), and genres other than epic. So, part of the trickiness of book 3, is weighing how Homer engages with ‘traditional material’, whether or not the Iliadic appropriation of scenes from earlier in the war is more homage or revision, and how the details help to set us up for what comes later. 

Helen, in this scene, is presented as creating a synoptic visual narrative of everything everyone had suffered on her part. And this anticipates what she does later on: she selects details in response to her audience’s questions to set the scene for the action to come. She tells us about herself, and the heroes and also provides a vehicle for characterizing Priam, Antenor, and Paris too. By engaging in narrative thus just as the epic begins the violence again, the Iliad tips its own hand: it is fitting together the major motifs of the Trojan War and creating a synoptic account of all the suffering in a singular creation of its own. Helen is our guide, but Homer’s creation.

Some guiding questions for book 3

1. What are the characterizing functions of the teikhoskopia (the “viewing from the walls”)? Whom do we hear about? What do we learn?

2. Why do we have a duel between Menelaos and Paris in the 9th year of the war? How does the outcome drive the plot of the Iliad?

3. What is the characterization of Helen in this book and how does it relate to the Iliad and the larger Trojan War?

    

Brief Bibliography on Helen and the Teikhoskopia

n.b this is not an exhaustive bibliography. If you’d like anything else included, please let me know. There will be a second post this week on Helen.

BLONDELL, RUBY. “‘Bitch That I Am’: Self-Blame and Self-Assertion in the Iliad.” Transactions of the American Philological Association (1974-) 140, no. 1 (2010): 1–32. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40652048.

Blondell, Ruby. “REFRACTIONS OF HOMER’S HELEN IN ARCHAIC LYRIC.” The American Journal of Philology 131, no. 3 (2010): 349–91. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40983352.

Davies, Malcolm. “The Hero and His Arms.” Greece & Rome, vol. 54, no. 2, 2007, pp. 145–55. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/20204187. 

Ebbot, Mary. 1999. “The Wrath of Helen: Self-Blame and Nemesis in the Iliad,” 3–20 in Nine Essays on Homer, ed. Carlisle and Levaniouk, Lanham, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield, 1999.

Elmer, David F. “Helen Epigrammatopoios.” Classical Antiquity 24, no. 1 (2005): 1–39. https://doi.org/10.1525/ca.2005.24.1.1.

Jamison, Stephanie W. “Draupadí on the Walls of Troy: ‘Iliad’ 3 from an Indic Perspective.” Classical Antiquity 13, no. 1 (1994): 5–16. https://doi.org/10.2307/25011002.

KENNEDY, GEORGE A. “HELEN’S WEB UNRAVELED.” Arethusa, vol. 19, no. 1, 1986, pp. 5–14. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/44578384. 

Lesser, Rachel H. “Female Ethics and Epic Rivalry: Helen in the Iliad and Penelope in the Odyssey.” American Journal of Philology 140, no. 2 (2019): 189-226. https://doi.org/10.1353/ajp.2019.0013.

Roisman, Hanna M. “Helen in the ‘Iliad’ ‘Causa Belli’ and Victim of War: From Silent Weaver to Public Speaker.” The American Journal of Philology 127, no. 1 (2006): 1–36. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3804922.

Rynearson, Nicholas C. “Helen, Achilles and the Psuchê: Superlative Beauty and Value in the Iliad.” Intertexts 17 (2013): 3-21. https://doi.org/10.1353/itx.2013.0001.

Scodel, Ruth. “Pseudo-Intimacy and the Prior Knowledge of the Homeric Audience *.” Arethusa 30, no. 2 (1997): 201-219. https://doi.org/10.1353/are.1997.0010.

Sheppard, J. T. “Helen with Priam (Homer’s ‘Iliad’, III).” Greece & Rome 3, no. 7 (1933): 31–37. http://www.jstor.org/stable/641466.

Warwick, Celsiana. “The Maternal Warrior: Gender and Kleos in the Iliad.” American Journal of Philology 140, no. 1 (2019): 1-28. https://doi.org/10.1353/ajp.2019.0001.

Worman, Nancy. “The Body as Argument: Helen in Four Greek Texts.” Classical Antiquity 16, no. 1 (1997): 151–203. https://doi.org/10.2307/25011057.

1. A Political Theme: Reunifying the Greeks 1-484

   1. Zeus’ False Dream, Agamemnon’s Council 1-84

   2. Agamemnon’s Test 85-154

   3. Hera’s Intervention through Odysseus 155-210

   4. Thersites’ Scene 211-277

   5. Odysseus’ Speech 278-333

   6. Nestor’s Speech and Agamemnon’s Commands-395

2. Similes and Marshalling, 396-483

   1. Poetics: Repositioning the Trojan War, 484-

   2. Greek Catalog 484-785

   3. Trojan Catalog 786-877

I have been thinking about the structure of this book and the scenes in the first half since my dissertation days, now two decades ago. The crucial thing thing about the first half is that there is a movement from a state of uncertainty into one of disorder that is than reshaped into one of greater order by the interventions of Odysseus and Nestor who stage-manage the conflict effectively to put Agamemnon into a position to retake the helm of war.

There are many interpretive issues about book 2: it starts with a false dream sent by Zeus to get Agamemnon to lead the Greeks into war, in part to satisfy Zeus’ local plan to honor Achilles by making the Greeks suffer. Of course, this also leads into the larger plan of the Trojan War, which is to lighten the burden of the race of heroes on the earth by killing them off through conflicts at Thebes and Troy. Final questions about the book circle around the poets of the Homeric narrator appealing to the Muses again, the compositional tension between a catalog that seems thematically and content-wise fit to the beginning of the war, poetic interest in the associative series of inset narratives associated with the catalog, and, finally, the strange, nearly afterthought nature of the Trojan Catalog.

But one initial question for the beginning of the book is what we are supposed to make of Agamemnon’s decision to test his troops. The Diapeira of Iliad 2 is often used as a touchstone for the epic’s characterization of Agamemnon. Ancient authors approve of his strategy.  For one scholiast the test is an ancient custom (κατά τι παλαιὸν ἔθος) to see whether the Achaeans fight earnestly or compulsion (προθυμίᾳ ἤ ἀνάγκῃ; Schol. D Il. 2.73c ex. 2-4); another sees it motivated by a long campaign and Achilles’ revolt (Schol. bT Il. 2.73a ex. 1-1). Eustathius commends it as “good and strategic” (Comm. ad. Il. II. 285.14).

Although some critics have read the test as a mistake, they do not clarify why it is so in the epic’s terms. Thalmann (1988, p. 7-9) suggests that Agamemnon “intends a complex message” but his failure to articulate this “marks the disruption of the relations between king and people”. Russo and Knox (1989) argue that Agamemnon’s testing of the army is traditional and acceptable; see also McGlew 1989. Porter (2013, Chapter 4) argues that Agamemnon has miscalculated the reactions and the scene constitutes a reflection of his inept character.

But, as one might guess, I have a different take on this beginning. I think it is successful! But it takes a little bit of explaining why. One of the first things to (re)introduce are some basic ideas from speech act theory.  J. L. Austin was one of the first philosophers to qualify as a “performative speech act” an utterance that in some way changes reality by effecting or amounting to an action. His examples were fairly limited: utterances like “I bet” or “I thee wed” are those that need no accompanying action or other act to suffice to have changed the relationship between the speaker and others (or among those subject to the speech) based on the context. Austin added more vocabulary to this: a felicitous speech act is one that obtains its outcome (and infelicitous is one that does not). Austin also helpfully distinguished between different kinds of outcomes: he calls the intended effect of a speech-act the illocutionary effect of the speaker and the actual outcome the perlocutionary effect. If we take the example of making a bet, an infelicitous “betting” would be one where the process or formula were wrong or either the speaker or the recipient did not have the contextual (social) standing to execute the speech act.

Essential to any analysis of what Agamemnon achieves is a reevaluation of what he actually proposes to the boulê of gerontes (2.72-75):

ἀλλ’ ἄγετ’ αἴ κέν πως θωρήξομεν υἷας ᾿Αχαιῶν·
πρῶτα δ’ ἐγὼν ἔπεσιν πειρήσομαι, ἣ θέμις ἐστί,
καὶ φεύγειν σὺν νηυσὶ πολυκλήϊσι κελεύσω·
ὑμεῖς δ’ ἄλλοθεν ἄλλος ἐρητύειν ἐπέεσσιν.

‘But come let us see if somehow we may arm the sons of the Achaeans.
But first, I will test them with words, which is thémis,
and I will order them to flee with the many-benched ships;
but you, spread out and individually restrain them with words.

Agamemnon communicates an expectation (illocutionary force) for his speech’s (perlocutionary) effect. Agamemnon characterizes his speech without qualification as a command (κελεύσω): he will order the Achaeans to flee (φεύγειν). Furthermore, he expects the host to obey him since he orders the gerontes to restrain the host with words (ὑμεῖς δ’ ἄλλοθεν ἄλλος ἐρητύειν ἐπέεσσιν) These details imply that he really intends for them to (try to) flee. 

To confirm this: When he speaks in front of the entire assembly, he is persuasive and vivid in his language. He paints a bleak picture of futility: he emphasizes divine deception while also using memorable language (repetitions, e.g. τοιόνδε τοσόνδε τε λαὸν, 120; alliterations, e.g. ἄπρηκτον πόλεμον πολεμίζειν, 121)[1] to activate cultural codes of shame for army’s failure (e.g δυσκλέα ῎Αργος ἱκέσθαι, 115; αἰσχρὸν γὰρ τόδε γ’ ἐστὶ καὶ ἐσσομένοισι πυθέσθαι, 119).

He initiates the speech by taking responsibility for destroying the host (ἐπεὶ πολὺν ὤλεσα λαόν, 115) and ends it by appealing to a collective desire to flee and thus save the host (140-141) In short, the speech appears wholly aimed at convincing the Achaean host to return home. To confirm the success of this endeavor, the audience hears similes comparing the army to waves of the sea pushed in different directions or fields of grain whirled asunder by wind attend the men from assembly to a mad dash to the ships (2.142-254). 

The missing piece in analyzing this sequence is often what Agamemnon orders the captains to do: He enjoins them to respond to his speech and persuade the soldiers to prepare for war (ἀλλ’ ἄγετ’ αἴ κέν πως θωρήξομεν υἷας ᾿Αχαιῶν) and also to restrain the men when they panic (ὑμεῖς δ’ ἄλλοθεν ἄλλος ἐρητύειν ἐπέεσσιν). So, Agamemnon achieves his perlocution with the army (they flee) but somehow fails to secure obedience to his command to his council or, perhaps, is so persuasive in his feigned lament that his speech obtains the ‘infelicitous’ outcome of unnerving even the elders who are in on the game [see Cook (2003, p. 172): “The problem lies not with the plan, but its execution”].

From the perspective of the larger book, however, these orders are eventually realized: Odysseus gets everyone to sit down; he meets the challenge of Thersites’ dissent; Nestor and Odysseus give rousing speeches that reauthorize Agamemnon’s power; and the similes following Agamemnon’s orders reflect groups unified in a shared cause. By Agamemnon’s final speech, on the other hand, the Achaeans one wave raised to a mighty height against a jutting cliff by a single wind, 2.394-7.  And, yet, despite this unity, the narrative leaves the impression that it was a close thing altogether:  if not for the intervention of Athena and Hera, “the Achaeans would have obtained a homecoming against their fate”[3]. 

In a way, this sequence is a microcosm of the whole Iliad: we have interpretive indeterminacy, a confusion of divine and human agency, and overlapping motivations all within a frame of advancing an immediate plot (the rage of Achilles and breakdown in Achaean politics) within the more-or-less known arc of the larger Trojan War. The test as I have suggested elsewhere, is as much a challenge for the epic’s external audience as for those acting within the poem.

Selected Bibliography

Dentice di Accadia Stefano, «La ‘Prova’ di Agamennone: Una Strategia Retorica Vincente», Rheinisches Museum für Philologie, nº 153, 2010, p. 225-246.

Austin J. L., How to Do Things With Words, Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1975.

Barker E. T. E., «Achilles’ Last Stand: Institutionalising Dissent in Homer’s Iliad», PCPS nº 50, 2004, p. 92-120.

Barker E. T. E., Entering the Agôn: Dissent and Authority in Homer, Historiography and Tragedy, Oxford, 2009.

Clark Matthew, «Chryses’ Supplication: Speech Act and Mythological Allusion», Classical Antiquity, nº 17, 1997, p. 5-24.

Cook Erwin F., «Agamemnon’s Test of the Army in Iliad Book 2 and the Function of Homeric Akhos», American Journal of Philology, nº 124, 2003, p. 165-198.

Donlan Walter, «Homer’s Agamemnon», Classical World, nº 65, 1971, p. 109-115.

Elmer David, The Poetics of Consent: Collective Decision Making and the Iliad, Baltimore, Johns Hopkins, 2013.

Gorman David, «The Use and Abuse of Speech-Act Theory in Criticism», Poetics Today nº 20, 1999, p. 93-119.

Hammer Dean, The Iliad as Politics: The Performance of Political Thought, Norman, University of Oklahoma Press, 2002.

Katzung P. G., Die Diapeira in der Iliashandlung, Dissertation, Frankfurt, 1960.

Knox Ronald and Russo Joseph, «Agamemnon’s Test: Iliad 2.73-5», Classical Antiquity nº 8, 1989, p. 351-358.

Kullman W. «Die Probe Des Achaierheerds in der Ilias», Museum Helveticum, nº 12, 1955, p. 253-273.

Lloyd Michael, «The Politeness of Achilles: Off-Record Conversation Strategies», Journal of Hellenic Studies nº 124, 2004, p. 75-89.

Lohmann Dieter, Die Komposition der Reden in der Ilias, Berlin: de Gruyter, 1970.

Louden Bruce, «Pivotal Contrafactuals in Homeric Epic», Classical Antiquity, nº 12, 1993, p. 181-198.

Mackie Hilary, Talking Trojan: Speech and Community in the Iliad, Lanham, MD, Rowman and Littlefield, 1989.

Martin, Richard, The Language of Heroes: Speech and Performance in the Iliad, Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 1989.

McGlew James F., «Agamemnon’s Test of the Army in Iliad Book 2», Classical Antiquity, nº 8, 1989, p. 283-295.

Morrison James V., Homeric Misdirection: False Predictions in the Iliad, Ann Arbor, The University of Michigan Press, 1992.

Morrison James V., «Alternatives to the Epic Tradition: Homer’s Challenges in the Iliad», TAPA nº 122, 1992, p. 61-71.

Moulton Carroll, Similes in the Homeric Poems, Göttingen,Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1977.

Rabel Robert J., «Agamemnon’s Iliad», Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, nº 32, 1992, p. 103-117.

Porter Andrew E., Agamemon, the Pathetic Despot: Reading Traditional Characterization in Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, 2013

Pratt M. L., Toward a Speech Act Theory of Literary Discourse, Bloomington, University of Indiana Press, 1977.

Roochnik David, «Homeric Speech Acts: Word and Deed in the Epics», Classical Journal, nº 85, 1990, p. 289-299.

Sammons Benjamin, «Agamemnon and His Audiences», Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies, nº 49, 2009, p. 159-185.

Schmidt Jens-Uwe, «Die ‘Probe’ des Achaierheeres als Spiegel der besonderen Intentionen des Iliasdichters», Philologus, nº 146, 2002, p. 3-21

Searle J. R., Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1969.

Searle J. R., « A Classification of Illocutionary Acts». Language in Society, nº 5, 1976, 1-22.

Searle J. R., Expression and Meaning: Studies in the Theories of Speech Acts, Cambridge, 1979.

Scodel Ruth, Epic Facework: Self-Presentation and Social Interaction in Homer, Swansea, Classical Press of Wales, 2008.

Taplin Oliver, «Agamemnon’s Role in the Iliad», dans Charecterisation and Individuality in Greek Literature, C.Pelling (ed.). Oxford, Oxford University, 1990, p. 60-82.

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