Similes in Iliad 12

This post is a continuation of my substack on the Iliad. All proceeds from the substack are donated to classics adjacent non-profits on a monthly basis. Last year this substack provided over $2k in charitable donations.

One might be forgiven for asking what I could possibly have left to say about Iliad 12. The big topics are the future discussion of the destruction of the walls around the Achaeans’ ships, the conflict over bird omens between Polydamas and Hektor, Sarpedon’s famous speech to Glaukos in the middle of the book about fame and death, and some amazing similes at the book’s end right before Zeus allows Hektor to break through the fortifications. But, even in merely listing these topics, I can imagine commenting further on how Polydamas interprets the omen, or on Zeus’ scales and his plan at the center of the epic, the series of apostrophes in the book that have not been addressed, the importance of a larger group of leaders with authority to conduct the war on the Achaean side, the weirdness of the two Ajaxes fighting together.

Structure of Iliad 12:

1-35 The walls and their future destruction

36-87 Achaean response to Trojan attack and Hektor; Polydamas’ first speech (don’t drive the chariots and horses across the ditch

88-174Trojan leaders, Asios ignores the advice

175-265 Bird omen and debate with narrative judgment

265-414 Ajaxes rally the GReeks, Sarpedon philosophizes with Glaukos

415-471 Similes: Farmers, Weaving Woman, Zeus tips the scales; Hektor breaks through the walls

There’s a lot going on in this book, but at the same time, not that much happens. The entirety of the action really amounts to the Trojans approaching the Greek fortifications and then one of them (Hektor) breaking through. But there is a lot going on. And much of it happens in the similes. It may be clear to anyone who has read a few posts here that I see similes as an important device to help us understand the structure and interpretation of Homeric poetry. If I have a Homerist-origin story, one particular moment that stands out is a conversation I had with Lenny Muellner in 2000 or so. Note, this is part of a book coming out in January (Storylife: On Epic, Narrative, and Living Things), so I will quote it as such.

When I was an undergraduate, exploring ideas for a senior thesis, I became fascinated by Homeric similes, especially those comparing heroes to people doing everyday things, as when the sides of the battle in Iliad 12 are compared to two men arguing over a boundary marker in their fields.[ Iliad 12.421–426.] I remember pouring out theories about how these comparisons were more sophisticated than animal comparisons only to be stopped by my advisor, Lenny, when I claimed it was obvious that complex similes arose out of simple ones. Lenny asked gently why it could not be the other way around, that simple similes—e.g. “Hektor was like a lion”—did not contain within them the potential of much longer ones. And, further, should not we distinguish between what an audience listening to the Homeric poems likely knew and expected from similes and how they developed over time?

This conversation remained with me for over twenty years. I take two essential lessons from it: first, not to forget the difference between the development of a thing (here a simile) and an audience’s experience of it; and, second, how the ecology of stories contains relationships and potentials far beyond what is immediately seen. To stay with the case of similes for a moment, let’s take an extended one from Iliad 12. As the battle between the Greeks and the Trojans rages around the wall protecting the Greek ships, two captains rally their troops:

So those two yelled out to encourage the Greeks to fight
And just as waves of snow fall thick on a winter’s day
When Zeus the master of all urges it to snow
On human beings, showing them what his weapons are like—
And he reins in the winds to pour it constantly
So that he covers the high mountains and the jutting cliffs
As well as the flowering meadows and men’s rich fields,
Snowing onto the harbors and the promontories of the gray sea,
Even as the wave resists it when it strikes. But everything else
Is covered beneath it whenever Zeus’ storm drives it on.
That’s how the stones fell thick from both sides,
Some falling against the Trojans, others from the Trojans
against the Greeks and a great din overwhelmed the whole wall.[Iliad 12.277–89.]

Here, the weapons falling down from the Greek wall on the Trojan attackers are compared to snow. To a modern audience, a snowfall might seem peaceful or even romantic, but in Homeric poetry snow is dangerous. The comparison in this simile conveys a blanketing and overpowering blizzard of conflict, made clearer to us from a typological study of Homeric language. But contrast this with a shorter snow simile such as “Hektor went forward like a snowy mountain.”[Iliad 13.754.] This simile creates a tension between what it says literally and the meaning it conveys based on associations unarticulated at this moment. It is not that Hektor moves like some abominable snowman or stands immobile like a wintry crag, but that the ferocity of his attacks is like the blizzards raging around a mountain. Ancient commentators add that Olympus, where the gods live, is snowy and mountains are big like Hektor, while snow is terrifying.

[…]

Lenny’s response to my assumptions about similes contains a kernel of a theory of narrative, of the importance of metonymy, and the crucial contribution audiences make to the creation of meaning.

Here’s an an exam type analogy: the tenors and vehicles of Homeric similes are to each other what external audiences and epic are outside of the poem. That is, they replicate pars pro toto the blending and movement that happens when audiences hear and begin to interpret the stories. Two things I would like to emphasize in the similes I have selected are the slippage or blending of detail between the domains of tenor and vehicle and the movement within the simile from the initial comparison to include a greater part of a world than one might expect.

Here are two examples from different books that I find useful

Iliad 6.503‑514

“Paris did not then linger in his lofty halls,
But, once he had put on his shining weapons, inlaid with bronze,
Then he hurried through the city, fully trusting his swift feet.
As when some cooped up horse, fully fed at the manger,
Breaks his bond and rushes out, luxuriating in the field,
Glorying in his habit of bathing in the fine-flowing river–
How he holds his head up high and his hair darts
Around his shoulders, and as he trusts in his glory,
His light limbs carry him to the hangouts and pasture of mares–
That’s how the son of Priam, Paris, went to the top of Pergamon,
Shining in his armor like the shining sun
Exulting, and his swift feet were carrying them….

Οὐδὲ Πάρις δήθυνεν ἐν ὑψηλοῖσι δόμοισιν,
ἀλλ’ ὅ γ’, ἐπεὶ κατέδυ κλυτὰ τεύχεα ποικίλα χαλκῷ,
σεύατ’ ἔπειτ’ ἀνὰ ἄστυ ποσὶ κραιπνοῖσι πεποιθώς.
ὡς δ’ ὅτε τις στατὸς ἵππος ἀκοστήσας ἐπὶ φάτνῃ
δεσμὸν ἀπορρήξας θείῃ πεδίοιο κροαίνων
εἰωθὼς λούεσθαι ἐϋρρεῖος ποταμοῖο
κυδιόων· ὑψοῦ δὲ κάρη ἔχει, ἀμφὶ δὲ χαῖται
ὤμοις ἀΐσσονται· ὃ δ’ ἀγλαΐηφι πεποιθὼς
ῥίμφά ἑ γοῦνα φέρει μετά τ’ ἤθεα καὶ νομὸν ἵππων·

The first example is about Paris finally dressed to go to war in Iliad. The verbal repetitions link the tenor and vehicle for us, and the effect of comparing Paris to a show-horse is comedic and pointed. But what I find interesting here is the bleedover of human-traits to the horse in the simile: the horse’s extravagant hair evokes as much a dandy princeling tossing his hair as that of a stallion. The bathing, the swift feet, the jaunting off for mares, all speaks to a horse compared to Paris as much as a prince compared to a horse. The bleedover is, I think, a species of the very kind of cognitive blending that happens when we absorb any narrative and try to process it through the language and experiences that are familiar to us.

Iliad 7.1-7

So he spoke and shining Hektor rushed out of the gates
And his brother Alexandros went with him. Both of them
Were truly eager in their heart to go to war and fight.
As when a god grants a wind to sailors who are just
Waiting for it, after they have worn themselves out
By driving their smooth oars into the sea, and their limbs have been wearied,
That’s how these two appeared to the Trojans awaiting [them].”

῝Ως εἰπὼν πυλέων ἐξέσσυτο φαίδιμος ῞Εκτωρ,
τῷ δ’ ἅμ’ ᾿Αλέξανδρος κί’ ἀδελφεός· ἐν δ’ ἄρα θυμῷ
ἀμφότεροι μέμασαν πολεμίζειν ἠδὲ μάχεσθαι.
ὡς δὲ θεὸς ναύτῃσιν ἐελδομένοισιν ἔδωκεν
οὖρον, ἐπεί κε κάμωσιν ἐϋξέστῃς ἐλάτῃσι
πόντον ἐλαύνοντες, καμάτῳ δ’ ὑπὸ γυῖα λέλυνται,
ὣς ἄρα τὼ Τρώεσσιν ἐελδομένοισι φανήτην.

Simpler, but no less interesting is the simile from book 7: When Hektor and Paris leave the gates, we are not sure what the relationship between the tenor and the vehicle is: we start out, perhaps wrongly, thinking that they are the sailors but find out as we move through the simile that the tableau of them returning to battle is being seen by the Trojans, who are the at first unexpressed tenor to the simile’s sailors. Hektor and Paris are the favorable wind sent to relieve them.

This shifting, this re-blending of space through the unfolding of the narrative, aims our mental gaze first at the princes returning to war, then to an imagined vessel, then to the Trojans altogether, moving us through the narrative and to a new place in the tale. The details left unexplored may strike different audience members: the inversion of Trojans as sailors, the emphasis on the toil of their work, the implication of divine agency, so crucial throughout Hektor’s characterization from this moment until Achilles’ return. The simile refracts and bends, leaving listeners to recompose its meaning.

And here’s another one from book 12: (39-51):

“Because they were fearing Hektor, that powerful master of fear.
But he was fighting on as he had before, like a whirlwind.
As when a boar or lion turns in the midst of dogs and men,
Hunters, reveling in his own strength,
And they group themselves together like a fortification
To stand opposite him, hurling down a rain of spears
From their hands. But his proud heart never
Feels fear nor thinks of turning—it is his bravery that kills him—
Then he turns, testing himself against the barrage and the ranks of men.
Wherever he heads, the ranks yield to him.
So Hektor was rushing forward through the throng
Turning back to encourage his companions to cross the ditch.”

῞Εκτορα δειδιότες, κρατερὸν μήστωρα φόβοιο·
αὐτὰρ ὅ γ’ ὡς τὸ πρόσθεν ἐμάρνατο ἶσος ἀέλλῃ·
ὡς δ’ ὅτ’ ἂν ἔν τε κύνεσσι καὶ ἀνδράσι θηρευτῇσι
κάπριος ἠὲ λέων στρέφεται σθένεϊ βλεμεαίνων·
οἳ δέ τε πυργηδὸν σφέας αὐτοὺς ἀρτύναντες
ἀντίον ἵστανται καὶ ἀκοντίζουσι θαμειὰς
αἰχμὰς ἐκ χειρῶν· τοῦ δ’ οὔ ποτε κυδάλιμον κῆρ
ταρβεῖ οὐδὲ φοβεῖται, ἀγηνορίη δέ μιν ἔκτα·
ταρφέα τε στρέφεται στίχας ἀνδρῶν πειρητίζων·
ὅππῃ τ’ ἰθύσῃ τῇ εἴκουσι στίχες ἀνδρῶν·
ὣς ῞Εκτωρ ἀν’ ὅμιλον ἰὼν ἐλλίσσεθ’ ἑταίρους
τάφρον ἐποτρύνων διαβαινέμεν· οὐδέ οἱ ἵπποι

This simile engages with the local and general contexts of the poem. It is hard to follow because it comes right on the heels of a short simile, whose comparison of Hektor to a whirlwind certainly has some resonance with Zeus as a sky god and his control over the action in this part of the poem. But in the shift to the simile, we find Hektor compared to what seems like a rather typical scene: a group of hunters (with dogs) corralling a single dangerous animal. Here the vehicle—the boar or lion amidst a group of hunters—is rather simple to unpack at first. Just as the Achaeans have built a wall around the ships, so too do the hunters form a kind of wall against the rampaging boar/lion who is attacking them. (Of course, we don’t know how the violent animal came into contact with the hunters, we only know that their natures are incompatible.)

It is the action and language of the simile that shows both the importance of the “bleedover” from tenor to vehicle and the characterization available from such a moment. First, the dangerous beast is never disambiguated. The boar-or-lion seems equally fit for the situation’s needs. Second, the peril in the simile really seems to be for the animal—the hunters retreat, but there is a dissonance between their actions and the panicked, frantic defense mounted by the Achaeans in the book. The simile evokes the larger narrative world where everyone knows that the boar/lion/Hektor will eventually fall. The choice of language to draw the tenor-vehicle pair together (here’ “like a fortification”, purgêdon) increases these ties, while the statement that “it is his bravery that kills him” would make any reasonable audience member think of Hektor.

That reasonableness is part of what I think is fascinating about this simile. We don’t know why the boar/lion is surrounded and under attack; but we can’t be surprised that it is doing so. I read a mismatch, something of a single or double dissonant note, sounding through the composition asking the audience to think a little longer about the aptness of the scene. As a single moment in time, it strains to evoke the collective nature of a group against a single assailant. Can it be true for Hektor or the beast that his bravery kills him if he has no choice?

There are other questions here. I think a simplistic reading of this simile—and others—would be that the traditional language doesn’t fit the scene as well as it could and the dissonance is accidental. But I wonder what it does to consider this an image-schematic clash that invites the audience to re-consider Hektor’s position at during this book. The key, I suspect, may be the stacking of similes: Hektor is both the trapped beast and the divine whirlwind. The conflict of images, rather than being sloppy or ill-considered, instead produces a deeper response in the audience, potentially yielding a deeper understanding of Hektor’s plight and all the troubles Zeus has to offer.

More on Iliad 12

1. Looking Up and Out: Starting to Read Iliad 12: The Achaean Wall, again; Kleos; Impermanence; Bird Omens; Hektor and Polydamas; “Don’t Look Up!”

2. Why Must We Fight and Die?: Reading Sarpedon’s Speech to Glaukos in Iliad 12: Heroism; Noblesse Oblige; Kleos

3. Scarcity and the Iliad: Thinking about Similes in Book 12: Similes in Homer; Cognitive models for reading, 2

A Starter Bibliography on Similes in Homer

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

Bassett, Samuel E. “The Function of the Homeric Simile.” Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association 52 (1921): 132–47. https://doi.org/10.2307/282957.

Ben-Porat, Ziva. “Poetics of the Homeric Simile and the Theory of (Poetic) Simile.” Poetics Today 13, no. 4 (1992): 737–69. https://doi.org/10.2307/1773297.

Mandel, Oscar. “Homeric Simile.” Prairie Schooner 69, no. 2 (1995): 124–124. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40633938.

Minchin, Elizabeth. “Similes in Homer: image, mind’s eye, and memory.” Speaking volumes: orality and literacy in the Greek and Roman world. Ed. Watson, Janet. Mnemosyne. Supplements; 218. Leiden ; Boston (Mass.): Brill, 2001. 25-52.

Moulton, Carroll. “Similes in the Iliad.” Hermes 102, no. 3 (1974): 381–97. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4475864.

Muellner, Leonard. “The Simile of the Cranes and Pygmies a Study of Homeric Metaphor.” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, vol. 93, 1990, pp. 59–101. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/311283. Accessed 6 Jan. 2024.

Naiden, Fred S.. “Homer’s leopard simile.” Nine essays on Homer. Eds. Carlisle, Miriam and Levaniouk, Olga Arkadievna. Greek Studies. Lanham (Md.): Rowman and Littlefield, 1999. 177-203.

Notopoulos, James A. “Homeric Similes in the Light of Oral Poetry.” The Classical Journal 52, no. 7 (1957): 323–28. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3294076.

Pache, Corinne. “Mourning lions and Penelope’s revenge.” Arethusa, vol. 49, no. 1, 2016, pp. 1-24.

Porter, David H. “Violent Juxtaposition in the Similes of the ‘Iliad.’” The Classical Journal 68, no. 1 (1972): 11–21. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3296022.

Ready, Jonathan. 2011. Character, Narrator and Simile in the Iliad. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Ready, Jonathan L. “The Comparative Spectrum in Homer.” The American Journal of Philology 129, no. 4 (2008): 453–96. http://www.jstor.org/stable/27566727.

Scott, William C. 2009. The Artistry of the Homeric Simile. Hanover, NH: Dartmouth College Press.

Andreas Thomas Zanker, Metaphor in Homer: time, speech, and thought. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2019. x, 263 p.. ISBN 9781108491884 $99.99.

Beginning Iliad 11

This post is a continuation of my substack on the Iliad. All proceeds from the substack are donated to classics adjacent non-profits on a monthly basis. Last year this substack provided over $2k in charitable donations.

Book 11 of the Iliad is filled with action. But it begins with a sunrise. This particular dawn resets the action for the poem and is a good example of how much resonance with myth and other traditions the Homeric narrator can create with just a few words.

Iliad 11.1-14

Then Dawn rose from her bed alongside glorious Tithonos
In order to bring light to the immortal and mortals alike.
But Zeus sent Strife to the swift ships of the Achaeans,
Harsh strife, clutching an omen of war in its hands.
It stood on the dark sear-faring vessel of Odysseus,
And then bellowed in the middle in both directions.
First to the shelters of Ajax, the son of Telamon
And then to those of Achilles—they had pulled their ships up
At the farthest ends, because they trusted in their bravery and strength.
She stood there tall and shouted terribly, loudly,
And imbued the heart of each Achaean who hear her
With the great strength needs to fight and battle without end.
For them, war became sweeter than returning home
In their hollow ships to their dear fatherland.”

᾿Ηὼς δ’ ἐκ λεχέων παρ’ ἀγαυοῦ Τιθωνοῖο
ὄρνυθ’, ἵν’ ἀθανάτοισι φόως φέροι ἠδὲ βροτοῖσι·
Ζεὺς δ’ ῎Εριδα προΐαλλε θοὰς ἐπὶ νῆας ᾿Αχαιῶν
ἀργαλέην, πολέμοιο τέρας μετὰ χερσὶν ἔχουσαν.
στῆ δ’ ἐπ’ ᾿Οδυσσῆος μεγακήτεϊ νηῒ μελαίνῃ,
ἥ ῥ’ ἐν μεσσάτῳ ἔσκε γεγωνέμεν ἀμφοτέρωσε,
ἠμὲν ἐπ’ Αἴαντος κλισίας Τελαμωνιάδαο
ἠδ’ ἐπ’ ᾿Αχιλλῆος, τοί ῥ’ ἔσχατα νῆας ἐΐσας
εἴρυσαν ἠνορέῃ πίσυνοι καὶ κάρτεϊ χειρῶν
ἔνθα στᾶσ’ ἤϋσε θεὰ μέγα τε δεινόν τε
ὄρθι’, ᾿Αχαιοῖσιν δὲ μέγα σθένος ἔμβαλ’ ἑκάστῳ
καρδίῃ ἄληκτον πολεμίζειν ἠδὲ μάχεσθαι.
τοῖσι δ’ ἄφαρ πόλεμος γλυκίων γένετ’ ἠὲ νέεσθαι
ἐν νηυσὶ γλαφυρῇσι φίλην ἐς πατρίδα γαῖαν.

When I returned to this passage, I was at first a bit perplexed by the beginning. It is not uncommon to reset the plot or mark changes in the action with daybreaks in Homer. Indeed, dawn often anticipates the beginning of an assembly (divine or mortal, cf. Iliad 8.1 “When yellow-robed Dawn stretched over the whole earth…” ᾿Ηὼς μὲν κροκόπεπλος ἐκίδνατο πᾶσαν ἐπ’ αἶαν [cf. 19.1; 24.295]). There are some variations in the expressions, and the introductory dawn is much more regular in the Odyssey (see, e.g.  ἦμος δ’ ἠριγένεια φάνη ῥοδοδάκτυλος ᾿Ηώς, 4.306) But there’s really no parallel for what happens in this passage: the mention of Tithonos, followed by the immediate divine intervention described here.

There are a few ways to understand what this passage is doing, I think. First, this exceptional re-beginning marks the epic’s longest day. As I discuss in a post on book 13, books 11-18 comprise a majority of the central action of the epic, but cover a single day in the action (day 29, depending on how you count). So, an exceptional introduction would be called for here. But I don’t think that covers it.

In addition to the length of the day, Zeus sending Eris may have thematic and generic implications as well. As I discuss in an article from YAGE, eris is both a thematic marker and a titling function in Greek epic. It is the kind of story that is typical of Homeric epic while also being characteristic of the cultural force that generated epic. Here, I think we can imagine the reinvocation of eris here as emphasizing the conflict about to come, but also as refocusing the cosmic nature of this poem.

The proem to the Iliad mentions eris twice: first, it asks the Muse to start the tale from a time when “those two men first fell out in strife” (ἐξ οὗ δὴ τὰ πρῶτα διαστήτην ἐρίσαντε, 1.6) and then “what god first set them to struggle in strife” (Τίς τάρ σφωε θεῶν ἔριδι ξυνέηκε μάχεσθαι;  1.8). The answer to the second question is disharmonious with what happens after book 1, when Zeus takes over the plot and causes the Greeks to lose in order to honor Achilles. This redeployment of a personified strife here, at the beginning of book 11, re-instantiates the conflict at Zeus’ behest and between the Greeks and Trojans, rather than between Agamemnon and Achilles. This reinitiates questions about the relationship between human agency and Zeus’ plan as well.

But wait, there’s more! Note as well the pains taken to describe Achilles’ and Ajax’s dwellings as on either end of the Greek fleet with Odysseus in the middle. As Jenny Strauss Clay shows in Homer’s Trojan Theater (2011), the battle books following Iliad 11 are consistent in the way they lay out the actions across the imagined geography of the poem. This opening resituates the audience in time and space before the most complex and prolonged violence of the poem.

And the last question, the one that got be started to begin with, is why is Tithonos invoked here and not elsewhere in the poem. The scholia to the Iliad are not incredibly helpful here, but they do bring up some salient points: first, Tithonos was a Trojan, and famously so. Second, he is known from the story told in the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite for being the unwitting victim of an apotheosis gone wrong. Dawn famously asked Zeus to make Tithonos immortal (that is, deathless) but not eternally young (or ageless). In the poetics of Greek myth, divine immortality is bipartite, requiring both deathlessness (a-thanatoi, immortals, literally means deathless ones) and agelessness (a-gerws). As a result, Tithonos grows older and older until he turns into (something like) a cicada and can only be heard.

It is hard to see at first glance how this can be appropriate for the beginning of book 11, but I suspect it works like this. Tithonos is a Trojan and he is in a place in medias res in relationship to his overall narrative, the story most people know. He is not a cicada yet, because he is still glorious and in bed with dawn. His appearance both invokes the closeness of the Trojans to the gods but also subtly implies that their story too is in the midst of its telling and everyone knows it is going to turn out badly.

(Some may suggest that this also recalls the child of Dawn and Tithonos, Memnon, who leads the fight for the Trojans after Hektor’s death. The Iliad and the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite both seem rather uninterested in Memnon’s very existence.)

If my interpretation is right, there may also be a connection to Zeus here: as an agent he is uniquely responsible for Trojan prominence (lover of Ganymede, judge who caused Apollo and Poseidon to build the Trojan walls) and as the chief god he is also uniquely responsible for the mixed promises and tricky plans that yield unexpected consequences. There’s a warning here, but also a metaphysical reinforcement. Like the old man who briefly lived alongside a goddess, the Trojan successes will be brief. The cicada’s song remains alongside Troy’s tragic fame, after the worse part of the stories have ended.

One might reasonably ask whether this is simply a reflection on the mortal condition.

Theme and Fit in Iliad 10

This post is a continuation of my substack on the Iliad. All proceeds from the substack are donated to classics adjacent non-profits on a monthly basis. Last year this substack provided over $2k in charitable donations.

As I mention in an earlier post, much of the debate around book 10 of the Iliad centers around its “fit” to our Iliad and our concept of what the Iliad should contain. Even the most strident critic of Iliad 10—M. L. West—concedes its antiquity, insisting that it was added to an authentic text by later editors. From my perspective, this argument is nullified if we see the Iliad as a composition in performance that intentionally brings together disparate pieces to evoke the whole story of the Trojan War. Recent studies of the language of book 10 using statistical models have come to different conclusions about its ‘authenticity’. The analysis of Chiara Bozzone’s and Ryan Sandell shows notable differences between the Iliad and the Odyssey; that Iliad 10 seems to be an outlier linguistically, and that some of Odyssean books are closer to the Iliad.

Yet, from another perspective in the work of John Pavlopoulos and Maria Konstantinidou, the language of book 10 is no more anomalous for the rest of the Iliad than book 11, and certainly more regular than book 9 (which no one disputes as Homeric).

As any student of oral poetry knows, language follows theme. The contents of book 10 are thematically and lexically different from the rest of the epic because they describe events that are dissimilar to those that unfold elsewhere. Any decision about the ‘fit’ of book 10 is therefore based on its content and preformed ideas of what the Iliad should be like. As I said in that earlier post, Casey Dué and Mary Ebbott have pretty much made the best case for the traditionality of the Iliad 10 in their Iliad 10 and the Poetics of Ambush: A Multitext Edition with Essays and Commentary.

Book 10, structurally, occupies the night between thee failed embassy to Achilles in book 10 and the resumption of warfare in book 11. The day that follows occupies nine books of the epic (11-18). The book itself furnishes an opportunity to reflect again on differences in politics between the Achaeans and Trojans, differences in characterization, and differences in tone. But I also suspect that it is playing with mythical traditions that pair Odysseus and Diomedes together.

When Agamemnon and Nestor gather the Achaean chieftains to consider spying on the Trojans. Diomedes volunteers and Agamemnon gives him enigmatic advice about whom to choose as a companion.

Iliad 10.234-239

“Indeed, choose a companion, whomever you want,
the best one of those who are present, since many are eager at least.
Do not, because you are keeping shame in your thoughts, leave behind
the better man, but choose the lesser man because you yield to shame
when you consider his birth, not even if he is kinglier.”

Τυδεΐδη Διόμηδες ἐμῷ κεχαρισμένε θυμῷ
τὸν μὲν δὴ ἕταρόν γ’ αἱρήσεαι ὅν κ’ ἐθέλῃσθα,
φαινομένων τὸν ἄριστον, ἐπεὶ μεμάασί γε πολλοί.
μηδὲ σύ γ’ αἰδόμενος σῇσι φρεσὶ τὸν μὲν ἀρείω
καλλείπειν, σὺ δὲ χείρον’ ὀπάσσεαι αἰδοῖ εἴκων
ἐς γενεὴν ὁρόων, μηδ’ εἰ βασιλεύτερός ἐστιν.

A scholion suggest that Agamemnon provides this advice because he is worried that Diomedes will feel pressured to choose Menelaos. Diomedes’ response indicates that Agamemnon probably didn’t have much to worry about.

Iliad 10.242-247

“If you are really asking me to choose my own companion,
How could I then overlook divine Odysseus,
Whose heart and proud energy are preeminent
In all toils. And Pallas Athena loves him.
If he’s accompanying me, then we would both come back
Even from a burning fire, since he really knows how to think.”

εἰ μὲν δὴ ἕταρόν γε κελεύετέ μ’ αὐτὸν ἑλέσθαι,
πῶς ἂν ἔπειτ’ ᾿Οδυσῆος ἐγὼ θείοιο λαθοίμην,
οὗ πέρι μὲν πρόφρων κραδίη καὶ θυμὸς ἀγήνωρ
ἐν πάντεσσι πόνοισι, φιλεῖ δέ ἑ Παλλὰς ᾿Αθήνη.
τούτου γ’ ἑσπομένοιο καὶ ἐκ πυρὸς αἰθομένοιο
ἄμφω νοστήσαιμεν, ἐπεὶ περίοιδε νοῆσαι.

There are not many moments in the Iliad that pair these two heroes together. And, if we follow what happens in the plot here, the two men sneak into the Trojan camp after capturing and killing Dolon, then they kill a bunch of men in their sleep and steal their horses. Diomedes is the one who does most of the murdering, but it seems to be Odysseus who has a plan.

I suspect that part of what is going on in this seen is an echo of stories that put Diomedes and Odysseus together in the Trojan War tradition. In part, Diomedes as a stand in for Achilles may invite consideration of the rivalry between the two iconoclastic heroes. As the figures of force (Achilles) and wit (Odysseus) the two have been seen as in rivalry (Gregory Nagy lays this out memorably in The Best of the Achaeans). Such a feature of myth is confirmed to a degree by the unexplained song of the “strife of Achilles and Odysseus” mentioned in the Odyssey.

Odyssey 8.73-78

“The Muse moved the singer to sing the tales of men,
The story whose fame had reached to the wide heaven,
The strife of Odysseus and Peleus’ son Achilles,
How they were in conflict at a sacred feast of the gods
With harsh words for one another, and the lord of men, Agamemnon
Took delight in his heart, that the best of the Achaeans were in conflict.”

Μοῦσ’ ἄρ’ ἀοιδὸν ἀνῆκεν ἀειδέμεναι κλέα ἀνδρῶν,
οἴμης, τῆς τότ’ ἄρα κλέος οὐρανὸν εὐρὺν ἵκανε,
νεῖκος ᾿Οδυσσῆος καὶ Πηλεΐδεω ᾿Αχιλῆος,
ὥς ποτε δηρίσαντο θεῶν ἐν δαιτὶ θαλείῃ
ἐκπάγλοισ’ ἐπέεσσιν, ἄναξ δ’ ἀνδρῶν ᾿Αγαμέμνων
χαῖρε νόῳ, ὅ τ’ ἄριστοι ᾿Αχαιῶν δηριόωντο.

But how does a potential rivalry between Achilles and Odysseus translate into a nighttime buddy-comedy of murder? Here we may also want to consider a tradition of difficulties between Diomedes and Odysseus from the lost Little Iliad According to Apollodorus, Diomedes and Odysseus were paired together to go get the bow of Herakles from Philoktetes and then went together again to sneak into the city to steal the Palladion. In that summary, Diomedes waits and watches while Odysseus disguises himself as a beggar to infiltrate the city.

The basic story is that, in order to take Troy, the Greeks needed to steal the Palladion, an image of Athena. In other traditions, Odysseus showed himself to be less than a team player. On the way back from the city, Odysseus tried to kill Diomedes. According to other accounts (summarized by Servius in his commentary on the Aeneid, see Gantz 1992, 643-5), Odysseus just wanted the glory all to himself.

We can see the Palladion-tale is a re-doubling of other Trojan War motifs: the requirement of Herakles’ bow and Philoktetes or the need to have Neoptolemus present, for example, are similar talismanic possessions to end the long war. Odysseus’ conflict with Diomedes, here, is not dissimilar either to his quarrel with Ajax or his feud with Achilles (mentioned in the Odyssey). I suspect that part of what is going on in book 10 is an echoing of these other traditions. I would go so far as to suggest that ancient audiences may have wondered whether Odysseus would betray Diomedes here. Instead of an act of betrayal, however, we see a scheming Odysseus who manages to get Diomedes to do most of the bloody work himself.

There is one fragment from the Little Iliad about this moment:

“It was the middle of the night, and the bright moon lay on them”

νὺξ μὲν ἔην μεσάτη, λαμπρὴ δ’ ἐπέτελλε σελήνη.

Iliad 10

1. Night Raids and Gimmick Episodes: Learning to Love Iliad 10: The Doloneia and the authenticity of Book 10; ‘Gimmick Episodes’; Television and Homer

2. Homeric Redshirts and Iliad 10: Introducing Dolon: Dolon as a character; throwaway figures; physiognomy, again; Television and Homer

3. Dolon and Achilles; Dolon AS Achilles: Politics and Iliad 10: Trojan Politics, redux; Correlations between Achilles and Dolon