The Rhetoric of Kleos in Iliad 7

Homer, Iliad 7.81-93

“But I kill one of you—and Apollo grants me the right to boast,
Then once I strip off your weapons, I will take them to holy Troy
And I will hang them on the temple of far-shooting Apollo.
But I will return the body to the well-benched ships,
And the Achaeans with the long hair will bury him.
They will heap him up a sign on the broad Hellespont
And then someone of the people who are born later will say
As they sail on the wine-dark sea in a many-benched ship,
“This is the grave of a man who died long ago,
Someone whom shining Hektor killed when he was the best”
So someone will say some day, and my fame will never perish”
So he spoke and everyone stayed quiet in the silence.
They were ashamed to refuse, but afraid to accept.”

εἰ δέ κ’ ἐγὼ τὸν ἕλω, δώῃ δέ μοι εὖχος ᾿Απόλλων,
τεύχεα σύλησας οἴσω προτὶ ῎Ιλιον ἱρήν,
καὶ κρεμόω προτὶ νηὸν ᾿Απόλλωνος ἑκάτοιο,
τὸν δὲ νέκυν ἐπὶ νῆας ἐϋσσέλμους ἀποδώσω,
ὄφρά ἑ ταρχύσωσι κάρη κομόωντες ᾿Αχαιοί,
σῆμά τέ οἱ χεύωσιν ἐπὶ πλατεῖ ῾Ελλησπόντῳ.
καί ποτέ τις εἴπῃσι καὶ ὀψιγόνων ἀνθρώπων
νηῒ πολυκλήϊδι πλέων ἐπὶ οἴνοπα πόντον·
ἀνδρὸς μὲν τόδε σῆμα πάλαι κατατεθνηῶτος,
ὅν ποτ’ ἀριστεύοντα κατέκτανε φαίδιμος ῞Εκτωρ.
ὥς ποτέ τις ἐρέει· τὸ δ’ ἐμὸν κλέος οὔ ποτ’ ὀλεῖται.
῝Ως ἔφαθ’, οἱ δ’ ἄρα πάντες ἀκὴν ἐγένοντο σιωπῇ·
αἴδεσθεν μὲν ἀνήνασθαι, δεῖσαν δ’ ὑποδέχθαι·

This speech comes near the beginning of Iliad 7 as Hektor is challenging one of the Greeks to fight him in single combat. Its position and content speak directly both to the characterization of Hektor, some problems of the structure of the Iliad, and the metapoetics of kleos (or, more appropriately, the occluded poetics of the epic “kleos function”). Let me try to address them in order.

First, Hektor is using this language not 45 minutes in performance time from his encounter with Andromache and Astyanax on the wall of Troy where he ends by praying for his son to be better than his father and to delight his mother’s heart by returning from nettle with another man’s weapons just as Hektor hopes for himself now (6.479-81). There as well, Hektor engages with what some have called “tis-speech” imagining the future words of others (de Jong 1987). Hilary Mackie refers to these moments as vignettes and notes that all but one of them appear in Hektor’s speeches (6.460-1; 6.479-50; 7.88-91; 7.300-2; and 22.107). For Mackie, these support Hektor’s tendency towards “an inward focus and absorption in the scenes he is creating” (1996, 98-99). This separation from reality, the rumination and the accompanying verbal tic of moving between a harsh assessment of reality (Hektor’s statements that he will in fact die) and flights of fancy, is supportive of a character in distress, I believe. Hektor is engaging in classic rumination, in delaying tactics, as he pushes against the reality of his situation. His decisions and his actions may be shaped by trauma. (Or, to put it less aggressively, his characterization may be such that it allows others to see him as responding erratically as one in a traumatized state may do.)

In a way, Hektor is a complement for Achilles’ contemplation of heroic valor and the promise of eternal fame. But he approaches it from a more shame-based perspective. (See Schein the Mortal Hero, 177-178 for more on hector as a hero shaped by shame and Redfield, Nature and Culture 119-126 for Hektor’s heroism as a function of responsibility and obligation.) In nearly every major speech that indicates a decision or a resistance/regret for one being suggested (see Hektor in book 6 and 22), Hektor worries of shame and reputation which may be considered part of the rhetoric of fame, since the latter is shaped to an extent by the meaning of the former. Hektor, as Richard Martin has noted (1989, 133), is particularly concerned with winning a reputation. This concern expands beyond the boundaries of the poem (in time and space) in a manner that is really only achieved elsewhere by Achilles. When he refuses Andromache’s plea to stay within the walls in book 6, he immediately claims he fears feeling shame in front of the Trojans and predicts, using language that recalls this speech, that some day someone will see Andromache enslaved and crying and that her pain will rise anew from the loss of a husband who can no longer save her.

The projections of objects into the future that attest to Hektor’s absence, his success in gaining fame, and his failure to protect his wife, must in some way hang together in the mind of the audience. While we often take Hektor’s comments in book 7 as signal words on Homeric fame, they are words shaped by the public context that is in and of itself about the shame of people witnessing your excellence or commemorating one’s fall. When Hektor speaks to Andromache a book earlier, he projects her into the future as a different sêma (marker) of his absence, but one that correlates to his failure. The personal, intimate nature of this and Hektor’s expression of pain—that he would rather the earth cover over him than have to hear her crying (6.459-465) both underscores Hektor’s conflicted feelings and also undermines the significance of his later claims.

Yet, perhaps this too is an overstatement. Hektor’s bluster in public is a function of his refusal to reject shame, to stand down or seem less-than in front of his people and his enemies. In the intimate wish to his wife, he doesn’t mention glory or a grave, but instead wishes for oblivion, to be covered by the earth and to have no news of the horrors that continue after his death. If anything, rather than being an indication of an inconsistent character, these two vignettes point to an emotional coherence and a deep complexity to Hektor’s character.

And I am so bold as to imagine that the structure of books 6 into 7 reflect this. Why does the Iliad need a second duel between heroes in its first half? Why, 10 years into the war, should Ajax and Hektor face each other in a single combat that is ultimately meaningless? And why, of all possible moments, have this be the one when Hektor points to the sema of his own grave as the guarantee of the continuity of memory for his own kleos? I may be as yet and as ever too modern in saying this, but I suspect the futility and the mundanity of the scene is the point. Hektor’s duel—and his fame to come—impact nothing of the world he cares about and may, at best, preserve a kleos that is as much a record of this as of all he could not protect.

The incoherence of the events that follow may support the coherence of this characterization. Hektor’s challenge inspires fear—and the response reported by the narrator echoes Hektor’s own concern with shame (αἴδεσθεν μὲν ἀνήνασθαι, δεῖσαν δ’ ὑποδέχθαι, 93). Nestor follows with the language shame reminds the Achaeans of their own boasts, Menelaos gets frustrated and is said by the narrator to be about to die (7.104) if he faces Hektor, only for Ajax to win a random drawing to face Hektor. Despite their fear of Hekor, Ajax seems to acquit himself quite well, save for an intervention by Apollo (7.272-273). The ‘draw’ is a stepping back from the conflict that has the Trojans relieved that Hektor survived and Agamemnon delighted at Ajax’s “victory” (7.312).

Throughout Hektor’s characterization in the Iliad we find a tension between the man we are told he should be and the figure we actually see in action. After returning to this speech again, I think that such tension is a direct function of Hektor’s relationship to kleos as clarified by his contrast with Achilles: he does not fight by choice, like Achilles; but he fights by obligation. His imagined futures change depending on whether they are public or private as he tries to play the part of a warrior prince who has learned to fight and die for his people while still struggling with the human part of knowing what his failure means for his city, spouse and child. Together, Achilles and Hektor can provide reflections on the limits of epic kleos and the conditions under which it matters and cannot. We just need to hear them as speaking in dialogue with each other, and us.

Other Posts on Iliad 7

1. Divine Plots and Human Plans: Reading Iliad 7: Homeric decision making and free will (“double determination”)

2. Erasing the Past: The Achaean Wall and Homeric Fame: Time and permanence in Homer; The Greek Fortifications and Fame

3. Give Helen Back!: Trojan Politics in Book 7 of the Iliad: Trojan Politics and the assemblies of Book 7

Short bibliography on Hektor

n.b this is not an exhaustive bibliography. If you’d like anything else included, please let me know. Follow-up posts will address kleos and Trojan politics

Clark, Matthew. “Poulydamas and Hektor.” College Literature 34, no. 2 (2007): 85–106. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25115422.

Combellack, Frederick M. “Homer and Hector.” The American Journal of Philology 65, no. 3 (1944): 209–43. https://doi.org/10.2307/291490.

Farron, S. “THE CHARACTER OF HECTOR IN THE ‘ILIAD.’” Acta Classica 21 (1978): 39–57. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24591547.

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

Irene J. F. de Jong. “The Voice of Anonymity. Tis-Speeches in the Iliad.” Eranos 85 (1987) 5-22.

Lynn Kozak, Experiencing Hektor: Character in the Iliad. Bloomsbury Classical Studies Monographs. London; New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016. xiv, 307. 

Hillary Mackie. Talking Trojan: Speech and Community in the Iliad . Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1996.

Van der Mije, Sebastiaan Reinier. “Bad herbs: the snake simile in Iliad 22.” Mnemosyne, Ser. 4, vol. 64, no. 3, 2011, pp. 359-382. Doi: 10.1163/156852511X505079

W. R. Nethercut. “Hektor at the Abyss.” Classical Bulletin 49 (1972) 7-9.

Oele, Marjolein. “Priam’s despair and courage: an Aristotelian reading of fear, hope, and suffering in Homer’s « Iliad ».” Logoi and muthoi : further essays in Greek philosophy and literature. Ed. Wians, William. SUNY Series in Ancient Greek Philosophy. Albany (N. Y.): State University of New York Pr., 2019. 297-317.

Pantelia, Maria C. “Helen and the Last Song for Hector.” Transactions of the American Philological Association (1974-) 132, no. 1/2 (2002): 21–27. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20054056.

Pucci, Pietro. “Divine protagonists in the « Iliad »: Hector’s death in book 22.” Yearbook of Ancient Greek Epic, vol. 1, 2017, pp. 175-205.

Ready, Jonathan L.. “Iliad 22.123-128 and the erotics of supplication.” The Classical Bulletin, vol. 81, no. 2, 2005, pp. 145-164.

James Redfield. Nature and Culture in the Iliad: The Tragedy of Hektor. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1975.

Scott, John A. “The Parting of Hector and Andromache.” The Classical Journal 9, no. 6 (1914): 274–77. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3287165.

Scott, John A. “Paris and Hector in Tradition and in Homer.” Classical Philology 8, no. 2 (1913): 160–71. http://www.jstor.org/stable/262449.

Traill, David A. “Unfair to Hector?” Classical Philology 85, no. 4 (1990): 299–303. http://www.jstor.org/stable/269583.

A Webinar on October 31st, 1-4 pm EDT

A few months back I wrote with some enthusiasm about some recent publications looking at Homer using new tools broadly characterized as AI [these approaches are largely statistical language models…but that’s less attention grabbing]!

I had several conversations with Homerists and friends and we figured there was enough going on to organize a workshop to provide those interested with a basic primer of the processes available, the kinds of questions people are asking of the texts, and how we can collaborate in the future. Our plan is pretty simple: John Pavlopoulos, a computer scientist, is going to start us out with an overview statistical language models, large language models, and other potential frameworks for thinking about ancient texts. Then, we will have three short presentations about ongoing work followed by some responses, posing questions we may contemplate at future workshops.

The schedule is below. It is provisional, with room for others if they’re interested. Pre-registration for the webinar is recommended. All are welcome. Any questions can be sent straight to me!

Homer and Artificial Intelligence Workshop 

Zoom Webinar

October 31st, 2024 1:00-4:00 EDT

Hosts: Joel Christensen, Brandeis University and Elton Barker, Open University

State of the Art

A Quick Primer on Modern Computing: Statistics, LLMs, and AI (20-25 minutes)

John Pavlopoulos

Discussions/Questions (15 minutes)

Current Projects

Research Presentation: Maria Konstantidou, John Pavlopoulos, Elton Barker (15-20 Minutes)

Discussion  (15 minutes)

Research Presentation: Chiara Bozzone, Ryan Sandell (10-15 minutes)

Discussion  (15-20 minutes)

Computational Research Labs in Classics Departments: Lab-Based Frameworks for Scholarship and Funding (10-15 minutes) Annie K. Lamar, UCSB

Discussion  (10-15 minutes)

Homer and AI Future Questions

Stephen Sansom, FSU (5-10 minutes)

Justin Arft, UT Knoxville (5-10 Minutes)

Closing Discussions, Future Plans

Some of the research to be discussed:

Bozzone, Chiara and Sandell, Ryan. 2022. “Using Quantitative Authorship Analysis to Study the Homeric Question.” David M. Goldstein, Stephanie W. Jamison, and Brent Vine (eds.). Proceedings of the 32nd Annual UCLA Indo-European Conference. Hamburg: Buske. 21–48.

Pavlopoulos, J., Konstantinidou, M. Computational authorship analysis of the homeric poems. Int J Digit Humanities 5, 45–64 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42803-022-00046-7

Story and Meaning in Iliad 6

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.

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.

Prior posts on Iliad 6

1. Structure and Stories: Reading Iliad 6: Killings and Homeric ‘obituaries’; the structure of Book 6

2. War Crimes: Iliad 6, Infanticide, and the Mykonos Vase: Homeric Violence; Child killing; enslavement; sexual violence

3. Mind Reading and Stolen Wits: The Encounter of Diomedes and Glaukos in Iliad 6

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.