Introducing Iliad 20

This post is a basic introduction to reading Iliad 20. Here is a link to the overview of Iliad 19and another to the plan in general. As a reminder, these posts will remain free, but there is an option to be a financial supporter. All proceeds from the substack are donated to classics adjacent non-profits on a monthly basis.

Book 20 is both about ending end extending various layers of suspense that have drawn the epic’s plot taut since the beginning: it finally sees Achilles’ return to battle (postponed since book 1 and since the death of Patroklos in book 6) and also the initiation of redirecting his rage towards Hektor. In the local context of the epic’s final third, it also ends the waiting that commenced at the beginning of book 18 when the news of Patroklos’ demise found Achilles. However, this book also pulls out all the stops to delay the consummation of Achilles’ rage in the death of Hektor, an event foretold by Zeus himself in book 15. Zeus starts this book with a divine assembly, authorizing the gods to intervene in the battle as they will and features as a central episode the match-up of Aeneas and Achilles. The former almost dies but is rescued by Poseidon. Just as Achilles is about to meet Hektor, Apollo delays their meeting and Achilles slaughters indiscriminately.

Books 20 and 21 are really a complementary pair moving Achilles and the audience through various heroic battle motifs: The first book matches him against another famous heroic tradition while the second is more defuse, taking Achilles out of the more familiar into the realm of theomachy. Each of these movements adds something to the themes I have outlined in reading the Iliad: (1) Politics, (2) Heroism; (3) Gods and Humans; (4) Family & Friends; (5) Narrative Traditions. Among these, however, I think book 20 speaks most directly to narrative traditions, Gods and humans, and heroism.

Zeus’ speech to open book 20 redraws the boundaries for the gods on the field. It reverses his earlier prohibition against divine interference in books 4, 8 and 15, and intentionally sends the gods to delay Achilles’ advance. In addition to manipulating the plot, as Zeus does earlier, this passage also has some curious reflections on divine interest in human beings and the limits of fate.

Homer, Iliad 20.13-30

“So they were gathered in Zeus’ home. Not even the earth-shaker
Disobeyed the goddess’s summons. But he came from the sea
And sat among them in the middle. He asked about Zeus’ plan
“Why have you called us to assembly, god of lightning?
Are you really contemplating something about the Trojans and Achaeans?
Now the battle and the war ranges closest between them.”
In answering, cloud-gathering Zeus addressed him.

“Earth-shaker, you know the plan in my thoughts, the reasons why
I have gathered you. These people concern me, even though they are about to die.
So I will remain here myself, seated on the ridge of Olympos,
This place from where I will take some pleasure watching. But the rest of you
Go until you arrive among the Trojans and the Achaeans
And help both sides in whatever way your mind inclines.
For if Achilles fights alone against the Trojans,
Well, they will not withstand the swift-footed son of Peleus for long.
Even before they used to shrink back in fear when they saw him—
And now when his heart is awfully enraged over his friend,
I fear that he will breach the wall beyond what is fated.”

῝Ως οἳ μὲν Διὸς ἔνδον ἀγηγέρατ’· οὐδ’ ἐνοσίχθων
νηκούστησε θεᾶς, ἀλλ’ ἐξ ἁλὸς ἦλθε μετ’ αὐτούς,
ἷζε δ’ ἄρ’ ἐν μέσσοισι, Διὸς δ’ ἐξείρετο βουλήν·
τίπτ’ αὖτ’ ἀργικέραυνε θεοὺς ἀγορὴν δὲ κάλεσσας;
ἦ τι περὶ Τρώων καὶ ᾿Αχαιῶν μερμηρίζεις;
τῶν γὰρ νῦν ἄγχιστα μάχη πόλεμός τε δέδηε.
Τὸν δ’ ἀπαμειβόμενος προσέφη νεφεληγερέτα Ζεύς·
ἔγνως ἐννοσίγαιε ἐμὴν ἐν στήθεσι βουλὴν
ὧν ἕνεκα ξυνάγειρα· μέλουσί μοι ὀλλύμενοί περ.
ἀλλ’ ἤτοι μὲν ἐγὼ μενέω πτυχὶ Οὐλύμποιο
ἥμενος, ἔνθ’ ὁρόων φρένα τέρψομαι· οἳ δὲ δὴ ἄλλοι
ἔρχεσθ’ ὄφρ’ ἂν ἵκησθε μετὰ Τρῶας καὶ ᾿Αχαιούς,
ἀμφοτέροισι δ’ ἀρήγεθ’ ὅπῃ νόος ἐστὶν ἑκάστου.
εἰ γὰρ ᾿Αχιλλεὺς οἶος ἐπὶ Τρώεσσι μαχεῖται
οὐδὲ μίνυνθ’ ἕξουσι ποδώκεα Πηλεΐωνα.
καὶ δέ τί μιν καὶ πρόσθεν ὑποτρομέεσκον ὁρῶντες·
νῦν δ’ ὅτε δὴ καὶ θυμὸν ἑταίρου χώεται αἰνῶς
δείδω μὴ καὶ τεῖχος ὑπέρμορον ἐξαλαπάξῃ.

A few things jump out at me from this exchange. First, notice the change in Poseidon as a character. Where he was much more of an active participant in book 13 and a complainant of sort in books 7 and 15, here he is less of an agent and more of a mere character. Of course, this changes almost as soon as he enters the fray. Up to that point, however, he arrives here as something of a secondary internal audience. By this I mean he asks the very question that the external audience may be asking: what exactly is the plan for the rest of the epic? Zeus is shifting from an internal audience guiding our viewing in book 19, to an author of the narrative for a brief moment, before he recedes again to watch the action unfold. When Poseidon asks him what is going to happen, he elicits a response that helps to shape the narrative to come and provide more information.

The language used in this passage may recall the opening of the poem (“the proem”). At the very least the repeated invocation of “the plan” (βουλήν x2;) plus the mention of people dying (ὀλλύμενοί) echo the opening concerns of the proem that make it clear that Achilles’ rage is killing myriad Achaeans as part of Zeus’ plan. ‘Re-tuning’ is appropriate here especially because Achilles’ anger is specifically invoked as not just in action but in danger of subverting the action away from where Zeus wants it to go.

This danger of subverting Zeus’ will brings me to the second point I find interesting in Zeus’ speech. When Zeus says “they are a concern to me even though they are dying”, many interpreters have taken to mean that it is because he cares about people. (Indeed, the scholia assume that this is part of his role as the “father of men and gods”). But what this concern really means is unclear. I think that μέλουσί μοι ὀλλύμενοί περ not a concern because of sympathy for their fates—all men die and Zeus seems more or less ok with myriad deaths—but because of the danger it may represent to his plans, as Bill Beck persuasively argues, and the course of fate in the larger Trojan war narrative.

This connects in part to a third aspect of this speech that is important, which is the final concern Zeus expresses, that Achilles’ rage is such that it might result in actions that are “beyond fate” (ὑπέρμορον) points both to Achilles’ actions in general and may anticipate the subsequent endangerment and rescue of Aeneas. Although there is some debate in the textual tradition about this phrase—others have suggested that the correct reading is ὑπέρβιον, “super violently”—it seems sound to me that Zeus would use this phrase here: his concern is with any action that may disrupt the basic facts of the Trojan War narrative as they have to be. Achilles cannot enter Troy because everyone knows that he will die outside of it.

Other events that were labeled as “beyond fate” include the Achaean return home in book 2 (which would have ended the war), the breaching of the walls in 21.517, human beings suffering beyond their measure because of stupidity (Od. 1.34), Aigisthus marrying Klytemnestra (Od. 1.35), or Odysseus dying without getting home (Od. 5.436). Of these, the Aigisthus case is the hardest, but according to Zeus he was warned by Hermes not to do what he did. So, in all these cases, the phrase huper moron seems to indicate a transgression against the outline of a story or the rules of a story as they have been articulated.

David Konstan suggests that “As the internal spectator, Zeus’ delight cues the audience as to how the scene is to be appreciated: this is for fun, not serious like the mortal conflict” (2015, 10) And, in part, Pietro Pucci supports this when he draws attention to Hera and Athena “delighting” in the conflict in book 4. As Pucci writes, “terpein is also the verb for the enjoyment derived from poetry, and it resonates even in the name of the Odyssean bard Phemius Terpsiades” (23). When it comes to the passage in book 24, Pucci notes a common reading: “Critics have tried to reduce Zeus’s cynicism by an appropriate reading: it has been suggested that he is getting pleasure mainly from watching the fighting gods, as is stated explicitly at 21.388–90, and it has been noted that Zeus in our passage at line 21 says: “I am concerned with them, though they perish.” Pucci goes on to argue that the pleasure in part derives from the completion of Zeus’ plan to end the race of heroes.

I think there may be more to this, however. In the Odyssey we find an interesting relationship between pleasure and grief and storytelling. In book 19, Penelope describes herself as spending her days taking pleasure in mourning (ἤματα μὲν γὰρ τέρπομ’ ὀδυρομένη γοόωσα, 19.513) and she and Odysseus take pleasure in telling each other stories (τερπέσθην μύθοισι, πρὸς ἀλλήλους ἐνέποντες, 23.301). While Eumaios invites Odysseus to take pleasure in telling each other their past tales (Od. 15.398–401):

“Let us take pleasure in calling to mind each other’s terrible pains
while we drink and dine in my home.
For a man may even find pleasure among pains
when he has suffered many and gone through much.”

νῶϊ δ’ ἐνὶ κλισίῃ πίνοντέ τε δαινυμένω τε
κήδεσιν ἀλλήλων τερπώμεθα λευγαλέοισι
μνωομένω· μετὰ γάρ τε καὶ ἄλγεσι τέρπεται ἀνήρ,
ὅς τις δὴ μάλα πολλὰ πάθῃ καὶ πόλλ’ ἐπαληθῇ

As I argue in my book on the Odyssey, The Many Minded Man, this pleasure comes from knowing a tale has ended, from resolving the suspense, and finding the end of something the way we often cannot in real life (2020, 247-249). In book 19, the Achaean kings try to get Achilles to feel some pleasure, but they fail (19.312-313) and I think it is because he is torn between what he needs to do (wait), what he wants to do (kill Hektor), and the impossibility of these actions addressing his real pain. Here, I think we can imagine that Zeus takes pleasure in the narrative unfolding because he is moving it toward a definitive end, he knows what that end is, and it is a fulfillment of the plan he has had all along. If we, as the external audience watching Zeus watching the action feel pleasure too, it may be from the poem reaching its long anticipated denouement, even as it may also have to do with the vicarious experience of violence, death, and release.

Some reading Questions for Book 20

What does the confrontation between Achilles and Aeneas add to our understanding of the Iliad?

Why does Zeus let the gods run wild in book 20?

How does book 20 anticipate the battle between Achilles and Hektor?

A Short Bibliography for Iliad 20

Ballesteros, Bernardo. “On « Gilgamesh » and Homer: Ishtar, Aphrodite and the meaning of a parallel.” Classical Quarterly, N. S., vol. 71, no. 1, 2021, pp. 1-21. Doi: 10.1017/S0009838821000513

Beck, Bill. “Harshing Zeus’ μέλω: reassessing the sympathy of Zeus at Iliad 20.21.” American Journal of Philology, vol. 143, no. 3, 2022, pp. 359-384. Doi: 10.1353/ajp.2022.0015

Cramer, David. “The wrath of Aeneas: Iliad 13.455-67 and 20.75-352.” Syllecta classica, vol. 11, 2000, pp. 16-33.

Fenno, Jonathan Brian. “The wrath and vengeance of swift-footed Aeneas in Iliad 13.” Phoenix, vol. 62, no. 1-2, 2008, pp. 145-161.

Hesk, Jon. “Homeric flyting and how to read it: performance and intratext in Iliad 20.83-109 and 20.178-258.” Ramus, vol. 35, no. 1, 2006, pp. 4-28.

Konstan, David. “Homer answers his critics.” Electryone, vol. 3, no. 1, 2015, pp. 1-11.

Pucci, Pietro. “Theology and poetics in the « Iliad ».” Arethusa, vol. 35, no. 1, 2002, pp. 17-34.

Reece, Steve Taylor. “σῶκος ἐριούνιος Ἑρμῆς (Iliad 20. 72): the modification of a traditional formula.” Glotta, vol. 75, no. 1-2, 1999, pp. 85-106.

Smit, Daan W.. “Achilles, Aeneas and the Hittites : a Hittite model for Iliad XX, 191-194 ?.” Talanta , vol. XX-XXI, 1988-1989, pp. 53-64.

Wakimoto, Yuka. “Aeneas in and before the « Iliad ».” Journal of Classical Studies, vol. 45, 1997, pp. 28-39.

Briseis’ Lament for Patroklos in Iliad 19

This is one of a few posts dedicated to Iliad 19. As a reminder, these posts will remain free, but there is an option to be a financial supporter. All proceeds from the substack are donated to classics adjacent non-profits on a monthly basis.

Following the political performance of reconciliation in Iliad 19, the narrative turns back to the personal. We see the resumption of mourning for Patroklos and as the epic moves towards Achilles’ return to battle, it starts to foreshadow Achilles’ death. The plot-link between these two movements is Briseis as she moves from Agamemnon’s possession to Achilles’. We—along with the Achaeans—witness Briseis’ surrender and then we get to see her mourn Patroklos.

Homer Iliad 19. 281-302

“Then when Briseis, like golden Aphrodite herself,
Saw Patroklos run through with sharp bronze,
Poured herself over him while she wailed and ripped
At her chest, tender neck, and pretty face with her hands.
And while mourning the woman spoke like one of the goddesses:

“Patroklos, you were the dearest to wretched me and
I left you alive when I went from your dwelling.
And now I find you here dead, leader of the armies,
When I return. Troubles are always wresting me from troubles.
The husband my father and mother gave me to
I watched run through with sharp bronze in front of the city,
And then the three brothers my mother bore,
Dear siblings, all met their fate on that day.
But you would not ever let me weep when swift Achilles
Was killing my husband and when he sacked the city of divine Munêtos—
No, you used to promise to make me the wedded wife
Of divine Achilles, someone he would lead home in his ships to Phthia,
where you would light the marriage torches among the Myrmidons.
So now I weep for you, dead and gentle forever.”
So she spoke, while weeping….

Βρισηῒς δ’ ἄρ’ ἔπειτ’ ἰκέλη χρυσέῃ ᾿Αφροδίτῃ
ὡς ἴδε Πάτροκλον δεδαϊγμένον ὀξέϊ χαλκῷ,
ἀμφ’ αὐτῷ χυμένη λίγ’ ἐκώκυε, χερσὶ δ’ ἄμυσσε
στήθεά τ’ ἠδ’ ἁπαλὴν δειρὴν ἰδὲ καλὰ πρόσωπα.
εἶπε δ’ ἄρα κλαίουσα γυνὴ ἐϊκυῖα θεῇσι·
Πάτροκλέ μοι δειλῇ πλεῖστον κεχαρισμένε θυμῷ
ζωὸν μέν σε ἔλειπον ἐγὼ κλισίηθεν ἰοῦσα,
νῦν δέ σε τεθνηῶτα κιχάνομαι ὄρχαμε λαῶν
ἂψ ἀνιοῦσ’· ὥς μοι δέχεται κακὸν ἐκ κακοῦ αἰεί.
ἄνδρα μὲν ᾧ ἔδοσάν με πατὴρ καὶ πότνια μήτηρ
εἶδον πρὸ πτόλιος δεδαϊγμένον ὀξέϊ χαλκῷ,
τρεῖς τε κασιγνήτους, τούς μοι μία γείνατο μήτηρ,
κηδείους, οἳ πάντες ὀλέθριον ἦμαρ ἐπέσπον.
οὐδὲ μὲν οὐδέ μ’ ἔασκες, ὅτ’ ἄνδρ’ ἐμὸν ὠκὺς ᾿Αχιλλεὺς
ἔκτεινεν, πέρσεν δὲ πόλιν θείοιο Μύνητος,
κλαίειν, ἀλλά μ’ ἔφασκες ᾿Αχιλλῆος θείοιο
κουριδίην ἄλοχον θήσειν, ἄξειν τ’ ἐνὶ νηυσὶν
ἐς Φθίην, δαίσειν δὲ γάμον μετὰ Μυρμιδόνεσσι.
τώ σ’ ἄμοτον κλαίω τεθνηότα μείλιχον αἰεί.
῝Ως ἔφατο κλαίουσ’…

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This scene is remarkable for both its contents and its place in the poem. It is the only place in the Iliad where Briseis speaks. The emotion she shows for Patroklos helps in part to prime us for Achilles’ subsequent lament and also to help to further characterize Patroklos to help us to understand the scale of his loss. Briseis’ evocation of his tenderness as an intermediary, as Achilles’ gentler, kinder counterpart both re-centers his concern for others as explored prior to his entry into battle in book 16 and anticipates Achilles’ revelation that he always imagined Patroklos would be the one to live, to care for Achilles’ son, and to return to Peleus in Phthia.

But all of this summary serves to redouble the way the Iliad instrumentalizes Briseis to serve Achilles’ needs and the plot of the Iliad. Indeed, even the way we refer to her is indirect: her name is her father’s name.

D Scholia to the Iliad:

“The Poet seems to use their patronymic names and not their personal ones, for other ancient accounts notes that [Chryseis] was named Astynomê and [Briseis] was named Hippodameia.”

ἔοικε δὲ πατρωνυμικῶς τὰ ὀνόματα αὐτῶν σχηματίζειν ὁ Ποιητὴς, καὶ οὐ κυρίως. ὡς γὰρ οἱ ἄλλοι ἀρχαῖοι ἱστοροῦσιν, ἡ μὲν, ᾿Αστυνόμη ἐκαλεῖτο, ἡ δὲ, ῾Ιπποδάμεια.

Briseis’ story connects to other themes in the epic. As Casey Dué shows in her Homeric Variations on a Lament by Briseis., Briseis’ lament recalls Andromache’s speech in book 6 and also foreshadows the deaths of Hektor and Achilles.

There’s some lack of clarity in the Iliad itself about Briseis’ ‘relationship’ with Achilles. It should be clear beyond a doubt that ancient audiences could have assumed that Briseis was subject to sexual violence as a war captive. Her husband, brothers, relatives all died when Achilles sacked her city. Yet some scholars have seen ambiguity here. When the heralds arrive in book 1 to take Briseis to Agamemnon the narrative reads “she went along with them, unwilling, and Achilles sat, apart from his companions, weeping…” ἣ δ’ ἀέκουσ’ ἅμα τοῖσι γυνὴ κίεν· αὐτὰρ ᾿Αχιλλεὺς / δακρύσας ἑτάρων ἄφαρ ἕζετο νόσφι λιασθείς, 1.348-139).

Ancient scholars seem less interested in Briseis’ feelings here than in Achilles. A scholion hedges its bets about whether or not Briseis is upset because she just loves Achilles so much or because she acts this way (generically) as a war prize. Here’s the commentary on this scene from the scholia on book 1:

“unwilling”: This is because she loves her man, as her appearance makes clear. As another explanation, this distinguishes her as a war prize and through one phrase the whole nature of her character has been clarified.

ἔστι γὰρ φίλανδρος, ὡς τὸ πρόσωπον αὐτῆς δηλοῖ. δευτέραν δὲ ταύτην ὁρίζεται εἶναι αἰχμαλωσίαν καὶ διὰ μιᾶς λέξεως ὁλόκληρον ἡμῖν ἦθος προσώπου δεδήλωκεν. b(BCE3)T 

“Cried about from his companion”…otherwise this also shows that because he is covetous of honor he is upset about the insult and is deprived of the customary intimacy, but perhaps he also pities the woman being taking away unwillingly. This characterizes him loving extremely.”

δακρύσας ἑτάρων: …ἄλλως τε καὶ φιλότιμος ὢν ἀνιᾶται τῇ ὕβρει παλαιᾶς τε συνηθείας στέρεται, ἴσως δὲ καὶ τὸ γύναιον ἀκουσίως ἀπαλλαττόμενον ἐλεεῖ. ἄκρως δὲ ἐρῶντα χαρακτηρίζει·

Here, the scholia echo the epic in seeing the movement of Briseis as an opportunity to characterize Achilles rather than give any insight into the experience of a woman who ends up suffering even as she becomes the cause of a conflict that brings harms to others. The denial of any agency to Briseis or concern about her experiences differs from the two other primary women in the text—Andromache and Helen—but we may be able to see her treatment as a metonym to help frame the epic’s presentation of those more fully-realized characters. If the conflict between Achilles and Agamemnon is relativized as “about a girl” in a way that implies a judgment on the whole Trojan War, then the cumulative impact may be to limit or deny agency to women in general and Helen in specific.

So one question is how we can understand the Briseis’ relationship to Achilles in the epic’s terms. The evidence about their relationship in the poem is mixed as well, but easier to understand if we think about the rhetorical context. Achilles in book 9 claims that Briseis is a “wife fit to my heart” (ἄλοχον θυμαρέα , 9.336) but then at the beginning of book 19 when speaks to Agamemnon wishes that “Artemis had killed her among the ships with an arrow / on that day when I took her after sacking Lurnessos” (τὴν ὄφελ’ ἐν νήεσσι κατακτάμεν ῎Αρτεμις ἰῷ / ἤματι τῷ ὅτ’ ἐγὼν ἑλόμην Λυρνησσὸν ὀλέσσας,19.59-60).

Some might suggest that Achilles has changed his mind during the course of the epic, that he has gone from weeping over losing Briseis to wishing she were dead after losing Achilles. However, it seems clear to me that Achilles is rhetorically amplifying his loss (and a scholion agrees, writing “he amplified the insult by calling her his wife and fit to his heart in additino” (ηὔξησε τὴν ὕβριν ἄλοχον αὐτὴν  εἰπὼν καὶ θυμαρέα). This claim, however, does not totally undermine a possibility that Achilles is actually fond of Briseis: if he is rhetorically amplifying his loss in book 9, could he not also be rhetorically diminishing his attachment in book 19 in service of his desire to go immediately to war?

It is nearly impossible to disentangle these possibilities—indeed, I think the ambiguity is important for audiences to be able to choose their interpretation of Achilles’ feelings. One note that is useful from the scholia is the recognition that here Achilles calls her a girl (κούρην) here instead of a “prize” (γέρας). The shift in language both assists in connecting this conflict to the larger Trojan War and it also downplays the conflict between Achilles as personal instead of political (καὶ κούρην, οὐ γέρας αὐτὴν καλεῖ). Another scholion adds that Achilles amplifies this because of the death of Patroklos.

In other traditions, like Ovid’s Heroides 3, Briseis is depicted as desperately writing to Achilles for his attention. In the post-classical retelling of the stories after the Iliad, Quintus of Smyrna presents Briseis as leading the mourning for Achilles. The language and motifs Quintus chooses show an integration of themes from the speeches of Andromache in the Iliad. Yet even here, it seems that Briseis is still instrumentalized in service of Achilles’ story.

Quintus, Posthomerica 3.551-573

“Of all the women, Briseis felt the most terrible grief
in her heart within, the companion of warring Achilles.
She turned over his corpse and tore at her fine skin
With both hands and from her delicate chest
Bloody bruises rose up from the force of her blows—
You might even say it was like blood poured over milk.
Yet she still shined even as she mourned in pain
And her whole form exuded grace.
This is the kind of speech she made while mourning:

“Oh what endless horror I have suffered.
Nothing that happened to me before this was so great
Not the death of my brothers nor the loss of my country,

Nothing exceeds your death. You were my sacred day
And the light of the sun and the gentle life,
My hope for good and tireless defense against pain—
You were better by far than any gift, than my parents even—
You were everything alone for me even though I was enslaved.

You took me as your bedmate and seized me from a slave’s labor.
But now? Some other Achaean will take me away in his ships
To fertile Sparta or dry and thirsty Argos
Where I will again suffer terrible things working away,
Apart from you and miserable. I only wish that
The earth had covered over me before I saw your death.”

πασάων δ’ ἔκπαγλον ἀκηχεμένη κέαρ ἔνδον
Βρισηὶς παράκοιτις ἐυπτολέμου Ἀχιλῆος
ἀμφὶ νέκυν στρωφᾶτο καὶ ἀμφοτέρῃς παλάμῃσι
δρυπτομένη χρόα καλὸν ἀύτεεν· ἐκ δ’ ἁπαλοῖο
στήθεος αἱματόεσσαι ἀνὰ σμώδιγγες ἄερθεν
θεινομένης· φαίης κεν ἐπὶ γλάγος αἷμα χέασθαι
φοίνιον. ἀγλαΐη δὲ καὶ ἀχνυμένης ἀλεγεινῶς
ἱμερόεν μάρμαιρε, χάρις δέ οἱ ἄμπεχεν εἶδος.
τοῖον δ’ ἔκφατο μῦθον ὀιζυρὸν γοόωσα·
“Ὤ μοι ἐγὼ πάντων περιώσιον αἰνὰ παθοῦσα·
οὐ γάρ μοι τόσσον περ ἐπήλυθεν ἄλλό τι πῆμα,
οὔτε κασιγνήτων οὔτ’ εὐρυχόρου περὶ πάτρης,
ὅσσον σεῖο θανόντος· ἐπεὶ σύ μοι ἱερὸν ἦμαρ
καὶ φάος ἠελίοιο πέλες καὶ μείλιχος αἰὼν
ἐλπωρή τ’ ἀγαθοῖο καὶ ἄσπετον ἄλκαρ ἀνίης
πάσης τ’ ἀγλαΐης πολὺ φέρτερος ἠδὲ τοκήων
ἔπλεο· πάντα γὰρ οἶος ἔης δμωῇ περ ἐούσῃ,
καί ῥά με θῆκας ἄκοιτιν ἑλὼν ἄπο δούλια ἔργα.
νῦν δέ τις ἐν νήεσσιν Ἀχαιῶν ἄξεται ἄλλος
Σπάρτην εἰς ἐρίβωλον ἢ ἐς πολυδίψιον Ἄργος·
καί νύ κεν ἀμφιπολεῦσα κακὰς ὑποτλήσομ’ ἀνίας
σεῦ ἀπονοσφισθεῖσα δυσάμμορος. ὡς ὄφελόν με
γαῖα χυτὴ ἐκάλυψε πάρος σέο πότμον ἰδέσθαι.

I imagine that in antiquity there were other narrative traditions that engaged with Homer’s women differently, centering their experiences. But we don’t have them. We do have Pat Barker’s The Silence of the Girls. As a remarkable anonymous essay on Briseis shows (“Just a Girl: Being Briseis”) just how strongly Briseis’ treatment can resonate with audiences today. It is hard for me to imagine that there weren’t similar responses among Homeric audiences over time.

A short bibliography on Briseis

Clark, W. P.. “Iliad IX,336 and the meaning of ἄλοχος in Homer.” Classical Philology, 1940, pp. 188-190.

Dué, Casey. Homeric variations on a lament by Briseis. Greek Studies: Interdisciplinary Approaches. Lanham (Md.): Rowman and Littlefield, 2002.

Fantuzzi, Marco. Achilles in love: intertextual studies. Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Pr., 2012.

Fisher, Rachel R.. « Homophrosyne » and women in the « Iliad ». [S. l.]: [s. n.], 2018.

Lambrou, Ioannis L.. “Achilles and Helen and Homer’s telling silence.” Mnemosyne, Ser. 4, vol. 73, no. 5, 2020, pp. 705-728. Doi: 10.1163/1568525X-12342656

Pucci, Pietro. “Antiphonal lament between Achilles and Briseis.”. Colby Quarterly 258-272.

Wright, Ian. “The wife of Achilles.” Mnemosyne, Ser. 4, vol. 69, no. 1, 2016, pp. 113-118. Doi: 10.1163/1568525X-12341949

Achilles’ Lament for Patroklos in Iliad 19

This is one of a few posts dedicated to Iliad 19. As a reminder, these posts will remain free, but there is an option to be a financial supporter. All proceeds from the substack are donated to classics adjacent non-profits on a monthly basis.

Following the political reconciliation, book 19 of the Iliad shifts back to the personal, exploring further the impact of Patroklos’ death on others.

Homer, Iliad 19. 309-340

“He said this and dispersed the rest of the kings,
But the two sons of Atreus remained along with shining Odysseus,
Nestor, Idomeneus, and the old horse-master Phoinix
All trying to bring him some distraction. But he took no pleasure
In his heart before he entered the jaws of bloody war.
He sighed constantly as he remembered and spoke:
‘My unlucky dearest of friends it was you who before
Used to offer me a sweet meal in our shelter
Quickly and carefully whenever the Achaeans were rushing
To bring much-lamented Ares against the horse-taming Achaeans.
But now you are lying there run-through and my fate
Is to go without drink and food even though there inside
Because I long for you. I couldn’t suffer anything more wretched than this
Not even if I learned that my father had died,
Who I imagine is crying tender tears right now in Pththia
Bereft of a son like this—but I am in a foreign land,
Fighting against the Trojans for the sake of horrible Helen.
Not even if I lost my dear son who is being cared for in Skyros,
If godlike Neoptolemos is at least still alive—
Before the heart in my chest always expected that
I alone would die far away from horse-nourishing Argos
Here in Troy, but that you would return home to Phthia
I hoped you would take my child in the swift dark ship
From Skyros and that you would show to him there
My possessions, the slaves, and the high-roofed home.
I expect that Peleus has already died or
If he is still alive for a little longer he is aggrieved
By hateful old age and as he constantly awaits
Some painful message, when he learns that I have died.”
So he spoke while weeping, and the old men mourned along with him
As each of them remembered what they left behind at home.
And Zeus [really] felt pity when he saw them mourning

῝Ως εἰπὼν ἄλλους μὲν ἀπεσκέδασεν βασιλῆας,
δοιὼ δ’ ᾿Ατρεΐδα μενέτην καὶ δῖος ᾿Οδυσσεὺς
Νέστωρ ᾿Ιδομενεύς τε γέρων θ’ ἱππηλάτα Φοῖνιξ
τέρποντες πυκινῶς ἀκαχήμενον· οὐδέ τι θυμῷ
τέρπετο, πρὶν πολέμου στόμα δύμεναι αἱματόεντος.
μνησάμενος δ’ ἁδινῶς ἀνενείκατο φώνησέν τε·
ἦ ῥά νύ μοί ποτε καὶ σὺ δυσάμμορε φίλταθ’ ἑταίρων
αὐτὸς ἐνὶ κλισίῃ λαρὸν παρὰ δεῖπνον ἔθηκας
αἶψα καὶ ὀτραλέως, ὁπότε σπερχοίατ’ ᾿Αχαιοὶ
Τρωσὶν ἐφ’ ἱπποδάμοισι φέρειν πολύδακρυν ῎Αρηα.
νῦν δὲ σὺ μὲν κεῖσαι δεδαϊγμένος, αὐτὰρ ἐμὸν κῆρ
ἄκμηνον πόσιος καὶ ἐδητύος ἔνδον ἐόντων
σῇ ποθῇ· οὐ μὲν γάρ τι κακώτερον ἄλλο πάθοιμι,
οὐδ’ εἴ κεν τοῦ πατρὸς ἀποφθιμένοιο πυθοίμην,
ὅς που νῦν Φθίηφι τέρεν κατὰ δάκρυον εἴβει
χήτεϊ τοιοῦδ’ υἷος· ὃ δ’ ἀλλοδαπῷ ἐνὶ δήμῳ
εἵνεκα ῥιγεδανῆς ῾Ελένης Τρωσὶν πολεμίζω·
ἠὲ τὸν ὃς Σκύρῳ μοι ἔνι τρέφεται φίλος υἱός,
εἴ που ἔτι ζώει γε Νεοπτόλεμος θεοειδής.
πρὶν μὲν γάρ μοι θυμὸς ἐνὶ στήθεσσιν ἐώλπει
οἶον ἐμὲ φθίσεσθαι ἀπ’ ῎Αργεος ἱπποβότοιο
αὐτοῦ ἐνὶ Τροίῃ, σὲ δέ τε Φθίην δὲ νέεσθαι,
ὡς ἄν μοι τὸν παῖδα θοῇ ἐνὶ νηῒ μελαίνῃ
Σκυρόθεν ἐξαγάγοις καί οἱ δείξειας ἕκαστα
κτῆσιν ἐμὴν δμῶάς τε καὶ ὑψερεφὲς μέγα δῶμα.
ἤδη γὰρ Πηλῆά γ’ ὀΐομαι ἢ κατὰ πάμπαν
τεθνάμεν, ἤ που τυτθὸν ἔτι ζώοντ’ ἀκάχησθαι
γήραΐ τε στυγερῷ καὶ ἐμὴν ποτιδέγμενον αἰεὶ
λυγρὴν ἀγγελίην, ὅτ’ ἀποφθιμένοιο πύθηται.
῝Ως ἔφατο κλαίων, ἐπὶ δὲ στενάχοντο γέροντες,
μνησάμενοι τὰ ἕκαστος ἐνὶ μεγάροισιν ἔλειπον·
μυρομένους δ’ ἄρα τούς γε ἰδὼν ἐλέησε Κρονίων…

This speech follows Briseis’ lament for Patroklos and provides opportunities for thematic and metapoetic reflection. First, when it comes to the content of the speech, Achilles moves through a range of motifs that echo Briseis’ invocation of her dead relatives and the re-location of her hopes for continued life in Achilles (as promised by Patroklos). As Casey Dué observes, these themes are echoes of what Andromache says to Hektor in book 7. There is a significant difference in Achilles’ rumination, however: where Andromache and Briseis invest a single person with the lost hopes of larger families, Achilles projects the loss of a single person on his living father and son. Andromache and Briseis try to find some comfort in life for the loss of many in the hopes of one while Achilles allows the loss of one to articulate his separation from everyone else.

In doing so, Achilles articulates a collapse between himself and Patroklos. His speech is remarkable because he does not mourn his own loss of life (as is clear from his speech in Iliad 18) but instead shows that his hope for life after death was based in Patroklos out-living him. And the way he talks about this frames them as replacements for each other, inverting what actually happens in the Iliad. In book 16, Patroklos literally takes Achilles’ place in battle, wearing his armor as one might a lover’s clothes and facing death in his stead. In book 19, Achilles shows that he expected Patroklos to replace him in life, to take his place as a surrogate father to Neoptolemos, returning him to the home he has never seen to meet the grandfather he has never known.

The elision of identity in Achilles’ speech is facilitated in part by the way he uses Homeric language. There are ambiguities that may leave the audience briefly lost, but they also point to the overlap in Achilles’ mind: consider line 314/5 where Achilles says of Peleus that he is “bereft of a son like this, but he [I]  am fighting in a foreign land….” (χήτεϊ τοιοῦδ’ υἷος· ὃ δ’ ἀλλοδαπῷ ἐνὶ δήμῳ / εἵνεκα ῥιγεδανῆς ῾Ελένης Τρωσὶν πολεμίζω). It is very difficult to convey in English the postponement of meaning in these lines. The qualitative demonstrative τοιοῦδ’ (“of this kind of…”) modifies the word “son” (υἷος), yet, given the context it is unclear whether Achilles is referring to himself as the kind of person Peleus mourns over or Patroklos.

The following words make it clear to me that he likely means Patroklos, at first. After using the demonstrative, Achilles shifts to the nominative singular article ὃ followed by what Egbert Bakker has called the discourse shifting particle δ’. The significance of this technical terminology is that in Homer the combination of a stated article with the particle (ὃ δ’) frequently indicates a subject change. In this case, it increases the case that we are supposed to imagine Achilles as in some way contrasting the referent of the demonstrative “someone like this” with pronoun.

But it is even more dizzying, because it is not clear from that ὃ δ’ that Achilles is talking about himself and not another person until the end of the following line when we get to the first-person verb πολεμίζω. The closest English approximation would be something like “bereft of a son just like this while this guy in a foreign land, for the sake of horrible Helen, I, am fighting the Trojans”. And if it is somewhat unconvincing that the movement from the demonstrative to the pronoun χήτεϊ τοιοῦδ’ υἷος· ὃ δ’ indicates a shift in thinking about Patroklos to Achilles, some lines later Achilles moves back to Patroklos clearly in contrasting them when he imagines that he was going to die “here in Troy, but you [Patroklos] would return home…” The adverbial αὐτοῦ ἐνὶ Τροίῃ breaks at the same metrical position in the line as χήτεϊ τοιοῦδ’  and is followed with σὲ δέ just as the earlier was followed by ὃ δ’. And I don’t think the impact is unclear: Achilles struggles in that first part of the speech to distinguish between his grief and the object of his grief, but when he articulates his lost hopes from the past he can clearly say that he expected to die but that Patroklos would live in his place.

The unfolding associations of replacement and surrogacy should make us, as an audience, reconsider what happens in Iliad 16. Lenny Muellner long ago shared with me an unpublished talk in honor of his Steven Lowenstam who passed away too early. In it, he builds from Lowenstam’s dissertation The Death of Patroclus: A Study in Typology to make observations on the relationship of Achilles and Patroklos. Lowenstam’s dissertation in part explores how the therapon (attendant, ‘henchman’, assistant) may be related to an ancient Hittite practice of a figure who takes a king’s place and dies in his place in battle. Here, Achilles shows that he imagined himself as the one to die in battle and Patroklos as the one to live on in his place. Lenny explains:

 “The origin, in fact, of the modern psychological term alter ego is Patroklos himself. It is actually a Latin translation of a Greek proverb that defines the Greek word philos, the word that we translate ‘friend,’: ti esti philos? the proverb goes, ‘what is a friend?’; the answer is allos ego, ‘another I,’ an alter ego. And the epic tells us that Patroklos is Achilles’s philtatos hetairos, ‘most philoscompanion.’ The German Classicist Erwin Rohde applied this designation to Patroklos in his masterpiece, Psyche; from there it apparently entered the vocabulary of Freud and Jung, perhaps via Nietzsche.”

Lenny goes on to explore via the work of the child psychologist D. W. Winnicott the tension between Achilles treating Patroklos as a metaphor for himself (when he goes in his place in book 16) and as a metonym, when Achilles sees Patroklos’ death as in fact his own and not a representation of it in book 18. This follow up speech in book 19 (which Lenny leaves for others to figure out) shows Achilles roiling with pain at the violent resolution of this tension: when he articulates his hope that Patroklos would have been his therapon in life. As Lenny writes, the pain Achilles expresses in book 18 is related in part to the core meaning of philos, “friend, near and dear” to indicate something so close and important as to be a part of oneself.

Despite all this, what I think is missing from Achilles at this moment is the realization that in his imagined future, Patroklos would have been as broken and fragmented without Achilles as Achilles is without him now. And the ability to understand this, to see other’s realness through one’s own grief is the space Achilles has still to travel before he meets Priam in book 24.

It is in this potential for narrative to bridge that space between oneself and others that I think this scene has more yet to teach us. Achilles’ speech is also amazing for its internal and external framing and what they both reveal about how Homeric poetry works. For the first, consider Achilles’ rejection of food. Scholars often write that once Patroklos has died, Achilles symbolically enters the realm of the dead—he refuses to eat or engage with the living. I don’t think this is at all wrong, but the Homeric narrative also offers a more immediate cause: Achilles says he does not want to eat because Patroklos is the one who used to feed him. A scholion is particularly insightful here in sensing the associative leaps in Achilles’ grief.

Schol. bT ad Hom. Il.19.316a ex

    “you offered me a sweet meal”: the lament [responds]to what has just happened. For they were begging him to eat, and he was reminded of the table on which his friend used to serve him often. . It is customary to talk to the dead as if to the living. And what he means is that what is sweet is a meal offered to him by the hands of someone he loves.”

ex. λαρὸν παρὰ δεῖπνον ἔθηκας: ἀπὸ τῶν γινομένων ὁ θρῆνος· ἐπεὶ γὰρ ᾔτουν αὐτὸν φαγεῖν, ὑπομιμνῄσκεται τραπέζης, ἣν ὁ φίλος αὐτῷ παρετίθει πολλάκις. ἠθικὸν δὲ τὸ ὡς ζῶντι διαλέγεσθαι τῷ νεκρῷ. καὶ λαρὸν δεῖπνον φησὶ τὸ ὑπὸ τῶν τοῦ φιλουμένου χειρῶν παρατεθειμένον.

As anyone who has ever lost a loved one knows, the magnitude of death is inconceivable. We absorb the basic fact of it but the shape of someone’s absence in a life built around them is impossible to grasp at once: we lose them again in countless different ways as we witness our lives without them. Achilles does not care about the food, he is undone by the reminder of living with Patroklos and the future meals he will never share with him.

Grief is associative and unpredictable, it moves like water, filling the space open to it, dripping, trickling, relentless. This passage helps us see as well how Achilles’ grief is metonymic for his own loss and others as well, and this is part of the external poetics I mentioned above. Note how the speech’s introduction positions Achilles as mourning constantly “as he recalled” (μνησάμενος δ’ ἁδινῶς…). The end of the speech reminds us that other people are listening to him as well and are changed and moved in turn by his mourning. The Greek elders mourn in addition (ἐπὶ δὲ στενάχοντο γέροντες) and not because of Patroklos, but as they recall what they have left behind (μνησάμενοι τὰ ἕκαστος ἐνὶ μεγάροισιν ἔλειπον).

Achilles’ grief presents a narrative they see themselves in, they project their experiences into his pain and grieve alongside him, anticipating to a great part that powerful moment in book 24 when Achilles and Priam find in each other a reminder to weep for what they have individually lost. And this is clear from Priam’s own language, echoing the narrator’s Zeus: “But revere the gods, Achilles, and pity him, / thinking of your own father. And I am more pitiable still…”(ἀλλ’ αἰδεῖο θεοὺς ᾿Αχιλεῦ, αὐτόν τ’ ἐλέησον / μνησάμενος σοῦ πατρός· ἐγὼ δ’ ἐλεεινότερός περ, 24.503-4)

Narrative Blends, Audiences inside and out

I have written on several occasions about Mark Turner’s approach to narrative in The Literary Mind. He suggests that what happens when we experience stories is that we don’t recreate the world the story comes from but instead create a blend between the world of our stories and our own experiences. In doing so, we transform narratives and are transformed by it. Another step I usually emphasize is that while our own blending of narratives and the world are idiopathic, connected to our own unique and embodied experiences, we can bring our narrative worlds closer together by sharing them with other people, by measuring our responses to theirs: the iterative, collective responses to Achilles’ lament are poised on that shift from the realization of the other in the individual and the (re)creation of a shared understanding in collectivized reactions.

This moment is a crucial confirmation of the Homeric expectation that words and experiences people hear should (and do) prompt reflection on their own lives (as well as the situation in general). The sequence also anticipates other audiences as well. A simple but extremely useful distinction from narratology (the way narratives are structured and work) is between internal and external audiences. Internal audiences are characters within a narrative who observe and (sometimes) respond to what is going on. External audiences are those outside the narrative (mostly those in the ‘real’ world). A theoretical suggestion from this is that the responses of internal audiences can guide or often complicate the way external audiences receive the narrative.

Achilles’ lament for Patroklos has more than one internal audience. First, as we have just seen, the elders of the Achaeans join Achilles’ mourning and move through it to reflecting on their own lives. Such a move is anticipated right before Achilles’ speech when the women around Briseis join her in mourning:

Homer, Iliad 19.301-308

“So she spoke in mourning, and the woman joined them in grieving
Over Patroklos as a beginning [prophasis], but each of them [then] their own pains.
Then the elders of the Achaeans gathered around him
As they were begging him to eat, but he was denying them as he mourned:
‘I am begging you, if anyone of my dear companions is listening to me,
Not to tell me to fill my dear heart with either food or drink
When this terrible grief [akhos] has come over me.
I will wait and I will hold out steadfastly until the sun goes down.”

῝Ως ἔφατο κλαίουσ’, ἐπὶ δὲ στενάχοντο γυναῖκες
Πάτροκλον πρόφασιν, σφῶν δ’ αὐτῶν κήδε’ ἑκάστη.
αὐτὸν δ’ ἀμφὶ γέροντες ᾿Αχαιῶν ἠγερέθοντο
λισσόμενοι δειπνῆσαι· ὃ δ’ ἠρνεῖτο στεναχίζων·
λίσσομαι, εἴ τις ἔμοιγε φίλων ἐπιπείθεθ’ ἑταίρων,
μή με πρὶν σίτοιο κελεύετε μηδὲ ποτῆτος
ἄσασθαι φίλον ἦτορ, ἐπεί μ’ ἄχος αἰνὸν ἱκάνει·
δύντα δ’ ἐς ἠέλιον μενέω καὶ τλήσομαι ἔμπης.

Briseis’ mourning is something of gateway for the women who mourn along with them. The Homeric narrative did not have to be this specific about the content of their mourning. And the language itself is somewhat uncommon for Homer: the only other time the word prophasis appears in Homer is under 100 lines previous when Agamemnon swears he never had sex with Briseis (οὔτ’ εὐνῆς πρόφασιν κεχρημένος οὔτέ τευ ἄλλου, 262). Here, we might translate prophasis as a ‘pretext’ or ‘excuse’. But in the narrative of the women mourning, these English translations seem too dismissive or pejorative. Perhaps ‘prelude’ is more appropriate, but even this seems insufficient convey the sense of beginning and transition, that slippage from looking outward to inward, that movement from someone else’s story to your own.

And these women are far from the scene’s final audience. Another internal audience appears when we find out Zeus is watching the scene and he feels pity: together the women, the elders, and Zeus present a range of potential reactions for external audiences: the mortals reflect on their own lives and the losses they suffer or those to come. Zeus watches it all and feels pity and tries to do something to help, sending Athena to provide Achilles with the sustenance he will not take on his own. Here, we might even imagine the narrative offering an ethical imperative to response to other’s stories. It is not enough to think about yourself or merely to be moved to pity by seeing the reality that others may feel as deeply and painfully as you. Zeus’s model suggests that if you are in power and can do something to intervene, even something minor, when you notice another’s suffering, then you should do what you can.

A short Bibliography on Patroklos and Achilles

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

Allan, William. “Arms and the man: Euphorbus, Hector, and the death of Patroclus.” Classical Quarterly, N. S., vol. 55, no. 1, 2005, pp. 1-16. Doi: 10.1093/cq/bmi00

Anderson, Warren D. “Achilles and the Dark Night of the Soul.” The Classical Journal 51, no. 6 (1956): 265–68. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3292885.

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

Burgess, Jonathan. “Beyond Neo-Analysis: Problems with the Vengeance Theory.” The American Journal of Philology 118, no. 1 (1997): 1–19. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1562096.

Clark, Mark Edward, and William D. E. Coulson. “Memnon and Sarpedon.” Museum Helveticum 35, no. 2 (1978): 65–73. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24815318.

Fantuzzi, M. 2012. Achilles in Love. Oxford.

Gaca, Kathy L. “Reinterpreting the Homeric Simile of ‘Iliad’ 16.7-11: The Girl and Her Mother in Ancient Greek Warfare.” The American Journal of Philology 129, no. 2 (2008): 145–71. http://www.jstor.org/stable/27566700.

Karakantza, Efimia D.. “Who is liable for blame ? : Patroclus’ death in book 16 of the « Iliad ».” Έγκλημα και τιμωρία στην ομηρική και αρχαϊκή ποίηση : από τα πρακτικά του ΙΒ’ διεθνούς συνεδρίου για την Οδύσσεια, Ιθάκη, 3-7 Σεπτεμβρίου 2013. Eds. Christopoulos, Menelaos and Païzi-Apostolopoulou, Machi. Ithaki: Kentro Odysseiakon Spoudon, 2014. 117-136.

Kesteren, Morgan van. “ERASTES-EROMENOS RELATIONSHIPS IN TWO ANCIENT EPICS.” CrossCurrents 69, no. 4 (2019): 351–64. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26851797.

Ledbetter, Grace M. “Achilles’ Self-Address: Iliad 16.7-19.” The American Journal of Philology 114, no. 4 (1993): 481–91. https://doi.org/10.2307/295421.

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

Lowenstam, Steven. “Patroclus’ death in the Iliad and the inheritance of an Indo-European myth.” Archaeological News, vol. VI, 1977, pp. 72-76.

Lowenstam, Steven. 1981. The Death of Patroclus: A Study in Typology.

MUELLNER, L. Metonymy, Metaphor, Patroklos, Achilles. Classica: Revista Brasileira de Estudos Clássicos, [s. l.], v. 32, n. 2, p. 139–155, 2019. DOI 10.24277/classica.v32i2.884

Muellner, L. Unpublished Paper in Honor of Steven Lowenstam.

Paton, W. R. “The Armour of Achilles.” The Classical Review 26, no. 1 (1912): 1–4. http://www.jstor.org/stable/694771.

Porter, D. (2010). The Simile at Iliad 16.7–11 Once Again: Multiple Meanings. Classical World 103(4), 447-454. https://doi.org/10.1353/clw.2010.0016.

Ready, Jonathan. 2011. Character, Narrator, and Simile in the Iliad. Cambridge.

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.

Scodel, Ruth. “The Word of Achilles.” Classical Philology 84, no. 2 (1989): 91–99. http://www.jstor.org/stable/270264.

Sears, M. (2010). Warrior Ants: Elite Troops in the Iliad. Classical World 103(2), 139-155. https://doi.org/10.1353/clw.0.0182.

Warwick, C. (2019). The Maternal Warrior: Gender and Kleos in the Iliad. American Journal of Philology 140(1), 1-28. https://doi.org/10.1353/ajp.2019.0001.

Warwick, C. (2019). We Two Alone: Conjugal Bonds and Homoerotic Subtext in the Iliad. Helios 46(2), 115-139. https://doi.org/10.1353/hel.2019.0007.

Introducing Iliad 19

This post is a basic introduction to reading Iliad 19. Here is a link to the overview of Iliad 18 and another to the plan in general. As a reminder, these posts will remain free, but there is an option to be a financial supporter. All proceeds from the substack are donated to classics adjacent non-profits on a monthly basis.

The 19^th book of the Iliad joins books 17 and 18 in postponing Achilles’ return to war and the transfer of his rage from the Achaeans to Hektor. While it is certainly true that the further delaying of the main event creates suspense in audiences, it would be a mistake to insist that this is all the book does. One of the important tasks for book 19 is to resolve the political conflict among the Greeks just enough to get them to return to battle. Thematically, however, it is too early in the plot to dispense with political themes altogether. So the book we get is an odd combination of ‘reconciling’ Agamemnon and Achilles and preparing the rest of the Greeks for battle.

In between these plot points there’s a little more, of course. Achilles tries not to fully engage with the public resolution, but must; he tries to avoid joining the community, and despite Odysseus’ attempts to convince them, he remains apart from them even while confirming he is a part of them. Once the public reconciliation is over, we get to hear Briseis speak for the first time in the epic, Achilles’ horses neigh, I mean, weigh in on affairs, and Athena ‘juices’ Achilles up with nektar and ambrosia because he refuses to eat until he has avenged his friend’s death. Oh, in the middle of all of this Agamemnon gives his most rhetorically effective speech in the epic. And soon after Achilles laments Patroklos again, did I mention that his horse tells him that he’s doing to die?

Each of these sections adds something to the themes I have outlined in reading the Iliad: (1) Politics, (2) Heroism; (3) Gods and Humans; (4) Family & Friends; (5) Narrative Traditions. Among these, however, I think book 19 speaks most directly to narrative traditions, politics and heroism.

The Stories We Tell; the Stories We Are

One of the things that is most remarkable about the political exchange at the beginning of Iliad 19 is the way the first two significant speeches engage with concerns about stories and storytelling. Achilles arrives and seems to indicate that he understands that he and Agamemnon are in a narrative other people will talk about in the future and then Agamemnon tells a story to explain/excuse his own behavior that may also contain a coded message about how to understand his relationship with Achilles.

Achilles starts the conversation:

Homer, Iliad 19.56-64

‘Son of Atreus, was this really better at all
for you and me, that we, even though we were upset,
raged with heart-rending strife because of a girl?
I wish that Artemis had killed her among the ships with an arrow
on that day when I took her after destroying Lurnêssos;
that way, so many Achaians wouldn’t have bitten the dust
at the hands of wretched men while I was raging.
That was more profitable for Hektor and the Trojans, but I think
that the Achaians will remember your and my strife for a long time.’

᾿Ατρεΐδη ἦ ἄρ τι τόδ’ ἀμφοτέροισιν ἄρειον
ἔπλετο σοὶ καὶ ἐμοί, ὅ τε νῶΐ περ ἀχνυμένω κῆρ
θυμοβόρῳ ἔριδι μενεήναμεν εἵνεκα κούρης;
τὴν ὄφελ’ ἐν νήεσσι κατακτάμεν ῎Αρτεμις ἰῷ
ἤματι τῷ ὅτ’ ἐγὼν ἑλόμην Λυρνησσὸν ὀλέσσας·
τώ κ’ οὐ τόσσοι ᾿Αχαιοὶ ὀδὰξ ἕλον ἄσπετον οὖδας
δυσμενέων ὑπὸ χερσὶν ἐμεῦ ἀπομηνίσαντος.
῞Εκτορι μὲν καὶ Τρωσὶ τὸ κέρδιον· αὐτὰρ ᾿Αχαιοὺς
δηρὸν ἐμῆς καὶ σῆς ἔριδος μνήσεσθαι ὀΐω.

One of the things I emphasize about this passage in an article about strife and epic is that the repeated use of eris indicates something of a ‘titling’ function. There are other epic motifs and traditions that are marked by this word and when Achilles uses it with a word for recalling/remembering, he is giving the impression that his actions will be part of someone else’s story. This is the kind of compressed language that is used to mark stories that are part of the klea andrôn discussed in posts on book 9. I think that Achilles is showing that he knows other people are already using his actions as a cautionary tale even as the Iliad is anticipating or announcing its own status as a paradigmatic narrative. In conjunction with this, Achilles offers an interpretation for internal and external audiences: this whole conflict was foolish because it was over a girl. And, it was better for their opponents. The reference to a “girl” is ambiguous to the point that any reasonable audience member could make the leap from the plot of the Iliad to the cause of the whole war.

So, Achilles’ speech metapoetically positions the Iliad as the kind of tale people should be judging for its effects on the world and which people should recall to make sense of their own lives or to use as a (counter)-example for their choices. This swift sequence prepares the audience for thinking about narrative interactions and how individuals and events in one story (or life) can map onto another to bring the meaning of both into relief.

And with this priming action made, Agamemnon arrives for his most dynamic speech of the epic. Once Achilles makes his statement, he basically insists on letting bygones be bygones because he wants to take the fast track to large-scale slaughter. The problem with this is that Agamemnon needs to go through the performance of reconciliation to reestablish his authority over Achilles before they return to war.  Agamemnon ruminates a bit on public speaking—after making a show of not being able to stand because of his injury suffered in battle, and then launches into a dizzying and remarkable speech

‘Atê is the oldest daughter of Zeus, the one who blinds everyone,
the ruinous one—her feet are light, for she never touches
the ground, instead she walks over the heads of men
and harms people as she goes, therein she binds one or another.
For, even Zeus indeed was once blinded, even though they say
that he is the best of men and gods; but really, Hera
since she’s female, deceived him with tricky-thoughts
on that day when Alkmene was about to give birth
to powerful Herakles in well-garlanded Thebes.
Truly, Zeus was boasting among all the gods then:
‘Hear me all you gods and all you goddesses
so that I may speak what the heart in my chest bids.
Today labor-bringing Eileithuia will show to the light of day
a man who will rule over all those who live around him,
an offspring of men who is also from my bloodline.’
Queen Hera, who was deceit-minded, then addressed him:
‘You lie and will not ever bring a completion to your plan.
Come now, swear a strong oath to me, Olympian,
that the man will really rule over all his neighbors
who on this day falls between the feet of a woman
from men who are offspring from your blood.’
So she spoke, but Zeus did not notice that she was being deceitful,
and he swore a great oath and thereupon was much blinded.
Then Hera leapt up and left the peak of Olympos
and quickly came to Achaian Argos where she found then
the strong wife of Sthenelos the son of Perseus
who was bearing a dear child and he was at his seventh month;
she led him to the life even though he was premature
and stopped the labor of Alkmene—she held back Eileithuia.
Then, she herself went as a messenger and addressed Zeus, Kronos’ son:
‘Zeus-father who delights in lightning, I will put a word in your thoughts;
for already a fine man who will rule over the Argives has been born,
Eurystheos, the child of Sthenelos, Perseus’ son,
your offspring—it is not unseemly for him to rule the Argives.’
So she spoke and a sharp grief cut through his deep mind.
Immediately he grabbed Atê by her well-tressed head
as he raged in his thoughts and swore a great oath
that she who blinds all would never come again
to Olympos and the starry sky.
As he said this he threw her from starry heaven,
once he had his hands around her, and she soon came to the works of men.
He lamented her always whenever he saw his own dear son
taking up the unseemly work of labors under Eurystheos.
So I too, when again and again great Hektor of the shining helm
was destroying the Argives near the prows of the ships,
I was not able to forget Atê by whom I was first blinded.
But since I was blinded and Zeus deprived me of my wits,
I wish to reconcile and to give a shining ransom.’

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Zeus starts with a story about “Atê” that seeks to exculpate him for his actions. At some level, we can accept his claim as being as verifiable as claiming “the devil made me do it” but he expands the comparison to say that even Zeus was blinded by Atê. So far, he makes the implicit claim that he is like Zeus and should be pardoned a disastrous mistake because even the king of the universe has screwed up. But then he shifts the tale, and this is where I think most people miss the point.

In the story Agamemnon tells, the specific instance of Zeus’ blindness was in boasting about the birth of a son who was going to be greater than everyone else. Hera tricked him into swearing an oath about it, and then through this oath and her machinations it turned out that Eurystheos—a distant descendent—was born in the appointed place of Herakles—the demigod destined to be the best hero ever. The story explains how even the king of the gods can lose control over the situation (as Agamemnon did) but it also offers what I see as a coded apology or explanation to Achilles about their situation.

The conflict in book 1 set a traditional king with a lot of power against a powerful demigod. Part of their conflict arose from a struggle over their respective honors given the difference in their implicit authority (Agamemnon) based on nobility of birth and place and their acquired authority, based on ability and performance. Achilles loses faith in the entire system of honor and in the Achaean community itself when his disproportionally extraordinary abilities are not matched with proportionally exceptional honors.

Of course, that last sentence is an overstatement. Achilles loses his wits in book 1 when he discovers that his ability and performance cannot safeguard him against abuse by someone of lesser ability in a greater position of power. When Agamemnon tells the story of Zeus’ mistake, he focuses on a similar injustice: even though Herakles is better by birth and ability, the exigencies of chance and fate set him as subordinate to a lesser man of greater political position. But beyond that is the issue of Herakles himself: he serves Eurystheos because of his own mistakes and excesses (and the anger of Hera). But, we can’t overlook the fact that Agamemnon/Eurystheus suffers in this equation too.

So one interpretation of Agamemnon’s story is that he means for Achilles to understand that the two of them are in analogous positions, that while Achilles is the greater warrior and more exceptional man, Agamemnon is the “kinglier”. Their positions are neither of their faults, but both of their responsibilities to understand. Whether the internal audience of the poem comprehends these comparisons and whether or not Achilles himself is meant to understand the implication that he too, like Herakles, suffers because of his own actions, cannot be known. But the comparisons sit there in space and time, waiting for us to hear them resonate.

A short Bibliography on Achilles and Agamemnon in Iliad 19

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

Barker, Elton and Christensen, Joel. “Even Heracles had to die: Homeric « heroism », mortality and the epic tradition.” Trends in Classics, vol. 6, no. 2, 2014, pp. 249-277.

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

Bolter, J. D.. Achilles’ return to battle. A structural study of Books 19-22 of the Iliad. Univ. of North Carolina Chapel Hill, 1977.

Christensen, Joel P.. “« Eris » and « epos »: composition, competition, and the domestication of strife.” Yearbook of Ancient Greek Epic, vol. 2, 2018, pp. 1-39. Doi: 10.1163/24688487-002010

Davies, Malcolm. “Agamemnon’s apology and the unity of the Iliad.” Classical Quarterly, vol. 45, no. 1, 1995, pp. 1-8. Doi: 10.1017/S000983880004163X

Davies, Malcolm. “« Self-consolation » in the « Iliad ».” Classical Quarterly, N. S., vol. 56, no. 2, 2006, pp. 582-587. Doi: 10.1017/S0009838806000553

Gazis, George Alexander. Homer and the poetics of Hades. Oxford: Oxford University Pr., 2018.

Heath, John. “Prophetic horses, bridled nymphs: Ovid’s metamorphosis of Ocyroe.” Latomus, vol. 53, 1994, pp. 340-353.

Johnston, Sarah Iles. “Xanthus, Hera and the Erinyes : (Iliad 19.400-418).” TAPA, vol. CXXII, 1992, pp. 85-98.

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

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

Postlethwaite, Norman. “Akhilleus and Agamemnon: generalized reciprocity.” Reciprocity in ancient Greece. Eds. Gill, Christopher, Postlethwaite, Norman and Seaford, Richard A. S.. Oxford: Clarendon Pr., 1998. 93-104.

Rinon, Yoav. “A tragic pattern in the « Iliad ».” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, vol. 104, 2008, pp. 45-91.

Strauss Clay, Jenny. “Agamemnon’s stance: (Iliad 19. 51-77).” Philologus, vol. 139, no. 1, 1995, pp. 72-75.

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

Achilles’ Shield and Homeric Ekphrasis

This is one of a few posts dedicated to Iliad 18. As a reminder, these posts will remain free, but there is an option to be a financial supporter. All proceeds from the substack are donated to classics adjacent non-profits on a monthly basis.

In literary studies Ekphrasis has acquired a specialized meaning as a description of a work of art within a verbal or textual creation. Ekphrasis has been singled out for the perspective it offers on a text’s consciousness of its status as a literary object and for the reflections it offers on the poetics of the work in question. This means that we imagine that there is some kind of correlation between the creative acts depicted within the poem and the logic/aesthetics of the poems themselves.

Epic ekphrasis occurs elsewhere (e.g. the description of Agamemnon’s scepter, Il. 1.234-9 and 2.100-9) or longer, (e.g. the shield in the Hesiodic Aspis). Described objects may impact the characterization of human actors. For example, Agamemnon’s scepter marks the magnitude of Achilles’ alienation (1.234-9) or emphasizes Agamemnon’s association with traditional kingship (2.100-9).

Achilles’ shield in the Iliad (18.462-613) encompasses the entire cosmos and defies accurate visualization. While we see characters responding to the shield, there’s no clear indication of what it means to them. (Although Robert Rabel has suggested that Hektor “reads” the shield and its scenes shape his speeches in book 22). Like similes, an ekphrasis compares the world inside the poem to potential worlds outside it. In book 18, Achilles’ shield contrasts the Iliad with other possible realities: a city at peace and a conflict resolved without violence (discussed below).

But one of the most fascinating scenes, for me, happens within the city of peace. Here, Hephaestus creates the image of an assembly where a killing is being judged:

Homer, 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.”

λαοὶ δ’ εἰν ἀγορῇ ἔσαν ἀθρόοι• ἔνθα δὲ νεῖκος
ὠρώρει, δύο δ’ ἄνδρες ἐνείκεον εἵνεκα ποινῆς
ἀνδρὸς ἀποφθιμένου• ὃ μὲν εὔχετο πάντ’ ἀποδοῦναι
δήμῳ πιφαύσκων, ὃ δ’ ἀναίνετο μηδὲν ἑλέσθαι•
ἄμφω δ’ ἱέσθην ἐπὶ ἴστορι πεῖραρ ἑλέσθαι.
λαοὶ δ’ ἀμφοτέροισιν ἐπήπυον ἀμφὶς ἀρωγοί•
κήρυκες δ’ ἄρα λαὸν ἐρήτυον• οἳ δὲ γέροντες
εἵατ’ ἐπὶ ξεστοῖσι λίθοις ἱερῷ ἐνὶ κύκλῳ,
σκῆπτρα δὲ κηρύκων ἐν χέρσ’ ἔχον ἠεροφώνων•
τοῖσιν ἔπειτ’ ἤϊσσον, ἀμοιβηδὶς δὲ δίκαζον.
κεῖτο δ’ ἄρ’ ἐν μέσσοισι δύω χρυσοῖο τάλαντα,
τῷ δόμεν ὃς μετὰ τοῖσι δίκην ἰθύντατα εἴποι.

When we write about this scene in Homer’s Thebes, Elton Barker and I emphasize the following:

Equally clearly, however, the scene on the shield depicts an institutional framework far more developed than anything represented in the story-world of the Iliad.  Two plaintiffs testify to the people (demos) in the assembly (agora); the people (laos) support either side; an arbitrator (histor) adjudicates; elders pass judgment; prizes are “in the middle,”  ready to be given to the elder who passes the “straightest judgment.” Given this picture of a community working together to resolve strife without a role for named individuals (far less for heroes), this seems to be a far cry from Homer’s world of warring heroes. In fact, the emphasis on communal performance, to the erasure of individual identities, amounts to something of an anti-heroic-epic aesthetic.

I think this probably needs a little more unpacking, though. When I read this now—in line with the themes I have been exploring book-by-book—I think there are two aspects of this scene to be explored: (1), intra-textual resonance; and (2) metapoetic reflection. The first aspect engages with the epic’s political concerns; the second reflects its interest in storytelling.

One of the important questions from the beginning of the epic is how to adjudicate and resolve conflict without violence. This is directly related to the conflict between Achilles and Agamemnon in book 1, but it also invites consideration of the entire Trojan War. Indeed, one of the themes that unites both the Iliad and the Odyssey is the danger of cycles of vengeance and punishment. The shield imagines a world where actual violence has been done and a community resolves it without further bloodshed. Yet, even in Homer’s world, we hear from characters that there are other options when a conflict arises. During the embassy to Achilles, Ajax complains:

Homer, Iliad 9.632-638:

“You are relentless: someone might even accept payment
for the murder of a brother or the death of his own child.
and after making great restitution, the killer remains in his country,
and though bereft, the other restrains his heart and mighty anger
once he has accepted the price. But the gods put an untouchable
and wicked rage in your heart over only a girl…”

νηλής• καὶ μέν τίς τε κασιγνήτοιο φονῆος
ποινὴν ἢ οὗ παιδὸς ἐδέξατο τεθνηῶτος•
καί ῥ’ ὃ μὲν ἐν δήμῳ μένει αὐτοῦ πόλλ’ ἀποτίσας,
τοῦ δέ τ’ ἐρητύεται κραδίη καὶ θυμὸς ἀγήνωρ
ποινὴν δεξαμένῳ• σοὶ δ’ ἄληκτόν τε κακόν τε
θυμὸν ἐνὶ στήθεσσι θεοὶ θέσαν εἵνεκα κούρης
οἴης• …

The resonance in this passage with the larger framework of myth and the war is clear (“over only a girl….”), but the language Ajax uses is suffused with concerns about Honor, payback, and vengeance. The scene within the shield is a companion piece to this moment and it completes it by inviting the audience to imagine the situation Ajax describes, where someone provides restitution for a harm done and thereby keeps a community whole. In the shield, there is a conflict over the restitution (…εἵνεκα ποινῆς) using the same noun Ajax emphasizes (ποινὴν).

The second aspect of this scene—the metapoetic one—is clearer if we specify what is missing in the embassy speech. Ajax frames an idea—that one offers and accepts restitution—but he does not imagine a process or institution to make it happen. The shield creates an institution and centers the prize in gold for those who are making the judgments, who are evaluating the claims. When Ajax speaks in book 9, the audiences are the judges about the rightness of what he says.

I use plural audiences here to indicate that Ajax is speaking to an internal audience (Achilles, the other members of the assembly) as well as to an external audience (us!). We don’t know if any audiences internal to the poem see and reflect on this scene of dispute on the shield; but we do know when we, the external audience, makes the connection. The highest value the Iliad places in this intratextual move is on the ability to interpret the story and render some judgment about what is right or wrong in it. Achilles had the chance, and it seems pretty much like he failed.

In a way, this move is like that scene near the beginning of the movie Willow where the elderly wizard asks a group of potential apprentices which of his fingers holds the power to control the world. Each of the contestants fails, but we find out in a subsequent scene that Willow, the eponymous character, wanted to say the right answer: his own. The Iliad prizes the ability to judge and interpret at a critical moment in its tale. This is both a message about the importance of judgment for politics and the critical nature of interpretation for narrative.

An ancient Narrative Motif?

When the Iliad contrasts a city at peace with a city at war, it may be engaging—or creating—a tradition of comparing the fates of cities governed well. A similar passage from a fragment attributed to Hesiod and some Medieval Italian art help us think through this.

In the Palazzo Pubblico in Siena, Italy there are a series of Frescoes referred to as “The Allegory of Good and Bad Government” painted from 1338 to 1339 by Abrogio Lorenzetti. One panel shows a good government, and to the right the effects of a city governed well where the people seem free of the threat of war and their lives are full with good things–children, marriages, dancing.

The other city facing it is ruled by a tyrant; soldiers wander the streets and the law of might seems to be in effect.

Here’s a short video giving you an idea of the whole composition. The City of Bad Government is more fragmentary, but the state of all three Frescoes communicates well the oppositions between Good Rule and Bad Rule, what ancient Greeks might call eunomia and dusnomia.

 237-247; 270-285; cf. the two Cities in Iliad 18 (below)

“..Beyond them
Men in arms of war were struggling—
Some fought, warding destruction away from their city
and their parent; others were eager to sack it.
Many were dead; but many more still struggled in strife.
On the well-built bronze walls of the city their wives
cried sharply and they tore at their cheeks,
so much like living women, this work of famous Hephaestus.
The elders, the men whom age had bent,
Stood close together outside the walls, holding their hands
To the blessed gods, because they feared for their children….”

…. οἳ δ’ ὑπὲρ αὐτέων
ἄνδρες ἐμαρνάσθην πολεμήια τεύχε’ ἔχοντες,
τοὶ μὲν ὑπὲρ σφετέρης πόλιος σφετέρων τε τοκήων
λοιγὸν ἀμύνοντες, τοὶ δὲ πραθέειν μεμαῶτες.
πολλοὶ μὲν κέατο, πλέονες δ’ ἔτι δῆριν ἔχοντες
μάρνανθ’. αἱ δὲ γυναῖκες ἐυδμήτων ἐπὶ πύργων
χαλκέων ὀξὺ βόων, κατὰ δ’ ἐδρύπτοντο παρειάς,
ζωῇσιν ἴκελαι, ἔργα κλυτοῦ ῾Ηφαίστοιο.
ἄνδρες δ’ οἳ πρεσβῆες ἔσαν γῆράς τε μέμαρπεν

ἀθρόοι ἔκτοσθεν πυλέων ἔσαν, ἂν δὲ θεοῖσι
χεῖρας ἔχον μακάρεσσι, περὶ σφετέροισι τέκεσσι
δειδιότες…

“Next to [that city] was a well-towered city of men,
Seven gates were fitted in gold to their frames around it.
The men were engaged in pleasure at festivals and dances.
Some were conveying a wife home to her husband
On a well-wheeled cart as a great hymn arose;
And in the distance the light of burning torches waved
In maidens’ hands. They walked in front, flushed with joy
At the festival, as the playful choruses followed them.
The men rang out a song to the clear-voiced flutes
With their tender lips, and the echo rang around them.
Others led the lovely dance to the lyre’s songs.
On the other side youths paraded to the aulos;
Others plays in turn in the dancing floor to a song;
More were laughing near them as each went forth
At the flute-player’s lead. And the whole city was full
Of dance, and singing, and pleasure…”

… παρὰ δ’ εὔπυργος πόλις ἀνδρῶν,
χρύσειαι δέ μιν εἶχον ὑπερθυρίοις ἀραρυῖαι
ἑπτὰ πύλαι· τοὶ δ’ ἄνδρες ἐν ἀγλαΐαις τε χοροῖς τε
τέρψιν ἔχον· τοὶ μὲν γὰρ ἐυσσώτρου ἐπ’ ἀπήνης
ἤγοντ’ ἀνδρὶ γυναῖκα, πολὺς δ’ ὑμέναιος ὀρώρει·
τῆλε δ’ ἀπ’ αἰθομένων δαΐδων σέλας εἰλύφαζε
χερσὶν ἐνὶ δμῳῶν· ταὶ δ’ ἀγλαΐῃ τεθαλυῖαι
πρόσθ’ ἔκιον, τῇσιν δὲ χοροὶ παίζοντες ἕποντο·
τοὶ μὲν ὑπὸ λιγυρῶν συρίγγων ἵεσαν αὐδὴν
ἐξ ἁπαλῶν στομάτων, περὶ δέ σφισιν ἄγνυτο ἠχώ·
αἳ δ’ ὑπὸ φορμίγγων ἄναγον χορὸν ἱμερόεντα.
[ἔνθεν δ’ αὖθ’ ἑτέρωθε νέοι κώμαζον ὑπ’ αὐλοῦ.]
τοί γε μὲν αὖ παίζοντες ὑπ’ ὀρχηθμῷ καὶ ἀοιδῇ
[τοί γε μὲν αὖ γελόωντες ὑπ’ αὐλητῆρι ἕκαστος]
πρόσθ’ ἔκιον· πᾶσαν δὲ πόλιν θαλίαι τε χοροί τε
ἀγλαΐαι τ’ εἶχον….

The three sets of images (the Shields and the Frescoes) obviously convey different specific values and draw on separate moralizing traditions, but the attendant imagery and the distinction between a city governed-well and one beset by strife is striking. I do not mean to imply in any way that I think there is a direct relationship between them, but rather that they are both the natural outcome of cultures steeped in dichotomous representations.

And, in each case, the important contribution comes from the audience and our judgment.

Short bibliography on Ekphrasis and Achilles’ Shield

Allen, Nicholas J.. “The shield of Achilles and Indo-European tradition.” Cuadernos de Filología Clásica. Estudios Griegos e Indoeuropeos, vol. 17, 2007, pp. 33-44.

Kenneth Atchity. Homer’s Iliad: The Shield of Memory. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1978.

Roland Barthes. “The Reality Effect.” in R. Howard (trans.). The Rustle of Language. New York: Hill and Wang, 1986, 141-8.

Andrew Sprague Becker. The Shield of Achilles and the Poetics of Ekphrasis. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1995.

Calvin S. Byre. “Narration, Description, and Theme in the Shield of Achilles.” The Classical Journal 87 (1992-1993) 33-42.

Cullhed, Eric. “Movement and sound on the shield of Achilles in ancient exegesis.” Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, vol. 54, no. 2, 2014, pp. 192-219.

Jaś Elsner. “Introduction: The Genres of Ekphrasis.” Ramus 31 (2002) 1-18.

D. P. Fowler. “Narrate and Describe: The Problem of Ekphrasis.” The Journal of Roman Studies 81 (1991) 25-35.

Francis, James A.. “Living images in the ekphrasis of Homer and Hesiod.” Papers of the Langford Latin Seminar: Fifteenth volume 2012. Eds. Cairns, Francis, Cairns, Sandra and Williams, Frederick. ARCA; 51. Prenton: Cairns, 2012. 113-141.

Paul Friedländer. Johannes von Gaza, Paulus Silentiarius, und Kunstbeschreibungen justianischer Zeit. Leipzig: Teubner, 1912.

P. R. Hardie. “Imago Mundi: Cosmological and Ideological Aspects of the Shield of Achilles.” JHS 105 (1985) 11-31.

De Jong, Irene J. F.. “The shield of Achilles: from metalepsis to « mise en abyme ».” Ramus, vol. 40, no. 1, 2011, pp. 1-14.

Murray Krieger. Ekphrasis: The Illusion of the Natural Sign. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992.

George Kurman. “Ekphrasis in Epic Poetry.” Comparative Literature 26 (1974) 1-13.

Minchin, Elizabeth. “Visualizing the shield of Achilles: approaching its landscapes via cognitive paths.” Classical Quarterly, N. S., vol. 70, no. 2, 2020, pp. 473-484. Doi: 10.1017/S0009838820000671

Alessandro Perutelli. “L’inversione speculare. Per una retorica dell’ecphrasis.” Materiali e discussioni per l’analisi dei testi classici 1 (1978) 87-98.

Robert J. Rabel. Plot and Point of View in the Iliad. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1997.

Stephen Scully. “Reading the Shield of Achilles: Terror, Anger, Delight.” HSCP Philology 101 (2003) 29-47.

Leo Spitzer. “The ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn,’ or Content vs. Metagrammar.” Comparative Literature 7 (1955) 203-55.

Ruth Webb. “Ekphrasis Ancient and Modern: The Invention of a Genre.” Word & Image 15 (1999) 7-18.

Hektor, Polydamas, and Trojan Politics in Iliad 18

This is one of a few posts dedicated to Iliad 18. As a reminder, these posts will remain free, but there is an option to be a financial supporter. All proceeds from the substack are donated to classics adjacent non-profits on a monthly basis.

One of the clearer examples of narrative judgment in the Iliad comes in the midst of book 18. After Achilles has announced his return by screaming three times, the Trojans retreat and hold an impromptu assembly. The assembly forms without a command; Polydamas addresses it first and suggests a strategic retreat to the city (not dissimilar to Andromache’s own advice to Hektor in Iliad 6) and then Hektor forcefully rejects his advice, insisting they will stay outside the city walls where he will face Achilles. There is a rather pointed disjuncture between the response of the Achaeans and the narrator’s evaluation

“So Hektor spoke and the Trojans shouted their assent in response.
Fools! Pallas Athena deprived them of their wits.
For they praised Hektor even though he devised bad things,
and no one praised Polydamas who counseled a noble counsel.

῝Ως ῞Εκτωρ ἀγόρευ’, ἐπὶ δὲ Τρῶες κελάδησαν
νήπιοι· ἐκ γάρ σφεων φρένας εἵλετο Παλλὰς ᾿Αθήνη.
῞Εκτορι μὲν γὰρ ἐπῄνησαν κακὰ μητιόωντι,
Πουλυδάμαντι δ’ ἄρ’ οὔ τις ὃς ἐσθλὴν φράζετο βουλήν.

The line of praise used here for the Trojan reaction to the speech is identical to the Trojan praise for Hektor when he first announces their new, more aggressive strategy in book 8 (8.542). In a way, these two assemblies bookend Trojan success and Hektor’s glory in the middle part of the epic. Indeed, Hektor’s bluster in book 8 could in part be switched out with his claims in book 18 and some readers might never sense the difference—but there’s a desperate aggression in his response to Polydamas and a seeping pessimism that is all the stronger in the second speech.

This assembly is marked as out-of-the ordinary in a few ways (18.245-248): they assemble before eating and standing, rather than sitting, frightened by Achilles. In addition, as others have noted, the majority of assemblies in the Iliad are marked by an attention to time and space: they happen in the morning in an authoritative position (e.g. by Agamemnon’s ship, for the Achaeans, and outside of Priam’s palace, for the Trojans). As I mention in earlier posts, the world of epic reflects the basic political institutions that were common in Ancient Greece, including a smaller, oligarchic council with advisory functions (in historical cities, often called a boulê or a gerousia and a larger public assembly (often, the ekklêsia). The Trojans appear to have both institutions, but each is less functional than the Achaean counterpart in clear ways. The Trojan assemblies are primarily audiences for Hektor or (Priam and Paris) and the council has little function at all. Part of the political drama of the Iliad, I think, is the exploration of the limits of advisory counsel in Troy. And this occurs primarily through the relationship of Polydamas and Hektor.

The Trojan assembly in book 18 certainly contributes to a characterization of Hektor, but it is a culmination of a movement that started much earlier in the epic, anticipated in part by the Trojan assembly in book 7, where Paris dismisses Antênor’s advice rather quickly. While the phrase “the personal is the political” did not become proverbial in modern politics until the 1960s, it is certainly applicable in a different way to ancient monarchies where the political emerges from the autocratic person (and their family). In the Trojan acclamation for Hektor I see a metaphor for the subsuming of Trojan hopes into one body and the representation of Hektor’s desperation in the delusion of the mob. Polydamas—whose very name can be seen as a kind of ancient Greek ‘everyman’—is provided as a lone voice calling out the collective madness.

The conflict between Polydamas and Hektor has long been posed as one between different forms of political authority (see, e.g. Wuest 1955). As Matthew Clark has argued, however, there may be other thematic dimensions that map on to the same relationship: Polydamas is a double—more of a mirrored reflection or refraction, than a copy of Hektor. Polydamas and Hektor may be considered among the epic’s other heroic pairs, like Diomedes and Sthenelos, Sarpedon and Glaukos, or even Achilles and Patroklos. And yet Hektor is not paired with Polydamas alone, he and Paris are also reflections of the Greek brothers, Agamemnon and Menelaos. Hektor and Polydamas, however, seem to maintain an uneasy relationship at best. In part, this seems characteristic of Hektor, whose rapport with Paris is best called ‘complicated’. Hektor’s position—if not his personality—isolates him and places him in opposition to other figures. (For the pattern between Polydamas and Hektor see Dickson 1995, 133-43, especially the charts on 134-5. Cf. Redfield 1975, 143-53 and Elmer 2013, 137-138.)

In part, as others have noted, the epic marks Trojan political difference by marginalizing the deliberative council. In book three, the only time we ‘see’ the Trojan council, the elders sit by the city’s walls reflecting on whether Helen is really worth it (a debate that anticipates the content of the assembly in book 7). In book ten, when they gather to discuss espionage (as the Achaeans have just done), Hector merely calls the leaders to execute a plan he has already devised. Shortly afterwards, in book thirteen, when Polydamas calls for the best of the Trojans to aid in deliberation (13.740-741), Hector largely ignores him. In fact, the marginalization of good advice and the absence of a productive advisory council coalesce thematically around Hektor’s engagement with Polydamas. In these exchanges, Polydamas complains about the exclusion of good advice and debate in Troy: Hector rebukes him in the assembly despite the value of his advice (12.211-15) and imagines that, since he’s best in war, he also trumps everyone in council (13.726-34). But Polydamas perseveres in asserting his right to give advice based on the idea that people have different skills (13.726-34):

 ‘Hektor you are impossible to persuade with words.
Since the god grants you to excel in the works of war
you also wish to know better than the rest in council
but you could not ever claim everything for yourself at once—
for god grants the works of war to one
and dancing to another, and the lyre and song to another,
and in another wide-browed Zeus sets a mind—
a fine one because of which many men will profit,
and it saves many, and I myself know this for sure.’

And earlier, he echoes Greek speakers like Nestor and Diomedes in insisting that even he is correct to provide good advice in public (12.211-15):

‘Hektor, always, all the time, you rebuke me in the assembly
even though I counsel fine things, since it is not ever at all seemly
that one who is a commoner argue differently, neither in council
nor ever in war, but one must always increase your power;
but now, once again, I will speak out how things seem to me to best.’

The narrator echoes Polydamas in two significant ways before he opens the assembly in book 18: it affirms both that he has the foresight/knowledge to speak with authority and that he is better than Hektor when it comes to speeches (18.249-252):

Then among them inspired Polydamas began to speak,
Panthoös’ son, for he alone saw before and after.
He was Hektor’s companion, and they were born on the same night,
although the one excels much in múthoi and the other with the spear.

A quick word about the word muthos here. Our English myth comes from the same root but the semantic field has shifted over the years. As early as Thucydides—who seemingly maligns historians like Herodotus as muthologoi, mere ‘storytellers’—the root had gained some fictive aspect. But in early Greek poetry, as Richard Martin argues in The Language of Heroes (1989), a muthos can be a speech, a speech-act, or a plan. This means that a Homeric muthos can impact or change the world through its utterance or present a plan of action that would change things as well. By asserting that Polydamas excels in muthoi just as Hektor excels with the spear, the narrative is granting not just that Polydamas is exceptional, but that he can wield words as weapons or tools.

Polydamas’ ensuing speech acknowledges their dangers, predicts (quite reasonably) what will happen on Achilles’ return, and then enjoins the assembled Trojans to return to the city and ward Achilles off from the safety of the walls. At the center of this, Polydamas emphasizes protecting the city and the woman and predicts that the Trojans as a group will have strength in the assembly and the walls of the city (νύκτα μὲν εἰν ἀγορῇ σθένος ἕξομεν, ἄστυ δὲ πύργοι, 18.274). This offers a different model for both the politics and the protection of the city, one that relies on a collective effort instead of individual heroism.

Hektor’s speech falls into two parts, criticism of Polydamas and an address to the Trojans.  First, he attempts to undermine Polydamas’ authority and question his motives:

Then, looking darkly bright-helmed Hektor addressed him:
‘Polydamas, you no longer argue things that are dear to me,
you who call us to go into the city and crowd together again.
Have you never tired of being shut up in the towers?
for, mortal men all used to say before that
Priam’s city was full of gold, full of bronze—
but now indeed his house has lost the noble treasures
and many of its possessions have gone to Phrygia and Maeonia
sold off since great Zeus has aggrieved it.
But now, when the child of crooked-counseled Kronos actually grants
For me to gain glory near the ships and drive the Achaians to sea,
fool, no longer speak these thoughts among the people,
for none of the Trojans will obey you, I will not allow it.’

Share

Hektor reveals his own frustration here, compressing years of inaction into a rather simple question: aren’t you sick of this? Hektor’s characteristic claiming of Zeus’ favor is certainly delusional from our perspective (we know the plot!), but given the events of the Iliad and what Hektor has recently experienced, it is not completely bizarre to believe that, despite all odds, the Trojans have a reasonable chance of winning at this point. Hektor clings to that reading of events, no matter what else happens.

Hektor closes with simple advice (eat, get ready for tomorrow) and then closes with a rhetorical flourish:

If shining Achilles truly rises from the ships,
if he is willing, it will be more harrowing for him. I will not
avoid him in the ill-sounding battle, but I will stand right
in front of him, either he will bear great strength or I will.
War is shared and common, and he also kills the one who is killing.

εἰ δ’ ἐτεὸν παρὰ ναῦφιν ἀνέστη δῖος ᾿Αχιλλεύς,
ἄλγιον αἴ κ’ ἐθέλῃσι τῷ ἔσσεται· οὔ μιν ἔγωγε
φεύξομαι ἐκ πολέμοιο δυσηχέος, ἀλλὰ μάλ’ ἄντην
στήσομαι, ἤ κε φέρῃσι μέγα κράτος, ἦ κε φεροίμην.
ξυνὸς ᾿Ενυάλιος, καί τε κτανέοντα κατέκτα.

Hektor leans on a series of tropes available in his other speeches: he expresses doubt about Achilles’ actually returning (εἰ δ’ ἐτεὸν), vaunts that it will be worse for him (ἄλγιον), returns to his oft-repeated assertion that a fight can go either way, and then ends with a compressed proverbial statement, that war is shared, and someone kills the killer. This kind of ‘eff it, we all day someday’ attitude has the sound of a cowboy’s bravado but communicates the spirit of someone who is truly uncertain.

Over the years, I have changed my mind several times about the significance of Hektor’s abiding sense of uncertainty beneath his insistent behavior. Although I think the ambiguity of his behavior opens it to productive interpretation (and misinterpretation), I am increasingly convinced that insight into Hektor’s uncertainty has psychological valence. Modern studies have shown a strong correlation between emotions of fear/anxiety and uncertainty. Hektor’s boasting and rhetorical flexing can be seen both as an attempt to cope with these feelings and as an attempt to allay them in others. He is trying to be a good leader, trying to give his people something to rally around in the face of so much bleakness.

Hektor’s violent rejection of Polydamas’ advice here can be seen in many ways. It is an affirmation of the plot of the poem (and the larger Trojan War), where Hektor must die. At that same time, it is an indictment of a heroic approach to keeping a people safe and also a critique of a simple autocracy. Some readers may object that such critiques are outside the bounds of Homeric epic—and the primary rejoinder I have for this is that the Iliad did not need to include the range of Trojan political scenes that it does if they were not important in some way. And, as is the custom of epic, these scenes reflect on multiple themes at once: the epic’s exploration of heroism as much as its engagement with the larger mythical tradition alongside themes of contemporary concern for its ancient audiences.

The final Trojan assembly provides the clearest analogy to the Achaean assembly in book 1—it forms with everyone standing, without any agent convening it (18.243-313). Polydamas stands to propose retiring the walls now that Achilles has returned. Hector rejects his proposal and threatens violence should anyone heed him.

A short Bibliography

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

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—,—. Entering the Agôn: Dissent and Authority in Homer, Historiography and Tragedy. Oxford, 2009.

Christensen, Joel P. “The End of Speeches and a Speech’s End: Nestor, Diomedes, and the telos muthôn.” in Reading Homer: Film and Text. Kostas Myrsiades (ed.). Farleigh Dickinson University Press, 2009: 136-62.

Christensen, Joel P.. “Trojan politics and the assemblies of Iliad 7.” Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, vol. 55, no. 1, 2015, pp. 25-51.

Clay, J. S.  Homer’s Trojan Theater: Space, Vision and Memory in the Iliad (Cambridge, 2011)

Courtieu, Gilles. “Thersite et Polydamas: le masque et le double des héros homériques.” Les exclus dans l’Antiquité: actes du colloque organisé à Lyon les 23-24 septembre 2004. Ed. Wolff, Catherine. Collection du Centre d’Études Romaines et Gallo-Romaines. Nouvelle Série; 29. Paris: De Boccard, 2007. 9-25.

Clark, Matthew Campbell. 2007. “Poulydamas and Hektor.”in Reading Homer in the 21st century, special issue of College literature 85-106.

Dickson, Keith. Nestor: Poetic Memory in Greek Epic. New York: Garland, 1995.

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—,—. “The Relations of Power in the Pre-State and Early State Polities.” In The Development of the Polis in Archaic Greece. Lynette Mitchell and P. J. Rhodes (eds.). London, 1997, 39-48.

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 —,—. “Homer and Oral Tradition: The Type Scene.” Oral Tradition 7 (1992) 284-330.

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

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—,—. The Iliad: A Commentary. Volume II: Books 5-8. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.

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

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

Pralon, Didier. “L’ honneur du vaincu: l’altercation entre Hector et Poulydamas : Iliade XVIII 243-313.” Ktèma, vol. 20, 1995, pp. 233-244.

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—,—.  “Homer, the Trojan War, and History.” The Classical World 91 (1997-1998) 386-403.

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

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—,—. “Ideology in the Iliad: Polis, Basileus, Theoi.” Arethusa 30 (1997) 151-99.

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Schiappa, Edward. The Beginnings of Rhetorical Theory in Classical Greece. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999.

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Scodel, Ruth.  Listening to Homer: Tradition, Narrative and Audience. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2002.

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Tandy, David W. Warriors into Traders: The Power of the Market in Early Greece. Berkeley, 1997.

van Wees, Hans. Status Warriors: War, Violence, and Society in Homer and History. Amsterdam: J. C. Gieben, 1992.

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

Wuest, E.. “Hektor und Polydamas. Von Klerus und Staat in Griechenland.” Rheinisches Museum für Philologie, vol. XCVIII, 1955, pp. 335-349.