Hektor in Iliad 8

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Book 8 offers us our third vision of Hektor in as many books. In book 6, he takes us inside the city of Troy as he speaks to his mother, Helen, and Andromache. Book 7 shows him challenging Ajax to a duel before returning the focus on the city itself. In book 8, Hektor (eventually) takes control of the battlefield and leads the Trojans to remain outside the city walls over night for the first time in the war (according to the Iliad).

At first glance, Hektor seems to be one of the epic’s most straightforward characters: he is the leader of the Trojan war effort, a father and husband, and brother to the prince who started the conflict. The Greeks almost unanimously describe him as a danger on the field: Achilles evokes this by calling him “man-slaying Hektor” from the beginning. And his named-murder count supports his menace: he kills the most named heroes of everyone in the epic. But from our perspective, the Iliadic presentation isn’t without question: Hektor fails to match up to Ajax and Diomedes and ultimately runs when faced with Achilles.

This particular Hektor may be more complex than a stock Trojan leader from the mythical tradition. Compare, for example, the Hektor depicted in Euripides’ Rhesos: he is much more menacing and authoritarian—to the point of being tyrannical—than the Iliad version. Homer’s Hektor wistfully wishes for his son’s future, upbraids and then humors his brother, and is eulogized at the end of the epic as the only Trojan who was kind to Helen. Over a century ago, J. A. Scott argued that the remarkable nature of Hektor’s character was because he was a Homeric innovation, central and special to our Iliad. F. M. Combellack, writing decades later, diagnosed that much of this argument was based on Scott’s own love for the Trojan hero.

Indeed, readers seem to respond to Hektor: I frequently hear that he is the one noble character in the epic, the one person we root for no matter what. (There’s something about our psychological attraction for the victim, for the oppressed here, but I will leave that for another time). James Redfield and Lynn Kozak have both written about Hektor’s character in different ways, but I think both of them get something right: Hektor is different from all of the other characters in the epic.

I used to try to explain that difference with students by saying that Hektor isn’t divine like Achilles or surpassingly clever like Odysseus—he is closer to what a decent person can hope to be: steadfast and strong in the face of adversity, loyal and dear to his family. At the core, he is a clear instantiation of that archaic definition of justice, to help one’s friends and hurt his family. At the core, however, there’s a sadness, a withdrawal to Hektor. And I think we find this in his language, and his resistance to it.

Hilary Mackie (1996, 11 and 107-9) positions Hektor as the archetypal Trojan speaker even though many features of his speeches are idiosyncratic.  He is intensely concerned with his fame (kléos) and frequently imagines other people talking about him. His imagination produces a capacity for self-delusion, a desire for a different world, as he is forever trying to fit the world to his words with impossible wishes and paradoxical desires (8.165-6, 179 and 196-7). Hektor does not “converse” normally. Frequently he commands a subordinate or family member and then leaves without response (6.116, 6.286, 6.369, 6.494-5, 6.529-7.1, 12.442 and 17.491.); Hektor often reacts only with action, cf. 3.75, 5.493, 6.342, 12.80, 13.787, 20.379, 22.78, and 22.91). This summary of Hektor, however, goes against our typical emotional responses.

Il. 8.529-542

“But let’s keeps ourselves safe out here for the night,
Then at first light we will arm ourselves and
Wake up sharp Ares alongside the grey ships.
I will find out then if Tydeus’ son, strong Diomedes,
Will push me back to the wall from the ships
Or if I will savage him with bronze and carry away his bloody weapons.

Tomorrow will show the proof of our excellence, if he will stand
To face my spear’s approach. But I think that he will fall there
Struck among the first ranks and many of his companions
Will be there around him as the sun sets toward the next dear.
But I wish I were deathless and ageless for all time,
Then I would pay them back as Athena or Apollo might,
And now on this day bring evil to the Argives.”

So Hektor spoke and the Trojans cheered in response.

ἀλλ’ ἤτοι ἐπὶ νυκτὶ φυλάξομεν ἡμέας αὐτούς,
πρῶϊ δ’ ὑπηοῖοι σὺν τεύχεσι θωρηχθέντες
νηυσὶν ἔπι γλαφυρῇσιν ἐγείρομεν ὀξὺν ῎Αρηα.
εἴσομαι εἴ κέ μ’ ὁ Τυδεΐδης κρατερὸς Διομήδης
πὰρ νηῶν πρὸς τεῖχος ἀπώσεται, ἤ κεν ἐγὼ τὸν
χαλκῷ δῃώσας ἔναρα βροτόεντα φέρωμαι.
αὔριον ἣν ἀρετὴν διαείσεται, εἴ κ’ ἐμὸν ἔγχος
μείνῃ ἐπερχόμενον· ἀλλ’ ἐν πρώτοισιν ὀΐω
κείσεται οὐτηθείς, πολέες δ’ ἀμφ’ αὐτὸν ἑταῖροι
ἠελίου ἀνιόντος ἐς αὔριον· εἰ γὰρ ἐγὼν ὣς
εἴην ἀθάνατος καὶ ἀγήρως ἤματα πάντα,
τιοίμην δ’ ὡς τίετ’ ᾿Αθηναίη καὶ ᾿Απόλλων,
ὡς νῦν ἡμέρη ἧδε κακὸν φέρει ᾿Αργείοισιν.
῝Ως ῞Εκτωρ ἀγόρευ’, ἐπὶ δὲ Τρῶες κελάδησαν.

This is typical of Hektor’s speeches: he expresses an eagerness to fight that nears being boastful; like many Trojan speakers committed to the either/or proposition of kill or be killed. But he rallies his people. His wish to be immortal isn’t praised in the scholia: (“Praying for the impossible is barbaric” βαρβαρικὸν τὸ εὔχεσθαι τὰ ἀδύνατα, Schol. bT ad Hom. Il. 8.538-539b). Hektor’s language here evokes the ‘bipartite’ immortality that appears often in epic poetry. In Homer’s Thebes, Elton and I note:

“The quasi-magical formula with which the goddess offers Odysseus the chance to become immortal—“to be deathless and ageless for all days” (θήσειν ἀθάνατον καὶ ἀγήραον ἤματα πάντα, 5.136)—resonates through the epic cosmos. We hear it when Demeter tries to make Demophoon immortal in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter or when Eos succeeds in making Tithonus deathless but not ageless in the Hymn to Aphrodite. Homer’s Thebes 2020, 99

To see how Hektor’s wish here is different from these other instances, it is useful to look at a famous passage from a speech from Sarpedon.

Il. 12.322-328

“Oh, if the two of us could really escape this war,
And would somehow become ageless and deathless,
I wouldn’t fight among the foremost myself
Nor would I send you into man-ennobling battling.
But since death’s fates stand ready around us now
Countless, those ends no mortal is permitted to escape or avoid,
Let us go and give glory to someone else or take it ourselves.”

ὦ πέπον εἰ μὲν γὰρ πόλεμον περὶ τόνδε φυγόντε
αἰεὶ δὴ μέλλοιμεν ἀγήρω τ’ ἀθανάτω τε
ἔσσεσθ’, οὔτέ κεν αὐτὸς ἐνὶ πρώτοισι μαχοίμην
οὔτέ κε σὲ στέλλοιμι μάχην ἐς κυδιάνειραν·
νῦν δ’ ἔμπης γὰρ κῆρες ἐφεστᾶσιν θανάτοιο
μυρίαι, ἃς οὐκ ἔστι φυγεῖν βροτὸν οὐδ’ ὑπαλύξαι,
ἴομεν ἠέ τῳ εὖχος ὀρέξομεν ἠέ τις ἡμῖν. ”

The Scholia are a little more generous to Sarpedon’s wish:

Schol bT Ad Hom. Il. 12.322-328

“This is a noble statement. For he says that death is common to all, but dying with a good reputation is only for the good. For he means to say that there’s no ultimate safety or escape from death, just a minor delay in time with ignominy.

     ex. εἰ μὲν γὰρ πόλεμον περὶ τόνδε φυγόντε<— ἡμῖν>: εὐγενὴς ἡ γνώμη· τὸ μὲν γὰρ ἀποθανεῖν κοινὸν ἀποφαίνει πάντων (cf. 326—7), τὸ δὲ μετ’ εὐκλείας τῶν ἀγαθῶν μόνων. καὶ τὴν παραυτίκα σωτηρίαν οὐκ ἀπαλλαγὴν θανάτου, ἀλλ’ ἀναβολὴν χρόνου μικρὰν μετ’ ἀδοξίας γινομένην φησὶν εἶναι

Where Hektor imagines that if he were immortal, he would fight forever, Sarpedon imagines that if he were immortal, he would not fight at all. He most clearly articulate that essential notion of Homeric kleos, that human life has meaning because it is limited and that b giving up so precious a thing, warriors may gain some qualified type of immortality through renown. While Hektor flirts with this in his speech to the Achaeans in book 7, here in front of the Trojans he rallies them by promising that he would spend his immortality on an eternal war. Troy is fated to live only as long as Hektor lasts and fights; he imagines that his immortality might translate similarly into a city that cannot end, braced by him against a war that ever rages.  At the core of the difference between Sarpedon and Hektor is the fiction of the choice, the very one Achilles claims he has in book 9. There’s a sadness at the core of Hektor’s characterization that is powerful. Exchanging life for glory is meaningless, if not impossible, if everyone you loves dies without you there to protect them.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Introducing Iliad 8

This post is a basic introduction to reading Iliad 8. Here is a link to the overview of book 7 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.

Book 8 returns the Iliad to battle. It begins with a divine council, where Zeus attempts to control the actions of the other gods and by doing so, shapes the plot to come. The violence inspires Hera to try to disobey Zeus’ injunction, resulting in the flow of battle first favoring the Trojans and then the Greeks. Zeus has Iris prevent Athena and Hera from engaging further in the battle and the end of the book features two important moments: Zeus reveals his plan to the rest of the gods for the sides to struggle until Patroklos dies; Hektor has the Trojans camp outside the city for the first time in the conflict. The plot of this book engages critically with the major themes I have noted to follow in reading the Iliad: (1) Politics, (2) Heroism; (3) Gods and Humans; (4) Family & Friends; (5) Narrative Traditions. But the central themes I emphasize in reading and teaching book 8 are Gods and Humans and Narrative Traditions.

Zeus and the Plot of the Iliad

As I discuss in the introductory post on book 4, Zeus is instrumental in shaping the plot of the Iliad. The epic is cast as part of his “plan” in book 1, but he also articulates the plot of the epic at several key moments. There are different ways to think about Zeus’ intervention: As Bruce Heiden argues, we too often think about the Iliad as a text to be read, rather than one that was performed. The performance units are unknown to us: certainly, parts of epic narrative circulated as episodes (the teikhomakhia, “battle around the wall”; or teikhoskopia, “viewing from the walls”) but we can’t know from ancient references to such scenes whether they correspond to the same scenes we have in the written texts. Some have proposed that the book divisions we have were also performance units, but few of the books exhibit a kind of clear beginning, middle and end that would lend themselves to such performances.

Based on the three days of performances at the City Dionysia in Athens, some scholars have suggested a three-part sequence in a ‘monumental’ or ideal performance of the Iliad in some sort of a religious festival. There are several proposals, but the one I have always found most persuasive is Heiden’s: he remarks that Zeus has significant decisions and speeches in books 1 and 24, to begin and end and shape the plot, but that he also outlines the plot to come for the first time: in the latter part of book 8, and the latter part of book 15. Each of these moments could be seen as a ‘teaser’ for the next performance, outlining or anticipating the narrative to come in the same way a weekly television episode might end with “Next week, on [the Iliad]…” In this case, the performance units would be books 1-8, 9-15, and 16-24.

Now, even if we don’t subscribe to the tripartite performance structure, or, more importantly, if we acknowledge that the epic’s contents have not always been enjoyed in such a fashion, we can still see the effect that Zeus’s speeches have on the epic. He refocuses the action and dictates the plot.

Il. 8.469-483

“Then Zeus the cloud-gatherer answered Hera:
‘At dawn you will see the powerful son of Kronos,
If you want, cow-eyed Queen Hera,
Destroying the great host of spear-wielding Argives.
Hektor will not take a break from war until
The swift-footed son of Peleus rises among the ships
On that day when they battle among the prows
In the greatest strain over Patroklos who has died.
This is divinely decreed. I don’t care about whether
You are angry, not even if you run away to the ends
Of the earth and the sea, where Iapetos and Kronos
Sit and take pleasure neither in the rays of Helios
Nor in the winds, since Tartaros is steep around them.
Even if you go wandering there, I don’t care if you’re
Angry, since there’s no one more doglike than you.”

Τὴν δ’ ἀπαμειβόμενος προσέφη νεφεληγερέτα Ζεύς·
ἠοῦς δὴ καὶ μᾶλλον ὑπερμενέα Κρονίωνα
ὄψεαι, αἴ κ’ ἐθέλῃσθα, βοῶπις πότνια ῞Ηρη
ὀλλύντ’ ᾿Αργείων πουλὺν στρατὸν αἰχμητάων·
οὐ γὰρ πρὶν πολέμου ἀποπαύσεται ὄβριμος ῞Εκτωρ
πρὶν ὄρθαι παρὰ ναῦφι ποδώκεα Πηλεΐωνα,
ἤματι τῷ ὅτ’ ἂν οἳ μὲν ἐπὶ πρύμνῃσι μάχωνται
στείνει ἐν αἰνοτάτῳ περὶ Πατρόκλοιο θανόντος·
ὣς γὰρ θέσφατόν ἐστι· σέθεν δ’ ἐγὼ οὐκ ἀλεγίζω
χωομένης, οὐδ’ εἴ κε τὰ νείατα πείραθ’ ἵκηαι
γαίης καὶ πόντοιο, ἵν’ ᾿Ιάπετός τε Κρόνος τε
ἥμενοι οὔτ’ αὐγῇς ῾Υπερίονος ᾿Ηελίοιο
τέρποντ’ οὔτ’ ἀνέμοισι, βαθὺς δέ τε Τάρταρος ἀμφίς·
οὐδ’ ἢν ἔνθ’ ἀφίκηαι ἀλωμένη, οὔ σευ ἔγωγε
σκυζομένης ἀλέγω, ἐπεὶ οὐ σέο κύντερον ἄλλο.

Zeus’ control of the plot, in an echo of his language at the beginning of books 4 and 8, is somehow related to his physical might and reminders of a theomachy that led to the Titans (or someone like them) being exiled to Tartarus. At the beginning of 8, he reminds the gods that they cannot overpower him and threatens to hurl anyone who disobeys him into the underworld (10-20). In book 4, Zeus is not explicit in threatening Hera, but he does imply he will destroy one of her favorite cities as payback for the destruction of Troy (4.25-30). Book 5 is replete with echoes of divine war; but book 8 seems the most explicit in bookending the action with references to the consequences of opposing Zeus. By flexing his rhetorical muscle, Zeus both forestalls any further action against him and clarifies the epic’s plot.

If we are imagining books 1-8 as a performance unit, this final speech closes Zeus’ response to Achilles’ request in book 1: Achilles asks for the Achaeans to be punished; here Zeus makes it clear that Patroklos’ death is a part of his honoring of that request. Of course, there interpretive space for understanding Zeus’ action. A scholiast explains for the phrase “this is divinely decreed” that “[Zeus] is tossing out that this is fated, so that he doesn’t seem to play the part of tyrant” τὸ μοιρίδιον προβάλλεται, ἵνα / μὴ δοκῇ τυραννεῖν, Schol. bT ad Hom. Il. 8.477). As if that settles it all!

On the performance of the Iliad and book 8

n.b this is not an exhaustive bibliography. If you’d like anything else included, please let me know. Follow-up posts will address book 8 and other traditions

Cook, Erwin F. “On the ‘Importance’ of Iliad Book 8.” Classical Philology, vol. 104, no. 2, 2009, pp. 133–61. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.1086/605340

Fenno, Jonathan. “‘A Great Wave against the Stream’: Water Imagery in Iliadic Battle Scenes.” The American Journal of Philology 126, no. 4 (2005): 475–504. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3804872.

Foley, J. M. 1988. The Theory of Oral Composition: History and Methodology. Bloomington.

———. 1999. Homer’s Traditional Art. Philadelphia.

González, José M. 2013. The Epic Rhapsode and His Craft: Homeric Performance in a Diachronic Perspective. Washington, D.C.: Center for Hellenic Studies.

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

Bruce Heiden. “The Placement of ‘Book Divisions’ in the Iliad.” The Journal of Hellenic Studies 118 (1998): 68–81. https://doi.org/10.2307/632231.

Heiden, B. 2008. Homer’s Cosmic Fabrication: Choice and Design in the Iliad. Oxford.

Lord, Albert. 2000. The Singer of Tales. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

MORRISON, J. V. “‘KEROSTASIA’, THE DICTATES OF FATE, AND THE WILL OF ZEUS IN THE ‘ILIAD.’” Arethusa 30, no. 2 (1997): 273–96. http://www.jstor.org/stable/44578099.

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

Stroud, T. A., and Elizabeth Robertson. “Aristotle’s ‘Poetics’ and the Plot of the ‘Iliad.’” The Classical World 89, no. 3 (1996): 179–96. https://doi.org/10.2307/4351783.

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

The Achaean Wall and Homeric Fame

This is a post expanding on the introduction to Iliad 7. Reminder: all proceeds from the substack are donated to classics adjacent non-profits on a monthly basis.

At the end of book 7, Poseidon complains to Zeus about the building of the Achaean Wall. In the broader mythical tradition, the walls of Troy were build by Apollo and Poseidon, who were forced to work for pay for Laomedon as punishment for rebellion against Zeus. Laomedon reneged on their pay and that led to a sea monster attacking the city and eventually Herakles’ attack. At this moment in the epic, however, Poseidon’s primary concern seems to be his own fame:

Iliad 6. 442-463

“So the long-haired Achaeans were toiling,
But the gods were seated next to Zeus the lighting-lord
Watching the great effort of the bronze-girded Achaeans.
Poseidon the earth-shaker began the speeches among them.
“Father Zeus, is there really any mortal on the boundless earth
Who would still tell his idea or plans to the immortals?
Don’t you see that the long-haired Achaeans now
Have built a wall around their ships and have hollowed
Out a trench around it but they did not make sacrifices to the gods?
The fame of this wall will reach as far as the dawn’s rise
And they will forget the wall that Phoebos Apollo and I built
Wearing ourselves out in toil for the hero Laomedon.”

῝Ως οἳ μὲν πονέοντο κάρη κομόωντες ᾿Αχαιοί·
οἳ δὲ θεοὶ πὰρ Ζηνὶ καθήμενοι ἀστεροπητῇ
θηεῦντο μέγα ἔργον ᾿Αχαιῶν χαλκοχιτώνων.
τοῖσι δὲ μύθων ἦρχε Ποσειδάων ἐνοσίχθων·
Ζεῦ πάτερ, ἦ ῥά τίς ἐστι βροτῶν ἐπ’ ἀπείρονα γαῖαν
ὅς τις ἔτ’ ἀθανάτοισι νόον καὶ μῆτιν ἐνίψει;
οὐχ ὁράᾳς ὅτι δ’ αὖτε κάρη κομόωντες ᾿Αχαιοὶ
τεῖχος ἐτειχίσσαντο νεῶν ὕπερ, ἀμφὶ δὲ τάφρον
ἤλασαν, οὐδὲ θεοῖσι δόσαν κλειτὰς ἑκατόμβας;
τοῦ δ’ ἤτοι κλέος ἔσται ὅσον τ’ ἐπικίδναται ἠώς·
τοῦ δ’ ἐπιλήσονται τὸ ἐγὼ καὶ Φοῖβος ᾿Απόλλων
ἥρῳ Λαομέδοντι πολίσσαμεν ἀθλήσαντε.

Poseidon makes something of a procedural objection: The Greeks did not sacrifice before building the wall. Such neglect undermines the basic assumption of the Iliad, that sacrifices to the gods observe and in a way instantiate their honors and divine position. At some level, Poseidon’s concern is about the stability of honors drawn up in Hesiod’s Theogony> But he is also concerned about his own personal fame: he seems to articulate a zero-sum game of kleos, the fame of this wall will spread across the world and the wall he built will be forgotten. A scholiast makes a metapoetic inference here;

Schol. bT ad Hom. Il. 7.7.451
“perhaps this is because of the poetry. For the wall is a subject of song thanks to it, not because it was built by the Greeks, but because it appears in Homer because of the battle around it.”

ex. τοῦ δ’ ἤτοι κλέος ἔσται, <ὅσην τ’ ἐπικίδναται ἠώς>: ἴσως διὰ τὴν ποίησιν αὐτοῦ· διὰ γὰρ ταύτην τὸ τεῖχος ἀοίδιμόν ἐστιν, οὐ δομηθὲν τοῖς ῞Ελλησιν, ἀλλ’ ῾Ομήρῳ γενόμενον ἕνεκεν τῆς ἐπ’ αὐτῷ μάχης.

Zeus responds to this complaint somewhat dismissively, but with a prediction for the future

Then cloud gathering Zeus addressed him,
“Come on, broad-strength, earthshaker what a thing to say!
Any other one of the gods would fear this thought,
One whose hands and drive are much weaker than yours.
Your fame will certainly reach as far as dawn’s rise.
Go when the long-haired Achaeans turn back
To go home to their dear land with their ships
And break the walls, pouring it all into the sea
And covering the broad beach with sand once again
So then you will erase the great wall of the Achaeans.”

Τὸν δὲ μέγ’ ὀχθήσας προσέφη νεφεληγερέτα Ζεύς·
ὢ πόποι ἐννοσίγαι’ εὐρυσθενές, οἷον ἔειπες.
ἄλλός κέν τις τοῦτο θεῶν δείσειε νόημα,
ὃς σέο πολλὸν ἀφαυρότερος χεῖράς τε μένος τε·
σὸν δ’ ἤτοι κλέος ἔσται ὅσον τ’ ἐπικίδναται ἠώς.
ἄγρει μὰν ὅτ’ ἂν αὖτε κάρη κομόωντες ᾿Αχαιοὶ
οἴχωνται σὺν νηυσὶ φίλην ἐς πατρίδα γαῖαν
τεῖχος ἀναρρήξας τὸ μὲν εἰς ἅλα πᾶν καταχεῦαι,
αὖτις δ’ ἠϊόνα μεγάλην ψαμάθοισι καλύψαι,
ὥς κέν τοι μέγα τεῖχος ἀμαλδύνηται ᾿Αχαιῶν.

Notice how Zeus repeats Poseidon’s chief concern about his fame spreading as far as the dawn spreads (σὸν δ’ ἤτοι κλέος ἔσται ὅσον τ’ ἐπικίδναται ἠώς) and authorizes him to destroy the Achaean wall once the war is over. He confirms, in a way, Poseidon’s concerns about the zero-sum game of the walls, but does not really reflect on that metapoetic potential of the destruction of the walls to create a memory that exceeds that of the objects themselves. In a book like Iliad 7, where Hektor has made so much of the potential of a tomb on the Hellespont to ensure the kleos of himself and the man he kills, Poseidon’s promise to obliterate the structures on the shore threatens to undermine such faith in the physical monument in preference, perhaps, to the story being told.

This passage has some interesting political implications: in a way, Poseidon’s concern about the loss of his fame is not dissimilar to Achilles’ or Agamemnon’s worry about their loss of gerai and timai (prizes and honor), but there are also some metaphysical turns too: the gods evince a lack of knowledge about the future and a deep concern for human recognition.

But for Homeric scholars, one of the most troubling aspects of this passage is that some of it comes up again. According to the scholia, editors at the time of Zenodotus and Aristophanes of Byzantium, as well as Aristarchus, Athetized this entire section “about the destruction of the wall [because the poet] talks about it during the battle around the walls (12.3-35)” (ὅτι περὶ τῆς ἀναιρέσεως τοῦ τείχους λέγει πρὸ τῆς τειχομαχίας, Schol A. ad Hom. Il. 7.443). The ancient scholar Porphyry adds that it seems somewhat improper that heroes would build this wall and in addition illogical that it would take the gods nine days to erase what the Greeks built in a single day (Homeric Questions ad Il. 12)

Thucydides even gets in on this game when he says that the Achaeans constructed fortifications at the beginning of the war (1.9-11, leading some scholars like D. L. Page to surmise that Thucydides’ Iliad did not have an Achaean wall built in book 7). Such differences in detail have led some to see interpolation in book 7 or evidence for multiple authorship. I think that’s mostly nonsense and that there are good structural reasons for the repetition and the difference.

The description that comes in book 12 is much more elaborate:

Iliad 12.1-33

“So, while the valiant son of Menoitios was tending
To wounded Eurupulos in the tents, the Argives and Trojans
Were fighting in clusters. The ditch and the broad wall beyond
Were not going to hold, the defense they built for the ships
And the trench they made around it. They did not sacrifice to the gods
So that it would safeguard the fast ships and the piled up spoils
Held within it. It was built without the gods’ assent,
And so it would not remain steadfast for too much.
As long as Hektor was alive and Achilles was raging,
And as long as the city of lord Priam remained unsacked,
That’s how long the great wall of the Achaeans would be steadfast.

But once however so many of the Trojans who were the best died
Along with many of the Argives who killed them, and the rest left,
And Priam’s city was sacked in the tenth year,
And the Argives went back to their dear homeland in their ships,
That’s when Poseidon and Apollo were planning
To erase the wall by turning the force of rivers against it.
All the number of the rivers that flow from the Idaian mountains to the sea,
Rhêsos, and Heptaporos, and Karêsos, and Rhodios,
And the Grênikos, and Aisêpos, and divine Skamandros
Along with Simoeis, where many ox-hide shields and helmets
Fell in the dust along with the race of demigod men.
Phoibos Apollo turned all of their mouths together
And sent them flowing against the wall for nine days.
And Zeus sent rain constantly, to send the walls faster to the sea.
The earthshaker himself took his trident in his hands
And led them, and he sent all the pieces of wood and stone
Out into the waves, those works the Achaeans toiled to make
And he smoothed out the bright-flowing Hellespont,
And covered the broad beach again with sands,
Erasing the wall, and then he turned the rivers back again,
He sent their beautiful flowing water back to where it was before.”

῝Ως ὃ μὲν ἐν κλισίῃσι Μενοιτίου ἄλκιμος υἱὸς
ἰᾶτ’ Εὐρύπυλον βεβλημένον· οἳ δὲ μάχοντο
᾿Αργεῖοι καὶ Τρῶες ὁμιλαδόν· οὐδ’ ἄρ’ ἔμελλε
τάφρος ἔτι σχήσειν Δαναῶν καὶ τεῖχος ὕπερθεν
εὐρύ, τὸ ποιήσαντο νεῶν ὕπερ, ἀμφὶ δὲ τάφρον
ἤλασαν· οὐδὲ θεοῖσι δόσαν κλειτὰς ἑκατόμβας·
ὄφρά σφιν νῆάς τε θοὰς καὶ ληΐδα πολλὴν
ἐντὸς ἔχον ῥύοιτο· θεῶν δ’ ἀέκητι τέτυκτο
ἀθανάτων· τὸ καὶ οὔ τι πολὺν χρόνον ἔμπεδον ἦεν.
ὄφρα μὲν ῞Εκτωρ ζωὸς ἔην καὶ μήνι’ ᾿Αχιλλεὺς
καὶ Πριάμοιο ἄνακτος ἀπόρθητος πόλις ἔπλεν,
τόφρα δὲ καὶ μέγα τεῖχος ᾿Αχαιῶν ἔμπεδον ἦεν.

αὐτὰρ ἐπεὶ κατὰ μὲν Τρώων θάνον ὅσσοι ἄριστοι,
πολλοὶ δ’ ᾿Αργείων οἳ μὲν δάμεν, οἳ δὲ λίποντο,
πέρθετο δὲ Πριάμοιο πόλις δεκάτῳ ἐνιαυτῷ,
᾿Αργεῖοι δ’ ἐν νηυσὶ φίλην ἐς πατρίδ’ ἔβησαν,
δὴ τότε μητιόωντο Ποσειδάων καὶ ᾿Απόλλων
τεῖχος ἀμαλδῦναι ποταμῶν μένος εἰσαγαγόντες.
ὅσσοι ἀπ’ ᾿Ιδαίων ὀρέων ἅλα δὲ προρέουσι,
῾Ρῆσός θ’ ῾Επτάπορός τε Κάρησός τε ῾Ροδίος τε
Γρήνικός τε καὶ Αἴσηπος δῖός τε Σκάμανδρος
καὶ Σιμόεις, ὅθι πολλὰ βοάγρια καὶ τρυφάλειαι
κάππεσον ἐν κονίῃσι καὶ ἡμιθέων γένος ἀνδρῶν·
τῶν πάντων ὁμόσε στόματ’ ἔτραπε Φοῖβος ᾿Απόλλων,
ἐννῆμαρ δ’ ἐς τεῖχος ἵει ῥόον· ὗε δ’ ἄρα Ζεὺς
συνεχές, ὄφρά κε θᾶσσον ἁλίπλοα τείχεα θείη.
αὐτὸς δ’ ἐννοσίγαιος ἔχων χείρεσσι τρίαιναν
ἡγεῖτ’, ἐκ δ’ ἄρα πάντα θεμείλια κύμασι πέμπε
φιτρῶν καὶ λάων, τὰ θέσαν μογέοντες ᾿Αχαιοί,
λεῖα δ’ ἐποίησεν παρ’ ἀγάρροον ᾿Ελλήσποντον,
αὖτις δ’ ἠϊόνα μεγάλην ψαμάθοισι κάλυψε
τεῖχος ἀμαλδύνας· ποταμοὺς δ’ ἔτρεψε νέεσθαι
κὰρ ῥόον, ᾗ περ πρόσθεν ἵεν καλλίρροον ὕδωρ.

I don’t think that the ancient editors had much reason to athetize the passage from book 7. The two passages do very different things and where they fall in the epic matters. The first comes during a place in the plot where it makes sense for the wall to be built and Poseidon complains appropriately. The themes emphasized in the first section echo Hektor’s emphasis on kleos in book 5 and help to situate the Achaean Wall generally in time.

The wall’s second showing takes us into the future, just as the epic battle is about to increase in intensity and confusion. There no mention of kleos in the proleptic destruction of the wall. But there are several markers of the passage of time: the wall is related to the action of the story being told (it will last as long as Hektor lives and Achilles rages), it is situated within the Trojan War tradition (it will last through the sack of Troy), and it is marked as part of the destruction of the race of heroes, placing it in a cosmic outlook.

Lorenzo Garcia notes that the wall is in a way a metonym: “The wall—itself a stand-in for Achilles, as I argued above—here functions as an image of the tradition itself and its view of its own temporal durability” (2013, 191). Then he draws on Ruth Scodel’s work (1982) to note that this narrative necessarily positions the wall and the actions around it in a larger cosmic framework:

“ Scodel notes the general character of these narratives as marking a greater separation between gods and men; the former race of demigods (ἡμιθέων γένος ἀνδρῶν, XII 23) [20] is wiped out in a massive destructive event that brings the entire age to a decisive end. [21] What I wish to emphasize is the implication that in Iliad XII the Achaean wall is linked not merely with the figure of Achilles, for whom it functions as substitute, but with the entire heroic age which is to come to an end.”

I would like to add to this that the position of this temporal reminder at the middle of the epic, in the very book in which the wall is breached, is of structural significance. If we follow models of performance that split the Iliad into three movements, then the first mention of the Achaean walls’ destruction comes during a different performance. The secondary mention, then, is both a reminder and an expansion. It emphasizes different themes (extinction, destruction, erasure) in contrast to the former. And, in line with Homeric composition in general, it amplifies the discussion, taking the audience outside of the timeline of the Iliad temporarily before plunging us back into the chaos of war.

One final note on these passages: the balance of memory and forgetting, so clearly set out by Poseidon, appears to be tilted by divine agency. The verb that repeatedly marks Poseidon’s actions towards the Greek walls, amalduno, appears only in these particular passages in Homer. A scholion glosses it as coming from plunging into the sea (<ἀμαλδῦναι:> καθ’ ἅλμης δῦναι), perhaps responding both to Poseidon’s activity as a sea god and the cultural fear of the oblivion that comes from a death by shipwreck. Another place where this verb shows up in early Greek poetry is Bacchylides (14.1-6)

“Having good luck from god
Is the best thing for mortals.
But heavy-suffering accident
Can wipe out a good person
Even as it can raise a bad person on high
If it straightens them out.”

Εὖ μὲν εἱμάρθαι παρὰ δαίμ[ονος ἀν]θρώ-
ποις ἄριστον·
[σ]υμφορὰ δ’ ἐσθλόν <τ’> ἀμαλδύ-
[νει β]αρύτλ[α]τος μολοῦσα
[καὶ τ]ὸν κακ[ὸν] ὑψιφανῆ
τεύ[χει κ]ατορθωθεῖσα·…

Here, instead of Poseidon or some other god, the force that “obliterates” is chance. Yet, this force seems to be one that implies layers of judgment, perhaps allowing for the fact that what survives for memory isn’t always the worthiest, just the luckiest. In this way, we can read Poseidon’s destruction of the Achaean walls as an act that attempts to erase one thing in favor of another, leaving open the possibility that narrative can outlast the erasure even as memory is no guarantee of virtue.

A Short bibliography on the Achaean Wall

Garcia, Lorenzo F., Jr. 2013. Homeric Durability: Telling Time in the Iliad. Hellenic Studies Series 58. Washington, DC: Center for Hellenic Studies. 

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

Maitland, Judith. “Poseidon, Walls, and Narrative Complexity in the Homeric Iliad.” The Classical Quarterly 49, no. 1 (1999): 1–13. http://www.jstor.org/stable/639485.

PORTER, JAMES I. “Making and Unmaking: The Achaean Wall and the Limits of Fictionality in Homeric Criticism.” Transactions of the American Philological Association (1974-) 141, no. 1 (2011): 1–36. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41289734.\

Purves, Alex.  2006a. “Falling into Time in Homer’s Iliad.” Classical Antiquity 25:179–209.

Scodel, Ruth. “The Achaean Wall and the Myth of Destruction.” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 86 (1982): 33–50. https://doi.org/10.2307/311182.

H. W. Singor. “The Achaean Wall and the Seven Gates of Thebes.” Hermes 120, no. 4 (1992): 401–11. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4476919.

Tsagarakis, Odysseus. “The Achaean Wall and the Homeric Question.” Hermes 97, no. 2 (1969): 129–35. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4475580.

West, M. L. “The Achaean Wall.” The Classical Review 19, no. 3 (1969): 255–60. http://www.jstor.org/stable/707716.