Testing the Greeks (and their Audience): Returning to Iliad 2

~ sententiaeantiquae ~ Leave a comment
In my earlier posts on the second book of the Iliad, I wrote in general terms about the structure of the book and in specific about the treatment of Thersites during the political scene. If I have to convey one thematic point about book 2 it is this: book 2 is both a political and a poetic response to the rupture of book 1. It features the Greeks attempting to reunify their coalition after Achilles’ apostasy at the beginning of the epic and then resets the narrative by taking us to the beginning of the Trojan War. Here’s how I would break down the structure of the book.

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

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

    2. Agamemnon’s Test 85-154

    3. Hera’s Intervention through Odysseus 155-210

    4. Thersites’ Scene 211-277

    5. Odysseus’ Speech 278-333

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

  2. Similes and Marshalling, 396-483

    1. Poetics: Repositioning the Trojan War, 484-

    2. Greek Catalog 484-785

    3. Trojan Catalog 786-877

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

File:Achilles Agamemnon Pompei mosaic NAMNaples 10006.jpg
Achilles and Agamemnon, scene from Book I of the Iliad, Roman mosaic.

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

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

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

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

Selected Bibliography

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thersites’ Body: Description, Characterization, and Physiognomy in Iliad 2

~ Joel ~ Leave a comment
Iliad 2.211-224

“The rest of them were sitting, and they had taken their seats.
Only Thersites, a man of measureless speech, was still declaring–
A man who knew many disordered things in his thoughts and who
Strived pointlessly with kings out of order,
–whatever he thought would be amusing to the Argives.
And he was the most shameful man who came to Troy.
He was cross-eyed and crippled in one foot. His shoulders
Were curved, dragged in toward his chest. And on top
His head was misshaped, and the hair on his head was sparse.
He was most hateful to both Achilles and Odysseus
For he was always reproaching them. Then he was shrilly cawing
At lordly Agamemnon again, as he spoke reproaches. The Achaeans
Were terribly angry at him and were finding fault in their heart.
As he shouting greatly, he was reproaching Agamemnon.”

῎Αλλοι μέν ῥ’ ἕζοντο, ἐρήτυθεν δὲ καθ’ ἕδρας·
Θερσίτης δ’ ἔτι μοῦνος ἀμετροεπὴς ἐκολῴα,
ὃς ἔπεα φρεσὶν ᾗσιν ἄκοσμά τε πολλά τε ᾔδη
μάψ, ἀτὰρ οὐ κατὰ κόσμον, ἐριζέμεναι βασιλεῦσιν,
ἀλλ’ ὅ τι οἱ εἴσαιτο γελοίϊον ᾿Αργείοισιν
ἔμμεναι· αἴσχιστος δὲ ἀνὴρ ὑπὸ ῎Ιλιον ἦλθε·
φολκὸς ἔην, χωλὸς δ’ ἕτερον πόδα· τὼ δέ οἱ ὤμω
κυρτὼ ἐπὶ στῆθος συνοχωκότε· αὐτὰρ ὕπερθε
φοξὸς ἔην κεφαλήν, ψεδνὴ δ’ ἐπενήνοθε λάχνη.
ἔχθιστος δ’ ᾿Αχιλῆϊ μάλιστ’ ἦν ἠδ’ ᾿Οδυσῆϊ·
τὼ γὰρ νεικείεσκε· τότ’ αὖτ’ ᾿Αγαμέμνονι δίῳ
ὀξέα κεκλήγων λέγ’ ὀνείδεα· τῷ δ’ ἄρ’ ᾿Αχαιοὶ
ἐκπάγλως κοτέοντο νεμέσσηθέν τ’ ἐνὶ θυμῷ.
αὐτὰρ ὃ μακρὰ βοῶν ᾿Αγαμέμνονα νείκεε μύθῳ·

Thersites’ description also uses some language of disability in the ancient world: here, aiskhos (for “ugly” or “deformed”) and khlôlos (for “crippled” or lame”). The correlation between the disorderliness of his body and thoughts (ὃς ἔπεα φρεσὶν ᾗσιν ἄκοσμά) may not be causative, but it helps to establish a meaningful relationship between Thersites’ body, his behavior, and the hate his presence elicits.

Schol T. ad Il. 2.216a

“most shameful: this is also said of an ape.”

ex. αἴσχιστος: τοῦτο καὶ ἐπὶ πιθήκου.

Schol. BT [Aristonicus] ad Il. 2.217a

“pholkos: this is spoken once. Homeric pholkos means when the eyes are narrowed together, which means turned.”

Ariston. | Ep. φολκός: ὅτι ἅπαξ εἴρηται. Aim b (BCE3)T | ἔστι δὲ Hom. φολκὸς ὁ τὰ φάη εἱλκυσμένος, ὅ ἐστιν ἐστραμμένος. Aim

Homer presents a overlap between ‘beautiful body’ and ‘beautiful mind’ (a topic I explore in this article.) This physiognomic category error pervades a great deal of classical Greek culture. In the Iliad, Thersites transgresses physical boundaries through his unheroic body and ethical boundaries by using the genre of rebuke upward in the social hierarchy. He is hateful to both Achilles and Odysseus because they exemplify in a complementary fashion the ‘center’ or ideal of the heroic person—Achilles is the beautiful body, Odysseus is a beautiful mind. But both of them stay within the boundaries of ‘normal’ in their own deviance (Achilles’ political straying, Odysseus’ aging, imperfect body).

Thersites, labelled by many as a comic scapegoat, functions as an inferior in order to define the center as non-transgressive. This is, in particular, why he is hateful to Achilles and Odysseus: without him, their persons might be monstrous or disabled. And this also helps explain why Odysseus must physically beat Thersites in public.

But there is a tradition to Thersites outside of the way he is used in Homer. Ancient scholars etymologize his name and report, ironically, that he became disabled because of punishment for cowardice (making his body a marker of the consequences of his character).

Schol. T ad Hom. Il. 212a1 ex

“Thersites: the name is made from the Aiolic [version of tharsos] audacity, thersos.
ex. Θερσίτης δ’ ἔτι: ὠνοματοποίησε τὸ ὄνομα παρὰ τὸ θέρσος Αἰολικόν

Schol. D ad Hom. Il. 2.212 [= Euphorion fr. 82]

“Because the goddess was enraged at Oineus’ lack of concern for sacrifices to Artemis, she sent a wild boar against the city. A band of the best of Greece when against it when it was ruining the country, as the poet says in the ninth book. Among them was also Thersites who, because he was coward, abandoned his assigned guard post and went instead hunting safety in some high position. He was being reproached and pursued by Meleager and fell from a cliff; [this is how] he became the sort of man Homer describes him as. Euphorion tells this story.”

Οἰνεῖ ἀμελήσαντι τῆς Ἀρτέμιδος θυσιῶν ἕνεκα ἡ θεὸς ὀργισθεῖσα ἔπεμψε τῇ πόλει σῦν ἄγριον. ἐφ᾿ ὃν ἦλθεν στρατεία τῶν ἀρίστων τῆς Ἑλλάδος, ἐπειδὴ ἐλυμαίνετο τῇ χώρᾳ ὥς φησιν αὐτὸς ὁ ποιητὴς ἐν τῇ Ι΄ [533], μεθ᾿ ὧν ἦν καὶ ὁ Θερσίτης, ὃς δειλωθεὶς κατέλειψεν τὴν παραφυλακὴν ἐφ᾿ ἧς ἦν καὶ ἀπῆλθεν ἐπί τινα τόπον ὑψηλὸν τὴν σωτηρίαν θηρώμενος. ὀνειδιζόμενος δὲ ὑπὸ Μελεάγρου ἐδιώκετο καὶ κατὰ κρημνοῦ πεσὼν τοιοῦτος ἐγένετο οἷον Ὅμηρος αὐτὸν παρίστησιν. ἱστορεῖ Εὐφορίων.

Schol AbT 212b1-2 ex

“they say that [Thersites] is the poet’s agent, that he appropriates his essence.”

Θερσίτης δ’ ἔτι: ἐπίτροπον τοῦ ποιητοῦ φασιν αὐτόν, σφετερισάμενον τὴν οὐσίαν…

Schol. bT ad Il. 2.212b ex. 12–19 [= FGrH 3.123]

“Pherecydes says that [Thersites] was one of those who gathered to hunt the Kalydonian boar but that he was avoiding the fight with the boar and was thrown from a cliff by Meleager. This is how his body was deformed. People say he is a child of Agrios and the daughter of Porthaon. But if he is Diomedes’ relative, there is no way Odysseus would beat him. For he would only hit common soldiers. Hence, [the poet] has deployed him not [because of] his father or his country but only because of his manner and form, the things which the current situation needs.”

Φερεκύδης δὲ καὶ τοῦτον ἕνα τῶν ἐπὶ τὸν Καλυδώνιον κάπρον στρατευσάντων φησίν. ἐκκλίνοντα δὲ τὴν τοῦ συὸς μάχην ὑπὸ Μελεάγρου κατακρημνισθῆναι· διὸ καὶ λελωβῆσθαι τὸ σῶμα. ᾿Αγρίου δὲ καὶ Δίας τῆς Πορθάονος αὐτόν φασιν. εἰ δὲ συγγενὴς ἦν Διομήδους, οὐκ ἂν αὐτὸν ἔπληξεν ᾿Οδυσσεύς· τοὺς γὰρ ἰδιώτας μόνον ἔτυπτεν. εὖ δὲ καὶ οὐκ ἀπὸ πατρὸς αὐτὸν συνέστησεν, οὐδ’ ἀπὸ πατρίδος, ἀλλ’ ἀπὸ οῦ τρόπου μόνου καὶ τῆς μορφῆς, ὧν χρεία τὰ νῦν.

In the broader tradition, Thersites’ boldness leads to his death at Achilles’ hands.

Proclus, Chrestomathia 178–184

“Then Achilles killed Thersites because he was mocked by him when he reproached him, claiming he loved Penthesileia. A conflict arose among the Achaeans over the murder of Thersites. After that Achilles went sailing to Lesbos where, after he made a sacrifice to Apollo, Artemis and Leto, he was cleansed of the murder by Odysseus.”

καὶ Ἀχιλλεὺς Θερσίτην ἀναιρεῖ λοιδορηθεὶς πρὸς αὐτοῦ καὶ ὀνειδισθεὶς τὸν ἐπὶ τῆι Πενθεσιλείαι λεγόμενον ἔρωτα. καὶ ἐκ τούτου στάσις γίνεται τοῖς Ἀχαιοῖς περὶ τοῦ Θερσίτου φόνου. μετὰ δὲ ταῦτα Ἀχιλλεὺς εἰς Λέσβον πλεῖ, καὶ θύσας Ἀπόλλωνι καὶ Ἀρτέμιδι καὶ Λητοῖ καθαίρεται τοῦ φόνου ὑπ᾿ Ὀδυσσέως.

In some traditions, Penthesileia bore Achilles a child before she died.

Cf. Apollodorus, Epitome E 5

“…And later on, [Penthesileia] died at Achilles’ hands and he killed Thersites who was mocking him after her death because he had loved the Amazon.”

 εἶθ᾿ ὕστερον θνήσκει ὑπὸ Ἀχιλλέως, ὅστις μετὰ θάνατον ἐρασθεὶς τῆς Ἀμαζόνος κτείνει Θερσίτην λοιδοροῦντα αὐτόν.

Of course, his contrast with Achilles and Odysseus (and others) becomes something of a trope in ancient literature

Plutarch’s Moralia 1065c-d Against the Stoics on Common Conceptions

“Achilles would not have had long hair if Thersites had not been bald.”

καὶ οὐκ ἂν ἦν Ἀχιλλεὺς κομήτης εἰ μὴ φαλακρὸς Θερσίτης.

Plato, Republic 10 620c-d

“A bit farther along among the final souls, he saw that of the ridiculous Thersites taking on the form of a monkey. By chance, he came upon the soul of Odysseus last of all as it made its choice still remembering its previous sufferings and, having decided to rest from the pursuit of honor, was spending an excessive among of time seeking the life of an untroubled private citizen. He found it barely situated somewhere and ignored by the rest of the souls. When he saw it, he said that he would have made the same choice even had he drawn the first lot and was happen to make this choice.”

πόρρω δ’ ἐν ὑστάτοις ἰδεῖν τὴν τοῦ γελωτοποιοῦ Θερσίτου πίθηκον ἐνδυομένην. κατὰ τύχην δὲ τὴν Ὀδυσσέως λαχοῦσαν πασῶν ὑστάτην αἱρησομένην ἰέναι, μνήμῃ δὲ | τῶν προτέρων πόνων φιλοτιμίας λελωφηκυῖαν ζητεῖν περιιοῦσαν χρόνον πολὺν βίον ἀνδρὸς ἰδιώτου ἀπράγμονος, καὶ μόγις εὑρεῖν κείμενόν που καὶ παρημελημένον ὑπὸ τῶν ἄλλων, καὶ εἰπεῖν ἰδοῦσαν ὅτι τὰ αὐτὰ ἂν ἔπραξεν καὶ πρώτη λαχοῦσα, καὶ ἁσμένην ἑλέσθαι.

Galen, Hygiene 16-17k

“Accordingly, then, they differ from one another in  magnitude of more or less, just as the whiteness in show compares to the whiteness of milk: it is white for each it is not different in this, but it contrasts in being more or less white. In the same manner, if you will allow me to say, the health of Achilles does not differ from that of Thersites: inasmuch as it is health, it is the same, but it differs in another thing.”

κατὰ τὸ μᾶλλον ἄρα καὶ ἧττον ἀλλήλων διαφέρουσιν. ὥσπερ γὰρ ἡ ἐν τῇ χιόνι λευκότης τῆς ἐν τῷ γάλακτι λευκότητος, ᾗ μὲν λευκόν ἐστιν, οὐ διαφέρει, τῷ μᾶλλον δὲ καὶ ἧττον διαφέρει, τὸν αὐτὸν δὴ τρόπον ἡ ἐν τῷ Ἀχιλλεῖ, φέρε εἰπεῖν, ὑγεία τῆς ἐν τῷ Θερσίτῃ ὑγείας, καθ’ ὅσον μὲν ὑγεία, ταὐτόν ἐστιν, ἑτέρῳ δέ τινι διάφορος

Photograph of a Black figure vase scene showing nude heroes attacking a boar with spears and tridents
Beazley Archive Pottery Database 310552: Black figure vase showing the Calydonian Boar Hunt

For a bibliography on Thersites, see this post on Iliad 2.

Rewriting the Plot: What The Structure of the Iliad’s First Third Accomplishes

~ Joel ~ 6 Comments

Many of the structural and plot questions of the Iliad’s first third can be categorized as anxiety about anachronism, specifically the events that occur within books 2-8 that more ‘logically’ occur prior to the beginning of the Iliad. These include the listing of all the combatants (the catalogue of ships), the teikhoskopia (the viewing from the walls), the duel between Paris and Menelaos, and the building of fortifications around the Greek ships. Amid these actions are the repeated divine councils in books 1, 4, and 8 that clarify the coming action of the epic, and sundry other scenes that don’t really relate to the theme of the rage of Achilles.

When we talk about the postponement of the theme of Achilles’ rage and his presence in the epic, we often compare it to the absence of Odysseus at the beginning of the Odyssey. It is a delaying mechanism that creates magnitude and inspires suspense. But in reviewing the poem again, I think there may be more going on here. Part of books 2-8 is the Iliad answering the challenge of telling the whole of the Trojan War narrative through only a few days. It does this by evoking famous episodes, but I think it also structurally echoes it as well.

A ring structure, the order of events, and the refinement of Zeus’ plan supports this. First, Agamemnon’s speech, longing to go home, is repeated in great part at the beginning of book 9. This speech in its first iteration initiates the series of events that reunify the Achaeans and return them to battle. A great deal of the catalogue of ships sounds like a flashback, taking us to the beginning of the Trojan War. Yet, once the sides are assembled, the plot moves through echoes of the first 9 years of the War before returning to the scene of the rage, in book 9 Agamemnon’s speech is a repetition with a difference, collapsing the action between 1, 2, and 9, and taking us through the years back to the ninth.

Zeus’ plan, referred to in the proem as ongoing, is refined several times during these books: first in 1, where he promises to honor Achilles by having the Trojans win for a while, then in book 4, and again in book 8 where he announces that Hektor will win until he gets to the ships. There has been some debate over what Zeus’ “plan” is at the beginning of the poem, whether it is the plan to rid the earth of the race of heroes, as mentioned at the beginning of the fragmentary Kypria, the plan to repair Achilles’ wounded honor, or the plot of the Iliad itself. The process of refinement we witness in books 1-8 fully integrates all three plans into one. It is a rewriting of the first nine years of the Trojan War to center Achilles’ rage as the pivotal point. This kind of rewriting is daring, from one perspective: it reorders the series of events and causal relationships through a retelling of the past nine years to make this story the most important one.

Here’s a chart I am working on. Note the thematic impact of considering the Iliad‘s structure this way as we move from a fresh start to the war to exhausted and frightened Achaeans by the end.

I am trying to make very little of the fact that nine books are standing in for nine years of the war (Greek poetry tends to count inclusively), but in laying the structure of the first third out like this, it seems clear to me that the structure enables an analepsis (flashback function) in order to revise the war, rewrite Zeus’ plan, and amplify the importance of book 9. Functionally, it covers all the necessary plot points, introduces all the characters and themes of the poem, and enacts the famous inversion of besieger and besieged that makes the rest of the Iliad so powerful

In addition to this, there are several performance models of the Iliad that see the break between 8 and 9 as a possible natural breaking point for the “monumental” performance of the Iliad

Some bibliography on Zeus’ Plan:

Allan, W. 2006. “Divine Justice and Cosmic Order in Early Greek Epic.” The Journal of Hellenic Studies 126:1–35.

Barker, Elton. ———. 2008. “ ‘Momos Advises Zeus’: The Changing Representations of Cypria Fragment One.” In Greece, Rome and the Near East, ed. E. Cingano and L. Milano, 33–73. Padova.

Clay, J. S. ———. 1999. “The Whip and the Will of Zeus.” In Literary Imagination, 1.1:40–60.

Lynn-George, M. 1988. Epos: Word, Narrative, and the Iliad. Atlantic Highlands.

Mayer, K. 1996. “Helen and the ΔΙΟΣ ΒΟΥΛΗ.” The American Journal of Philology 117:1–15.

Marks, J. R. 2002. “The Junction between the Cypria and the Iliad.” Phoenix 56:1–24.

Murnaghan, Sheila. ———. 1997. “Equal Honor and Future Glory: The Plan of Zeus in the Iliad.” In Classical Closure: Reading the End in Greek and Latin Literature, ed. F. M. Dunn, D. P. Fowler, and D. H. Roberts, 23–42. Princeton.

Wilson, D. F. 2002a. Ransom, Revenge and Heroic Identity in the Iliad. Cambridge.

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.

From Politics to Poetics: Repairing Achaean Politics in Iliad 2

~ Joel ~ 7 Comments

The second book of the Iliad can be split into three basic sections: the so-called diapeira (Agamemnon’s testing of the troops); the assembly speeches following the rush to the ships in response to the ‘test’ (the protest of Thersites, followed by the speeches of Odysseus and Nestor); and the Catalogue of Ships). Each of these scenes contributes critically to the some of 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 2 are politics and narrative traditions.

Color photograph of a relief sculpture. A semi-nude figure is dragging another by his hair.
Antalya Archaeological Museum. Ancient Roman sarcophagus of Aurelia Botania Demetria ( 2nd century AD ): Achilles striking Thersites.

The first half of book 2 essentially addresses the political problems set into play in book 1: Agamemnon tests his men to see if they are still dedicated to the mission and they run away. Thersites appears to channel some of Achilles’ dissent from book 1 and to act as a scapegoat for that political fracture. When he is literally beaten out of the assembly by Odysseus, it opens up space for Odysseus and Nestor in turn to refocus their efforts, reemphasize their collective goals, and reconstruct Agamemnon’s authority. (Disclosure, I have written on Agamemnon’s test and the debates around it and have some opinions.) I have included a bibliography on Thersites below. I will provide a later post about Agamemnon’s so-called test.

The result of this series of events is clear if you trace the similes of in book 2: the Achaeans start compared to images of clashing and conflict and end up compared to unified forces of nature directed against a common goal. This resolves in part some of the political tension in book 1, but does not address Achilles’ absence fully. The actions of the Achaean assembly are sufficient to return the coalition to war with a unified front, but insufficient to winning there. As part of the larger political theme, this helps to illustrate that the political resilience of the Achaeans, despite their bloody internecine conflict, resides in the multiple leaders who work together.

The unity at the end of the assemblies translates in part to a throwback to the beginning of the war in the performance of the Catalogue of Ships. Strictly speaking, a catalogue of all the participants in the war begins in a very different narrative, not recited nine years after its beginning. I suspect that the Catalogue was a popular motif in antiquity and was integrated into our Iliad both as a recognition of this and as a reflection of its audiences geographical knowledge and political realities. I think this interactive map of the catalogue is really fascinating and worth playing around with. Here’s a list of all the contingents with some links

In addition to being a fascinating reflection on the interaction between mythical space and the lived geography of antiquity, the catalogue is also evidence of how our Homeric epic engages with other versions of its own story and the larger Trojan War narrative in general. The catalogue clearly predates the action of the epic–figures like Philoktetes are listed as being elsewhere or dead (Protesilaos)–and the contents help us to understand the political dynamics: as Nestor puts it in book 1, Agamemnon is powerful politically because he rules over more people.

But the catalogue is also a lesson in how epic narrative works. Every figure is a potential story, a genealogy or a tragedy waiting to be unveiled. At the same time, the catalogue is an opportunity to silence other traditions by leaving them unmentioned, something Elton Barker and I examine in Homer’s Thebes.

Previous generations of scholars might have bracketed the catalogue as being imported from another poem or tradition. I think its position in this book following the reconstitution of the experimental Achaean polity is a brilliant ‘literary’ response to the particular challenge of creating an authoritative Trojan War poem. It makes sense to have a retrospective overview of the war at this point: The test itself raises the question of the stakes of the war; Odysseus and Nestor remind us of its beginning and the anticipated length; and the catalogue itself returns us from the theme of Achaean politics to the war in general. The inclusion of ‘traditional’ material both appropriates other narratives and instrumentalizes them. In effect, the larger mythical storyscape becomes a footnote to the story being told. And the catalogue is re-tunes the audience for the confrontation with the Trojans in book 3. In addition, this use of narrative material extraneous to the timeline of this particular plot also sets the audience up for even more surprising ‘flashbacks’: a duel between Paris and Menelaos (after 9 years!) and Helen’s description of the Greek heroes from the walls of Troy (the so-called Teikhoskopia).

a map of Greece with labels where all the contingents in the catalogue of shops come from
By Pinpin (talk · contribs) – Inspiré de la carte "ACHAEANS and TROJANS" du site de Carlos Parada, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2830268

Often left out of discussions of the Catalogue are the Trojans, who get their own list at 2.816-877. As Eunice Kim has recently argued, there is an art and message to this section that helps us to understand Hektor and the Trojans in general. So, make sure you read it to the end! Hilary Mackie’s book Talking Trojan, also has a nice treatment of this section and Benjamin Sammons’ The Art and Rhetoric of the Homeric Catalogue provides a great overview and fine bibliography on this type of poetry in general.

Book 2 touches upon other themes as well. Zeus’ intervention to send Agamemnon a false dream at the beginning of book 2 engages with questions about his “plan” as well as notions of human will and divine fate (so, Gods & Humans) and the inset heroic narratives of the catalogue provide many different ways to think about local heroes and larger traditions (Heroism).

Some guiding questions

What does the Diapeira do and how does it respond to the conflict of Iliad 1?

How do we understand Thersites’ dissent and its treatment?

How would you characterize Nestor and Odysseus in this book?

What are the impact(s) of the catalogue of ships?

Bibliography on Thersites

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

BARKER, ELTON. “ACHILLES’ LAST STAND: INSTITUTIONALISING DISSENT IN HOMER’S ‘ILIAD.’” Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society, no. 50 (2004): 92–120. http://www.jstor.org/stable/44696692.

Brockliss, W. 2019. “Out of the Mix: (Dis)ability, Intimacy, and the Homeric Poems.” Classical World 113: 1–27.

Christensen, J. (2021). Beautiful Bodies, Beautiful Minds: Some Applications of Disability Studies to Homer. Classical World 114(4), 365-393. https://doi.org/10.1353/clw.2021.0020.

Robert Kimbrough. “The Problem of Thersites.” The Modern Language Review 59, no. 2 (1964): 173–76.

Lowry, E. R. 1991 Thersites: A Study in Comic Shame.

Marks, Jim. 2005. “The Ongoing Neikos: Thersites, Odysseus, and Achilleus.” AJP 126:1–31.

Postlethwaite, N. “Thersites in the Iliad.” Greece & Rome 35: 83-95.

Rockwell, Kiffin. “THERSITES.” The Classical Outlook 56, no. 1 (1978): 6–6. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43933965.

Rose, M. L. 2003. The Staff of Oedipus: transforming disability in ancient Greece. Ann Arbor.

ROSE, PETER W. “THERSITES AND THE PLURAL VOICES OF HOMER.” Arethusa 21, no. 1 (1988): 5–25.

Rosen, R. M. 2003. “The Death of Thersites and the Sympotic Performance of Iambic Mock-ery.” Pallas 61:21–136.

Stuurman, Siep. “The Voice of Thersites: Reflections on the Origins of the Idea of Equality.” Journal of the History of Ideas 65, no. 2 (2004): 171–89. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3654205.

Thalmann, W. G. 1988. “Thersites: comedy, scapegoats and heroic ideology in the Iliad.” TAPA 118:1-28.

Thomson, R. G.. 1997. Extraordinary Bodies: Figuring Physical Disability in American Culture and Literature. New York.

Williams, B. 1993. Shame and Necessity. Berkeley and Los Angeles

Major Themes for Reading and Teaching the Iliad

~ Joel ~ 3 Comments

Five Threads to Unravel; Melodies to Follow

Anyone who knows me would be unsurprised that I generally set out to start talking about the Iliad and take rather long to get to the point. Once, probably in 2003 or so, my wife asked me to tell her what the epic was about. After 45 minutes or so, she interrupted me and asked me what point of the poem I was talking about. She was somewhat unamused that I had not yet finished book 1.

Anyone who knows the Iliad well should not find this surprising. The epic is filled with action; but even the ‘simple’ scenes are full of associated meanings, replete with potential resonances, and deeper meanings based on what one knows (or think they know). On top of this there are thousands of years of interpretive traditions and engagements that are labyrinthine enough to make Reddit seem linear.

So, one of the things I find to be useful when teaching Homer or guiding people through the Iliad is to focus on a handful of themes. By nature of both the structure of the poem and the character of its plot, the Iliad presents a series of interwoven themes that ebb and flow as the epic progresses to its end.  To return to the musical composition analogy I use in another post, I think it is helpful to imagine certain melodies or movements introduced early in the epic and reintroduced for new meaning and contrast as the plot moves us from one notional position to another. The repetition here is far from simple iteration: each return to familiar language and ideas is a repetition with difference: the audience and the characters are changed by the events that unfold, and the combination and reintroduction of themes in the changing contexts has a complicating if not generative effect.

I hope to highlight activations of these themes in posts on each book, but before I start on that project, I want to summarize them and anticipate their major movements. As a note, there are sub-themes I consider more like contributing motifs (e.g. ransom, xenia, mourning) or imagery (e.g. water, fire, laughter); and some of the themes I emphasize may be better posed as subordinate in some way. I think readers and teachers are free to identify and explore other themes as well. The five themes I like to emphasize are (1) Politics, (2) Heroism; (3) Gods and Humans); (4) Family & Friends; (5) Narrative Traditions. I will give brief introductions to each in this post and follow up with additional references when I focus on these themes in subsequent posts.

  1. Politics

“Really, may I be called both a coward and a nobody
If I yield every fact to you, whatever thing you ask”

ἦ γάρ κεν δειλός τε καὶ οὐτιδανὸς καλεοίμην

εἰ δὴ σοὶ πᾶν ἔργον ὑπείξομαι ὅττί κεν εἴπῃς· Homer, Iliad 1

As everyone knows from the beginning of the Iliad, the epic is not about the Trojan War, it is a story set within it. It is, according to its own proem, a tale of how Achilles’ rage brought ruin on his own people. The Iliad is intensely political in that it asks questions about where authority should come from, who should wield it, how they should wield it, and what the consequences of dysfunctional politics may be. The primary ‘melody’ in this movement is of the conflict between Agamemnon and Achilles, but this reverberates through questions of how the war is prosecuted by the Greeks, how they maintain their coalition, and how their experimental polity compares to the governance of Olympos and and the politics of the city of Troy.

There has been a lot written about the political conflicts among the Greeks but much less on Trojan politics and even less on divine political arrangements. I have argued more than once that to really get into the political questions of the Iliad, we need to understand that the epic explores politics on three separate stages (the Greeks, Trojans, and Gods) that are both comparative and contrastive.  The major political treatments of the Greeks occur in books 1, 2, 4, 9, 19, and 23. (People often miss that the Funeral Games of Patroclus are an attempt by Achilles to explore different allocations of goods and power). Trojan politics are really emphasized in books 2 (briefly in the catalogue of ships), in the contrast of assemblies in book 7, in the depiction of Hektor in books 6, 8, 12, 13, 18, 22 (especially in his engagement with Polydamas). The politics of the Gods are explored in assemblies/exchanges in books 1, 4, 8, 15, 16, and 24.

  1. Heroism

“Homer made Achilles the best man of those who went to Troy, Nestor the wisest, and Odysseus the most shifty.”

φημὶ γὰρ Ὅμηρον πεποιηκέναι ἄριστον μὲν ἄνδρα Ἀχιλλέα τῶν εἰς Τροίαν ἀφικομένων, σοφώτατον δὲ Νέστορα, πολυτροπώτατον δὲ Ὀδυσσέα. Plato, Hippias Minor

“May I not die without a fight and without glory but after doing something big for men to come to hear about”

ὴ μὰν ἀσπουδί γε καὶ ἀκλειῶς ἀπολοίμην, ἀλλὰ μέγα ῥέξας τι καὶ ἐσσομένοισι πυθέσθαι. Homer, Iliad  7 [Hektor speaking]

It is really hard to talk about the Homeric epics without talking about “heroism”. I start by explaining to students that, rather than evoking notions of virtue and self-sacrifice, in epic poetry a “hero” can mean three things: (1) a person in their full bloom of strength (in accord with the etymology shared with the name Hera); (2) a member of the generation before ours, the race of Heroes as described in Hesiod’s Works and Days; or (3) a figure who follows a narrative pattern of withdrawal and return (see Oedipus, Perseus, etc. Note, I am not using the language Campbell’s Hero’s Journey.). Homeric heroes, as Erwin Cook describes them, are not savior figures, but are instead figures who suffer and cause suffering. These three ideas are oversimplifications as well: there is a religious/cult aspect to heroes outside the worlds of the poems, explored well by scholars like Greg Nagy.

I think that the Iliad emphasize that heroes are dangerous to communities and that the Iliad and Odyssey together work in concert to provide an etiology for the destruction of the race of heroes, a justification for their absence from our world, and an exploration of how we value human beings across sub-themes like words/deeds, community/individuals, destruction/construction, mortality and immortality, etc. There is almost no book of the Iliad that doesn’t address heroism in some way, but the chief ones follow Achilles and Hektor with some interludes treating characters like Aeneas (5 and 22), Sarpedon (12 and 16), or Lykaon (21). For Achilles and Hektor, see especially  Books 1, 6, 9, 11, 16, 22,  and 24

  1. Gods and Humans

“Whenever the poet turns his gaze to divine nature, then he holds human affairs in contempt.”

ὅταν δὲ ἀποβλέψῃ εἰς τὴν θείαν φύσιν ὁ ποιητής, τότε τὰ ἀνθρώπινα πράγματα ἐξευτελίζει Scholion to Homer

As Barbara Graziosi and Johannes Haubold argue in their book Homer: The Resonance of Epic, the Homeric epics are part of a sequence with Hesiodic poetry that traces “cosmic history” from the foundation of the universe to the lives of archaic Greek audience. Part of this movement in Homer is to establish metaphysical ‘baselines’, the differences between gods and human beings, and what to expect from the human lives. The Iliad helps to explain why the worlds of gods and humans should be more separate, explores the relationship between divine will and human agency, and also provides a backdrop for the shared beliefs and customs of the Greeks that we might call ‘religion’ today.

The depiction of the gods can be difficult because they are at once characters in the narrative and reflections of actual Greek beliefs. Ancient and modern critics have been troubled by the less-than-positive depiction of the gods (Xenophanes and Heraclitus famously complained about it). But the general literary view is that the gods provide the framework for underscoring the importance of human behavior. Gods can misbehave, they can cheat, and lie and commit adultery because they are immortal. They don’t face the same level of consequences that human beings do because they have virtually limitless opportunities to screw up and try again. In line with the theme of heroism, the treatment of mortality and immortality in the Iliad helps audiences to understand that human lives have meaning because they are limited.

Interactions between the gods and humans happen throughout the epics, but some of the most critical moments are when the gods intervene in human actions or reflect on them in  Books 1, 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 24. Of chief importance among these are the speeches of Zeus, the discussion about the death of Sarpedon, and the final divine assembly in book 24 that (re-)establishes the primacy of burial and mourning rites.

Color photograph of a Greek Vase with black figures of women engaged in weaving activities
Lekythos, ca. 550–530 BCE. Attributed to the Amasis painter. Scenes of weaving, upright loom. Terracotta, H. 17.15 cm The Met

  1. Family & Friends

Throughout the themes I have already discussed, the sub-theme or motif of violence is dominant. Indeed, one way of thinking about the Iliad is that it is a prolonged invitation to think about war and when to fight. The answer I think it gives is that we should fight to defend the people we love and for little else. Sub-themes within this are women and children in Homer and the relationship between Achilles and Patroklos. Indeed, just as violence could be its own theme, so too could the treatment and experience of women in Homeric epic. I generally discuss these topics as a group because they orbit around Homeric treatments of heroes, politics, and violence. The place of friends and enslaved women is central to the political questions of book 1, but we see them both especially in the depiction of Trojan families. Book 6 is a powerful opportunity to think about life during wartime for non-combatants, as are the laments of books 18 and 24.

  1. Narrative Traditions

One of the topics I have long been most interested in is how Homeric epic relates to other narrative traditions. (This is the motivating question at the core of the book I wrote with Elton Barker, Homer’s Thebes). I provide an overview of some of these issues in my post on Centaurs, but I think the question of how Homeric epic appropriates from and responds to other mythical narratives is key to understanding its composition, the date of its composition, and its eventual pre-eminence. A simple place to start is with the stories Homeric heroes tell (the paradeigmata), but there are moments of engagement with other traditions in nearly every line of Homeric epic. How we think about these engagements–whether they are allusions, intertexts, or something else–are important questions in current Homeric scholarship that also reflect how we think about the making of meaning and storytelling in general. One of the things I really like to emphasize is that the Iliad seems very conscious not just of other story traditions but of its own status as a story to be used as a (counter-)model for their lives.

Color image of a Greek black figure vase unrolled to show women weaving
Lekythos, ca. 550–530 B.CE. Attributed to the Amasis painter. Scenes of weaving, upright loom. Unrolled. The Met. Accession Number: 31.11.10

Some resources for thinking about Homer and History.

There are some good sources that give us a start on the Homeric epics’ relationship with history. I like the multiple perspectives provided by the edited volume Archaeology and the Homeric Epics,. Readers will find some disagreement in major scholarly approaches, but most counsel caution: see Kurt Raaflaub’s article “Homer, the Trojan War, and History,” Trevor Bryce’s “The Trojan War: Is there Truth Behind the Legend,” Susan Sherratt’s “The Trojan War: History or Bricolage?”, Korfmann’s, Latacz’s and Hawkins’ “Was There a Trojan War?”

Managing Achilles

~ Joel ~ 3 Comments

Narrativization and Mind-reading in Iliad 1

Achilles—like most of us—attributes motivations to others. He interprets the world and his misinterpretations often have disastrous effects. During a famous scene in book 1, I think we can see a strategy for managing and redirecting this tendency.

Iliad 1.202-204

“Why have you come here, child of aegis-bearing Zeus?
Is it so that you may see the hubris of Agamemnon, Atreus’ son?
But I declare this and I think it will happen this away:
He is going to destroy his own life soon because of his arrogance.”

τίπτ’ αὖτ’ αἰγιόχοιο Διὸς τέκος εἰλήλουθας;
ἦ ἵνα ὕβριν ἴδῃ ᾿Αγαμέμνονος ᾿Ατρεΐδαο;
ἀλλ’ ἔκ τοι ἐρέω, τὸ δὲ καὶ τελέεσθαι ὀΐω·
ᾗς ὑπεροπλίῃσι τάχ’ ἄν ποτε θυμὸν ὀλέσσῃ.

When people think about Greek myth—and heroes in particular—they often bring up the concept of hubris, that excess of behavior, be it a specific act of outrage or a general demeanor, that is often mischaracterized as a kind of character ‘flaw’. (See this brief post about why the tragic flaw is a misunderstanding.) And while any reasonable reader can certainly see the thematic patterns of excess and arrogance as significant to the Iliad, the word itself appears sparingly in the epic. Of its four occurrences, two appear in Achilles’ exchange with Athena as he briefly considers just killing Agamemnon during the conflict in book 1.

One of the topics I am probably too obsessed with in my re-reading(s) of the Iliad is the extent to which characters are narrativizing their lives. What I mean by this are those scenes where it is either clear or arguable that we as audience members might imagine Homeric characters as acting under the influence of stories. This is what I think happens in book 9 when Achilles is seen singing the stories of famous heroes and then reinterprets Phoinix’s story of Meleager.

In addition to clear moments where external stories are implicated in the shaping (or misshaping) of the Iliad’s tale, I think we can also take some cues from moments of clear theatricality. Here, I don’t mean excessive behavior or histrionics, but those moments where the observation of a character’s action is shown to be determinative in the viewer’s subsequent behavior. This is ‘dramatic’ in the sense that it provides a show to be watched and interpreted by others; but it is also meta-mimetic, in that it inspires a change of action in the viewer, either in mirroring or reflecting on the action being seen.

In this later category, I have in mind Achilles’ lamentation for Patroklos that inspires similar emotions and actions from the epic’s internal audiences (both other Achaeans and the gods) or the final scene between Priam and Achilles that builds on those earlier exchanges, where Achilles and Priam feel pity and through sympathy identify with each other’s essential humanity, even if only briefly. In my current reading of this movement, Achilles’ extreme position as an elevated hero renders all of his actions larger-than-life with corresponding consequences. The epic strains to show the damage of Achilles self-absorption and how hard it is for him to see in others the suffering he recognizes in himself. While he weeps for Patroklos in book 19, he still primarily laments his own loss; when he identifies with Priam in book 24, he has a fleeting moment of self-transcendence, a humanizing instant. The epic’s point—I think—is both that such moments are possible and necessary to transcend our selfish violence but also that they are very hard to achieve, and nearly impossible to do so if everything about your own identity leads you to center yourself and your experiences to the detriment of all else in the world.

In re-reading the Iliad again, one of the things I am contemplating is the extent to which everyone ‘manages’ Achilles’ feelings and expectations. When Athena arrives, he asks her a direct question and makes it very clear what he thinks is going on. Athena’s response is a careful study in effective ‘de-escalation; another way to put it, is that she ‘manages’ Achilles by using his concepts and words and then forestalls the satisfaction of his rage by redirecting him:

“I have come for the purpose of slowing your anger, if you’ll consent,
From the sky. Hera, that white-armed goddess sent me,
Since we both love you and care about you in our hearts.
But, come, lay off the conflict, don’t draw your sword to hand.
But rebuke him with words about how it will turn out.
For I am declaring this and this is what will happen:
At some point you’ll get three times as many glorious gifts
In exchange for this outrage. But you, hold back. Listen to me.

ἦλθον ἐγὼ παύσουσα τὸ σὸν μένος, αἴ κε πίθηαι,
οὐρανόθεν· πρὸ δέ μ’ ἧκε θεὰ λευκώλενος ῞Ηρη
ἄμφω ὁμῶς θυμῷ φιλέουσά τε κηδομένη τε·
ἀλλ’ ἄγε λῆγ’ ἔριδος, μηδὲ ξίφος ἕλκεο χειρί·
ἀλλ’ ἤτοι ἔπεσιν μὲν ὀνείδισον ὡς ἔσεταί περ·
ὧδε γὰρ ἐξερέω, τὸ δὲ καὶ τετελεσμένον ἔσται·
καί ποτέ τοι τρὶς τόσσα παρέσσεται ἀγλαὰ δῶρα
ὕβριος εἵνεκα τῆσδε· σὺ δ’ ἴσχεο, πείθεο δ’ ἡμῖν.

Athena doesn’t mince words to start: she tells Achilles’ what she is there to do (stop his wild behavior) and explains the authority behind her actions (Hera and herself). She uses direct imperatives to avoid any confusion and mirrors the structure of his speech: he makes a prediction (or a threat) and she makes a promise that he will receive more later. Only after using these strategies does she return to Achilles’ own language (hubris), using a demonstrative to acknowledge his views, without specifying the behavior that qualifies as such.

Achilles Restrained by Athena, Johan Tobias Sergel (c. 1740-1814)

The reason I think this is a moment of narrativization is that Achilles expects a reaction from the gods for a certain kind of behavior: cosmic offense against the gods (i.e., hubris) is punished by divine will. To my reading, Achilles complains of a cosmic wrong to his being that is analogous to stories of myth. He sees Agamemnon as an arrogant mortal striving against a heroic demigod and articulates his expectation of divine recompense at Athena’s arrival. (We may even imagine him as anticipating the comeuppance himself and then reassigning the role to Athena when she appears).

We should not underestimate the importance, then, when Athena characterizes the issue as one of strife (eris). Achilles presents the situation using one kind of a mythical script: mortal commits hubris receives divine punishment. But Athena restates the experience using a different script: mortals involved in eris over a distribution of goods. Her promise that Achilles will receive three times more his lost compensation assures Achilles that Agamemnon has done wrong, but her framing of the situation shifts it from one story pattern to another.

Prophet of Evils

~ sententiaeantiquae ~ 2 Comments

Reading Iphigenia Into and Out of the Iliad

At the beginning of the Iliad, Agamemnon refusers to honor the ransom request of Chryses for his daughter Chryseis and this prompts the “rage of Apollo” and the plague that initiates the epic’s conflict. When Achilles calls an assembly after nine days of suffering, the poem introduces the seer Calchas:

Homer, Iliad 1.69-72

"Kalkhas the son of Thestor, the best of the bird-men readers
who knew what is, what will be, and what was before,
and lead the ships of the Achaeans to Troy
through the power of prophecy Phoibos Apollo granted him.

Κάλχας Θεστορίδης οἰωνοπόλων ὄχ' ἄριστος, 
ὃς ᾔδη τά τ' ἐόντα τά τ' ἐσσόμενα πρό τ' ἐόντα,  
καὶ νήεσσ' ἡγήσατ' ᾿Αχαιῶν ῎Ιλιον εἴσω 
ἣν διὰ μαντοσύνην, τήν οἱ πόρε Φοῖβος ᾿Απόλλων·

The scholia to this passage suggest that Calchas led them to Troy and prophesied that it would take 10 years (a story told by Odysseus in Iliad 2). After Calchas speaks, however, Agamemnon’s aggressive response has prompted many questions:

Iliad 1.106-9

"Prophet of evils, you've never said anything good for me!
It's always dear to your thoughts to prophesy wicked things--
you never utter or complete any kind of noble word!"

μάντι κακῶν οὐ πώ ποτέ μοι τὸ κρήγυον εἶπας· 
αἰεί τοι τὰ κάκ' ἐστὶ φίλα φρεσὶ μαντεύεσθαι, 
ἐσθλὸν δ' οὔτέ τί πω εἶπας ἔπος οὔτ' ἐτέλεσσας·

Schol. T. ad Hom. Il. 1.106b

“The poet does not know the name Iphigenia. Since it is not known, then this is not an issue of a falsification, but [Agamemnon] is speaking his slander because of the delay of the victory.”

τὸ γὰρ ᾿Ιφιγενείας ὄνομα οὐδὲ οἶδεν ὁ ποιητής. ἐπεὶ οὖν οὐ κατέγνωσται, οὐ ψευδῆ αὐτόν, ἀλλὰ κακόφημόν φησι διὰ τὴν ἀναβολὴν τῆς νίκης·

The D Scholia (to lines 108=109b) insist that the “younger poets” (neoteroi i.e., later accounts) tell the story of Calchas’ prophecy at Aulis. Whether or not ‘Homer’ ‘knew’ the tale is immaterial, I think, because later audiences certainly knew it and could have attributed the tension in book 1 to that event. The Homeric Iliad is perfectly capable of suppressing details that serve its own ends; and ancient scholars are equally capable of taking Homeric poetry at its face value. The question for me is how does it change our reading of the Iliad to imagine that we could be thinking about Iphigenia.

At one level, this might be too much: there’s already a sufficient thematic pattern in a leader (here, a king) at odds with an expert with unwanted knowledge (here, a prophet). Consider, for example, the similar beginning to Sophocles’ Oedipus Tyrannos. However, it seems to me highly unlikely that audiences of the fifth century did not think of Iphigenia at the beginning of the poem. Homer “not knowing” the name Iphigenia could mean simply that; or, it could be one of many examples of Homeric poetry downplaying details that are not convenient to its plot. A clear allusion to a sacrificed daughter might change the way we think of Agamemnon when he refuses to return a daughter at the beginning of the poem.

The sacrifice of Iphigenia is a pivotal moment in the tale of the House of Atreus—it motivates Agamemnon’s murder and in turn the matricide of Orestes—and the Trojan War, functioning as it does as a strange sacrifice of a virgin daughter of Klytemnestra in exchange for passage for a fleet to regain the adulteress Helen, Iphigeneia’s aunt by both her father and mother. The account is famous in Aeschylus’ Agamemnon and the plays Iphigenia at Aulis and Iphigenia among the Taurians by Euripides. Its earliest accounts, however, provide some interesting variations:

Hes. Fr. 23.13-30

“Agamemnon, lord of men, because of her beauty,

Married the dark-eyed daughter of Tyndareus, Klytemnestra.
She gave birth to fair-ankled Iphimede in her home
And Elektra who rivaled the goddesses in beauty.
But the well-greaved Achaeans butchered Iphimede
on the altar of thundering, golden-arrowed Artemis
on that day when they sailed with ships to Ilium
in order to exact payment for fair-ankled Argive woman—
they butchered a ghost. But the deer-shooting arrow-mistress
easily rescued her and anointed her head
with lovely ambrosia so that her flesh would be enduring—
She made her immortal and ageless for all days.
Now the races of men upon the earth call her
Artemis of the roads, the servant of the famous arrow-mistress.
Last in her home, dark-eyed Klytemnestra gave birth
after being impregnated by Agamemnon to Orestes,
who, once he reached maturity, paid back the murderer of his father
and killed his mother as well with pitiless bronze.”

γ̣ῆμ̣[ε δ’ ἑὸν διὰ κάλλος ἄναξ ἀνδρ]ῶν ᾿Αγαμέμνων
κού[ρην Τυνδαρέοιο Κλυταιμήσ]τρην κυανῶπ[ιν•
ἣ̣ τ̣[έκεν ᾿Ιφιμέδην καλλίσφυ]ρον ἐν μεγάρο[ισιν
᾿Ηλέκτρην θ’ ἣ εἶδος ἐρήριστ’ ἀ[θανά]τηισιν.
᾿Ιφιμέδην μὲν σφάξαν ἐυκνή[μ]ιδες ᾿Αχαιοὶ
βωμῶ[ι ἔπ’ ᾿Αρτέμιδος χρυσηλακ]ά̣τ[ου] κελαδεινῆς,
ἤματ[ι τῶι ὅτε νηυσὶν ἀνέπλ]εον̣ ῎Ιλιον ε̣[ἴσω
ποινὴ[ν τεισόμενοι καλλισ]φύρου ᾿Αργειώ̣[νη]ς̣,
εἴδω[λον• αὐτὴν δ’ ἐλαφηβό]λο̣ς ἰοχέαιρα
ῥεῖα μάλ’ ἐξεσά[ωσε, καὶ ἀμβροσ]ίην [ἐρ]ατ̣ε̣[ινὴν
στάξε κατὰ κρῆ[θεν, ἵνα οἱ χ]ρ̣ὼς̣ [ἔ]μ̣πε[δ]ο̣[ς] ε̣[ἴη,
θῆκεν δ’ ἀθάνατο[ν καὶ ἀγήρ]αον ἤμα[τα πάντα.
τὴν δὴ νῦν καλέο[υσιν ἐπὶ χ]θ̣ονὶ φῦλ’ ἀν̣[θρώπων
῎Αρτεμιν εἰνοδί[ην, πρόπολον κλυ]τοῦ ἰ[ο]χ[ε]αίρ[ης.
λοῖσθον δ’ ἐν μεγά[ροισι Κλυτ]αιμ̣ή̣στρη κυα[νῶπις
γείναθ’ ὑποδμηθ[εῖσ’ ᾿Αγαμέμν]ον[ι δῖ]ον ᾿Ορέ[στην,
ὅς ῥα καὶ ἡβήσας ἀπε̣[τείσατο π]ατροφο[ν]ῆα,
κτεῖνε δὲ μητέρα [ἣν ὑπερήν]ορα νηλέι [χαλκῶι.

This fragment presents what is possibly the earliest account of the tale of Iphigenia and contains the major elements: the sacrifice of Agamemnon’s daughter is tied to vengeance against Helen; the daughter is rescued by Artemis, made immortal and made her servant. [In some traditions she is either made immortal or made into a priestess of Artemis at Tauris]. Orestes kills the murderer of his father and his mother.

Note that several details are not spelled out, but assumed: namely, Agamemnon’s agency in the death of his daughter (either in angering the goddess or in arranging her sacrifice) and the murder of Agamemnon. Note as well, the name is different: here we have Iphimedê instead of Iphigeneia. Of course, the situation gets stranger: according to Pausanias (1.43.1) Artemis turned Iphigeneia into Hekate. According to Proclus (in his Chrestomathia, “useful knowledge”; 135-143), the story was told in the Kypria as follows:

“When the fleet gathered a second time at Aulis, Agamemnon struck a deer while hunting and claimed he had surpassed Artemis. The goddess, enraged, kept them from sailing by sending storms. When Kalkhas explained the origin of the goddess’s anger and called for Iphigeneia to be sacrificed to Artemis, they attempted to complete the sacrifice by sending for her with the pretext of a marriage to Achilles. But Artemis snatched her away and settled her among the Taurians and made her immortal; she put a deer in place of the girl on the altar.”

καὶ τὸ δεύτερον ἠθροισμένου τοῦ στόλου ἐν Αὐλίδι ᾿Αγαμέμνων ἐπὶ θηρῶν βαλὼν ἔλαφον ὑπερβάλλειν ἔφησε καὶ τὴν ῎Αρτεμιν. μηνίσασα δὲ ἡ θεὸς ἐπέσχεν αὐτοὺς τοῦ πλοῦ χειμῶνας ἐπιπέμπουσα. Κάλχαντος δὲ εἰπόντος τὴν τῆς θεοῦ μῆνιν καὶ ᾿Ιφιγένειαν κελεύσαντος θύειν τῇ ᾿Αρτέμιδι, ὡς ἐπὶ γάμον αὐτὴν ᾿Αχιλλεῖ μεταπεμψάμενοι θύειν ἐπιχειροῦσιν. ῎Αρτεμις δὲ αὐτὴν ἐξαρπάσασα εἰς Ταύρους μετακομίζει καὶ ἀθάνατον ποιεῖ, ἔλαφον δὲ ἀντὶ τῆς κόρης παρίστησι τῷ βωμῷ.

In the fifth century, the story becomes a little more consistent: Aeschylus’ account is probably the best known (Agamemnon, 229-249) but Pindar discusses it too (Pyth. 11.22-28)

“Was it the fact that Iphigeneia

was butchered far from her homeland at Euripos
that incited [Klytemnestra’s] heavy-handed rage?
Or did nocturnal sex, breaking her to another’s bed,
lead her astray? That is most hateful
and intractable in young wives—but it is impossible to hide
because of other people’s tongues:
Townsfolk are gossip-mongers.”

… πότερόν νιν ἄρ’ ᾿Ιφιγένει’ ἐπ’ Εὐρίπῳ
σφαχθεῖσα τῆλε πάτρας
ἔκνισεν βαρυπάλαμον ὄρσαι χόλον;
ἢ ἑτέρῳ λέχεϊ δαμαζομέναν
ἔννυχοι πάραγον κοῖται; τὸ δὲ νέαις ἀλόχοις
ἔχθιστον ἀμπλάκιον καλύψαι τ’ ἀμάχανον
ἀλλοτρίαισι γλώσσαις•
κακολόγοι δὲ πολῖται.

Sophokles, who also wrote an Iphigeneia (lost), has Elektra defend her father’s decision by portraying him as accidentally killing the deer and having no choice in the killing of his daughter (Elektra, 563-576).

The situation with the naming of the daughters of Agamemnon is a bit knotty. In the Iliad he declares: “I have three daughters in my well-made home / Khrysothemis, Laodikê, and Iphianassa” (τρεῖς δέ μοί εἰσι θύγατρες ἐνὶ μεγάρῳ εὐπήκτῳ / Χρυσόθεμις καὶ Λαοδίκη καὶ ᾿Ιφιάνασσα, 9.144-145) whereas the Hesiodic fragment cited above lists only two (Elektra and Iphimedê). Some scholars have assumed that Homer suppresses the sacrifice of Iphigeneia (although the events of the epic’s first book seem to rely on that tension). According to Aelian the name Elektra was a pejorative nickname for Laodikê (Varia Historia, 4.26):

“Xanthus the lyric poet—the one who was older than Stesikhoros—says that the daughter of Agamemnon Elektra did not have that name at first, but instead was Laodikê. After Agamemnon was killed and Aigisthos married Klytemnestra and was king, because she was “unbedded” (a-lektron) and was growing old as a virgin, the Argives called her Elektra because she didn’t have a husband and had no experience of a marriage bed.”

Ξάνθος ὁ ποιητὴς τῶν μελῶν (ἐγένετο δὲ οὗτος πρεσβύτερος Στησιχόρου τοῦ ῾Ιμεραίου) λέγει τὴν ᾿Ηλέκτραν τοῦ ᾿Αγαμέμνονος οὐ τοῦτο ἔχειν τοὔνομα πρῶτον ἀλλὰ Λαοδίκην. ἐπεὶ δὲ ᾿Αγαμέμνων ἀνῃρέθη, τὴν δὲ Κλυταιμνήστραν ὁ Αἴγισθος ἔγημε καὶ ἐβασίλευσεν, ἄλεκτρον οὖσαν καὶ καταγηρῶσαν παρθένον ᾿Αργεῖοι ᾿Ηλέκτραν ἐκάλεσαν διὰ τὸ ἀμοιρεῖν ἀνδρὸς καὶ μὴ πεπειρᾶσθαι λέκτρου.

Aeschylus in his Libation-Bearers gives Agamemnon only Elektra. Sophokles and Euripides preserve Khrysothemis. Strangely, according to one scholion, the lost Kypria named both Iphigeneia and Iphianassa as Agamemnon’s daughters. West (2013, 110) concludes that in this tradition (following Homer’s Iliad, Agamemnon once had four daughters).

photograph of a wall painting showing the sacrifice of ipihgenia including a nube girl in the arms of three male figures, a woman with her head covered, and a partial image of Artemis with a deer in the sky
Fourth Style fresco depicting the Sacrifice of Iphigenia, from the House of the Tragic Poet in Pompeii, Naples National Archaeological Museum

Sources:
Timothy Gantz. Early Greek Myth: A Guide to Literary and Artistic Sources. Baltimore, 1993.
Bryan Hainsworth. The Iliad: A Commentary. III: books 9-12. Cambridge, 1993.
R. Merkelbach and M. L. West. Hesiodea Fragmenta. Oxford, 1967.
Glenn Most. Hesiod: The Shield, Catalogue of Women, Other Fragments. Cambridge, 2003.
M. L. West. The Epic Cycle. Oxford, 2013.

Speaking of Centaurs: Paradeigmatic Problems in Iliad 1

~ Joel ~ Leave a comment

In the first book of the Iliad, Nestor attempts to intervene in the conflict between Achilles and Agamemnon. He eventually tells both men to simmer down—Achilles should act insubordinately and Agamemnon shouldn’t take Briseis. Neither of them listen to him. The reason—beyond the fact that neither of them are in a compromising state of mind—may in part be because of the story Nestor tells.

Il. 1.259–273

“But listen to me: both of you are younger than me; for long before have I accompanied men better than even you and they never disregarded me. For I never have seen those sort of men since, nor do I expect to see them; men like Perithoos and Dryas, the shepherd of the host, and Kaineus and Exadios and godly Polyphemos and Aigeus’ son Theseus, who was equal to the gods; indeed these were the strongest of mortal men who lived—they were the strongest and they fought with the strongest, mountain-inhabiting beasts, and they destroyed them violently. And I accompanied them when I left Pylos far off from a distant land when they summoned me themselves; and I fought on my own. No one could fight with them, none of those mortals who now are on the earth. Even they listened to my counsel and heeded my speech.”

ἀλλὰ πίθεσθ’· ἄμφω δὲ νεωτέρω ἐστὸν ἐμεῖο·
ἤδη γάρ ποτ’ ἐγὼ καὶ ἀρείοσιν ἠέ περ ὑμῖν
ἀνδράσιν ὡμίλησα, καὶ οὔ ποτέ μ’ οἵ γ’ ἀθέριζον.
οὐ γάρ πω τοίους ἴδον ἀνέρας οὐδὲ ἴδωμαι,
οἷον Πειρίθοόν τε Δρύαντά τε ποιμένα λαῶν
Καινέα τ’ ᾿Εξάδιόν τε καὶ ἀντίθεον Πολύφημον
Θησέα τ’ Αἰγεΐδην, ἐπιείκελον ἀθανάτοισιν·
κάρτιστοι δὴ κεῖνοι ἐπιχθονίων τράφεν ἀνδρῶν·
κάρτιστοι μὲν ἔσαν καὶ καρτίστοις ἐμάχοντο
φηρσὶν ὀρεσκῴοισι καὶ ἐκπάγλως ἀπόλεσσαν.
καὶ μὲν τοῖσιν ἐγὼ μεθομίλεον ἐκ Πύλου ἐλθὼν
τηλόθεν ἐξ ἀπίης γαίης· καλέσαντο γὰρ αὐτοί·
καὶ μαχόμην κατ’ ἔμ’ αὐτὸν ἐγώ· κείνοισι δ’ ἂν οὔ τις
τῶν οἳ νῦν βροτοί εἰσιν ἐπιχθόνιοι μαχέοιτο·
καὶ μέν μευ βουλέων ξύνιεν πείθοντό τε μύθῳ·

a screen shot of a vase painting showing the battle of thethe lapiths-and-centaurs

Ancient commentators praise Nestor elsewhere for his ability to apply appropriate examples in his persuasive speeches:

Schol. Ad Il. 23.630b ex. 1-6: “[Nestor] always uses appropriate examples. For, whenever he wants to encourage someone to enter one-on-one combat, he speaks of the story of Ereuthaliôn (7.136-56); when he wanted to rouse Achilles to battle, he told the story of the Elean war (11.671¬–761). And here in the games for Patroklos, he reminds them of an ancient funeral contest.”

ex. ὡς ὁπότε κρείοντ'<—᾿Επειοί>: ἀεὶ οἰκείοις παραδείγμασι χρῆται· ὅταν μὲν γάρ τινα ἐπὶ μονομάχιον ἐξαναστῆσαι θέλῃ, τὰ περὶ ᾿Ερευθαλίωνα (sc. Η 136—56) λέγει, ὅταν δὲ ᾿Αχιλλέα ἐπὶ τὴν μάχην, τὰ περὶ τὸν ᾿Ηλειακὸν πόλεμον (sc. Λ 671—761)· καὶ ἐν τοῖς ἐπὶ Πατρόκλῳ ἄθλοις παλαιοῦ ἐπιταφίου μέμνηται ἀγῶνος.

The scholia also assert that such use of stories from the past is typical of and appropriate to elders:

Schol. ad Il. 9.447b ex. 1-2 : “The elderly are storytellers and they persuade with examples from the past. In other cases, the tale assuages the anger…”

μυθολόγοι οἱ γέροντες καὶ παραδείγμασι παραμυθούμενοι. ἄλλως τε ψυχαγωγεῖ τὴν ὀργὴν ὁ μῦθος.

Not just elders of course! Singers and teachers are positioned as authorities who should (and do) use narrative examples to form the characters of the young (the first comment comes in response to Achilles’ playing of the lyre; the second comment is prompted by Phoinix’s tale of Meleager presented to Achilles in the 9th book of the Iliad:

Schol. A ad. Il. 9.189b ex. 1-2: “Klea andrôn: [this is because] it is right to be ever-mindful of good men. For singers make their audiences wise through ancient narratives.”

ex. κλέα ἀνδρῶν: ὅτι ἀειμνήστους δεῖ τοὺς ἀγαθοὺς εἶναι· οἱ γὰρ ἀοιδοὶ διὰ τῶν παλαιῶν ἱστοριῶν τοὺς ἀκούοντας ἐσωφρόνιζον.

Schol. ad Il. 9.447b ex. 1-2 : “The elderly are storytellers and they persuade with examples from the past. In other cases, the tale assuages the anger…”

μυθολόγοι οἱ γέροντες καὶ παραδείγμασι παραμυθούμενοι. ἄλλως τε ψυχαγωγεῖ τὴν ὀργὴν ὁ μῦθος.

For Nestor’s speech, the ancient critics do concede that there is some rhetorical grace in the elder’s choice of detail:

Schol. bT ad Il. 1.271c ex. 3-5: “[Nestor] does not mention that Peleus [Achilles’ father] was Agamemnon’s friend so that he doesn’t appear to be rebuking Achilles if his father obeyed him some, but he does not.”

Πηλέως δὲ οὐκ ἐμνήσθη ὡς ᾿Αγαμέμνονος φίλος, ἵνα μὴ δοκῇ ἐλέγχειν ᾿Αχιλλέα, εἴ γε ὁ πατὴρ αὐτοῦ τι πέπεισται, ὁ δὲ οὔ.

But in explaining the details of Nestor’s speech—that he is alluding to the mythical battle of the Lapiths vs. the Centaurs—the scholiast may hit upon part of the problem of Nestor’s example:

Schol. bT ad Il. 1.266 ex 1-2: “These were the strongest men: but they were the strongest in competing against the remaining beasts”.

<κάρτιστοι δὴ κεῖνοι—ἀπόλεσσαν:> κάρτιστοι μὲν οὗτοι τῶν ἀνδρῶν· ἐκεῖνοι δὲ κράτιστοι πρὸς τὰ λοιπὰ συγκρινόμενοι θηρία.

Unlike Nestor’s other tales, this one does not fit the context. He uses it in an attempt to establish his own heroic bona fides. But what his audience(s) hear is some rambling tale about fighting beasts they are not fighting. The conflict is between men who are supposed to be on the same side.

As an aside, Xenophanes would prefer we avoid talking about Centaurs altogether:

Xenophanes, fr. B1 13-24

“First, it is right for merry men to praise the god

with righteous tales and cleansing words
after they have poured libations and prayed to be able to do
what is right: in fact, these things are easier to do,
instead of sacrilege. It is right as well to drink as much as you can
and still go home without help, unless you are very old.
It is right to praise a man who shares noble ideas when drinking
so that we remember and work towards excellence.
It is not right to narrate the wars of Titans or Giants
nor again of Centaurs, the fantasies of our forebears,
Nor of destructive strife. There is nothing useful in these tales.
It is right always to keep in mind good thoughts of the gods.”

χρὴ δὲ πρῶτον μὲν θεὸν ὑμνεῖν εὔφρονας ἄνδρας
εὐφήμοις μύθοις καὶ καθαροῖσι λόγοις,
σπείσαντάς τε καὶ εὐξαμένους τὰ δίκαια δύνασθαι
πρήσσειν• ταῦτα γὰρ ὦν ἐστι προχειρότερον,
οὐχ ὕβρεις• πίνειν δ’ ὁπόσον κεν ἔχων ἀφίκοιο
οἴκαδ’ ἄνευ προπόλου μὴ πάνυ γηραλέος.
ἀνδρῶν δ’ αἰνεῖν τοῦτον ὃς ἐσθλὰ πιὼν ἀναφαίνει,
ὡς ἦι μνημοσύνη καὶ τόνος ἀμφ’ ἀρετῆς,
οὔ τι μάχας διέπειν Τιτήνων οὐδὲ Γιγάντων
οὐδὲ Κενταύρων, πλάσμα τῶν προτέρων,
ἢ στάσιας σφεδανάς• τοῖς οὐδὲν χρηστὸν ἔνεστιν•
θεῶν προμηθείην αἰὲν ἔχειν ἀγαθήν.

Post-Script:

In a later post, I will talk more about what I see as some of the most important themes to emphasize when working with students on the Iliad. One of them is the way Homeric poetry positions itself in relation to other narrative traditions.

A commonly recognized feature in the speeches of Homer’s heroes is the offering of an example from another mythical tradition, called a paradeigma. In particular, paradeigmata provide an opportunity to think about how Homeric characters relate to stories from their own past and make sense of their present. At the same time, they also provide opportunities for audiences to think about how the Iliad might be used as a paradigm for their lives.

My personal take is that the Iliad is particularly interested in where examples from other narratives create dissonance with the contexts to which they are compared. This example from book one in the Iliad is a clear one; but the epic ends with such an example as well when Achilles provides the paradigm of Niobe to Priam in order to convince him to eat. The epic is, in my opinion, engaged from beginning to end in getting audiences to think about just how effective extant narratives are as models for the challenges they face in the world outside the story. And, I think, it anticipates its own use as a problematic model for others, clearly when Achilles says (19.64–65): “This was better for the Hektor and the Trojans: I think that the Achaeans will remember our strife for a long time.” (῞Εκτορι μὲν καὶ Τρωσὶ τὸ κέρδιον· αὐτὰρ ᾿Αχαιοὺς / δηρὸν ἐμῆς καὶ σῆς ἔριδος μνήσεσθαι ὀΐω).

Major Iliadic Paradeigmata

1.259–274                       Nestor’s tale of the Lapiths and Centaurs

1.393–407                       Thetis’ rescue of Zeus

4.370–400                       Agamemnon’s Tale of Tydeus

5.382–404                       Dionê’s list of gods harmed by mortals

6.130-140                       Diomedes on Lykourgos and Dionysus to Glaukos

7.124–160                       Nestor’s one-on-one combat);

9.524–605                       Phoinix’s Meleager Tale

11.669–762                    Nestor’s story to Patroklos

14.315–328                    Zeus’ Erotic Catalogue

15.18–30                         Zeus’ Warning to Hera

18.394–405                    Thetis’ rescue of Hephaestus;

19. 90–144                      Agamemnon’s tale of Atê, Zeus and the birth of Herakles

[23.629–643                  Nestor’s Reminiscence]

24.596–620                    Achilles’ tale of Niobê

Andersen (1987) on paradeigmata: primary, secondary, and tertiary functions

1.                Persuasion of one character by another

2.                Reflection of the main story

3.                Modeling of reading the epic as a whole; cf. Nagy 2009, 54: “[Homeric] poetry actually demonstrates how myth is activated”

Some things to read on paradeigmata

Andersen, Øivind. 1987. “Myth Paradigm and Spatial Form in the Iliad.” In Homer Beyond Oral Poetry: Recent Trends in Homeric Interpretation, edited by Jan Bermer and Irene J. F. De Jong. John Benjamins.’

Barker, Elton T. E. and Christensen, Joel P. 2011. “On Not Remembering Tydeus: Agamemnon, Diomedes and the Contest for Thebes.” MD: 9–44.

Brenk, F. 1984 “Dear Child: the Speech of Phoinix and the Tragedy of Achilles in the Ninth Book of the Iliad.” Eranos, 86: 77–86.

Braswell, B. K. 1971. “Mythological Innovation in the Iliad.” CQ, 21: 16-26.

Clark, Matthew. 1997. “Chryses’ Supplication: Speech Act and Mythological Allusion.” Classical Antiquity, 17: 5–24.

Combellack, F.M. 1976. “Homer the Innovator.” CP 71: 44-55.

Edmunds, L. 1997. Myth in Homer, in A New Companion to Homer, edited by I. Morris and B. Powell, 415–441. Leiden.

Held, G. 1987. “Phoinix, Agamemnon and Achilles. Problems and Paradeigmata.” CQ 36: 141-54.

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

Minchin, Elizabeth. 1991. “Speaker and Listener, Text and Context: Some Notes on the Encounter of Nestor and Patroklos in Iliad 11.” CW 84: 273-285.

Nagy, Gregory. 1996. Homeric Questions, Austin.

—,—. 2009. “Homer and Greek Myth.” Cambridge Companion to Greek Mythology, 52–82.

Pedrick, V. 1983. “The Paradigmatic Nature of Nestor’s Speech in Iliad 11.” Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Society, 113:55-68.

Tierney, William G. 1989. Curricular Landscapes, Democratic Vistas: Transformative Leadership in Higher Education New York: Praeger.

Toohey, Peter. 1994. “Epic and Rhetoric.” In Persuasion: Greek Rhetoric in Actions edited by Ian Worthington. London: Routledge: 153–75.

Willcock, M.M. 1967. “Mythological Paradeigmata in the Iliad.” Classical Quarterly, 14:141-151.

____,____. 1977, Ad hoc invention in the Iliad, HSCP 81:41–53.

Yamagata, Naoko. 1991. “Phoinix’s Speech: Is Achilles Punished?” Classical Quarterly, 41:1-15.

All the (Epic) Rage: Free Tools for Reading Homer’s Iliad

~ Joel ~ 1 Comment

As I have talked about elsewhere, translations of Homer are creations of their own, serving their audiences and contexts in important ways and sometimes standing as works of art on their own. The act of translation, however, in creating something new, does not fully represent the range of meaning or tones available in the original. 

Even spending many years studying ancient Greek rarely provides us with the depth of understanding necessary to appreciate Homeric language and meaning. Studying Homer takes repetition and sustained reflection, alongside discussion with others. For those interested in learning a little more about the Homeric texts and trying to make some sense of them on their own, I have included some tools here.

The closest thing that Homeric poetry has to the useful intralinear parsing tools available for the bible, is the interface provided by the SCAIFE viewer. (The Scaife Viewer is the next-gen version of Perseus.org)

screenshot of the intralinear bible homepage for Genesis 1:1

Because of the complexity of options available, the Scaife Viewer takes a little time to get used too. But it provides lexical, morphological, and commentary tools (with bibliography). Make sure to turn on the “highlight” function under TEXT mode nd the right hand column can provide definitions, parsing, and access to commentary on the word and line in particular.

screenshot of the Iliad 1 page for the Scaife viewer

Another tool that is probably the coolest thing on the internet (for a Homer-dork like me) is the Homer Multitext Project. This interface allows you to look at high-resolution images of some of our best medieval manuscripts of Homer.

screenshot of the first page of the Venetus A Iliad from the Homer Multitext website

The manuscripts are transcribed, so you can compare what appears in each on to what you find on Scaife elsewhere. But what is super cool is that the links to the side are keyed to the various levels of scholia (marginal comments, think footnotes from ancient scholars) all throughout the text.

screenshot of detail of transcription from Venetus A manuscript on Homer Multitext website

This can give you access to transcriptions of the scholia throughout the manuscript. If you are ambitious, you can use the transcriptions and the images to teach yourself a little palaeography too.

screenshot of detail of transcription from Venetus A manuscript on Homer Multitext website

Other web based tools:

A combination of the resources above and some others available online can help make anyone today the envy of Homerists only two generations ago. Here are a few more:

The Thesaurus Linguae Graecae, which keeps promising to be completely free some day, has been one of the most important tools in digital humanities since before the term was even coined. Its accessibility and paywall issues, however, have limited its impact outside of academic circles. In its full form it has all of extant Greek literature, but the major content-based limitation (as with other digital interfaces) is that the contents are based on specific editions of ancient texts without a sufficient apparatus criticus (the system of notes at the bottom of a critical edition that indicate manuscript variants and editorial choices). Like the Loeb and Perseus, this means TLG texts have the appearance of unity and authority, without actually possessing either.

On the TLG site you can access Cunliffe’s Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect.

Walter Leaf’s Commentary on the Iliad is available through Perseus. Three are downloadable versions through the HathiTrust.

For those who want to download tools to a computer or tablet, here are some of my favorites:

Homer’s Iliad edited by Monro and Allen (the OCT Text)

Helmut van Thiel’s edition of the D. Scholia: a clean and easy to read FREE pdf with far more of the D Scholia than are included in the TLG. Dindorff’s Scholia to the Iliad can also be downloaded

Benner’s Selections from Homer’s Iliad” a great introductory text with grammar and vocabulary

Cunliffe’s Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect

Thank you for reading Painful Signs, Or, Joel’s Substack. This post is public so feel free to share it.

The Politics of Rage: Beginning the Iliad, Again

~ sententiaeantiquae ~ 6 Comments

Some Reading Guidelines for Iliad 1

The first book of the Iliad is often a surprise to readers who come to it from general knowledge of myth. It not really about the Trojan War.  It is a narrative set in a Trojan War that sets up surprising inversions and initiates a plot that advances some kind of a plan (be it cosmic and about the end of the race of Heroes, or local, and really about honoring Achilles by harming the Trojans).  As I discuss in an earlier post the beginning of the Iliad contains thematically resonant language that engages with the larger poetic tradition while also informing audiences what to expect from this poem. 

The introduction—called a ‘proem’ by classical scholars—does most of the work to set you on your way. It announces the them (Achilles’ rage), what it does (kill people) but with a twist (it kills Achaeans). All of this is framed as being part of Zeus’ plan. The cause of the rage, in this story, is a fall out between Achilles and Agamemnon, a “strife” (eris) that threatens to undermine the whole war effort.

Picture of realistic oil painting, a nude beardless man looking angry. Seated
The Wrath of Achilles (1847). Musée Fabre, Montpellier, France by François-Léon Benouville

When authors in antiquity talk about “The Rage of Achilles” as a narrative, I think we too often assume that their story is the same as ours. But even in the Iliad Achilles rages for different reasons: first at Agamemnon, then at Hektor for the death of Patroklos. We also know that in other traditions he raged over the death of Nestor’s son Antilochus and that multiforms of the beginning of our poem variously list as themes the rage of Apollo or the ‘rages’ of Apollo and Achilles. My point in bringing this up, is that we can’t assume that every story about Achilles’ rage was political in nature—our Iliad may very well be a particular variation on that theme, one that resonated with audiences for whom the political wrangling of the aristocracy was of particular interest. (Or, perhaps, political posturing among cities, etc.)

For me, the most influential account of Achilles’ rage is my Greek teacher’s book The Anger of Achilles: Menis in Greek Epic, which explains in part that Menis signals a rage reserved for divine figures over cosmic disorder.  (For a complementary treatment of different words for Anger in the Homeric poems, see Thomas Walsh’s Fighting Words and Feuding Words: Anger and the Homeric Poems.) Two recent and important books should be read as supplements for this. Emily Austin’s Grief and the Hero explores how longing, absence, and grief are critical corollaries for rage, while Rachel Lesser’s Desire in the Iliad details how desire pervades the fabric of epic poetry and motivates its characters.

In my post on major themes for reading the Iliad, I offer five threads to follow in the epic: (1) Politics, (2) Heroism; (3) Gods and Humans; (4) Family & Friends; (5) Narrative Traditions.  Book 1 gives us a start for each of these, but is entangled the most with the theme of politics. Everything about the conflict between Achilles and Agamemnon in book 1 is embroiled in political questions: who is in charge, who gets to authorize an action, who runs the assembly, who cares for the people, and the risk posed to their collective health and mission by leaders who put their own interests ahead of others.’

Screenshot of a color photograph of a red figure vase painting. A warrior in armor raises a spear
Achilles fighting against Memnon Leiden Rijksmuseum voor Oudheden

Despite the clarity of these questions, there was a long time when scholars argued you couldn’t talk about politics in Homer. That has really changed over the past generation or so. (Full disclosure, I wrote my dissertation on Politics and rhetoric in the Iliad.) Walter Donlan and Dean Hammer really paved the way for later scholars like Elton Barker and David Elmer to argue that the Iliad functions in part as a way to establish political institutions (and make room for dissent) and also to show the importance of public assent and the appearance of shared decision making. My small addition to this is that the political themes of the Iliad are explored on three stages with contrasting uses of language and power: first, the Achaeans, then the gods, and finally the Trojans.

The poem starts with a plot convention that entangles the worlds of gods and men, a plague. But the plague, rather than being part of the cosmic plan, is set into motion by human activity to which the gods respond. Plagues themselves in the ancient world are contexts for political crises to be explored.

Below I have provided a bibliography for politics in the Iliad. I will return to it in critical books. For now, I have provided some guiding questions as you think or teach about Iliad 1. I find it useful not to have too many questions, just some basic frameworks for beginning a conversation. Don’t forget that I have a post with practical advice for reading and teaching Homer. If you have other questions or additional bibliography to add, don’t hesitate to reach out. I have selected questions I find effective in preparing students for subsequent books and following the specific thematic threads.

Some guiding questions

What is Zeus’ plan?

What’s the first mistake?

How do the Achaeans respond to the debate?

What are the political dynamics of the conflict between Agamemnon and Achilles?

What does Achilles’ really ask Zeus for?

 

A short Bibliography on Politics in the Iliad

Barker E. T. E. 2004. “Achilles’ Last Stand: Institutionalising Dissent in Homer’s Iliad.” Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society: 92–120.

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

Chaston, C. 2002. “Three Models of Authority in the Odyssey.” The Classical World 96: 3–19.

Christensen, Joel P. 2015. “Trojan Politics and the Assemblies of Iliad 7.”

Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 55:25–51.

Cook, Erwin. 1999. “ ‘Active’ and ‘Passive’ Heroics in the Odyssey.” Classical

World 93:149–67.

Donlan, W. 1979. “The Structure of Authority in the Iliad.” Arethusa 12:51–70.

———. 2002. “Achilles the Ally.” Arethusa 35:155–172.

Elmer, D. 2013. The Poetics of Consent: Collective Decision-Making and the Iliad. Baltimore.

Hammer, D. 1997. “‘Who Shall Readily Obey?’ Authority and Politics in the Iliad.” Phoenix 51:1–24.

———. 2002. The Iliad as Politics: The Performance of Political Thought. Norman.

Haubold, J. 2000. Homer’s People: Epic Poetry and Social Formation. Cambridge.

Mackie, H. 1996. Talking Trojan: Speech and Community in the Iliad. Lanham.

Postlethwaite, N. 1998. “Thersites in the Iliad.” In Homer: Greek and Roman Studies, ed. I. McAuslan and P. Walcot, 83–95. Oxford.

Roisman, H. 2005. “Nestor the Good Counsellor.” The Classical Quarterly 55: 17–38.

Rose, P.W. 1997. “Ideology in the Iliad: Polis, Basileus, Theoi.” Arethusa 30:151–199.

Thalmann, W. G. 1988. “Thersites: Comedy, Scapegoats and Heroic Ideology in the Iliad.” Transactions of the American Philological Association 118:1–28.

———. 2004. “The Most Divinely Approved and Political Discord.” Classical Antiquity 23:359–399.

Wilson, D. F. 2002a. Ransom, Revenge and Heroic Identity in the Iliad. Cambridge.