Near the end of the epic, we find one that’s quite remarkable.

Homer, Iliad 12.421-426

“But, just as two men strive over boundary stones,
As they hold their yardsticks in hand in a shared field
and they struggle over a fair share of the limited earth,
So did the fortifications separate them.
But over them still they struck one another
On their oxhide circles and winged shields.”

ἀλλ’ ὥς τ’ ἀμφ’ οὔροισι δύ’ ἀνέρε δηριάασθον
μέτρ’ ἐν χερσὶν ἔχοντες ἐπιξύνῳ ἐν ἀρούρῃ,
ὥ τ’ ὀλίγῳ ἐνὶ χώρῳ ἐρίζητον περὶ ἴσης,
ὣς ἄρα τοὺς διέεργον ἐπάλξιες· οἳ δ’ ὑπὲρ αὐτέων
δῄουν ἀλλήλων ἀμφὶ στήθεσσι βοείας
ἀσπίδας εὐκύκλους λαισήϊά τε πτερόεντα.

Schol. T ad Il. 12.423b

“This is about the intensity. For those who possess more might look down on [fighting like this?”

ex. ὀλίγῳ ἐνὶ χώρῳ: εἰς ἐπίτασιν· οἱ γὰρ πλείονα κεκτημένοι ἴσως καταφρονοῦσιν.

I have spent the better part of the past 20 years, reading, thinking, and writing about the Homeric epics. After all this, I am still regularly surprised by how much I don’t understand and often shocked by the fact that I have spent so many years doing just this, re-reading, being surprised, and then trying to learn something new.

The truth is, there was a time when I had little regard for the Homeric epics. I started reading them because I wanted to understand the ‘literature’ that followed them. About the same time I started reading Homer in the original, which was transformative on its own, I read both epics again in translation. The oceanic gap between the experience of the Greek and the translations rattled my confidence in my own aesthetic judgments (and in the act of translation).

In the middle of the battle over the walls the Greek have constructed against the resurgent Trojan defenders, the warring sides are compared to two men fighting over measuring their share of a common field. Even to this day, this comparison seems so disarmingly true as it reduces the grand themes of the struggles between Trojans and Greek, Agamemnon and Achilles, to that of two men over shared resources. The Iliad, at one level, is all about scarcity: scarcity of goods, of women, of honor, of life-time, and, ultimately, the scarcity of fame.

This simile works through metonymy to represent not just the action on the field of battle at this moment, but the conditions that prompt the greater conflict and those that constrain human life. It leaps through time and space and indicates how this poem differs from simple myths. The normal mortals who love this poem aren’t kings or demigods; we live small, sometimes desperate lives, the conditions of which are improved or exacerbated by how well we work together to make fair shares of our public goods.

The scholiast’s comments above, then, are doubly laughable. If I am reading them right (and the verb καταφρονοῦσιν without an object can be annoying), the commentator is imagining that these men in the simile are struggling over this small bit of land because they are poor and that wealthier men would not bother. Not only is this a tragic misunderstanding of human nature (wait tables or tend bar for only a few weeks and you will discover that the good tippers are not the wealthiest ones), but it is a poor reading of the epic, where the wealthiest and most powerful men alive are more than happy to keep fighting and ensuring that their people die.

The point of the simile is that it provides a meeting point between the actors of the poem and the worlds of the audiences; the line that separates imaginative story in the audience’s minds from the lives they live becomes permeable and the hero meets the mortal in the shared experience. This is how the world becomes a part of the story and how it also  shapes the poem.

Right after this, there’s another simile.

Iliad 12.427-438

“Many were struck across their flesh by pitiless bronze
Whenever they turned and bared their backs
As they struggled, although many were also struck through their shields.
The towers and walls were decorated everywhere with the blood
Of men from both sides, from Trojans and Achaeans.

Yet, they still could not force the Achaians to flee—
No, it held as when an honest weaving woman holds
The balance and draws out the weight and the wool on both sides
to make them equal so she might earn some wretched wage for her children.
So the battle and the war was stretched even on each side
Until Zeus gave the glory over to Hektor
Priam’s son, who first broke through the wall of the Achaeans.”

πολλοὶ δ’ οὐτάζοντο κατὰ χρόα νηλέϊ χαλκῷ,
ἠμὲν ὅτεῳ στρεφθέντι μετάφρενα γυμνωθείη
μαρναμένων, πολλοὶ δὲ διαμπερὲς ἀσπίδος αὐτῆς.
πάντῃ δὴ πύργοι καὶ ἐπάλξιες αἵματι φωτῶν
ἐρράδατ’ ἀμφοτέρωθεν ἀπὸ Τρώων καὶ ᾿Αχαιῶν.
ἀλλ’ οὐδ’ ὧς ἐδύναντο φόβον ποιῆσαι ᾿Αχαιῶν,
ἀλλ’ ἔχον ὥς τε τάλαντα γυνὴ χερνῆτις ἀληθής,
ἥ τε σταθμὸν ἔχουσα καὶ εἴριον ἀμφὶς ἀνέλκει
ἰσάζουσ’, ἵνα παισὶν ἀεικέα μισθὸν ἄρηται·
ὣς μὲν τῶν ἐπὶ ἶσα μάχη τέτατο πτόλεμός τε,
πρίν γ’ ὅτε δὴ Ζεὺς κῦδος ὑπέρτερον ῞Εκτορι δῶκε
Πριαμίδῃ, ὃς πρῶτος ἐσήλατο τεῖχος ᾿Αχαιῶν.

Schol D + bT ad Il. 12.433-435 ex.

“The equal balance of those fighting, [Homer] compared to the beam of a loom, again. For nothing is so precisely similar to an even balance. And the one weighing this out is not the mistress of the household—for she does not often trouble this much for so small an equal bit—nor is it one of the household maids—for they would not seek to make so precise a measure since they are fed by the household’s master and do not risk their nourishment if they mess up on the loom weights—but it is a woman for hire who must provide what is needed for living by the effort of her hands.”

ex. | D ἀλλ’ ἔχον ὥς τε τάλαντα<—μισθὸν ἄρη-ται>: πάλιν τὸ ἰσοπαλὲς τῶν μαχομένων παρέβαλε ζυγῷ· οὐδὲν γὰρ οὕτως ἀκριβὲς πρὸς ἰσότητα. καὶ ἡ ταλαντεύουσα οὐκ ἔστι δέσποινα οἰκίας (ταύτην γὰρ οὐ λυπεῖ πολλάκις τὸ παρὰ βραχὺ ἴσον), ἀλλ’ οὐδὲ θεραπαινίς (οὐ γὰρ αὗται ζητοῦσι τὸ ἀκριβὲς εἰς τοσοῦτον, ἅτε δὴ ὑπὸ τοῦ δεσπότου τρεφόμεναι b [BCE3E4] T καὶ οὐκ ἐν τῷ διαμαρτεῖν περὶ τὸν σταθμὸν κινδυνεύουσαι περὶ τροφήν), T χερνῆτις (433) δέ, ἡ χειρὶ τὰ πρὸς τὸ ζῆν πορίζουσα, ἵνα παισὶν ἀεικέα (435) φησίν.

This passage has long moved me too because, as with the earlier simile, the great ‘epic’ themes and images of war were reduced to something simple, daily, and completely understandable. Even in the ancient world where many members of the audiences probably had considerably more experience of violence than we do and where most aristocratic audience members would certainly have nothing but contempt for working for a living, many probably heard a crucial echo of their own lives in this surprising comparison.

I also appreciate the way that the scholiasts here home in on how dire this woman’s position is, making the dubious but nonetheless striking claim that the household servants led less precarious lives than the woman of the simile who draws the weight so precisely because her pay—and the lives of her children—depend upon it. In a crucial way, this simile evokes the same sense of scarcity as that of the men on the field—but it adds that an all too familiar anxiety from the precarity that emerges when one lives constantly with the sense of how scarce those things we value are.

It may seem a stretch, but the image of the weaving woman evokes for me the creative power of women presented elsewhere in Homer–Helen weaves the story of her own kleos, Penelope weaves shroud whose images are never revealed. In a way, the tension prepared by the woman’s hands within the simile is a comparison for the balance of war and a metaphor for an act of creation. The epic’s plot and the audience’s experience are similarly drawn out in the narrator’s hands.

This is another place where the method of reading I have mentioned before can be helpful. As I describe in the post on book 9, some cognitive approaches to literature follow reader response theories to suggest that when we engage with narratives we create a blend of the stories we hear and our experiences in our minds. What this means, in effect, is that our actual mental picture of narrative blends our own experiences and memories with the sketches we receive from stories and generates a new thing. I think that the way that similes unfold in the Homeric narrative demonstrate the blending or bleedover of something in one world (the tenor, the notional real) compared to something in the imagination (the vehicle of the simile). Similes move and shift from an initial comparison to something different, conflating the identities and qualities of tenor and vehicle together. I think this echoes what happens in reading epic in general: our real world and the fantasy of epic interweave in our minds during the telling and interpretation of the tale, creating something different, unpredictable, each time.

 

 

Indeed, the scarcity and precarity evoked by this simile and the one that precedes it extends the transitional moment begun with the image of the farmers to create anticipatory tension in the audience. At the epic’s middle, before we move from book 12 to 13 and to the slaughter of the Achaeans at the ships, the balance hangs ever briefly before it breaks. Hektor surges through the Achaean fortification: the balance of action fails just as the balance of the plot will too—the story of Achilles’ withdrawal will now translate into the slaughter he asked Zeus to precipitate leading to the death of Patroklos, Hektor and, ultimately, Achilles too.

These similes stand at the middle of the poem and convey the sense of tension at the passing of this moment and the spinning of the tale itself. The nameless men and the nameless woman stand in contrast to the named heroes who will suffer and die in the following books. But they are also vehicles moving between the lives of the audiences and the heroes’ deeds marking off the small stakes for which all are struggling and the limited life by which we are all constrained.

Iliad 12, from the Venetus A Manuscript (via the Homer Multitext Project)[/caption]

A Starter Bibliography on Similes in Homer

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

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

Beck, Deborah, The stories of similes in Greek and Roman epic. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2023. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Iliad 12 tells the story of the battle around the walls that protect the Achaean ships. Like other books of the Iliad, remarkable speeches intersperse the action. One of the most famous Homeric speeches appears about two-thirds of the way through the book as the Trojan ally, Sarpedon—a son of Zeus—turns to speak to his friend Glaukos:

Homer, Iliad 12.310-328

‘Glaukos, why are you and I honored before others
by place, the best meat and cups filled with wine
in Lykia, and all men look on us as gods,
and we have great tracts of land Xanthos’ banks,
good holdings with orchards and vineyards, farmland for wheat too?
Because of this we must stand at the head of the Lykians 
and take our part of the burden of battle’s fire
so that one of those well-armored Lykians may see us and say:

“Indeed, these lords of Lykia are no base-born men,
these kings of ours, who dine on the fatted sheep selected for them
and drink the finest wine, since there is in fact strength
and courage in them, when they fight in the forefront of the Lykians.”

But, friend, imagine if you and I could escape this battle
and be able to live forever, ageless, immortal–
then neither would I myself go on fighting in the frontlines
nor would I tell you to seek the fighting that brings us glory.
But now, since death’s ghosts stand around us numbered
in their thousands and no person can ever escape them,
let’s go on and claim this glory for ourselves or give it to others in turn.”

Γλαῦκε τί ἢ δὴ νῶϊ τετιμήμεσθα μάλιστα
ἕδρῃ τε κρέασίν τε ἰδὲ πλείοις δεπάεσσιν
ἐν Λυκίῃ, πάντες δὲ θεοὺς ὣς εἰσορόωσι,
καὶ τέμενος νεμόμεσθα μέγα Ξάνθοιο παρ’ ὄχθας
καλὸν φυταλιῆς καὶ ἀρούρης πυροφόροιο;
τὼ νῦν χρὴ Λυκίοισι μέτα πρώτοισιν ἐόντας
ἑστάμεν ἠδὲ μάχης καυστείρης ἀντιβολῆσαι,
ὄφρά τις ὧδ’ εἴπῃ Λυκίων πύκα θωρηκτάων·
οὐ μὰν ἀκλεέες Λυκίην κάτα κοιρανέουσιν
ἡμέτεροι βασιλῆες, ἔδουσί τε πίονα μῆλα
οἶνόν τ’ ἔξαιτον μελιηδέα· ἀλλ’ ἄρα καὶ ἲς
ἐσθλή, ἐπεὶ Λυκίοισι μέτα πρώτοισι μάχονται.
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.

In this speech Sarpedon first rhetorically affirms their privileged position among their countrymen and then asserts that it is this very position that obligates them to prove their noble worth through noble deeds—deeds that will earn them fame. The two men, according to Sarpedon, are honored like immortals and that they are treated as immortals requires them to attain the immortality that is available for men (that is, kleos).

The near divine honors that they receive, the very acts that require them to seek kleos, are material (food, wine, land). Following this statement, Sarpedon wishes that they were immortal so they would not have to fight, touching upon the irony of heroic immortality, an immortality that is something completely different from that of the Olympian gods. Since they are mortal and they will die no matter what, they should go into battle and “win glory or give it to someone else.”

It is life’s status as a limited commodity that gives those who risk it a share of the immortal in the form of fame.  In discussing Homeric heroism, Margalit Finkelberg refers to Sarpedon’s speech writes “The Iliad proceeds from an idea of hero’ which is pure and simple: one who prizes honour and glory above life itself and dies on the battlefield in the prime of life” (1995, 1). Adam Parry cites this passage when he asserts that “moral standards as values of life are essentially agreed on by everyone in the Iliad” (1956, 3; see Pucci 1998, 49-68 for an extended discussion of this passage).     And many other authors (see Hammer 2002, Adkins 1982)  agree with this.  But I think the key phrase in Finkelberg’s sentence is proceeds from. The epic does not by any means insist that this articulation of values is unquestionable or, ultimately, good. As James Arieti suggests  (1986, 1), the basic framework of these values are assumed in book 1, where Hera has Athena promise Achilles that he will be compensated 3 or 4 times over for his loss of honor (1.213) but ultimately questioned in book 9 by Achilles dissent.

To fully understand Sarpedon’s comments, they need to be contextualized in the action of book 12 and the flow of the plot since the embassy to Achilles. Achilles’ rejection of the offer of the gifts stands in contrast to his commitment to stay and fight, regardless of what he will receive. Book 12 is the first significant commentary on heroic behavior since the embassy, and the actions center around the Achaean chieftains who have no choice but to defend the walls around the ships and Hektor as he tries to break through the wall. As S. Faron argues, Sarpedon is the one who does the most in battle in this book and, by contrast, Hektor’s grasping for glory might seem more desperate or ill-considered. Yet, even if Sarpedon’s comments ring noble, they are attenuated by his eventual death, one so prominent that it prompts Zeus to cry tears of blood.

I have no doubt that Sarpedon presents something of a standard heroic ‘code’ in this passage. The question, as usual, is to what extent we are supposed to accept the standard articulation as sufficient or still applying. A key note of dissonance here is the contrast between Sarpedon’s dream of immortality and Hektor’s boast in book 8. There Hektor says,

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.

One significant contrast between this wish and Sarpedon’s is the audience: Sarpedon speaks only to Glaukos as they face death in an intimate way, acknowledging that, just maybe, facing men with spears on top of a wall is a less desirable way to spend a life than dining and drinking. Hektor, in contrast, speaks in bluster to rally his troops to do something they have never done before (remain outside the walls and face the Achaeans.

I find it interesting that there is some contrast in the scholiastic response to this. Hektor’s wish to be immortal is denigrated (“Praying for the impossible is barbaric” βαρβαρικὸν τὸ εὔχεσθαι τὰ ἀδύνατα, Schol. bT ad Hom. Il. 8.538-539b) while Sarpedon’s reverie is praise as “a noble sentiment” (εὐγενὴς ἡ γνώμη, Schol. b ad Hom. Il. 12.322-8 ex.). Sarpedon’s odd detachment seems somehow more to the taste of Hektor’s more desperate energy.

And this gets me to the primary differences in the statements and the core of what I see as the Iliad’s stance on this kind of heroism. Achilles can linger by his ships, indulging in navel-gazing and worrying about life’s meaning, because no one is forcing him to fight. They are asking him. Similarly, Sarpedon–also a demi-god–comes as an ally who fights for the promise of honor, goods, and glory. Hektor knows what Achilles only learns too late: if he does not fight, everyone he loves dies. All the words of honor and glory and any sense of noblesse oblige ring hollow in comparison to this. And I think that any reading of Sarpedon’s speech that does not acknowledge audience familiarity with his death misses a crucial aspect of its interpretation.

Sarpedon’s articulation, I think, has drawn praise over the ages because it isn’t messy. He doesn’t talk about not fighting; he idly imagines a life of ease and makes the choice to stand. Hektor’s prevarication and later vacillation in the face of danger troubles us because however fantastic it may sound, it is not a fantasy. His fight is about survival; any talk of glory is just a distraction from the mortal truth.

And there’s a moral content as well. What does it mean for audiences to praise the exploits of ‘heroes’ who fight for personal gain and intangible, indefinable, things like fame? Achilles doubts this; Sarpedon merely restates this; the rest of the epic helps us judge the matter for ourselves.

Short bibliography on Sarpedon’s Speech

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

Adkins, A. W. H. “Values, Goals, and Emotions in the Iliad.” Classical Philology 77, no. 4 (1982): 292–326. http://www.jstor.org/stable/269413. 

Arieti, James A. “Achilles’ Alienation in ‘Iliad 9.’” The Classical Journal 82, no. 1 (1986): 1–27. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3297803.

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

Finkelberg, Margalit. “Odysseus and the Genus ‘Hero.’” Greece & Rome 42, no. 1 (1995): 1–14. http://www.jstor.org/stable/643068.

HAMMER, DEAN. “THE ‘ILIAD’ AS ETHICAL THINKING: POLITICS, PITY, AND THE OPERATION OF ESTEEM.” Arethusa 35, no. 2 (2002): 203–35. http://www.jstor.org/stable/44578882.

Howald, Ernst. “Sarpedon.” Museum Helveticum 8, no. 2/3 (1951): 111–18. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24811891.

A. Parry, 1956. “The Language of Achilles,” TAPA 87, 1-8.

P. Pucci,1998. The Song of the Sirens: Essays on Homer, Lanham.

Bonus Sarpedon Content

Pindar, Pythian 3.108-116

“I’ll be small for minor matters but big for big ones
and I will cultivate in my thoughts
The fate that comes to me, serving it by my own design.

So if god allows me wealth’s luxury
I have hope of finding fame’s height as well.

We know about Nestor and Lykian Sarpedon–
People’s legends, from famous songs which
The wise craftsmen assembled. And excellence blooms
In famous songs for all time. But it is easy for only a few to earn.”

σμικρὸς ἐν σμικροῖς, μέγας ἐν μεγάλοις
ἔσσομαι, τὸν δ᾿ ἀμφέποντ᾿ αἰεὶ φρασίν
δαίμον᾿ ἀσκήσω κατ᾿ ἐμὰν θεραπεύων μαχανάν.
εἰ δέ μοι πλοῦτον θεὸς ἁβρὸν ὀρέξαι,
ἐλπίδ᾿ ἔχω κλέος εὑρέσθαι κεν ὑψηλὸν πρόσω.
Νέστορα καὶ Λύκιον Σαρπηδόν᾿, ἀνθρώπων φάτις,
ἐξ ἐπέων κελαδεννῶν, τέκτονες οἷα σοφοί
ἅρμοσαν, γινώσκομεν· ἁ δ᾿ ἀρετὰ κλειναῖς ἀοιδαῖς
χρονία τελέθει· παύροις δὲ πράξασθ᾿ εὐμαρές.

Iliad 12 puts the audience both at the middle of the epic’s ‘run-time’ and at the middle of the field between Troy and the Greeks. One of the many inversions that characterize our Iliad is the transformation of besiegers into besieged. The only wall-breaching that occurs in the Iliad is of the Achaean Walls at the end of book 12 by Hektor himself. In the arc of the poem’s action, this book sits in the 6 book sequence that takes up the single day following the embassy to Achilles and the night raids of book 10.

Book 12 occupies a curious place in this arc, however: the focus of the narrative moves between the frantic defense of the Greek fortifications and conversations among the Trojan attackers. In addition to the final breaking of the wall and an initial foreshadowing of the wall’s future destruction, book 12 contains two famous scenes: (1) Hektor arguing with Polydamas about an omen that appears as they prepare to breach the wall and (2) Sarpedon reflecting to his buddy Glaukos about why they have to fight. Near the end of the book there are a few remarkable similes, to which I will dedicate an entire post.

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 11 are Narrative traditions, heroism, and politics.

Narrative Traditions (Redux): The Destruction of the Wall

As discussed in an earlier post, one of the features of book 12 that has made interpreters a little batty is the description of the destruction of the Achaean fortifications after the events of the Iliad are complete. When the wall is first built in Iliad 6, Poseidon complains that the new wall will erase all memory of the wall he and Apollo built for the Trojans. The back-and-forth between Poseidon and Zeus makes it clear that the wall is in part about divine honor and fame, and that Zeus’ ability to guarantee such things keep the divine realm stable politically in a way that is impossible for mortals (and which underpins the conflict between Agamemnon and Achilles in book 1).

When the wall is ‘destroyed’ at the beginning of book 12, it provides a nice structure to the book (anticipating Hektor’s breaching of the wall at the end), but it also engages with the ‘glory’ of the epic in interesting ways.

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.

As I mention earlier, this passage can be seen as engaging fundamentally with epic concerns about the stability of memory and the persistence of human stories. 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 suggests 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:

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.

Beginning book 12 with the destruction of the object that the whole book is dedicated merely to breaching creates a dynamic tension between the larger story tradition and the one being told. How we interpret this tension depends on the position we take towards epic participants. Does divine intervention to erase the wall in the future elevate or denigrate Hektor’s accomplishment in the book? How does the erasure of evidence of the actions help to characterize the power of epic narrative over objects?

I don’t know that I can answer either of these questions, but I suspect a third is important as well: how does knowing about the future destruction of the walls shape our attitude about all the events that fall around them? In a way, I think the entire setup at the heart of the epic is a metaphor for human accomplishment. A pessimistic view sees the juxtaposition of destruction and Hektor’s big moment as showing how futile human action is, how useless from the cosmic scale. Such a reading, I suggest, takes an overly deterministic stance, wholly crediting the notion that all of the events of the epic are just a part of Zeus’ plan.

A less pessimistic view: how impressive it is that Hektor breaks the wall and changes the balance of the war when it eventually takes so much divine effort to get rid of the gods altogether. From the perspective of Homeric poetics, the story of Hektor’s battle persists even though the wall is gone.

But, wait, there’s more: I think the less pessimistic view may be too generous to the power of Homeric poetry to preserve great deeds from destruction. Hektor disappears (in this epic!) long before the walls are erased. I get a sense from this book that the pairing of the two wall-events is indeed about putting human action in cosmic perspective. This is not to relativize it or dismiss it, but to see it for what it is. Hektor did something, he meant something. We spend our lives wondering what it means to have been, to have done much, to have suffered, and then to be gone. Iliad 12 may ask us to think about what it means if no one remembers us at all.

Perhaps it is the general zeitgeist, but scenes like this and those from Iliad 6 cause me to recall the final scenes of the tonally odd but striking Don’t Look Up (2021). As a final atmospheric event promises to end all life on earth, a small group gathers for a final meal, incapable of changing anything. Leonardo DiCaprio’s character opines, “We really did have everything, did we? I mean, when you think about it…” (and it seems the actor may have improvised this!)

I know it may seem that this post-apocalyptic film is rather far away from Hektor, tamer of horses, but the language of book 12 invokes cataclysmic destruction and for the city and the Trojans, Hektor’s death is truly one of those last distant events that seals their doom. I think the point of the final scene and book 12 is the reminder that living is in the doing, in the day to day, in the struggle.

Memory belongs to something else altogether.

Signs and their Meanings: Hektor and Polydamas debate a bird omen

I think that some reading of the futility/meaning of human action is important to this book as well because it can help frame the critical engagement between Hektor and Polydamas in the middle of the book. When the Trojans are about to break through the Achaean wall an eagle carrying a snake flies over them: the snake bites the eagle; eagle drops the snake and flies off screeching. The narrator tells us that the Trojans shuddered at the sight.

Iliad 12.199–257

“They were still struggling standing before the wall when a bird went over them as they were struggling to cross it, a high-flying eagle moving its way over the left side of the army holding in its talons a huge, reddened, snake still alive, breathing: it had not yet lost its fighting spirit. For it struck back at the bird who held him in the skin along the chest as it bent double. And the bird tossed him away to the ground because he was tortured with pains. It dropped the snake in the middle of the throng but flew away on the breath of the wind, sounding out in pain. The Trojans shuddered when they saw the winding serpent lying there, a sign from Aegis-bearing Zeus.

Then Polydamas stood aside and addressed bold Hektor: “Hektor, you are always threatening me in the public assemblies for some reason, even when I advise well, since it is not ever deemed proper for some member of the people to advise against you, either in council or in war. Instead, we must always increase your strength. But now I will tell you what seems to me to be best. Let’s not go to fight the Danaans around their ships. I think that it will turn out this way, if truly this bird came over the Trojans as we struggled to cross the wall, a high-flying eagle moving its way over the left side of the army holding in its talons a huge dark, reddened snake still alive. For it dropped it before it could return to its dear home and did not complete the task of giving it to his children. In the same way we, if we break through the gates and walls of the Achaeans by means of great strength and the Achaeans yield, so too we will not find the same paths in order among the ships. We will lose many Trojans there as the Achaeans strike us down with bronze while defending the ships. This is how a prophet would interpret, one who clearly understands in his heart divine signs and one the people obey.”

Glaring at him, shining-helmed Hektor answered: “Polydamas, you never announce things dear to me in public. You know how to make a different, better speech than this one. If you are really arguing this out loud earnestly, well, then, the gods have ruined your thoughts themselves, you who order me to forget the counsels of loud-thundering Zeus, what he himself promised and assented to for me.  Now you ask me to listen to some tender-winged bird? I don’t notice or care at all about these birds, whether they go to the right to dawn and the sun or whether they go to the left to the dusky gloom. We are obeying the plan of great Zeus. He rules over all the mortals and the immortal too. One bird omen is best: defend your fatherland. Why do you fear the war and strife so much? If all the rest of us are really killed around the Argive ships, there’s no fear for you in dying. Your heart is not brave nor battleworthy. But if you keep back from the fight, or if you turn any other away from the war by plying him with words, well you’ll die straight away then, struck down by my spear.” So he spoke and led on, and they followed him with a divine echo. Zeus who delights in thunder drove a gust of wind down from the Idaian slopes, which carried dust straight over the ships. It froze the minds of the Achaeans and gave hope to the Trojans and Hektor. Trusting in these signs and their own strength, they were trying to break through the great wall of the Achaeans.”

Looking at omens helps us to consider how the epic sees people using narratives in different contexts and where re-intrepretation is presented as acceptable or not. In short, this scene is another opportunity for the Iliad to train its audiences in how to read epic and engage with narrative. And understanding Hektor’s position within a larger cosmic scale, may help us to better grasp his response.

In Polydamas’ response to the omen, note how he provides an end to the story and an interpretation. The audience faces a quick and compressed comparison of the story of the omen to the experience and world of the Trojans, a prediction for what might happen in the story, and an extended application to future action. This process enacts a clear blending between the Trojan world and the omen world: children, homes, and families are projected in the narrative blend to the bird; the snake and bird are projected back upon the Achaeans and Greeks; and unforeseen events are predicted for both.

It is really hard for me not to see this exchange as an elaborate allegory for interpreting epic. But let me stick to the process at hand. We can imagine both Pulydamas and Hektor applying the story of the omen to their own experiences and making different moves when the comparisons clash. Pulydamas extends the story of the omen to create parallels between his world and that of the omen; Hektor rejects the comparison altogether, responding either to Polydamas’ extension and disambiguation or rejecting the clash between his expectations and his reality. In other words, when the story fails to work for Hektor, when he cannot assimilate its messages to his experiences, he rejects it as inapplicable and replaces it with another. (And here, coyly, I might suggest Hektor is the kind of reader who is quick to emend a text that frustrates him).

To be clear, I am suggesting that maybe Hektor’s rejection of the omen is not merely a flouting of divine will and a demonstration of his monomaniacal desire to kill Achaeans. The epic sets us up to think this, of course: this pattern of a leader rejecting a prophet is part of the power play in the first book. But here, what if we imagine instead Hektor’s incredulity at Polydamas’ inferences and extensions? Maybe the bird’s just a bird and the snake a snake? Hector is not so simplistic, of course, but he increases the dissonance of the clashing to the point that the stories are irreconcilable. Hektor’s violence in reference to Polydamas extends in part from his rejection of the omen’s applicability. He posits cowardice and fear as influencing Polydamas’ interpretation. We on the outside of the poem know that Hektor is wrong in the long run; but within the poem he seems to be right in the short one, when he receives a sign of the rightness of his interpretation when Zeus sends a blast of blinding dust over the Achaeans.

To return to Don’t Look Up!, if only briefly, Hektor’s willful denial, his embrace of a worldview that allows him to act in it, is so essentially human as to countermand any dismissal of it. At the same time, we know he is likely wrong even as we know nothing he does will change the outcome. Hektor is not yet ready to acknowledge the truth.

For Omens: See De Jong 2001, 52 for list and typology; Ready 2014 for recent bibliography

De Jong, Irene. 2001. A Narratological Commentary on the Odyssey. Cambridge.

Ready, Jonathan. 2014.  “Omens and messages in the « Iliad » and « Odyssey »: a study in transmission.” Between orality and literacy : communication and adaptation in antiquity. Ed. Scodel, Ruth. Orality and literacy in the ancient world; 10. Leiden: 29-55.

Some guiding questions for book 12

What is the impact of the vision of the future destruction of the Achaean walls?

What does the omen interpretation in book 12 between Polydamas and Hektor contribute to the political and narrative themes of the epic?

How does Sarpedon’s speech to Glaukos respond to ideas of ‘heroism’ contested by Achilles in book 9?

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.

On Trojan politics [see this post too]

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

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

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

Donlan, Walter. “The Structure of Authority in the Iliad.” Arethusa 12 (1979) 51-70.

Esperman, L. 1980. Antenor, Theano, Antenoriden: Ihre Person und Bedeutung in der Ilias. Meisen Heim am Glam.

Létoublon, Françoise. “Le bon orateur et le génie selon Anténor dans l’ Iliade : Ménélas et Ulysse.” in Jean-Michel Galy and Antoine Thivel (eds.). La Rhétorique Grecque. Actes du colloque «Octave Navarre»: troisième colloque international sur la pensée antique organisé par le CRHI (Centre de recherches sur l’histoire des idées) les 17, 18 et 19 décembre 1992. Nice: Publications de la Faculté des Lettres, Arts et Sciences Humaines de Nice, 1994, 29-40.

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

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

Sale, William M. “The Government of Troy: Politics in the Iliad. GRBS 35 (1994) 5-102.