Iliad 9.29-51

“So Agamemnon spoke and everyone sat there in silence.
The sons of the Achaeans were quiet for a long time.
Then finally, indeed, Diomedes, good at the war cry, spoke among them.
“Son of Atreus, I will fight with you first when you’re being foolish.
This is right, lord, in the assembly. So don’t get angry at all.
You have reproached my bravery among the Danaans,
Calling me a coward and not a warrior. Everyone knows
These things, the young and the old Argives alike.
But the son of crooked minded Kronos gave you a double-sided gift:
He granted that you be honored above everyone because of your scepter,
But he did not grant you courage, and this is the mightiest thing of all.
Godly one, do you really expect the songs of the Achaeans
To all be cowards and unwarlike as you claim here in public?
If your heart really urges you to go home,
Then go. The road is there. Your ships are near the sea,
The many ships that followed you here from Mycenae.
But the rest of the long-haired Achaeans will stay here
Until we sack Troy. But even if they want, let them flee
In their ships back to their dear homelands.
The two of us—Sthenelos and I—we will fight until we find the end
Of Troy. For we came here with the god.”
So he spoke, and all of the songs of the Achaeans shouted out,
Praising the speech of Diomedes, the tamer of horses.

῝Ως ἔφαθ’, οἳ δ’ ἄρα πάντες ἀκὴν ἐγένοντο σιωπῇ.
δὴν δ’ ἄνεῳ ἦσαν τετιηότες υἷες ᾿Αχαιῶν·
ὀψὲ δὲ δὴ μετέειπε βοὴν ἀγαθὸς Διομήδης·
᾿Ατρεΐδη σοὶ πρῶτα μαχήσομαι ἀφραδέοντι,
ἣ θέμις ἐστὶν ἄναξ ἀγορῇ· σὺ δὲ μή τι χολωθῇς.
ἀλκὴν μέν μοι πρῶτον ὀνείδισας ἐν Δαναοῖσι
φὰς ἔμεν ἀπτόλεμον καὶ ἀνάλκιδα· ταῦτα δὲ πάντα
ἴσασ’ ᾿Αργείων ἠμὲν νέοι ἠδὲ γέροντες.
σοὶ δὲ διάνδιχα δῶκε Κρόνου πάϊς ἀγκυλομήτεω·
σκήπτρῳ μέν τοι δῶκε τετιμῆσθαι περὶ πάντων,
ἀλκὴν δ’ οὔ τοι δῶκεν, ὅ τε κράτος ἐστὶ μέγιστον.
δαιμόνι’ οὕτω που μάλα ἔλπεαι υἷας ᾿Αχαιῶν
ἀπτολέμους τ’ ἔμεναι καὶ ἀνάλκιδας ὡς ἀγορεύεις;
εἰ δέ τοι αὐτῷ θυμὸς ἐπέσσυται ὥς τε νέεσθαι
ἔρχεο· πάρ τοι ὁδός, νῆες δέ τοι ἄγχι θαλάσσης
ἑστᾶσ’, αἵ τοι ἕποντο Μυκήνηθεν μάλα πολλαί.
ἀλλ’ ἄλλοι μενέουσι κάρη κομόωντες ᾿Αχαιοὶ
εἰς ὅ κέ περ Τροίην διαπέρσομεν. εἰ δὲ καὶ αὐτοὶ
φευγόντων σὺν νηυσὶ φίλην ἐς πατρίδα γαῖαν·
νῶϊ δ’ ἐγὼ Σθένελός τε μαχησόμεθ’ εἰς ὅ κε τέκμωρ
᾿Ιλίου εὕρωμεν· σὺν γὰρ θεῷ εἰλήλουθμεν.
῝Ως ἔφαθ’, οἳ δ’ ἄρα πάντες ἐπίαχον υἷες ᾿Αχαιῶν
μῦθον ἀγασσάμενοι Διομήδεος ἱπποδάμοιο.

This speech has been important in looking at the politics of the Iliad and among the Achaeans in general. Richard Martin has looked at this speech and Nestor’s response as part of positioning the old Pylian as the epic’s ideal speaker (1989, 91), while Dean Hammer (2002), Elton Barker (2009) and David Elmer (2015) have seen Diomedes’ intervention as important in signaling either extant or developing rules about speech in public. In short, Diomedes can be seen as establishing the right to dissent from the king in public for the public good.

And, yet, the story isn’t as simple as that, because Nestor needs to intervene

Iliad. 9.63-65

‘Son of Tydeus, you are strong in war
and in counsel you are the best among all those your age.
Surely no one will reproach this speech, however many Achaians there are,
nor will anyone speak back, but you have not reached the fullness of speech (télos múthôn).
Really, you are young, and you could even be my child,
the youngest by birth, but you utter knowing things
before the kings of the Argives, since you speak according to tradition (katà moîran).
But come, I, who proclaim to be older than you,
will speak out and go through everything, no one will dishonor
my mûthos, not even strong Agamemnon.
Brotherless, lawless, and homeless is that man
who longs for horrible civil war.’

τοῖσι δ’ ἀνιστάμενος μετεφώνεεν ἱππότα Νέστωρ·
Τυδεΐδη περὶ μὲν πολέμῳ ἔνι καρτερός ἐσσι,
καὶ βουλῇ μετὰ πάντας ὁμήλικας ἔπλευ ἄριστος.
οὔ τίς τοι τὸν μῦθον ὀνόσσεται ὅσσοι ᾿Αχαιοί,
οὐδὲ πάλιν ἐρέει· ἀτὰρ οὐ τέλος ἵκεο μύθων.
ἦ μὲν καὶ νέος ἐσσί, ἐμὸς δέ κε καὶ πάϊς εἴης
ὁπλότατος γενεῆφιν· ἀτὰρ πεπνυμένα βάζεις
᾿Αργείων βασιλῆας, ἐπεὶ κατὰ μοῖραν ἔειπες.
ἀλλ’ ἄγ’ ἐγών, ὃς σεῖο γεραίτερος εὔχομαι εἶναι,
ἐξείπω καὶ πάντα διίξομαι· οὐδέ κέ τίς μοι
μῦθον ἀτιμήσει’, οὐδὲ κρείων ᾿Αγαμέμνων.
ἀφρήτωρ ἀθέμιστος ἀνέστιός ἐστιν ἐκεῖνος
ὃς πολέμου ἔραται ἐπιδημίου ὀκρυόεντος.

Nestor’s speech reflects the danger imminent in Diomedes’ words. But his response is agile and sensitive to the situation. Nestor endorses Diomedes’ dissent while simultaneously mitigating its effects. He concedes that Diomedes has spoken katá moîran, but adds that he, who is older, will explain everything). That Nestor in no way contradicts Diomedes’ claim that it is right (thémis) to fight with a foolish leader in the assembly (agorê) implies a tacit approval of this contention.

Nestor continues with a subtle affirmation of and remonstration with Tydeus’ son—he diminishes Diomedes’ standing, appropriates his words, and amplifies his own position before he proceeds to advise. He does this by first reasserting the importance of his age—he compliments Diomedes, but reminds him that, by virtue of his youth, he is inferior in boulê.  Nestor, however, hedges his compliments with one reservation: Diomedes’ has not reached the télos múthôn.

What does this phrase mean? The A scholia gloss it as “you will not place a completion on your words” (Schol. A Il. 9.56 ex. 1-2. Cf. Schol. D Il. 9.56 ex. 3-8.). Cedric Whitman suggests that Nestor criticizes Diomedes for stopping short, that there is more to be said (1958, 167). One implication is that Diomedes fails to do what Nestor does, namely, to dissolve the assembly and cope with Agamemnon’s crisis in the council of kings where he proposes clear and pragmatic alternatives to Agamemnon’s foolishness. This suggestion is echoed by the D scholia (Schol. D Il. 9.56 ex. 3-8). 

A scarcity of parallels inhibits a complete analysis of the phrase télos múthôn, but there are enough to make a start. Martin’s refinement of the meaning of mûthos as either a command/proposal, or a boast/threat provides a useful starting point. Near the end of book 9 (9.625) Ajax tells Odysseus that the embassy should leave because there will not be a a completion or fulfillment of the mûthos (Nestor’s plan to propitiate Achilles), i.e., it will not achieve its intended perlocutionary effect. In book 16, Achilles requests for Patroklos to assent to his words and follow his plan completely (16.83:). In book 19 Agamemnon’s Hera taunts Zeus by claiming that he will not place a télos on his mûthos (107), which also signals a completion or fulfillment of the proposal/plan made in his speech (that a son, born that day, would reign among men). Again, in book 20, Hektor assures the Trojans that Achilles will not bring a completion to his plans or threats (369). Finally, in book 16, when Patroklos tells Meriones to stop taunting since “the télos of war is in hands, and the télos of words in council” (16.630) it seems that words find their télos (in an Aristotelian sense) in council.

The “fullness of múthoi” implies a recognition of traditional “rules” of critical speech, including identity of speaker, propriety of speech-type and accord with speech-context as well as an emphasis on the outcome of the speech, that a “full” mûthos in the context of the assembly offers a plan in such a way that the speaker achieves his intended effect and contributes to social cohesion. Nestor’s subsequent words offer supporting details for these rules.

First, Nestor takes great pains to remind Diomedes of his youth. While declaring the unassailability of his own words, Nestor implies that Diomedes is “out of line” because of his age. Second, Nestor’s remarkably strong condemnation of civil strife evokes the destabilizing threat of Diomedes’ dissent. The social context (in front of the whole assembly) of Diomedes’ criticism represents a threat to the social order (but, surely, no less a threat than Agamemnon’s cowardice represents to the safety of the army).  Finally, Nestor’s own words are instructive for what Diomedes should have done. In his speech he dissolves the assembly and calls for Agamemnon to hold a boulê, and it is there where he is critical of the king and formulates a course of action. 

Thus, I believe that the phrase télos múthôn conveys an array of meanings. On one level, Nestor may imply that Diomedes’ “plan” to take Troy alone is untenable. On another, the phrase conveys traditional guidelines or limits on the use of speech. Such criticism of the commander-in-chief in the context of the assembly is dangerous for the Achaians and may be beyond the acceptable norm for the youngest of the gérontes. Diomedes’ challenge has the potential to confuse the assembly and further destabilize Achaian authority. Rather than allow another argument (Achilles and Agamemnon in book 1) or leaving space for a negative appraisal of the king (Thersites) Nestor, as neutrally as possible, ends the assembly and deals with Agamemnon in the more private context of the council.

As I argue in a few places, I believe that the Iliad uses Diomedes to demonstrate how a younger man may develop into a stronger role through public speaking. For illustration, I include a brief summary of his story:

(1)           Diomedes (implicitly) witnesses the actions and speeches of Iliad 1-3

(2)           D. shows he knows the appropriate parameters for political and martial speech (Il. 4)

(3)           D. practices public speech and is acclaimed by all the Achaians in his refusal of Paris’ offer to return the gifts but not Helen (7.400-2). Acclamation (7.403-4)

(4)           D. practices public speech in criticizing Agamemnon and is acclaimed by all (9.50-1) but is criticized by Nestor for not reaching the télos múthôn (9.53-62). Acclamation (9.50-1)

(5)           D. practices public speech in reaction to Achilles’ rejection of the assembly (9.697-709) and is acclaimed by all the kings. Acclamation (9.710-11)

(6)           D. volunteers to go on a nocturnal spying mission during the council of kings and is encouraged by Agamemnon to choose any companion he wants regardless of nobility (10.219-39)

(7)           D. executes public critical speech and offers a plan (14.110-32). He is obeyed by all the kings and departs from the epic as a speaker. Acclamation (14.133)

Note the increasing political impact of Diomedes’ speeches and the corresponding development in who approves his oratory.

When we talk about freedom of speech, it is political: it is dissent from the status quo. It also functions to reinforce who matters within a community. In the earliest Ancient Greek reflection on public speech, the right to dissent is essential when the Iliad’s Agamemnon brings a plague upon his people and Achilles challenges. Of course, the story is complex: Thersites in the second book is prevented by who he is from criticizing the king. His body, his voice, his departure from normal conventions and appearance, disqualify him from making the very same arguments Achilles made in book 1.  In contrast, the Achilles-replacement Diomedes asserts in book 9 that it is right to argue with a foolish king in public.

From what we now call Classical Greece, we find parrhêsia, what a modern free speech advocate might call “frank and open debate”—for criticizing your friends in private and also for expressing unpopular opinions in public for the benefit of the state. In addition, “equal access to public speech” (isêgoria) promises that each citizen be given that opportunity. Sure, speech that is just about one’s own opinion–or personal brand–is ‘protected’ in the U.S., but is it sacred in the way so many claim?

Any notion of free speech from this perspective is rooted in its contribution to the public good. But who gets to contribute is constrained by who counts. In the Iliad, the ugly and disabled Thersites is beaten for speaking freely.  In the United States, cries lamenting lost freedom of speech have long been rooted in supporting the status quo rather than increasing and encouraging political participation. Consider how the chartering of the right to political speech in the Iliad is explored within the frame of balancing the character of the body of the speaker against the safety of the body politic.

A Short bibliography on Diomedes

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

Andersen, Öivind. 1978. Die Diomedesgestalt in der Ilias. Oslo.

Barker, Elton T. E. “Achilles’ Last Stand: Institutionalising Dissent in Homer’s Iliad.” PCPS 50 (2004) 92-120.

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

Burgess, Jonathan. 2001. The Tradition of the Trojan War in Homer and the Epic Cycle. Baltimore.

—,—. 2009. The Death and Afterlife of Achilles. Baltimore.

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

Christensen, Joel P. and Barker, Elton T. E.. “On not remembering Tydeus: Agamemnon, Diomedes and the contest for Thebes.” Materiali e Discussioni per l’Analisi dei Testi Classici, no. 66, 2011, pp. 9-44.

Christensen, Joel P. 2015. “Diomedes’ Foot-wound and the Homeric Reception of Myth.” In Diachrony, Jose Gonzalez (ed.). De Gruyter series, MythosEikonPoesis. 2015, 17–41.

Donlan, Walter. “The Unequal Exchange between Glaucus and Diomedes in Light of the Homeric Gift-Economy.” Phoenix, vol. 43, no. 1, 1989, pp. 1–15. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/1088537. Accessed 2 Oct. 2023.

Dunkle, Roger. 1997. “Swift-Footed Achilles.” CW 90: 227-34

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

Fineberg, Stephen. “Blind Rage and Eccentric Vision in Iliad 6.” Transactions of the American Philological Association (1974-), vol. 129, 1999, pp. 13–41. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/284423.

Gaisser, Julia Haig. “Adaptation of Traditional Material in the Glaucus-Diomedes Episode.” Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association, vol. 100, 1969, pp. 165–76. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/2935907.

Gantz, Timothy. 1993. Early Greek Myth. Baltimore.

Griffin, Jasper. 1980. Homer on Life and Death. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

—,—.2001.  “The Epic Cycle and the Uniqueness of Homer.” in Cairns 2001: 363-84.

Hammer, Dean.“‘Who Shall Readily Obey?” Authority and Politics in the Iliad.” Phoenix 51 (1997) 1-24.

—,—. “The Politics of the Iliad.” CJ (1998) 1-30.

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

Irene J. F. de Jong. “Convention versus Realism in the Homeric Epics.” Mnemosyne 58, no. 1 (2005): 1–22. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4433613.

Kakridis, Johannes Th. 1949. Homeric Researches. Lund.

Kakridis, Phanis, J. 1961. “Achilles’ Rüstung.” Hermes 89: 288-97.

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

Mühll, Peter von der. 1952. Kritisches Hypomena zur Ilias. Basel.

Nagy, Gregory. 1979. The Best of the Achaeans. Baltimore.

Nickel, Roberto. 2002. “Euphorbus and the Death of Achilles.” Phoenix 56: 215-33.

Pache, Corinne. 2009. “The Hero Beyond Himself: Heroic Death in Ancient Greek Poetry and Art.” in Sabine Albersmeir (ed.).  Heroes: Mortals and Myths in ancient Greece. Baltimore (Walters Art Museum): 89-107.

Redfield, James. 1994. Nature and Culture in the Iliad: The Tragedy of Hektor. Chicago.

—,—. 2001. “A ‘Beautiful Death’ and the Disfigured Corpse.” in Cairns 2001: 311-41.

Rose, P. W.  “Thersites and the Plural Voices of Homer.” Arethusa 21 (1988) 5-25.

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

Scodel, Ruth. “The Wits of Glaucus.” Transactions of the American Philological Association (1974-), vol. 122, 1992, pp. 73–84. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/284365.

Willcock, M. 1977. 1977. “Ad hoc invention in the Iliad.” HSCP 81: 41-53.

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

When the embassy finds Achilles in Iliad 9, he is sitting outside, singing songs:

Iliad, 9.185-191

“They came to the dwellings and the ships of the Myrmidons
And they found [Achilles] delighting his heart with the clear-voiced lyre,
A finely wrought one which was silver on the bridge,
The one he chose as a prize after sacking the city of Êetiôn.
He delighted his heart with that and sang the famous stories of men.
But Patroklos sat alone opposite him in silence,
Waiting for time when the grandson of Aiakos would stop his songs.”

Μυρμιδόνων δ’ ἐπί τε κλισίας καὶ νῆας ἱκέσθην,
τὸν δ’ εὗρον φρένα τερπόμενον φόρμιγγι λιγείῃ
καλῇ δαιδαλέῃ, ἐπὶ δ’ ἀργύρεον ζυγὸν ἦεν,
τὴν ἄρετ’ ἐξ ἐνάρων πόλιν ᾿Ηετίωνος ὀλέσσας•
τῇ ὅ γε θυμὸν ἔτερπεν, ἄειδε δ’ ἄρα κλέα ἀνδρῶν.
Πάτροκλος δέ οἱ οἶος ἐναντίος ἧστο σιωπῇ,
δέγμενος Αἰακίδην ὁπότε λήξειεν ἀείδων

What is Achilles doing here? One ancient author believed that he was taking Taylor Swift’s advice and calming down:

Aelian, Varia Historia 14.23 Achilles plays the Lyre to Calm his Rage

“Kleinias was serious in his manner and he was a Pythagorean in his philosophical training. If he was ever driven towards rage or had a sense of getting hot-headed, immediately before he became too overwhelmed with anger and before it was clear it was coming, he picked up the lyre and began to play. In response to people asking what the reason for this was, he responded melodiously, “I am calming myself”. Achilles in the Iliad seems to me to put his rage sleep when he sings along to a lyre and brings reminds himself of the famous tales of former men through his song. For, since he was a musical man, he chose the lyre first out of all the spoils.”

Κλεινίας ἀνὴρ ἦν σπουδαῖος τὸν τρόπον, Πυθαγόρειος δὲ τὴν σοφίαν. οὗτος εἴ ποτε ἐς ὀργὴν προήχθη καὶ εἶχεν αἰσθητικῶς ἑαυτοῦ ἐς θυμὸν ἐξαγομένου, παραχρῆμα πρὶν ἢ ἀνάπλεως αὐτῷ ἡ ὀργὴ καὶ ἐπίδηλος γένηται ὅπως διάκειται, τὴν λύραν ἁρμοσάμενος ἐκιθάριζε. πρὸς δὲ τοὺς πυνθανομένους τὴν αἰτίαν ἀπεκρίνετο ἐμμελῶς ὅτι ‘πραΰνομαι.’ δοκεῖ δέ μοι καὶ ὁ ἐν ᾿Ιλιάδι ᾿Αχιλλεύς, ὁ τῇ κιθάρᾳ προσᾴδων καὶ τὰ κλέα τῶν προτέρων διὰ τοῦ μέλους ἐς μνήμην ἑαυτῷ ἄγων, τὴν μῆνιν κατευνάζειν• μουσικὸς γὰρ ὢν τὴν κιθάραν πρώτην ἐκ τῶν λαφύρων ἔλαβε.

Aelian’s interpretation is interesting in part because it makes sense—Achilles is often seen as resting, or taking up time with the singing. But modern interpretations put a lot more weight into Achilles’ words, and what exactly it means to sing the “famous stories of men” (kléa andrôn). Ancient authors seemed to see the poetry as providing a source of wisdom.

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 δεῖτοὺς ἀγαθοὺς εἶναι· οἱ γὰρ ἀοιδοὶ διὰ τῶν παλαιῶν ἱστοριῶν τοὺς ἀκούοντας ἐσωφρόνιζον.

I think few listeners of popular music would agree that all singers improve their audiences, but there’s a convention within Homer of singers (aioidoi, often translated as ‘poets’) being left to advise or watch over people (as with Agamemnon and Clytemnestra). Modern scholars have noted that the phrase kléa andrôn is shorthand for “epic poetry”. Others have also seen evidence for ancient performance in this scene: Gregory Nagy suggests a “a stylized representation of relay mnemonics”. Jose Gonzalez puts it like this: “Here the hero engages in what amounts, on the lips of the performing rhapsode, to a magnificently self-referential metapoetic representation of hypoleptic rhapsodizing”.

The context of book 9 of the Iliad provides another opportunity to think about the function of the kléa andrôn. My dissertation advisor, David Sider was the first person I heard argue that Achilles was singing through the kléa andrôn in order to try to figure out his course of action. That is, Achilles is singing through other heroic narratives trying to figure out what to do next.

This is partly confirmed later when Phoenix chastises Achilles by saying: “This is not what we have heard before in the famous stories of men/ heroes, whenever a powerful anger overtook someone” (οὕτω καὶ τῶν πρόσθεν ἐπευθόμεθα κλέα ἀνδρῶν / ἡρώων, ὅτε κέν τιν’ ἐπιζάφελος χόλος ἵκοι, 9.524-5). And in the Odyssey, the same phrase is used to indicate Demodokos’ ability to sing songs from the Trojan War, right before he sings about the conflict between Odysseus and Achilles. (Μοῦσ’ ἄρ’ ἀοιδὸν ἀνῆκεν ἀειδέμεναι κλέα ἀνδρῶν, 8.73)

This is not the only time that epic implies Achilles is using earlier narratives for self-comparison. So, the basic suggestion is that the phrase kléa andrôn is a metonym for tales from myth or epic and that Achilles is not merely entertaining himself but, just as Phoenix invites him to consider the lessons from “the famous stories of men” as precedents to help correct his behavior, Achilles is singing in order to figure out where his story fits in the pantheon of tales he knows.

But book 9 throws a bit of a curve at audiences expecting the kléa andrôn to provide a solution. The story that Phoenix tells does not push Achilles to change his mind, instead, it produces an unclear response. And I think the story Phoenix tells helps us understand storytelling within the Iliad better (along with the epic itself).

One of the models I have been using to think about how stories are used comes from a cognitive approach to literature. In his book The Literary Mind, Mark Turner argues that when we hear (or read) a story, we cannot experience the narrative created by the teller of the tale. Instead, the story unfolds in a cognitive blend in a space between the world of the narrative and the reader’s mind. 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, a tale wholly in our own minds.

I think that this model of understanding narrative helps to explain a lot of the asymmetric correspondences between tellers, audiences, and tales in Homer. This helps also to frame devices like similes that shift and move between the opening and the close of the comparison and often blend characteristics of the tenor (the thing compared) and the vehicle (the comparison). In the case of paradeigmata (stories meant to persuade) it can also help us understand what happens when people try to use a tale: the teller has an idea for what the story should do to his audience, but it does something else.

One thing to start with here, is that Phoenix already seems to make significant changes to his tale. He offers Achilles the story about Meleager, set in the narrative of the Calydonian Boar Hunt, but as part of an internecine conflict that really doesn’t figure much in the narrative’s more well known arc (sound familiar, Iliad?). Traditionally, the hunt is a tale of heroes banding together to kill a massive boar, devolving into a conflict over the spoils when Meleager, the young prince of the city, tries to give the boar’s hide to the heroine Atalanta. In rage, Meleager’s mother, Althaia, destroys a log that is tied to Meleager’s life force, resulting in his death. In some accounts, there’s even a prophecy that Meleager would lose his life if he fought his uncles.

There is some pretty clear evidence that Phoenix is attempting to create a particular narrative blend of the story and his world for Achilles. In his tale, Meleager sits out of the conflict until even his wife, Kleopatra—a clear inversion of Patroklos’ name—asks him to join the battle. In addition, according to Phoinix, Meleager ignored the promises of gifts, had to fight anyway, and ended up laboring without recompense. Phoenix ends by telling Achilles to “think about this” (9.600), warning him that he too will end up fighting without honor. The surprise for Phoenix? Achilles tells him he does not care about the gifts and threatens to leave for home in the morning.

Phoinix frames his narrative with explicit invitations to make comparisons between the experiences of his addressee and that of the central character in his story. He offers a specific interpretation that Achilles rejects because Achilles is likely taking a different lesson from the narrative (to stay out of battle because he does not want the goods or the social obligations they imply). This exchange, then, features both how storytellers adapt stories to the experiences of the audiences and also how audiences misread or reread the stories through their own perspectives as they create their own narrative blend.

Phoenix’s tale has been understood as something of a failure—that is, that Achilles does not hear Phoinix’s tale or that it was somehow the wrong story. Instead, I think that Achilles hears Phoinix’s story and takes his lesson to heart: he does not want to accept Agamemnon’s apology or his gifts. But he also does not want to abandon the war entirely. So, he takes Meleager as a positive model instead of a negative one. He actively shapes the meaning of the tale by imagining himself in a different version of it.

The latter part of this post adapts some material from a book called Storylife: On Epic, Narrative, and Living Things

A short bibliography

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

Avery, Harry C. “Achilles’ Third Father.” Hermes 126, no. 4 (1998): 389–97. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4477270.

Barker, Elton T. E., and Joel P. Christensen. 2019. Homer’s Thebes: Epic Rivalries and the Appropriation of Mythical Pasts. Hellenic Studies Series 84. Washington, DC: Center for Hellenic Studies.

Compton, Todd M. 2006. Victim of the Muses: Poet as Scapegoat, Warrior and Hero in Greco-Roman and Indo-European Myth and History. Hellenic Studies Series 11. Washington, DC: Center for Hellenic Studies.

Finlay, Robert. “Patroklos, Achilleus, and Peleus: Fathers and Sons in the ‘Iliad.’” The Classical World 73, no. 5 (1980): 267–73. https://doi.org/10.2307/4349196.

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

González, José M. 2013. The Epic Rhapsode and His Craft: Homeric Performance in a Diachronic Perspective. Hellenic Studies Series 47. Washington, DC: Center for Hellenic Studies.

Mackie, C. J. “Achilles’ Teachers: Chiron and Phoenix in the ‘Iliad.’” Greece & Rome 44, no. 1 (1997): 1–10. http://www.jstor.org/stable/643142.

Nagy, Gregory. 2002. Plato’s Rhapsody and Homer’s Music: The Poetics of the Panathenaic Festival in Classical Athens. Hellenic Studies Series 1. Washington, DC: Center for Hellenic Studies.

Rosner, Judith A. “The Speech of Phoenix: ‘Iliad’ 9.434-605.” Phoenix 30, no. 4 (1976): 314–27. https://doi.org/10.2307/1087169.

Scodel, Ruth. “The Autobiography of Phoenix: Iliad 9.444-95.” The American Journal of Philology 103, no. 2 (1982): 128–36. https://doi.org/10.2307/294243.

Scott, John A. “Phoenix in the Iliad.” The American Journal of Philology 33, no. 1 (1912): 68–77. https://doi.org/10.2307/288985.

Turner, Mark. 1996. The Literary Mind. New York: Oxford University Press.

Yamagata, Naoko. “Phoenix’s Speech – Is Achilles Punished?” The Classical Quarterly 41, no. 1 (1991): 1–15. http://www.jstor.org/stable/639017.

This debate can be somewhat incoherent without knowing a little bit about Ancient Greek language. Early Greek at some point in its history had a full system of nominal and verbal endings for what we call the dual number.  To add to the number distinction between singular (I/ you, alone / she, he, it) and plural (We / you all / they), both Greek and Sanskrit have a dual form to describe pairs of things acting together: eyes, twins, people, etc. And these dual forms exist for the different ‘persons’: 1st person: we (two); 2nd person: the two of you, you (two); 3rd person: the two (people, things, etc). In most cases the sounds marking the dual is quite distinct: the combination wo in two and the long vowel in both are good examples of the vestigial dual persisting in English.

Classical Greek retained a limited use of the dual and Homeric Greek preserves it here and there. The most striking place where it shows up in the Iliad is in describing the movement of two heralds from one place to another. So, when Agamemnon sends heralds to retrieve the captive woman Briseis from Achilles in book 1 of the Iliad, we find dual forms for their pronouns and their verbal endings.

Let me start by setting out the problem. In Iliad 9, Achilles has been withdrawn from the conflict for 8 books of the epic and the situation looks pretty dire for the Achaeans. Agamemnon, at the advice of the elderly Nestor, sends an embassy to Achilles to plead with him to return, offering him compensation and further promises as inducement. Here’s the passage in English and Greek, with relevant plural forms in bold and dual forms in bold italics (Iliad 9.168-198):

Homer, Iliad 9.168-198

Let Phoinix, dear to Zeus, lead first of all
And then great Ajax and shining Odysseus.
And the heralds Odios and Eurubates should follow together.
Wash your hands and have everyone pray
So we can be pleasing to Zeus, if he takes pity on us.

So he spoke and this speech was satisfactory to everyone.
The heralds immediately poured water over their hands
And the servants filled their cups with wine.
And then they distributed the cups to everyone
And then they made a libation and drank to their fill.
They left from Agamemnon’s, son of Atreus’ dwelling.
Gerenian Nestor, the horseman, was giving them advice,
Stopping to prepare each one, but Odysseus especially,
How to try to persuade the blameless son of Peleus.

The two of them went along the strand of the much-resounding sea,
Both praying much to the earth-shaker Poseidon
That they might easily persuade the great thoughts of Aiakos’ grandson.
When the two of them arrived at the ships and the dwellings of the Myrmidons
They found him there delighting his heart with a clear-voiced lyre,
A well-made, beautiful one, set on a silver bridge.
Achilles stole it when he sacked and destroyed the city of Eetion.
He was pleasing his heart with it, and was singing the famous tales of men.
Patroklos was sitting there in silence across from him,
Waiting for Aiakos’ grandson to stop singing.

The two of them were walking first, but shining Odysseus was leading.
And they stood in front of him. When Achilles saw them, he rose
With the lyre in his hand, leaving the place where he had been sitting.
Patroklos rose at the same time, when he saw the men.
As he welcomed those two, swift-footed Achilles addressed them.

“Welcome [you too]–really, dear friends two have come–the need must be great,
When these two [come] who are dearest of the Achaeans to me, even when I am angry.”

Φοῖνιξ μὲν πρώτιστα Διῒ φίλος ἡγησάσθω,
αὐτὰρ ἔπειτ’ Αἴας τε μέγας καὶ δῖος ᾿Οδυσσεύς·
κηρύκων δ’ ᾿Οδίος τε καὶ Εὐρυβάτης ἅμ’ ἑπέσθων.
φέρτε δὲ χερσὶν ὕδωρ, εὐφημῆσαί τε κέλεσθε,
ὄφρα Διὶ Κρονίδῃ ἀρησόμεθ’, αἴ κ’ ἐλεήσῃ.
῝Ως φάτο, τοῖσι δὲ πᾶσιν ἑαδότα μῦθον ἔειπεν.
αὐτίκα κήρυκες μὲν ὕδωρ ἐπὶ χεῖρας ἔχευαν,
κοῦροι δὲ κρητῆρας ἐπεστέψαντο ποτοῖο,
νώμησαν δ’ ἄρα πᾶσιν ἐπαρξάμενοι δεπάεσσιν.
αὐτὰρ ἐπεὶ σπεῖσάν τ’ ἔπιόν θ’ ὅσον ἤθελε θυμός,
ὁρμῶντ’ ἐκ κλισίης ᾿Αγαμέμνονος ᾿Ατρεΐδαο.
τοῖσι δὲ πόλλ’ ἐπέτελλε Γερήνιος ἱππότα Νέστωρ
δενδίλλων ἐς ἕκαστον, ᾿Οδυσσῆϊ δὲ μάλιστα,
πειρᾶν ὡς πεπίθοιεν ἀμύμονα Πηλεΐωνα.

Τὼ δὲ βάτην παρὰ θῖνα πολυφλοίσβοιο θαλάσσης
πολλὰ μάλ’ εὐχομένω γαιηόχῳ ἐννοσιγαίῳ
ῥηϊδίως πεπιθεῖν μεγάλας φρένας Αἰακίδαο.
Μυρμιδόνων δ’ ἐπί τε κλισίας καὶ νῆας ἱκέσθην,
τὸν δ’ εὗρον φρένα τερπόμενον φόρμιγγι λιγείῃ
καλῇ δαιδαλέῃ, ἐπὶ δ’ ἀργύρεον ζυγὸν ἦεν,
τὴν ἄρετ’ ἐξ ἐνάρων πόλιν ᾿Ηετίωνος ὀλέσσας·
τῇ ὅ γε θυμὸν ἔτερπεν, ἄειδε δ’ ἄρα κλέα ἀνδρῶν.
Πάτροκλος δέ οἱ οἶος ἐναντίος ἧστο σιωπῇ,
δέγμενος Αἰακίδην ὁπότε λήξειεν ἀείδων,
τὼ δὲ βάτην προτέρω, ἡγεῖτο δὲ δῖος ᾿Οδυσσεύς,
στὰν δὲ πρόσθ’ αὐτοῖο· ταφὼν δ’ ἀνόρουσεν ᾿Αχιλλεὺς
αὐτῇ σὺν φόρμιγγι λιπὼν ἕδος ἔνθα θάασσεν.
ὣς δ’ αὔτως Πάτροκλος, ἐπεὶ ἴδε φῶτας, ἀνέστη.
τὼ καὶ δεικνύμενος προσέφη πόδας ὠκὺς ᾿Αχιλλεύς·
χαίρετον· ἦ φίλοι ἄνδρες ἱκάνετον ἦ τι μάλα χρεώ,
οἵ μοι σκυζομένῳ περ ᾿Αχαιῶν φίλτατοί ἐστον.

The embassy includes three speakers, Odysseus, Achilles’ older ‘tutor’ Phoenix, and his cousin, the powerful warrior, Ajax the son of Telamon. The two heralds accompany them as well. Yet the pronouns and verbal forms that describe them move between dual and plural forms. The grammarian responds that this is incorrect because there are at least five entities involved here. Modern responses over the past century have been:

1. The text needs to be fixed, the duals have come from an older/different version of the poem that had a smaller embassy (with several variations)

2. The traditional use is imperfect, the dual is being used for groups. Some scholiasts suggest that audiences would have just used the dual for the plural

3. The dual herald scene is merely formulaic and has been left in without regard for changes in the evolution of the narrative

4. The text is focalized in some way, showing Achilles (e.g.) refusing to acknowledge the presence of someone he dislikes (Odysseus, see Nagy 1979) or focusing on two people he does like (Phoenix and Ajax, Martin 1989)

5. The text is jarring on purpose, highlighting that something is wrong with this scene

Ancient commentators seem less bothered by the alternation in forms: an ancient scholiast suggests that the first dual form refers to Ajax and Odysseus because Phoinix hangs back to get more instruction from Nestor (Schol ad. Il. 9.182). Of course, this interpretation doesn’t even try to explain what happened to the actual heralds who were sent along with the embassy. Yet the interaction of forms seems to give some support to a complex reading. The number and entanglement of the forms makes interpolation seem unlikely (if not ludicrous) as an explanation. Consider, for example this brief passage from book 7 where heralds step forward to stop the duel between Ajax and Hektor:

Homer Iliad 7.279-282

“Dear children, don’t wage war or fight any more.
Cloud-gathering Zeus loves you both,
And you are both warriors. All of us here certainly know this.
Night is already here: it is good to concede to night too.”

μηκέτι παῖδε φίλω πολεμίζετε μηδὲ μάχεσθον·
ἀμφοτέρω γὰρ σφῶϊ φιλεῖ νεφεληγερέτα Ζεύς,
ἄμφω δ’ αἰχμητά· τό γε δὴ καὶ ἴδμεν ἅπαντες.
νὺξ δ’ ἤδη τελέθει· ἀγαθὸν καὶ νυκτὶ πιθέσθαι.

Here we have a lone plural form (polemizete) paired with a dual imperative (makhesthon). The manuscript traditions show some effort to change the dual imperative to a plural to match with the first polemizete, but no record that I can see of attempts to correct the plural to a dual. Plural forms can apply to two. Indeed, in many cases where there are multiple dual forms used in a passage there tends to be frequent recourse to plurals.

But the issue here is not a plural form being used for two figures, but the unclear antecedents for the dual forms as they are. It is not common for dual forms to be applied to more than two figures. I have presented the responses above in a sequence that I see as both historical (in terms of traditions of literary criticism) and evolutionary. The first response–that the text is wrong–assumes infidelity in the transmission from the past and entrusts modern interpreters with the competence to identify errors and ‘correct’ them. The second response moves from morphological to functional, positing that ancient performers might have ‘misused’ the dual for present during a period of linguistic change. Neither of these suggestions are supported by the textual traditions which preserve the duals.

The final three answers depend upon the sense of error explored in the first two: first, a greater understanding of oral-formulaic poetry extends the Parryan suggestion that some forms are merely functional and do not express context specific meaning (#3) while the second option models a complex style of reading/reception that suggests the audience understands the misuse of the dual to evoke the internal thoughts/emotions of the character Achilles in one way or another. The third explanation is harder to defend based on how integrated the dual forms are in the passage: the dual is used to describe travel to Achilles’ tent, then the scene shifts to Achilles playing a lyre and Patroklos waiting for him to stop followed again by dual forms with what seems like an enigmatic line “and so they both were walking forth, and shining Odysseus was leading” (tō de batēn proterō, hēgeito de dios Odusseus).

Ancient commentary remains nonplussed: Odysseus is first of two, the line makes that clear, and Phoinix is following somewhere behind. Nagy’s and Martin’s explanations are attractive and they respond well to the awkward movement between dual and plural forms as well as Achilles’ specific use of the dual in hailing the embassy with a bittersweet observation. I like the idea of taking these two together, leaving it up to audiences to decode Achilles’ enigmatic greeting.

Responses #4 and 5 are not necessarily exclusive. The final option builds on the local context of the Iliad and sees the type scene as functioning within that narrative but with some expectation that audiences know the forms and the conventions. As others have argued, the use of the duals to signal the movement of heralds is traditional and functional in a compositional sense because it moves the action of the narrative from one place to another. In the Iliad, the herald scene marks a movement from one camp to another, building on what I believe is its larger conventional use apart from composition which is to mark the movement from one political space, or one sphere of authority to another. When Agamemnon sends the heralds in book 1 to retrieve Briseis, the action as well as the language further marks Achilles’ separation from the Achaean coalition. In book 9, the situation remains the same–Achilles is essentially operating in a different power-structure–but the embassy is an attempt to address the difference. The trio sent along with the heralds as ambassadors are simultaneously friends and foreign agents. Appropriately, the conventional language of epic reflects this tension by interposing the duals and reflecting the confused situation.

Most of the responses above except for the first two are valid from the perspective of ancient audiences.  The first two explanations–that the text is wrong or the usage is wrong–selectively accept the validity of some of the text but not that they find challenging for interpretive reasons or assume a simplicity on the part of ancient audiences (and many generations in between).  The subsequent responses, however, credit a creative intention rather than the collaborative ecosystem of meaning available to Homeric performance.

In the telling of epic tales, it may well have been customary to manipulate conventional language through creative misuse; and yet, if audiences are not experienced enough of the forms or attentive enough to the patterns, such usage would not likely be sustained. Audiences (like the ancient scholar) imagine Phoinix lagging behind, or Achilles focusing just on one character, or sense the pattern of alienation and separation that makes it necessary to treat Achilles as a foreign entity and not an ally. So, while the text relies on audience competency with epic conventions, this specific articulation also allows for depth of characterization in this moment: The final three interpretive options cannot be fully disambiguated. Although we may argue for greater weight to the typological argument–that audiences would understand the complicated marking of Achilles as a potential enemy through this disjuncture–we cannot dismiss the tension between that larger structural meaning and the immediate force of Achilles’ speech, inviting us to see the use of the dual as a character choice.

Bibliography

n.b this is not an exhaustive bibliography. If you’d like anything else included, please let me know. See Lesser 2022 for the most recent recent bibliography and discussion. Cf. Griffin 1995: 51–53. Scodel 2002: 160–71 and Louden 2006: 120–34 represent more recent readings.

Griffin, Jasper. 1995. Iliad, Book Nine. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Kazazis, Deborah B. & Kazazis, John N. (1991). Iliad 9, the duals and Homeric compositional technique. Επιστημονική Επετηρίδα της Φιλοσοφικής Σχολής [του Αριστοτελείου Πανεπιστημίου Θεσσαλονίκης]. Tεύχος Τμήματος Φιλολογίας, 1, 11-45.

Lesser, Rachel H. 2022. Desire in the Iliad. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Louden, D. Bruce (2002). Eurybates, Odysseus, and the duals in Book 9 of the « Iliad ». Colby Quarterly, 38(1), 62-76.

Louden, D. Bruce (2006). The « Iliad » :: structure, myth, and meaning. Baltimore (Md.): Johns Hopkins University Pr.

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

Nagy, Gregory. 1979. The Best of the Achaeans: Concepts of the Hero in Archaic Greek Poetry. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

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

Segal, Charles (1968). The embassy and the duals of Iliad ix,182-198. Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, IX, 101-114.

Thornton, Agathe. “Once Again, the Duals in Book 9 of the Iliad.” Glotta 56, no. 1/2 (1978): 1–4. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40266418.

Wyatt, William F. “The Embassy and the Duals in Iliad 9.” The American Journal of Philology 106, no. 4 (1985): 399–408. https://doi.org/10.2307/295192.

Homer, Iliad 1.210-214

“But leave off the strife—don’t draw the sword with your hand.
Instead, rebuke him with words about how this will turn out.
I will explain this, and this will be fulfilled:
Then someday you’ll get three times as many shining gifts
On account of this insult. So, hold back, obey us.”

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.

One of the primary questions of book 9 is why Achilles refuses the Achaeans’ entreaties. The whole plot of Iliad 9 centers around the Achaean need for Achilles’ return, in response to the Trojans camping outside the city at the end of book 8. It starts with panic, turns to a plan to appeal to Achilles with gifts and soothing words, and results in something of a surprise when Achilles does not accede to their requests.

The book is split into 4 basic parts: (1) Agamemnon’s assembly, where he again suggests giving up; (2) the small council scene following it where the Greek leaders plan the assembly (under Nestor’s guidance); (3) the embassy scene with its three speeches/exchanges; and (4) the (inaccurate) report of the embassy. Note the chiastic (A-B-B-A) structure of public-private-private-public encounters. By the end of the book, the Achaean leadership (focused through Diomedes) has again restored something of a unified voice without Achilles. In a way, Book 9 integrates the themes and concerns of both books 1 and 2 in a similarly chiastic pattern: it opens with confusion and desperation, and clear echoes of book 2) returns to Nestor and Diomedes before getting to Achilles (book 1) and returning again to an Achaean front, united despite Achilles’ absence (book 2).

Iliad 9 is one of the most important books of the epic for understanding Achilles’ development and epic attitudes concerning ‘heroism’. While 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 9 are politics, heroism, and narrative traditions.

This introductory post to book 9 addresses its general outline and the language of Achilles. There will be follow-up posts on the duals prior to the embassy and Diomedes’ speeches book-ending the conflict.

Book 9 and Homeric Speech

Book 9 has the highest proportion of direct speech of any book in the Iliad or Odyssey (provided we treat Odysseus’ own narrative in Od. 9-12 as a story and not direct speech). It provides a great opportunity to think about how speech works in different contexts: we see public speech in the assembly (the first and final parts of the book); semi-private political speech in the leaders’ small council (the second scene); and longer rhetorical attempts at persuasion during the assembly. 

The embassy to Achilles includes three people: Odysseus, Phoenix, and Alax (son of Telamon). Nestor lays out the plan of the embassy and induces Agamemnon to make an (egregiously generous) list of gifts to make amends. He sends Odysseus, as something of the Achaean consiglieri, Phoenix, as Achilles’ ‘tutor’ and surrogate father, and Ajax, Achilles’ cousin. So, at one level, the embassy is a combination of a political appointee and personal connections. On another level, we also have two figures who are extremely important to the heroic/mythic tradition of Troy (Odysseus and Ajax) and one who seems more-or-less tailored to this particular Iliad and this particular moment (Phoenix). The character interactions, then, can draw on audience inferences about their relationships and also their experiences of these characters in the wider tradition (and on that latter topic, Gregory Nagy’s The Best of the Achaeans remains the best of modern scholarship on teasing out narrative resonances).

The three members of the embassy make three different attempts to persuade Achilles. Odysseus amplifies the threat Hektor and the Trojans present in Achilles’ absence and recounts the large number of gifts Agamemnon is offering for his return; Phoenix makes an appeal to Achilles’ honor, sense of duty, and his personal relationship, capping it all with a paradeigma (persuasive example from myth) about Meleager; and Ajax takes a more personal and disguised approach, talking to Odysseus about Achilles, instead of addressing him directly at the start. The interpretive drama in book 9 is less in what these characters say and more in how Achilles’ responds to them. The ambiguity and shifting character of Achilles’ answers have long made this book one of the most debated in the epic. 

Leaving aside the content of Achilles’ speeches, the plot results are important for what follows. Each speech has Achilles taking an increasingly more specific position. To Odysseus, Achilles says that he is going to leave the next day with his troops; to Phoenix, Achilles adjusts and says that he will spend the night thinking about leaving and then decide in the morning; and after Ajax speaks, Achilles swears he will not return to battle until the Trojans reach his own ships. This last move cements Achilles’ course of action, confirms his continued separation from the Achaeans, and aligns his own intention with what Zeus declares for the plot (Patroklos’ death) in book 8.

That’s the plot. How we get there is even more intriguing.

The Language of Achilles

I have been interested in the language of Achilles since I started working on my dissertation in 2005 or so. Like many projects, mine started out of spite: a professor had told me that there was no such thing as rhetoric in Homer and that sent me on a multiyear path of vengeance. (Ok, not really John Wick-level comeuppance, but more like a slow, stubborn chipping away at the idea.) My general approach was that rhetoric in Homer should be defined by Homeric terms and ideas, not by post-oral expectations (like those from Aristotle on). I started out thinking about Nestor as a received ideal of speech whose model is eventually challenged by the epic itself. And, 9 chapters later, I ended with Achilles and the funeral games.

The language of few characters in literature has received the same attention in modern scholarship as that of Achilles. And approaches to his speech have been characterized as well the struggle of the 20^th century over what it means for creativity and meaning to say that Homeric poetry is oral and formulaic. In this vein, Adam Parry (1956; Milman Parry’s son) inaugurated a sub-field of Homeric studies with his paper “The Language of Achilles,” proposing that Achilles struggles to express what he means because the formulaic nature of Homeric language restricts the articulation of innovative notions or concepts contrary to the ethos of epic. While this reading has since been challenged by many (see, e.g. Reeve, Claus, Redfield and others below)

Homerists continued to investigate Achilles’ language in order to understand more clearly both the objections he makes to the Iliad’s world and the nature of Homeric speech in general. The debate may seem rather minor, but at its heart is whether or not ‘conventional’ language can be used to differentiate characters. Scholars responded by saying “no, it cannot, therefore Homeric poetry is not that formulaic” to “of course it can, people are misunderstanding what oral-formulaic means” and included pretty much everything in between. My sympathies are entirely with the extreme form of the second statement: the notion that Homeric speakers cannot be differentiated by language or are limited from saying “untraditional things” (which is, admittedly, the most extreme version of the statement) betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of oral-formulaic poetry and oral-derived epic as well as significant misapprehensions about the levels of freedom available from ‘natural’ languages.

The debate continued into the 21^st century, but two of the finer entries in the discussion came earlier. Richard Martin’s The Language of Heroes (1989) addresses the major questions surrounding Achilles’ use of speech. He suggests that “the rhetoric of Achilles—his heroic self-performance in an adversary relationship with the past and the present—is at the root of Homer’s own composition in performance.” Hilary Mackie’s Talking Trojan (1996) balances Achilles’ language against Hektor’s: Achilles speaks like a Hesiodic poet (from the Works and Days) and uses the language of wisdom poetry to question the Achaean hierarchy.

Achilles’ is an exceptionally evocative speaker whose use of language sets him apart as a character and as a political player. Second, his estrangement from the other characters and his status as the major player positions him to reflect on the epic’s entire world. The plot situates him as the one for whom an evaluation of political structures bears the most meaning. Book 9 shows him making some of his most challenging and interesting speeches, changing his tack from exchange to exchange. To take him at face value at any point in this book—not to mention the epic as a whole—is to tragically underestimate epic’s capacity for subtlety and misdirection. 

Achilles should be read from multiple perspectives simultaneously: he is a late adolescent, struggling to navigate between what he has learned of the world and the frustration he is experiencing; he is a warrior, trying to make sense of the balance between life and death and the rhetoric of eternal fame; he is a person stuck between the self and community, trying to balance his own titanic need for honor with the obligations he feels towards others; and he is a partly occluded mouthpiece for the poet, offering potential reflections on heroism, the mythical tradition, and what it means to be a person. Each of these personae (and more) rises to the surface during his responses and none of them provide clear answers. Achilles’ speeches operate like proto-Platonic dialogues, inviting audiences to think through his problems (and those they represent more widely) without coming to resolution. Instead, they should help to create discomfort and confusion, prompting conversation and thought long after the end of the poem.

Some guiding questions for book 9

 Compare the opening scene of this book to book 2’s assembly and flight to the ships. What are some of the differences?

How has the approach to the conflict between Agamemnon and Achilles changed among the Achaeans since book 1?

Why does Achilles reject Agamemnon’s offer?

Achilles receives three speeches and gives three separate responses to them. How do his plans change with each speech and why?

Bibliography on the language of Achilles

n.b this is not an exhaustive bibliography. If you’d like anything else included, please let me know. Follow-up posts will address the political framework of book 9 and the duals.

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

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.

Claus, David B. “Aidôs in the Language of Achilles.” Transactions of the American Philological Association (1974-) 105 (1975): 13–28. https://doi.org/10.2307/283930.

Hammer, D. 2002. The Iliad as Politics: The Performance of Political Thought. Norman.

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.

Friedrich, Paul and Redfield, James. 1978. “Speech as a Personality Symbol: The Case of Achilles.” Language 54: 263–288.

Griffin, Jasper. “Homeric Words and Speakers.” The Journal of Hellenic Studies 106 (1986): 36–57. https://doi.org/10.2307/629641.

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

Knudsen, Rachel Ahern. 2014. Homeric Speech and the Origins of Rhetoric. Baltimore.

Lloyd, Michael. 2004. “The Politeness of Achilles: Off-Record Conversation Strategies.” JHS, 124: 75–89.

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

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