Some Reading Guidelines for Iliad 1

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Some guiding questions

What is Zeus’ plan?

What’s the first mistake?

How do the Achaeans respond to the debate?

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

What does Achilles’ really ask Zeus for?

A short Bibliography on Politics in the Iliad

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

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

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

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

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

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

World 93:149–67.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Homer, Iliad 18.2-17

“Swift-footed Antilokhos came as a messenger to Achilles.
He found him in front of the straight-prowed ships,
Considering through his heart what things could have happened.
He was deeply troubled then and spoke to his own great heart:

“Oh, my heart, why are the long-haired Achaeans again
Clustering around the ships, horrified from the plain?
I hope the gods haven’t brought the evil pains to bear on my heart
As my mother once warned me and told me that
The best of the Myrmidons would be torn from the light of the sun
by Trojan hands while I was still alive.
Is it really that the bold son of Menoitios has died,
The fool. I really was telling him just to push the fire
From the ships and come back, and not to battle in force with Hektor.”
While he was going over those things in his thoughts and heart,
Then the son of glorious Nestor was coming near,
Shedding warm tears when he spoke his painful message.”

᾿Αντίλοχος δ’ ᾿Αχιλῆϊ πόδας ταχὺς ἄγγελος ἦλθε.
τὸν δ’ εὗρε προπάροιθε νεῶν ὀρθοκραιράων
τὰ φρονέοντ’ ἀνὰ θυμὸν ἃ δὴ τετελεσμένα ἦεν·
ὀχθήσας δ’ ἄρα εἶπε πρὸς ὃν μεγαλήτορα θυμόν·
ὤ μοι ἐγώ, τί τ’ ἄρ’ αὖτε κάρη κομόωντες ᾿Αχαιοὶ
νηυσὶν ἔπι κλονέονται ἀτυζόμενοι πεδίοιο;
μὴ δή μοι τελέσωσι θεοὶ κακὰ κήδεα θυμῷ,
ὥς ποτέ μοι μήτηρ διεπέφραδε καί μοι ἔειπε
Μυρμιδόνων τὸν ἄριστον ἔτι ζώοντος ἐμεῖο
χερσὶν ὕπο Τρώων λείψειν φάος ἠελίοιο.
ἦ μάλα δὴ τέθνηκε Μενοιτίου ἄλκιμος υἱὸς
σχέτλιος· ἦ τ’ ἐκέλευον ἀπωσάμενον δήϊον πῦρ
ἂψ ἐπὶ νῆας ἴμεν, μηδ’ ῞Εκτορι ἶφι μάχεσθαι.
Εἷος ὃ ταῦθ’ ὥρμαινε κατὰ φρένα καὶ κατὰ θυμόν,
τόφρά οἱ ἐγγύθεν ἦλθεν ἀγαυοῦ Νέστορος υἱὸς
δάκρυα θερμὰ χέων, φάτο δ’ ἀγγελίην ἀλεγεινήν·

This passage is remarkable to me for a few reasons. First, we have the application of Achilles’ epithets (“swift-footed”) to Antilochus, but in such a close proximity that any reasonable listener might feel the tension between Antilochus’ urgent message and Achilles’ lack of motion. This contrast is in part proleptic, since Achilles is about to burst back into action and become the kind of hero of force more appropriate to the conventional epithet. As Elton Barker and I have explored (Homer’s Thebes; See Roger Dunkle’s work as well and Storylife for another take) the depiction of Achilles in the Iliad plays on the tension between his traditional heroic identity, marked by swiftness, and his actions in the Iliad, where he is swift to anger but stalled in action for two-thirds of the epic. His swiftness in the Iliad is related both to the dynamic force of his anger and the swiftness (or brevity) of his life. Achilles, ironically or not, is described as swift-footed right before he permits him to lead out the Myrmidons in his stead (16.48) and he regains the epithet in his grief when he speaks to his mother soon after Antilochus arrival (18.78).

Second, there’s also an interesting angle in thinking about the Iliad and narrative time. One might imagine this scene as representing Achilles’ concern throughout Patroklos’ absence rather than just at the moment of this conflict. The join in the action is this: Hektor and Aeneas have routed the Danaans and they are fleeing across the ditch constructed to defend the ships. The book begins acknowledging, almost generically, “so they were struggling like a burning fire” and then Antilochus arrives. For me, the structure of the line recalls the beginning of the embassy in book 9 when “they find him delighting his thoughts in the clear-voiced lyre” (τὸν δ’ εὗρον φρένα τερπόμενον φόρμιγγι λιγείῃ, 9.186): here, the idea is spread into two lines, first noting where he is (in front of the ships) and what he is doing (i.e., thinking about what has happened). In each case, the action ascribed in a participle (“delighting” “wondering”) to Achilles is likely the interpretation from the internal audience (the embassy, then Antilochus) framed by the narrator.

Yet, there is a potential tension between the ongoing nature of the participle (here, present and probably progressive) and the tense of the speech introduction which tends to imply a one-time action. In fact, the speech introduction and conclusion used for this speech is elsewhere used to show contemplation and deliberation over a course of action before a choice is made.

As I explore elsewhere, this combination is used four times in a row in book 5 of the Odyssey with the expletive ὤ μοι ἐγώ (essentially, FML), to show Odysseus struggling with options and forced to make a choice. Indeed, throughout Homer, this speech introduction seems to mark a deliberation on options or a contemplation of the situation. With Achilles, however, there may be a pattern of reflection rather than choice. In book 20, this marks Achilles reacting to Aeneas escaping him (20.243 ff.) and in book 21, it prefaces his killing of Lykaon (cf. 21.54) but in each of those cases, the first utterance is a kind of expletive about other people’s foolishness or bad luck (ὢ πόποι) rather than his own.

In this scene, Achilles considers two options over which he has no control: whether or not Patroklos has been injured or killed is something of a coin flip, a Schrödinger’s hero kind of situation from one perspective. But the combination of Antilochus’ vision of the hero trying to figure out what happened and a speech and speech introduction sequence that usually signals choice produces what I have been thinking of as “productive dissonance” (a kind of poetic resonance built on contrast instead of echoing). A clear example of “productive dissonance” to my mind is the use of the duals in Iliad 9: a traditional form (the duals of two messengers going to an enemy or outsider) is applied to an unconventional situation (a friend/ally acting like an enemy or outsider) to emphasize its extraordinary nature.

At the beginning of book 18, we have a pattern used to mark one situation applied to something that doesn’t quite fit. What I think this means here is that the juxtaposition of a form typically used for Homeric figures deciding between two possible options (even if one is clearly not realistic) with the audience and Antilochus’ knowledge of what has occurred raises the stakes and further characterizes his denial about what he already suspects. Achilles is ruminating, he is pre-lamenting, and he is in the denial phase of grief as he calls his loved one a “fool”. In a way, this tension between his suspicion and the actual events may reflect, at times, a similar tension between audience desire for the outcomes of the action and the plot as it unfolds.

Confirming much of this is the revelation of another prophecy from Thetis that is nowhere else reported. The productive dissonance combines with the echoes of the embassy and Achilles own claim in book 9 that he has two fates (to live a long, ignoble life, or die with ternal glory, 9.410-416). No audience outside the poem believes that this is actually a choice. The dissonance produced here reflects not just the complexity of Achilles’ anticipatory grief, and the protective human response of denial, but it also may signal in part an understanding of how audiences engage with this story (and others).

The ancient scholarship on this passage speaks to some of these issues. First, one scholiast notes that it is understandable that Achilles would be in denial here.

Schol. A ad Hom. Il. 18.4

“People who are struggling for their loved ones fall into desperation among dangers. Their minds fall into misfortune in advance.”

οἱ περὶ τῶν φίλων ἀγωνιῶντες ἐν τοῖς κινδύνοις δυσέλπιδές εἰσιν. ἔστι δὲ τῶν ἐν ἀτυχίᾳ προληπτικὸς ὁ νοῦς.

There’s also some concern about what it means for Achilles to talk about the future death of the Best of the Myrmidons while Achilles is still alive. Some ancient scholars insisted that Achilles could be correct in being surprised at Patroklos’ death, since Automedon is actually the best of the Myrmidons.

Schol. A ad Hom. Il. 18.10-11a ex

“According to Rhianos [fr. 1M] the issue isn’t that there are two [who are the best of the Myrmidons] but that Patroklos is not one of the Myrmidons, since he is a Lokrian from Opos. So, Aristarchus claims that that one should know from this that he is the best of the Myrmidons after him. According to some of those who follow Homer, Aktôr the father of Menoitios allegedly took Aigina and Menoitios was born from her and lived in Opos. So, Patroklos is a Myrmidon by origin. Patroklos can be said to be a Myrmidon for other reasons as well, thanks to the fact that he leads the Myrmidons after Achilles.

But how is it, some ask, that after Achilles learned this fact from his mother he still sent Patroklos to war? One might ay that it is because she didn’t speak the name or the time clearly, that there was some forgetting of these kinds of things at the right time. But once it happened, they recall it.”

Porph. (?) χερσὶν ὕπο Τρώων <λείψειν φάος ἠελίοιο>: ἐν τῇ ῾Ριανοῦ (fr. 1 M.) οὐκ ἦσαν οἱ δύο, ἴσως ἐπεὶ οὐκ ἦν Μυρμιδὼν ὁ Πάτροκλος· Λοκρὸς γὰρ ἦν ἐξ ᾿Οποῦντος. δεῖν δέ φησιν ὁ ᾿Αρίσταρχος οὕτως αὐτὸ παραδέχεσθαι, τὸν μετ’ αὐτὸν ἄριστον τῶν Μυρμιδόνων. | καὶ κατά τινας δὲ τῶν μεθ’ ῞Ομηρον ῎Ακτωρ ὁ πατὴρ τοῦ Μενοιτίου λέγεται λαβεῖν Αἴγιναν, ἐκ ταύτης δὲ γενέσθαι Μενοίτιον καὶ οἰκῆσαι ἐν ᾿Οποῦντι. οὕτως οὖν γίνεται τὸ ἀνέκαθεν Μυρμιδὼν ὁ Πάτροκλος.

δύναται δὲ καὶ ἑτέρως Μυρμιδὼν ὁ Πάτροκλος λέγεσθαι διὰ τὸ μετὰ τὸν ᾿Αχιλλέα ἡγήσασθαι τῶν Μυρμιδόνων. | πῶς δέ, φασί, τοῦτο πεπυσμένος παρὰ τῆς μητρὸς ἔπεμπε τὸν Πάτροκλον εἰς τὸν πόλεμον; ὅτι, φαίη τις ἄν, οὔτε τοὔνομα σαφῶς εἶπεν οὔτε τὸν χρόνον, παρά τε τὸν καιρὸν λήθη γίνεται τῶν τοιούτων. ὅταν δὲ ἀποβῇ, μιμνῄσκονται.

A short Bibliography

Barker, E.T.E. and Christensen, Joel P. 2019. Homer’s Thebes. Hellenic Studies 84. Washington, DC.

Christensen, Joel P. The many-minded man: the « Odyssey », psychology, and the therapy of epic. Myth and Poetics; 2. Ithaca (N. Y.): Cornell University Pr., 2020.

Davies, Malcolm. 2016. The Aithiopis: Neo-Analysis Reanalyzed. Hellenic Studies 71. Washington, DC.

de Jong, I. J. F. 2001. A Narratological Commentary on the Odyssey. Cambridge.

Dunkle, R. 1997. “Swift-Footed Achilles.” The Classical World 90: 227–234.

Book 5 contains several speeches that engage with themes of theomachy and the Iliad’s relationship with the past. A few of them also can help us think about the poem’s composition and its relationship to other poetic traditions. One speech where many of these issues emerge is Dione’s speech to Aphrodite after Diomedes wounds her.

Homer, Iliad 5. 381-416

“Dione, the shining goddess, answered her then: ‘Endure my child, and restrain yourself even though you are grieving. For many of us who have Olympian homes have caused each other hard pains because of humans. Ares once endured when Otos and strong Ephialtes, The children of Aloes, chained him in a powerful bond. He was tied down for thirteen months in a bronze jar. And then Ares, insatiate of war, would have perished there If their step-mother, the super pretty Eeriboia Had not informed Hermes. He freed Ares Who was in a lot of pain, since his bonds were hurting him. And Hera endured, when the powerful son of Amphitryon Struck her in the right breast with a three-barbed arrow. Then untreatable pain overtook her indeed. And huge Hades endured when the same son of Aegis-bearing Zeus Gave him pain by shooting him among the corpses. Then he went to great Olympos to Zeus’ home, Grieving that he had been allotted pain. That arrow Was lodged in his massive shoulder, and suffered in his heart. Paeon relieved his pains by applying medicine, Since he wasn’t mortal in any way at all. The one who doesn’t hesitate at doing sacrilegious things Is a violence-doing criminal, that guy who harms the gods with arrows. Athena the grey-eyed goddess sent him against you. The fool. Doesn’t Tydeus’ son recognize in his thoughts That someone who fights the gods doesn’t live very long, He won’t ever have children saying “daddy” at his needs When he comes home from war and the terrible battle. So now the son of Tydeus, even if he is super strong, Let him not even think about fighting someone better than you, Lest prudent Aigialeia Adrastus’ daughter Should wake her dear servants from sleep, weeping, Longing for her wedded husband, the best of the Achaeans, That strong wife of horse-taming Diomedes.” 

This passage has a few interesting things in it. First, while there is some evidence for Dione as a goddess outside of the Iliad, in Hesiod and her Homeric Hymn she is the product of Ouranos’ castrated testicles. By having a mother in Homer, Aphrodite is more neatly fit into an Olympian pantheon as a child of Zeus rather than a goddess from an earlier generation. Dione, coincidentally, has been seen as a feminine version of the alternate root for Zeus, Dios.

A short digression, one of the features of the flexibility of Homeric verse is that it admits formal variants that other dialects would tend to reduce. So, for convenience of metrical shape, there are two ways to decline Zeus:

Zeus/ Zēnos / Zēni /Zēna

Zeus / Dios / Dii / Dia

For those who don’t know an inflected language, the declension of a noun is the set of the forms needed to communicate their grammatical function in the sentence. So, Homeric Greek provides two ways to say “of Zeus” (Zēnos/Dios) or “to/for Zeus”(Zēni/Dii). The rhythmic shape of each pair differs long/short vs. short/short; and, further, the initial consonants can change the length of final vowels that precede them. Complex consonants like zeta (closer to the sound ds) can make short vowels that precede them (what we call “long by position” in contrast to “long by nature”).

Back to Dione’s speech: this is a good example of what I have mentioned before, a paradeigma, an example from the past used to persuade someone in the poem’s presence. This one provides a catalogue of divine suffering at the hands of humans to ‘console’ Aphrodite. Each of these examples have story traditions that are explained in the scholia (on which see below) or appear in other extant texts.

Beyond the details, this passage is also often compared for its structure to an epic fragment ascribed to the poet Panyasis in the 5th century BCE:

Panyasis Herakleia fr. 3 Benarbé = 16 K

“Demeter endured; the famous Lame-god endured; 

Poseidon endured; and silver-bowed Apollo endured

to serve a mortal human being for one year 

and even Ares strongheart endured under his father’s compulsion,” 

τλῆ μὲν Δημήτηρ, τλῆ δὲ κλυτὸς ᾿Αμφιγυήεις,

τλῆ δὲ Ποσειδάων, τλῆ δ’ ἀργυρότοξος ᾿Απόλλων 

ἀνδρὶ παρὰ θνητῷ θητευσέμεν εἰς ἐνιαυτόν, 

τλῆ δὲ καὶ ὀβριμόθυμος ῎Αρης ὑπὸ πατρὸς ἀνάγκῃ 

Note the repetitions in structures (τλῆ μὲν…τλῆ δὲ), themes (immortals harmed by mortals), and even diction (ὀβριμόθυμος in Panyasis is parallel to ὀβριμοεργὸς in Homer).  The similarity between this passage and the longer speech in Homer has led to much speculation as to the cause: is this catalogue a common structuring motif in early Greek poetry or is it a case of Panyasis imitating Homer (or Homer imitating Panyasis) or something more complex.

(Elton Barker and I have written about this a little: See our discussion in Homer’s Thebes).

An Issue of Texts

Iliad 5.403 reads σχέτλιος ὀβριμοεργὸς ὃς οὐκ ὄθετ’ αἴσυλα ῥέζων but there is a scholion that notes that the Hellenistic editor Aristarchus read αἰσυλοεργός. 

That would give us a different line σχέτλιος *αἰσυλοεργός ὃς οὐκ ὄθετ’ αἴσυλα ῥέζων (Schol. T ad Il. 5.403).. The difference is minor: σχέτλιος ὀβριμοεργὸς is something like a “violence-doing criminal” while σχέτλιος *αἰσυλοεργός is something closer to a “sacrilege-committing criminal”. My guess is that other editors preferred ὀβριμοεργὸς because it is not a hapax legomenon (a word said only once) and because the compound αἰσυλοεργός (aisuloergos) has its sense repeated at the end of the line with αἴσυλα ῥέζων (aisula rezôn). 

These two aesthetic criteria–uniqueness of words, close repetition–are not necessarily at home with the basic aesthetics of Greek poetry. Our scholia–the collection of marginal comments culled from centuries of scholarly editing of and commentary on ancient texts–preserve layers of different approaches to Homer. The editor Aristarchus, one of Homer’s earliest editors, is criticized by some modern authors for preserving unique or otherwise uncommon readings. (See this review by Gregory Nagy of Martin West’s edition of the Iliad for more.) My personal take on this is that the kind of repetition in this line is characteristic of something like an intentional archaism, a  close repetition that hearkens back to the legendary era the speaker is evoking. While the repetition and unique diction may seem odd from Hellenistic and modern aesthetic perspectives, I think it rings better for the context and is truer to the complexity of Homeric poetry.

I have discussed similar textual differences before in an article about a later scene in book 5, centering around Ares where our common text preserves rather bland vocabulary in preference to exceptional diction.

A World of Stories: Mythographical scholia

Another kind of material preserved in the scholia includes additional information about myth from outside Homer. There are several versions of the story of Diomedes’ wife, Aigialeia, in the scholia to Homer. The scholion in this case seems to read Dione’s comment’s as an allusion or even a coded threat about the impact of Athena’s anger on Diomedes in the long run.

Schol. T Ad Hom. Il. 5.512ex

“They say that Aigialeia, the youngest of the daughters of Adrastus, was Diomedes’ wife and really longed for him and troubled herself over him through the nights as well. But later, thanks to the rage of Aphrodite, she slept with a band of Argive youths and later on, Kometes, the son of Sthenelos, to whom Diomedes had entrusted the affairs of his household. Although she was planning to kill him when he returned home, she spared Diomedes because he fled to the altar of Athena. People say that when he left there he went to Iberia, as some claim, and that he was deceitfully killed by the king Daunus. Others claim that he was killed by Iounios the son of Daunos during a hunt. For this reason, Athena turned him into a god and changed his companions into herons.

The poet does not know of the desire of Kometes and Aigialeia.”

μὴ δὴν Αἰγιάλεια: φασὶν Αἰγιάλειαν τὴν νεωτέραν τῶν᾿Αδρηστίδων γυναῖκα Διομήδους οὖσαν σφόδρα αὐτὸν ἐπιποθεῖν καὶ ἀπολοφύρεσθαι καὶ κατὰ τὰς νύκτας. ὕστερον δὲ κατὰ μῆνιν ᾿Αφροδίτης πάσῃ τῇ νεολαίᾳ τῶν ᾿Αργείων αὐτὴν συγκωμάσαι, ἔσχατον δὲ καὶ †σθενέλῳ τῷ κομήτου†, ὃς ἦν ὑπὸ Διομήδους πιστευθεὶς τὰ κατ’ οἶκον. ἥκοντα δὲ αὐτὸν μέλλων ἀνελεῖν ἐφείσατο διὰ τὸ καταφυγεῖν εἰς τὸν τῆς ᾿Αθηνᾶς βωμόν· ὅθεν αὐτὸν φυγόντα φασὶν ἥκειν εἰς †ἰβηρίαν† κἀκεῖ, ὡς μέν τινες, δολοφονηθῆναι ὑπὸ Δαύνου τοῦ βασιλέως, ὡς δὲ ἔνιοι, ἀπολέσθαι ὑπὸ ᾿Ιουνίου τοῦ Δαύνου παιδὸς ἐν κυνηγεσίοις· ὅθεν αὐτὸν μὲν ἀπεθέωσεν ᾿Αθηνᾶ, τοὺς δὲ ἑταίρους εἰς ἐρωδιοὺς μετέβαλεν. 

τὸν Κομήτου πόθον καὶ Αἰγιαλείας οὐκ οἶδεν ὁ ποιητής. 

There is no way of knowing if this account was written into our out of our Iliad. By which I mean: we can’t really know if ancient audiences had access to this story and part of this is because we don’t have evidence of whether this story was told to flesh out what is said in the speech or if the speech reflects stories that were well known.

The scholiast’s notion that the “poet did not know this story” is a problematic one and one that reflects misunderstanding about Homeric poetic strategy.  Homeric narrative tends to suppress stories that don’t support its local and general aims, something I discuss elsewhere in reference to the Homeric treatment of Cassandra.

 It does seem peculiar that Dione would bring up Diomedes’ wife as all–but it is likely that she was a well-known part of his story as one of the Epigonoi. Actual evidence from early Greek poetry is limited. As far as I can see (and this is more or less confirmed by Timothy Gantz’s Early Greek Myth, 1993: 699), the story is later than the classical period, although a much later scholion to Lykophron suggests the story was told by the archaic poet Mimnermus:

Schol. To Lykophron, Alexandra 610

“Aphrodite, according to Mimnermus, was wounded by Diomedes and caused Aigialeia to sleep with many adulterers and to be loved by Kometes the son of Sthenelos. When he returned to Argos, she plotted against him. Then he fled to the altar of Hera and left with his companions in the night. Then he went to Italy to King aunos who killed him with a trick.”

 ἡ δὲ ᾿Αφροδίτη, καθά φησιν Μίμνερμος (F 22 Bgk), ὑπὸ Διομήδους τρωθεῖσα παρεσκεύασε τὴν Αἰγιαλείαν πολλοῖς μὲν μοιχοῖς συγκοιμηθῆναι, ἐρασθῆναι δὲ καὶ [῾Ιππολύτου] Κομήτου τοῦ Σθενέλου υἱοῦ. τοῦ δὲ Διομήδους παραγενομένου εἰς τὸ ῎Αργος, ἐπιβουλεῦσαι αὐτῶι· τὸν δὲ καταφυγόντα εἰς τὸν βωμὸν τῆς ῞Ηρας, διὰ νυκτὸς φυγεῖν σὺν τοῖς ἑταίροις, καὶ ἐλθεῖν εἰς ᾿Ιταλίαν πρὸς Δαῦνον βασιλέα, ὅστις αὐτὸν <δόλωι> ἀνεῖλεν. 

Some things to read

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

BOUCHARD, ELSA. “APHRODITE ‘PHILOMMÊDÊS’ IN THE ‘THEOGONY.’” The Journal of Hellenic Studies 135 (2015): 8–18. http://www.jstor.org/stable/44157344.

Contzen, Eva von. “The Limits of Narration: Lists and Literary History.” Style 50, no. 3 (2016): 241–60. https://doi.org/10.5325/style.50.3.0241.

Cook, Arthur Bernard. “Who Was the Wife of Zeus?” The Classical Review 20, no. 7 (1906): 365–78. http://www.jstor.org/stable/695286.

Hadzsits, George Depue. “Aphrodite and the Dione Myth.” The American Journal of Philology 30, no. 1 (1909): 38–53. https://doi.org/10.2307/288458.

Pratt, Louise. “The Parental Ethos of the Iliad.” Hesperia Supplements 41 (2007): 25–40. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20066781.

Sale, W. Merritt. “Aphrodite in the Theogony.” Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association 92 (1961): 508–21. https://doi.org/10.2307/283834.

Willcock, M. M. “Mythological Paradeigma in the Iliad.” The Classical Quarterly 14, no. 2 (1964): 141–54. http://www.jstor.org/stable/637720.