analysis of passages in the Iliad that (can) allude to the Odyssey, with these lines as an example anticipating O.14.156-157

analysis of how alive the meaning of the name Agelaos was based on the collocation of agein with laos

The Master Narrator now approaches what can surely be seen as the highest point so far in the narrative arc of the Homeric Iliad. Achilles has not spoken since Rhapsody 1. Now, in Rhapsody 9, he will speak again. And what he says will define what can and cannot happen in the rest of the Iliad.

The embassy to Achilles, featuring Phoenix and Odysseus in front of Achilles. Attic red-figure hydra, circa 480 BCE. Public domain image via Wikimedia Commons.

Here is the speech of Odysseus to Achilles. It is the first of the three speeches to be delivered by the three ambassadors, and it is now being delivered out of sequence, in contradiction of the plan formulated by Nestor, who had wanted Phoenix to deliver the first speech: see the comment on I.09.182–198. See also BA 51. The speech of Odysseus starts abruptly at I.09.225, since the Master Narrator does not use formal wording to introduce the speech: instead, at I.09.224, Odysseus simply fills a cup with wine and, gesturing at Achilles, he just starts speaking directly to him, toasting him at I.09.225.

Whereas the Master Narrator did not use formal wording to introduce the speech of Odysseus at I.09.225–306, he does use formal wording both to introduce at I.09.307 the speech of Achilles and then to conclude it at I.430

In these four verses, Achilles begins his own speech in response to the speech of Odysseus, and he rejects straightaway Agamemnon’s offer for compensation. The tone is hostile toward Odysseus, not only toward Agamemnon.

Achilles expresses here his hostility toward Odysseus: someone who says one thing and means another thing is as ekhthros ‘hateful’ to Achilles as the Gates of Hādēs. If in fact Odysseus has misrepresented the offer of Agamemnon by leaving out the part of the offer that would have compromised the epic status of Achilles, then Odysseus is ekhthros ‘hateful’ and thus not philos ‘near and dear’ to Achilles. And that is why it can be argued that the earlier wording of Achilles in greeting the ambassadors is designed to exclude Odysseus from the company of those who are near and dear. See the comment on I.09.193–198. There is, then, a traditional enmity between these two heroes.

The response of Achilles to the speech of Odysseus continues. The passion intensifies even further.

I suggest that the story embedded here about 11 cities that Achilles conquers on foot, I.09.329–333, may be an indirect reference to the 12 cities of the Aeolian Dodecapolis minus Smyrna, which was lost to the Ionians. For details about these 12 cities, see the inventory of Words and Ideas under Aeolian Dodecapolis. By contrast, Achilles conquers 12 other cities not on foot but sun nēusi (σὺν νηυσί) ‘by way of ships’, I.09.328. Similarly at I.06.640–642, Hēraklēs had earlier conquered Troy itself hex oiēis sun nēusi (ἓξ οἴῃς σὺν νηυσί) ‘by way of merely six ships’, I.06.641. The analogous deed of Hēraklēs here leads me to think that Achilles too was conquering the 12 cities in the vicinity of Troy, whereas the other 11 cities would have been situated further south on the mainland of Asia Minor, that is, in the territory of the ancient Aeolian Dodecapolis. Herodotus 1.149.1 lists the cities of the Aeolian Dodecapolis, and one of them happens to be Killa. I think that this Killa is the same place that is mentioned twice in the Iliad, I.01.038 and I.01.452, in the context of Aeolian places that are specially sacred to Apollo. The two other places mentioned both times in those passages at I.01.038–039 and at I.01.451–452 are Chrysa and Tenedos. It has been argued that the Homeric Killa cannot be the same place as the Killa mentioned by Herodotus (Leaf 1923:310), but such arguments are based on the assumption that Homeric Killa was near Lyrnessos and Thēbē, two other places said to be conquered by Achilles. Herodotus 1.151.1 notes that the Aeolian cities on the mainland of northern Asia Minor in the region of Mount Ida—that is, in the general area of ancient Troy—were grouped separately from the Aeolian Dodecapolis, but he does not list those cities by name. The reason, I suspect, is that any federation of cities situated in this area would have been already severely disrupted by the Athenian empire in the fifth century BCE, that is, in the era of Herodotus, and, earlier, by the domination of this area by the Aeolian city of Mytilene in the seventh and the sixth centuries BCE. In that era, this city on the island of Lesbos was a major rival of Athens in seeking to possess the sacred real estate, so to speak, of ancient Troy and its environs. See Point 7 in the anchor comment that follows immediately below.

There are ten points in this anchor comment, epitomized mostly from HPC 131–146:

Point 1. Our point of departure is New Ilion, which in the historical period was an Aeolian city built over the ruins of the old Troy of the Trojan War as narrated in the epic that we know as the Homeric Iliad. Archaeologists have verified that Hisarlık, which is the Turkish name for the site of New Ilion, was in fact the same place as the site of old Troy, which was also known in the ancient world as Ilion. [HPC 131]

Point 2. After a major destruction of the citadel at old Troy sometime around the beginning of the 12th century BCE, which marks the end of a phase that archaeologists recognize as Troy VIIa, the importance of the site was radically diminished, and things stayed that way through the phase known as Troy VIIb, lasting into the 10th century BCE. After Troy VIIb comes Troy VIII, which marks a “Greek era” extending all the way to the so-called “Roman era” that is Troy IX. In the earliest phase of Troy VIII, from the 10th to the mid-7th century BCE, a small population was occupying the area of the citadel, and, on the western side of the citadel wall, they left behind some archaeological remains of a “place of memory” that must have commemorated in some way the epic traditions of the Trojan War (Aslan and Rose 2013:11). At a later phase of Troy VIII, in the mid-7th century BCE, there was a destruction, to be followed in the late 7th century by a reoccupation. From this time onward, in the latest phase of Troy VIII, we see the beginnings of the historical period. Now the old Troy is on its way to becoming the new Troy, that is, New Ilion. [HPC 131.]

Point 3. As in modern times, the old Troy of New Ilion was sought out in antiquity, most prominently by rulers striving to link themselves with the heroes who fought in the Trojan War of the epic past. In 480 BCE, as we read in Herodotus 7.43.2, Xerxes the king of the Persian Empire traveled to New Ilion and made sacrifice there to the goddess Athena, and his magi made libations to the hērōes ‘heroes’ who were entombed in the environs. Over a century later, Alexander the Great likewise sacrificed to Athena in New Ilion (Strabo 13.1.26 C593; Arrian Anabasis 1.11.7). [HPC 131–132.]

Point 4. I highlight the term used by Herodotus here at 7.43.2 in referring to the goddess Athena as worshipped in her sacred space at New Ilion: she is hē Ilias, meaning something like ‘she who is in Ilion’. But the name can also be interpreted to mean ‘she who is in the Iliad’, in the sense that Ilias as an ‘Iliad’ means simply ‘the song about Ilion’. [HPC 126.]

Point 5. Elsewhere, at 5.122.2, Herodotus uses the same expression hē Ilias in referring to the territory of Ilion as inhabited by Aeolians. The context is this: a Persian general was redeploying his forces at the time of the Ionian Revolt, ongoing in the first decade of the 5th century BCE, and he was moving his troops westward in the direction of the Hellespont (ἐπὶ τὸν Ἑλλήσποντον). Then, along the way to the Hellespont, ‘he captured all the Aeolians who inhabit the territory of Ilion [hē Ilias]’ (καὶ εἷλε μὲν Αἰολέας πάντας ὅσοι τὴν Ἰλιάδα νέμονται). This detail from Herodotus concerning hē Ilias as ‘the territory of Ilion’ is a most valuable piece of evidence showing that New Ilion was at this time inhabited by Aioleîs ‘Aeolians’. I should add that there is a plethora of further evidence showing the Aeolian identity of New Ilion in the era of Troy VIII. [HPC 142–146.]

Point 6. But now we must confront a big complication. This New Ilion was not the only ‘new Ilion’. As early as the late seventh century BCE, a rival ‘new Ilion’ emerged, and its occupants claimed that their site replaced the real Troy of olden days. This alternative New Ilion was located not far from the old Troy, but it was a different site. The inherited name of the site was Sigeion, and it was situated on a promontory at Kum Kale, overlooking the entrance to the narrows of the Hellespont. Archaeologists have securely identified the site at Cape Yenişehir as Sigeion. [HPC 143; see the map at HPC 158.]

Point 7. Like the New Ilion that was built over the old Troy, the site of Sigeion used to be occupied by Aeolians. Also, for some time in the seventh century BCE, Sigeion had been dominated by one particular sub-group of Aeolians, namely, the elites of Mytilene, which was then the most powerful city in Lesbos, an Aeolian island situated due west across the sea from the Aeolian mainland of northern Asia Minor. As we read in Strabo 13.1.38 C599, the Mytilenaeans under the leadership of one Archeanax built the walls of the citadel of Sigeion from the stones of the ruined walls of the ancient citadel of Troy. Strabo thinks that this important piece of information validates arguments made in the second century BCE by the antiquarian Demetrius of Scepsis, who denied any continuity between the old Ilion and the city of New Ilion as it existed in his own day, claiming that there was no trace left of the old Ilion—and that the site of this old city was not New Ilion but rather a village located some 30 stadium-lengths to the southeast, in the territory of Scepsis. In terms of the theory posited by Demetrius, all the stones of the old Ilion had been used up in the process of building the walls of other cities like Sigeion. But we have already seen at Point 2 that the stones of the old Ilion were in fact still very much in evidence throughout the phase known as Troy VIII, and so the theory of Demetrius is invalidated. See also the comment on I.07.433–465 on the myth about the building of the Trojan Wall by Poseidon and Apollo for Laomedon, who had been king of Troy before Priam, I.07.452–453. Still, the information reported by Demetrius and transmitted by Strabo about the re-using of stones from old Troy for the building of new Troys retains its full value. A shining example of another such new Troy was the Aeolian city of Neon Teikhos ‘New Wall’, which belonged to a confederation of twelve Aeolian cities situated on the mainland of Asia Minor and commonly known as the Aeolian Dodecapolis (Herodotus 1.149.1 lists them all). [HPC 145–146. About Neon Teikhos, see also HPC 180.]

Point 8. Unlike New Ilion, which remained an Aeolian site, the city of Sigeion underwent a drastic change in identity, and this happened already in the late seventh century BCE. Somewhere around that time, control of Sigeion was seized by the Ionian city of Athens and taken away from the Aeolian city of Mytilene-in-Lesbos, which had dominated Sigeion earlier, as we saw at Point 7. I cannot go into details here about this drastic change, but I will at least highlight the fact that Sigeion is pictured as already belonging to Athens in the poetry of Alcaeus, who can be dated to the late seventh century BCE. Herodotus notes that Alcaeus himself says in his own poetry that his armor was captured from him by the Athenians in a battle against the Mytilenaeans, and that it was displayed by the enemy at the Athḗnaion ‘sacred space of Athena’ in Sigeion. Here is the way Herodotus says it at 5.95.1: ‘the Athenians have his [= Alcaeus’] armor and they have hung it up for display at the space of Athena [Athḗnaion] in Sigeion’ (τὰ δέ οἱ ὅπλα ἴσχουσι Ἀθηναῖοι καί σφεα ἀνεκρέμασαν πρὸς τὸ Ἀθήναιον τὸ ἐν Σιγείῳ). Strabo quotes the words of Alcaeus telling about the captured armor, and these words actually give the name of Athena’s sacred space as Glaukṓpion (Alcaeus F 401B via Strabo 13.1.37 C600). This same name Glaukṓpion, derived from the sacred epithet of Athena glaukôpis ‘having the looks of the owl’, is attested in Athens as well. There it applies to the sacred space of Athena Nike at the southwest corner of the acropolis (Callimachus F 238.11), and this space, like the Glaukṓpion in Sigeion, can be dated at around 600 BCE. On the protracted war between the Athenians and the Mytilenaeans over the possession of Sigeion, I cite the primary sources here: Herodotus (5.94–95), Strabo (13.1.38–39 C599–600), and Diogenes Laertius (1.74); a most admirable secondary source is Aloni 1986. [HPC 142–146.]

Point 9. Just as Athena had a sacred space in the new Ilion of Sigeion, so also she had her own sacred space in the New Ilion built on top of the old Troy, where as we have already read in Herodotus 7.43.2 the goddess was worshipped as hē Ilias, meaning not only ‘she who is in Ilion’ but also ‘she who is in the Iliad’. As noted at Point 4, such an ‘Iliad’ was not the Homeric Iliad that we have but instead ‘the song about Ilion’ as it was known then—and as it was known even earlier when the occupants of Troy VIII were already venerating a “place of memory” commemorating the epic traditions of the Trojan War, as we saw at Point 2. [HPC 131.]

Point 10. There may be some uncertainties about positively identifying an earlier version of ‘Iliadic’ Athena—hē Ilias—as the goddess who presided over the “place of memory” in the early phases of Troy VIII, but we can be quite certain about the actual linking of the old Troy with epic traditions about an old Troy. And here again the same expression hē Ilias applies: at Point 5, we already saw that Herodotus 5.122.2 says hē Ilias in referring to the territory of Ilion as inhabited by Aioleîs ‘Aeolians’. But now we will see that Herodotus also uses the same expression hē Ilias in a context where he refers to a territory belonging not only to Ilion but also to the Iliadic tradition of poetry. The context is this: Herodotus is describing a scene where representatives of the cities of Mytilene and Athens, which have evidently already fought in many wars over the possession of Sigeion, are submitting their dispute to inter-state arbitration, and now the Aeolians of Mytilene are demanding that the Athenians give back to them the territory of Sigeion and its environs (Herodotus 5.94.2): ‘You see, the Mytilenaeans and the Athenians had been waging war with each other for the longest time. One side [= the Mytilenaeans] operated out of the city [polis] of Akhílleion and the other side [= the Athenians], out of Sigeion. They [= the Mytilenaeans] were demanding the return of the territory [khōrā], but the Athenians rejected the demand, trying to demonstrate by way of what they said that the Aeolians were no more entitled to the Iliadic territory [hē Ilias khōrā] than were they [= the Athenians] and all the other Hellenes who had joined forces in avenging Menelaos for the abduction of Helen’ (ἐπολέμεον γὰρ ἔκ τε Ἀχιλληίου πόλιος ὁρμώμενοι καὶ Σιγείου ἐπὶ χρόνον συχνὸν Μυτιληναῖοί τε καὶ Ἀθηναῖοι, οἱ μὲν ἀπαιτέοντες τὴν χώρην, Ἀθηναῖοι δὲ οὔτε συγγινωσκόμενοι ἀποδεικνύντες τε λόγῳ οὐδὲν μᾶλλον Αἰολεῦσι μετεὸν τῆς Ἰλιάδος χώρης ἢ οὐ καὶ σφίσι καὶ τοῖσι ἄλλοισι, ὅσοι Ἑλλήνων συνεπρήξαντο Μενέλεῳ τὰς Ἑλένης ἁρπαγάς). As the wording of Herodotus indicates, the Aeolian city of Mytilene in Lesbos claimed to be representing all Aeolic-speaking Hellenes in claiming possession of the Iliadic territory of Sigeion in the Troad. By contrast, the city of Athens claimed to be representing all Hellenes who took part in the Trojan War. From the standpoint of both sides, then, the disputed territory is poetic as well as political. [HPC 145.]

By now the feelings of Achilles about the captive woman Briseis whom he had won and then lost as a war-prize have deepened and intensified. He says that he now loves her as if she were his wife. And he asks ironically: are Agamemnon and Menelaos the only Achaeans entitled to love their wives? And do they even love them? Whether or not they do, is the wife of Menelaos, Helen, really worth fighting for and even dying for?

Achilles in his speech here returns to something that Odysseus had said at I.09.241–243: how the Achaeans are afraid that Hector’s fire will reach their ships beached at the Hellespont, and that such a disaster would surely destroy them. Achilles now gives a biting response at I.09.347: let Agamemnon find a way to ward off the fire of Hector without the help of Achilles. The verb used here for the idea of finding a way, phrazesthai ‘devise a plan’, is correlated with the noun mētis ‘mind, intelligence’ in Homeric diction, as we see in the wording of Achilles at a later point, I.09.423. Since Odysseus is the primary exponent of mētis ‘mind, intelligence’ in Homeric poetry, Achilles is in effect saying to him at I.09.347: let Agamemnon rely on your mētis, Odysseus, since he cannot any longer rely on my biē ‘force, violence, strength’. Achilles is the primary exponent of biē ‘force, violence, strength’ in Homeric poetry, just as Odysseus is the primary exponent of mētis ‘mind, intelligence’. According to the scholia A for I.09.347, Aristarchus apparently thought that the passage we are now considering, I.09.346–352, was an allusion to another passage, O.08.072–083, which is about a quarrel that once took place between Achilles and Odysseus over one overriding question: will Troy be conquered by relying on the physical power of Achilles or on the mental power of Odysseus?

analysis of Calhoun, Marg, and Rüter’s arguments about the interconnections of Demodokos’ song of Achilles’ and Odysseus’ dispute in O.08 and I.01 and I.09

analysis of Odysseus’ speech to Achilles and Odysseus’ separation of the interests of Agamemnon and the rest of the Achaeans, contrary to the way Achilles views the situation

analysis of Phoenix’s speech as echoing Odysseus’ concluding statement

comparison of Plato’s text of the verses with what has come down to us through the medieval manuscript tradition in the context of analyzing Socrates’ and Hippias’ debate over Homer’s representation of Achilles

analysis of Achilles’ response to Odysseus’ speech in terms of his alienation, mēnis, desire to realize his heroic identity and win kleos, as well as the hostility between Achilles and Odysseus

analysis of Achilles’ response to Odysseus’ speech in terms of his alienation, mēnis, desire to realize his heroic identity and win kleos, as well as the hostility between Achilles and Odysseus

analysis of Achilles’ response to Odysseus’ speech in terms of his alienation, mēnis, desire to realize his heroic identity and win kleos, as well as the hostility between Achilles and Odysseus

analysis of Achilles’ response to Odysseus’ speech in terms of his alienation, mēnis, desire to realize his heroic identity and win kleos, as well as the hostility between Achilles and Odysseus

analysis of Achilles’ response to Odysseus’ speech in terms of his alienation, mēnis, desire to realize his heroic identity and win kleos, as well as the hostility between Achilles and Odysseus

analysis of Achilles’ response to Odysseus’ speech in terms of his alienation, mēnis, desire to realize his heroic identity and win kleos, as well as the hostility between Achilles and Odysseus

analysis of Achilles’ response to Odysseus’ speech in terms of his alienation, mēnis, desire to realize his heroic identity and win kleos, as well as the hostility between Achilles and Odysseus

analysis of Phoenix’s speech (the part of how he came to know Achilles) as expressing his philotēs and attempting to evoke Achilles’ as an antidote to his mēnis

The reply of Achilles to Odysseus in Book 9 (9.307-429) has been the focus of a long debate about the "language of Achilles," originating with Adam Parry's argument that Achilles, "bound by the formulaic nature of his diction, has no language with which to express his disillusionment" and yet succeeds by "misusing the language he disposes of." M. D. Reeve persuasively challenged this view, pointing out that "neither an unanswerable question nor an impossible demand is by its nature a misuse of language." The approach that best illuminates Achilles' speech is to compare every expression in his reply with similar expressions elsewhere in the Iliad, treating deviation from that norm as the site of characterization. The resulting analysis operates at the level of discourse—the full stretch of a speech—rather than at the level of particles, verb moods, or metrical features, which would not be perceptible to a listening audience (Martin 1993:152-53, 159-60).

For this analysis, formulas are divided into two types: syntagmatic (regularly repeated phrase groups—Parry's original definition) and paradigmatic (single words in regular metrical positions). A close reading of Chart 1, the full formulaic breakdown of Achilles' speech (9.307-429), produces the following finding: almost all of the speech consists of formulas, either paradigmatic or syntagmatic. Achilles' speech is thus traditional, in terms of the Iliad itself. But the number of paradigmatic formulas far outweighs the number of syntagmatic: Achilles uses very small, unconnected bricks for his edifice, choosing rather to rely on the ready-made longer phrase only occasionally. Each choice of word in a given place in the line is one that can be paralleled elsewhere, but the effect is one of tone: one seems to hear a man searching laboriously for the right word at every turn (Martin 1993:165-66).

Achilles generally employs familiar formulas in new ways; at the same time, what seem like new and innovative uses can in fact be explained as reworkings of familiar expressions paralleled elsewhere within the poem. His idiosyncrasy in formula use consists in his use of syntagmatic expressions elsewhere used exclusively by gods in speeches, or by the narrator in diegesis. There is a cohesiveness to these "deviations" (Martin 1993:169).

The key innovation that characterizes Achilles' speech over all other heroic discourse is what will be demonstrated as the "expansion aesthetic": an ability to ornament by expansion. Only Achilles, for example, asks essentially the same rhetorical question three times in succession (9.337-39). What is not conventional is the expanded form he gives to this strategy; and it is this expansion aesthetic that explains the dozens of fine deviations from the norm that a close reading of the speech reveals. Ultimately, it is this expansion aesthetic that shows the motivations for Homer's own poetry (Martin 1993:204).

For the analysis of kleos aphthiton as the speech's most marked formula, see the comment on Iliad 9.413. For the expansion aesthetic in full development, see the comment on Iliad 9.308-429 in Chapter 5.

References

Martin, R. P. 1993. The Language of Heroes: Speech and Performance in the Iliad. Ithaca.

Achilles' speech begins with the words khrē men dē ton muthon apēlegeōs apoeipein (9.309). The Greek word khrē is a strong expression of necessity and demands the attention of the listener. Furthermore, it sets off Achilles as a speaker distinct from the narrator, who never uses the word khrē in the Iliad. Achilles is concerned with the exigencies of life in a way that the omniscient Homer need not be. But besides being distinguished from the poet by his use of the word, Achilles alone among other speakers places khrē at the beginning of his discourse, and he alone combines it with the particle men. A rough paraphrase—"yes it is necessary, but"—shows that the combination transmits two messages at once. Something is crucial; at the same time, the speaker has other concerns: the anxious, serious tone thus created affects all the following words of the speaker. The combination khrē men occurs only one other time in the Iliad, at the point in Book 1 where Achilles replies to Athena (1.216-18) (Martin 1993:197-98).

Keeping in mind the conventional deployment of khrē phrases elsewhere in the poem—where they appear in contexts of battle advice or "talk about talk" (metalinguistic comment on another's speech)—Achilles' words are distinctive in a further way: he explicitly denies both topics. He will not fight, nor do his interlocutors need to speak to him about the decision. Achilles' denial of the effectiveness of speech goes beyond the usual expression which heroes use to silence one another for the moment; it becomes an abstract principle (Martin 1993:200-201).

For the broader analysis of Achilles' reply and the expansion aesthetic, see the comment on Iliad 9.307-429.

References

Martin, R. P. 1993. The Language of Heroes: Speech and Performance in the Iliad. Ithaca.

The phrase oude me peiseis occurs six other times in the poem, always in a reply and always within a standard pattern: (1) a person is told not to do something; (2) the phrase "you will not persuade me"; (3) the reason is given; (4) the speaker states his intended course of action. In Book 9, elements (1) and (2) are in place at 9.315-17, but the "reasoning" element—why Odysseus will fail to persuade him—occupies the entire first part of Achilles' speech (9.315-45). Moreover, his statement of intent is delayed until 9.356. Meanwhile, Achilles inserts instructions to Odysseus about what action the latter should take. The change in person of the verb—making a less common formula in the third-person singular—shows that Achilles is really refusing Agamemnon, not Odysseus. In sum, the usual pattern is expanded so as to be almost unrecognizable (Martin 1993:201-2).

For the broader analysis of Achilles' reply and the expansion aesthetic, see the comment on Iliad 9.307-429.

References

Martin, R. P. 1993. The Language of Heroes: Speech and Performance in the Iliad. Ithaca.

The gnomic utterance at 9.320—"They die alike, both the man without works and he who has done much"—is meant by Achilles to refer to his own situation, and represents a continuation of the self-reflective rhetoric that begins the speech. Here Achilles has twisted a traditional phrase so as to point it inward. The full phrase kai dē kaka polla eorge—which underlies Achilles' words (ho te polla eorgōs)—always elsewhere in the poem describes an enemy's deeds: Aeneas speaks of Diomedes (5.175), Hera of Hektor (8.356), and Sarpedon of Patroklos (16.424) in this way. In the logic of battle, the man who does many things to his enemies is necessarily a boon to his friends; only Achilles uses the poem's formulas to make the argument explicit (Martin 1993:192).

For the broader analysis of Achilles' self-referential reshaping of traditional diction, see the comment on Iliad 9.307-429.

References

Martin, R. P. 1993. The Language of Heroes: Speech and Performance in the Iliad. Ithaca.

The simile in which Achilles compares himself to a bird (9.323) has been singled out as a unique feature of his "language," an indication that he is more like a poet than any other character in the Iliad. I believe the simile does characterize Achilles as a skilled verbal performer, but the image itself is another example of a common motif found in patterns elsewhere in the poem that has been changed in his words. The other bird similes, uttered by the poet, compare flocks of birds with troops on the move (2.459-65, 3.2, 15.690) or equate horses with swift birds (2.764). The precedent for individual characters mentioning birds comes in the discourse associated with augury: in Odysseus' speech encouraging the Achaeans (2.308-29), the sēma made by Zeus at Aulis is described in the same pathetic manner, and the augur Polydamas combines sentiment with advice in his allegorical reading of another bird-sign (12.209). Before comparing himself to a bird and drawing conclusions, Achilles uses a phrase similar to Polydamas' preface (9.314; cf. 12.215). Like the augurs, he draws a moral from the depiction of the bird. His individual shaping of this piece of description from the discourse of augury consists in pointing the moral toward himself and toward the past, not the future: "So, too, I slept sleepless nights" (Martin 1993:203-4).

For the broader analysis of Achilles' reply, see the comment on Iliad 9.307-429.

References

Martin, R. P. 1993. The Language of Heroes: Speech and Performance in the Iliad. Ithaca.

The rhetorical questions of 9.337-41 represent a key instance of the expansion aesthetic. Sarpedon poses a similar question to Glaukos in a well-known passage (12.310-14), so the urge to question the reason for heroism is not unique in the Iliad. There is, however, an innovation in Achilles' words: only Achilles asks essentially the same rhetorical question three times in succession (9.337-39). Achilles can be seen as uttering a conventional rhetorical strategy, in order to foreground his own answer to the question "Why fight?" What is not conventional is the expanded form he gives to the strategy. Nor is this a minor factor: it is this one innovation—an ability to ornament by expansion—that characterizes Achilles' speech in contrast to the rhetoric of all other Iliadic heroes (Martin 1993:204).

The immediately following lines (9.341) illustrate a different kind of innovation: the only attestation in the Iliad of the theme of the "good man." The adjective agathos frequently appears in the slot following the hephthemimeral caesura in noun-epithet formulas; anēr appears frequently in its slot; yet the two are never elsewhere qualified together so as to define "goodness." The new juxtaposition of two ordinary words implies an equally unparalleled way of looking at human behavior: Achilles breaks through to the abstract language of philosophical ethics (Martin 1993:182-83).

For the broader analysis of Achilles' reply and the expansion aesthetic, see the comment on Iliad 9.307-429.

References

Martin, R. P. 1993. The Language of Heroes: Speech and Performance in the Iliad. Ithaca.

Between lines 310 and 314 in Book 9, a splitting expansion has made room for the intrusion of Achilles' reference to his hatred for concealment. The phrase kai hōs tetelesmenon estai occurs in six other passages always in a context of explicit threat or promise and furthermore is coupled with a form of the verb ereō: see Athena at 1.212, Odysseus at 2.257, Agamemnon at 8.286, and in threats by Zeus (8.401), Epeios (23.672), and Antilokhos (23.410). All these speakers are persons in power; their hearers shrink in fear, give up their plans, fall silent, or obey. This does not occur at 9.310, where there is no immediate threat. The line further on, autar egōn ereō hōs moi dokei einai arista (9.314), is itself unusual; one senses the tone of the threat-introduction line which begins the same way. In other words, the second half of 9.310 "belongs with" the first half of 9.314—a join that can be made with no change for the sake of meter. The poet's own introjection of different material into the middle of a formulaic line for artistic reasons is the cause of the split (Martin 1993:208-10).

The inserted sentences (9.311-13) constitute a replacement expansion built on the formula exauda mē keuthe noōi, which occurs three times in the poem to mark three narrative stages: Thetis consoles Achilles at 1.363, Achilles responds to Patroklos at 16.19, and Thetis returns to Achilles at 18.74-75. The poet seems to use it as a refrain that characterizes the tender relations between Achilles and Thetis, and Achilles and his companion. Achilles appears to employ the same rhetorical strategy, but with a difference: his opening sally against "the man who hides one thing in his thought and says another" is a request for full disclosure, but Achilles directs this call to himself and then fulfills it by speaking his mind at length. He reshapes and redirects the expected pattern by expanding the idea in mē keuthe to a hyperbolic two-line expression of hatred for the concealer (Martin 1993:209-11).

For the model from Zeus' rebuke to Ares (5.889-90) underlying 9.311-12, see the comment on Iliad 5.889-890. For the host's invitation formula (14.195-96 = 18.426-27) as a model for 9.310, see the comment on Iliad 14.195-196.

References

Martin, R. P. 1993. The Language of Heroes: Speech and Performance in the Iliad. Ithaca.

The phrase oute meg' Atreidēn Agamemnona peisemen oiō (9.315) exemplifies what Martin calls "internal expansion"—the technique of filling out a formula with added modifying phrases. The formula peithethai oiō (the middle-passive form) was deployed by Agamemnon at 1.287-89 when describing Achilles, and tossed back by Achilles at 1.295-96, when he denies he will obey his commander. At 9.315, Achilles switches the formula so that the burden of persuasion is placed on Agamemnon: "Me he will not sway I expect." Furthermore, the next lines allow us to see that the formula is expanded so that Achilles denies all forms of persuasion on Agamemnon's part—neither he nor the troops will trust their leader. The technique of expansion has added another object to the verb, a variation not found elsewhere. Such small expansions can help create the impression that Achilles feels more deeply, sees over a vaster range, and articulates in a manner different from that of his companions (Martin 1993:207-8).

The second half of 9.316, ouk ara tis kharis ēen, echoes the poet's own voice. When the poet describes the death of Iphidamas at Agamemnon's hands (11.243), the tone is that of the most haunting of Homeric obituaries: "the wife, from whom he had no joy, though he had given much" (kouridiēs, hēs ou ti kharin ide, polla d' edōke). Here, as often, kharis signifies both pleasure and reciprocal giving, reciprocity itself being a "pleasure" in the world of Homeric epic and a sign that the cosmos is operating properly. It is with this dual meaning of the word that one should approach the ending of 9.316. Through his use of the abstract noun, the personal gripe about lack of payment grows into an elegiac statement of universal human lack. Not only does Homer himself use the "lack of kharis" motif in a tone similar to that at 9.316; the exact phrase of 9.316 is also used by Glaukos in a related context at 17.142-68 when he upbraids Hektor for deserting Sarpedon's corpse—but Achilles elaborates in twenty lines what Glaukos merely alludes to in two (Martin 1993:213-15).

For the broader analysis of internal expansion as one of three expansion types in Achilles' speech, see the comment on Iliad 9.307-429.

References

Martin, R. P. 1993. The Language of Heroes: Speech and Performance in the Iliad. Ithaca.

Achilles' boast that he sacked twelve cities using ships and eleven more on foot (9.328-29) has an important parallel in Tlepolemos' boast to Sarpedon (5.638-42), the only other passage in the poem to mention sacking a city, ships, and a specific number. Tlepolemos boosts his status by referring to his father Herakles, who sacked Troy in the previous generation with six ships and a few men. Achilles boasts of twenty-three towns around Troy—his act is bigger, and the expanded two-line expression of his deeds fits the exploits. The difference in size is explicit in the doubling of the number at the beginning of 9.328: twelve cities versus Herakles' six ships; the formula is expanded semantically as well as spatially. This similarity of expression between 9.328-29 and 5.638-42 is not accidental, for it is well known that the shadow of Herakles follows Achilles throughout the Iliad. This attitude on the part of Homer arises from his own situation as performer when he attempts to compose an Achilles epic against a widespread and predominant earlier tradition that privileges the role of Herakles. What can be viewed as generational conflict within the story of the Iliad—the claims about Diomedes that he surpasses his father—is also a poetic contest (Martin 1993:227-29).

For the Thamyris passage as a claim that the Herakles tradition suffered a break in transmission, see the comment on Iliad 2.594-600.

References

Martin, R. P. 1993. The Language of Heroes: Speech and Performance in the Iliad. Ithaca.

The triple mention of "love" in 9.340-43 affords a glimpse at the formulaic creativity of Achilles achieved by expansion of dictional elements. Two patterns are combined to produce this extraordinary statement of affection. First, there is the pattern attested at 7.204—ei de kai Hektora per phileis kai kēdeai autou—in which the verb describes the feelings of a divinity for a hero. The second pattern refers to affection among mortals and is found with the iterative: malista de min phileeske (6.15), pantas gar phileeske (9.450), tēn autos phileeske. When Achilles says tēn autou philei kai kēdetai, he is mixing the patterns by employing the positioning of the verb common in the second type alongside the conjunction of verbs (philei kai kēdetai) that appears in the first. Furthermore, he deviates from each pattern in using the "divine affection" formula to refer to his own feelings for a wife, and the "human interaction" formula without the iterative form. Such a reshaping of formulas arises from a desire for expansive expression. The overt sign of the urge for pleonasm is the progression phileou's, phileei, phileon in these lines (Martin 1993:214-15).

For the broader analysis of Achilles' expansion aesthetic and its consequences for his rhetoric, see the comment on Iliad 9.307-429.

References

Martin, R. P. 1993. The Language of Heroes: Speech and Performance in the Iliad. Ithaca.

The line mē meu peiratō eu eidotos (9.345) offers a good example of telescoping. Compare with Hektor's words to Ajax (7.235-37): "Do not try me (mē ti meu . . . peirētize) like a senseless child or a woman, who does not know the works of war. But I well know (eu oida) battles and man-slayings." Several elements are telescoped in Achilles' expression: where Hektor provides the expansion—naming the child and the woman, specifying their ignorance, then giving the full content of what he knows—Achilles achieves brevity by removing all the intermediate material and retaining only the bare elements of the formula. The reduction is compensated by an expansion at another point in the text, for the context of refusal in Achilles' speech is itself greatly expanded by the long argument that precedes 9.345. The technique shows how telescoping and expansion are two sides of the same aesthetic: compressing a traditional formula at one point enables the poet to expand expression at another (Martin 1993:215-16).

For the broader analysis of telescoping as the third expansion type, see the comment on Iliad 9.307-429.

References

Martin, R. P. 1993. The Language of Heroes: Speech and Performance in the Iliad. Ithaca.