This simile contains the one instance of the adjective alēthēs in Homeric epic that is not applied directly to verbal communication, but to a person, a woman weighing wool with scales. The other instances of alēthēs show that it qualifies (the content of) speech, indicating that it denotes truthfulness in the sense of not forgetting what has been said in an uninterrupted continuum of time, and not letting anything slip by one without being mindful of its implications (and indeed, a-lēthēs and a-lētheia are to be understood in opposition to lēthē). Here, however, it can be seen to be applied by a logical extension to the agent of such communication, and so, to indicate the woman’s scrupulousness in her business transactions (so Cole).

Insofar as the simile and the wool-weighing woman illustrates the balance of the battle between the Greeks and the Trojans, there is a further dimension to her being alēthēs. The balance of and then the change in a battle is often represented through the image of Zeus weighing the two sides in scales (e.g. I.8.69-74, I.16.658, I.19.223-224, I.22.209-213), and this image of Zeus can be seen to be implied here, too, even if it is not explicitly presented as such: in lines 437-438 Zeus gives the upper hand to Hektor. Detienne argues that this image reflects the idea of the archaic king pronouncing justice, with which scales are likewise associated: such pronouncements of justice by the king are just and alēthēs. The model for this king is Zeus in his role of administering justice and judging between two sides, using his scales – and so the adjective is appropriate here, too, signaling the divine justness and alētheia of the judgement weighed in the scales. The application of the adjective alēthēs explicitly to the woman within the simile, then, presents her in the role of Zeus as a divine judge, transferring to the vehicle an attribute of the tenor. And the idea of pronouncing such judgements brings alēthēs here, too, back to the sphere of communication that excludes forgetting, ignoring, and failing to notice by its opposition to lēthē.

See further:

Cole, Thomas. 1983. “Archaic Truth.” Quaderni Urbinati di cultura classica n.s. 13:7-28.

Detienne, Marcel. 1973. Les maîtres de vérité dans la Grèce archaïque. Second edition. Paris: Maspero.

_. 1996. The Masters of Truth in Archaic Greece. Transl. Janet Lloyd. New York: Zone Books.

example of firmly established meaning of halonai, “to be killed” as adduced by its opposition to, kaktámen, “to kill.” Compare to Il. XVII.506

comparison with I.09.104 with regards to noos and muthos

comment on the dramatic conclusion of Book 12/segment of Books 9-12

At the very beginning of Iliad 12, we modern readers may find that we have suddenly hit a wall—the Achaean Wall. It seems difficult for us to understand what the Master Narrator of the Iliad is really saying when he foretells the future destruction or deconstruction of this structure. And the main obstacle to our understanding here is not the presence of the Achaean Wall in the Iliad but rather its foretold absence—after all is said and done in the narrative. For the ancients who heard the Iliad narrated to them, by contrast, the future absence of the Achaean Wall was perfectly understandable in terms of the narration itself. And that is because the Master Narrator presupposes that there is no Achaean Wall to be seen in the Trojan landscape at the time of narration. Such a presupposition shapes the narrative of Iliad 12—and in fact it shapes the whole narrative of the Iliad. The setting for this narrative remains the world of heroes, which is larger-than-life because it is situated in the heroic past, but the setting for the actual narration of this narrative is the post-heroic world of a present time as figured by the Master Narrator himself. The staging of the heroic world by the Master Narrator is comparable to what is called the mise-en-scène in the traditions of French theater and film. And the predominant feature of the Iliadic mise-en-scène or scenery is the Achaean Wall, not the Trojan Wall. That is why the building of this structure by the Achaeans in Iliad 7 had been opposed by the gods Poseidon and Apollo, the original builders of the Trojan Wall. But the Achaean Wall needed to be built by the Achaeans to protect them and their ships from the fire of Hector—which would not be threatening them if Achilles had not been insulted by Agamemnon in Iliad 1. If we think of the overall plot of the Iliad as a scenario, then the Achaean Wall can be seen as an integral feature of the scenery for this scenario.

“Siege of the Greek Camp.” Crispijn van de Passe (I) (1613). Public domain image, via Rijks Museum. (https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/collection/RP-P-OB-16.043)

The Achaeans built the Wall to protect themselves and their beached ships from the Trojans: see the comments on I.07.336–343 and I.07.433–465. But this Achaean Wall is doomed to disappear without a trace in the future, since it was built ‘against the will of the immortal gods’, I.12.008–009 (θεῶν δ’ ἀέκητι τέτυκτο | ἀθανάτων). That is, the Wall was built against the will of the gods Poseidon and Apollo: see the comment on I.07.433–465. And when will it happen, that the Achaean Wall disappears? The timespan of the Wall, says the Master Narrator, depends on the timespan of narrating the story of the Iliad: ‘while Hector was still alive and while Achilles had-his-anger [mēniein]’, I.12.010 (ὄφρα μὲν Ἕκτωρ ζωὸς ἔην καὶ μήνι’ Ἀχιλλεὺς). But then, in the very next verse, the timespan is extended further: the Wall of the Achaeans will not be destroyed while Troy, that mighty city of the king Priam, is not yet destroyed, I.12.011 (καὶ Πριάμοιο ἄνακτος ἀπόρθητος πόλις ἔπλεν). Why the extension? It is because the epic fame of the Achaean Wall depends on the epic fame of the Iliad, and the narration of the Iliad is still in progress. Once the Iliad is narrated, there will be no further need for the Achaean Wall. But there will still remain a further need for the Wall of Troy, which will not yet be destroyed when the narration of the Iliad is completed. Meanwhile, the epic fame of the Achaean Wall, which depends of the narration of the Iliad, still in progress, is threatening the older epic fame of the Trojan Wall, as we can observe already at I.07.448–453: there we see that the Trojan Wall had been built by the gods Poseidon and Apollo for the former king of Troy, Laomedon, who was predecessor of the current king, Priam, and, in the words of Poseidon himself, the Wall built by the Achaeans has an epic glory or kleos, I.07.451, which now threatens to eclipse the corresponding glory of the Trojan Wall built earlier by the two gods, I.07.452–453. The wording at I.07.451 already highlights the epic glory or kleos of the Iliad, which concentrates on the Achaean Wall, as distinct from the kleos conferred by earlier epic traditions that concentrate on the Trojan Wall, I.07.458, as noted in the comment on I.07.433–465. After the story of the Iliad is told—or, more precisely, after Troy is destroyed and the Achaeans are already departing for home, I.12.13–16—then the gods can finally remove this Iliadic threat to the kleos of the Trojan Wall: now Poseidon and Apollo will let loose all the rivers in the region of Troy, which will then flood away all traces of the Achaean Wall, I.12.17–33. This divine action, as foretold here, of removing the mis-en-scène or scenery of the Iliad is already foretold at an earlier point by Zeus himself, at I.07.455–463. Relevant to these prophecies is what we read in Strabo 13.1.36 C598: νεωστὶ γὰρ γεγονέναι φησὶ τὸ τεῖχος (ἢ οὐδ’ ἐγένετο, ὁ δὲ πλάσας ποιητὴς ἠφάνισεν, ὡς Ἀριστοτέλης φησίν) ‘the Poet [= Homer] says that the Wall [= the Achaean Wall] had only recently come into existence, or it never existed at all, and the Poet made it up [plattein] and then made it disappear, as Aristotle [F 162 ed. Rose] says’. To paraphrase Aristotle: Homeric poetry foretells the non-existence of the Achaean Wall in a future time of its own performance, and such a future time will be a post-heroic age (HPC 155n16). On the Homeric conceptualization of a post-heroic age, see the comment on I.12.023 below, featuring the word hēmitheoi ‘demigods, half-gods’.

This reference here to the future destruction of Troy leaves the question open: was the Wall of Troy totally destroyed or only partially so? See the comment on I.07.433–465.

Not only heroes (and their horses) but also forces of nature—such as rivers, as here—can have menos. In the comments so far, menos has been consistently translated as ‘mental power’, not just ‘power’, and this translation can apply even in the present context, I.12.018. Forces of nature can have a mind of their own, as it were, because they are connected to the mental power of divinities who control the cosmos and to whom humans using their own mental power can pray for the activation of such control. Besides rivers, as here, other natural forces that have menos include the sun (I.23.190), fire (I.06.182, I.17.565), and winds (O.19.440). Like heroes, cosmic forces have to be reminded of their menos, and this is precisely what gets done by worshippers who use their own mental power in praying to divinities controlling such cosmic forces, as we see for example in Indic traditions centering on the word mánas-, which I likewise translate as ‘mental power’ and which is actually a cognate of Greek menos.

As the rivers of the Trojan landscape flood away all traces of the Achaean Wall, they also obliterate all traces of the epic battles fought by the Achaean heroes in the mise-en-scène or scenery of that landscape. These heroes are called hēmitheoi ‘demigods, half-gods’ here at I.12.023, and we find no other attestation of this word hēmitheoi in either the Iliad or the Odyssey: in both epics, the word for ‘heroes’ is consistently hērōes. Unlike hēroēs, the word hēmitheoi is appropriate to a style of expression that looks beyond epic. The use of this word to mark the Achaean heroes here belongs not to the epic tradition of the Homeric Iliad and Odyssey but to alternative poetic traditions having to do with cosmogony and anthropogony, as we see when we consider the attestations of hēmitheoi in Hesiodic poetry, F 204.100 and Works and Days 160; relevant too are the attestations of this word in the poetry of the Homeric Hymns, 31.19 and 32.19 (Nagy 2006§66). In the Hesiodic Works and Days, 160, the word hēmitheoi signals the last generation of heroes, who were obliterated in the time of the Theban and the Trojan Wars, 161–165, but who were preserved after death and immortalized by being transported to the Islands of the Blessed, 167–173. It can be said in general that the theme of heroic immortalization is central to myths and rituals related to hero cult, and so the use of the word hēmitheoi ‘demigods’ in this Hesiodic context is highly significant (BA 342-343): yes, all epic heroes must die, but then, by way of becoming cult heroes, they are mystically immortalized after death (Nagy 2006§§80–108). And the significance of such a theme is further heightened by the idea of divine parentage as built into the meaning of word hēmitheoi as ‘half-gods’, which shows a genetic understanding of the hero. The heroic potential is programmed by divine genes, as it were. There has to be a god involved in any hero’s “family tree.” Still, the literal meaning of the word hēmitheos as ‘half-god’ does not imply an exact half-and-half distribution of immortals and mortals in a hero’s genealogy. Rather, this meaning marks a tenuous balancing of immortality with mortality in the hero’s self. In the case of the hero Achilles, for example, the divinity of his mother is not the only ‘half’ of immortality that he inherits, since his mortal father Peleus is descended, by way of that man’s own mortal father Aiakos, from the immortal father Zeus himself. But the bitter fact remains that Peleus is a mortal. And, since Peleus as one of the two parents of Achilles is mortal, Achilles must be mortal as well, even though his other parent is Thetis, who is not only immortal but even endowed with limitless cosmic powers (BA 346–347). So Achilles, despite the limitless potential he inherits from Thetis, is subject to death. The same can be said about all other Homeric heroes: even though they are all descended in some way or another from the gods, they are all mortals. They all have to die, like ordinary mortals. No matter how many immortals you find in a heroic “family tree,” the intrusion of even a single mortal will make all successive descendants mortal. Mortality, not immortality, is the dominant gene (GN 2006§70). So, the meaning of hēmitheoi as ‘half-gods’ can cut both ways: the ‘half-divinity’ of the hero can point downward to the grim facts of mortality just as it can point upward to the sublime hopes for immortalization after death. The scenario of obliteration followed by immortalization for the hēmitheoi in Hesiodic poetry, Works and Days 161–173, must be contrasted with the scenario of obliteration followed by no mention of immortalization for the hēmitheoi in Homeric poetry, I.12.17–33. The inevitability of death for the hero enhances the pathos of hoping for immortalization after death. Such a pathos is visible in the exceptional Homeric occurrence of hēmitheoi at I.12.023, where we see a correspondingly exceptional shift in the Homeric narrative perspective: instead of viewing heroes through the lens of the heroic age, seeing them as they were back then, alive and hoping to be remembered, the poetry now views them through the lens of a post-heroic age, seeing them as already dead and hopefully immortalized after death (Nagy 2006§67).

The wish is expressed, on the Trojan side, that the invading Achaean warriors should die nōnumnoi ‘nameless’ at Troy. The same word nōnumnoi ‘nameless’ is used in the Hesiodic Works and Days, 154, to describe the truly nameless warriors of the Bronze Generation, who live a life devoted exclusively to martial violence and who deserve to earn no epic glory after their violent death, 146-155. At I.12.070, the Achaean warriors are viewed through such a Hesiodic lens, as it were.

In the immediate context, the plural therapontes functions as a virtual synonym of a word used elsewhere, hēni-okhoi ‘chariot drivers’.

Here is the first explicit reference to the objective of the Trojans to break through the Wall of the Achaeans. For further references, see the list in the comment for I.12.198.

The immediate context shows that the hero Asios has a hēni-okhos ‘chariot driver’ who is also the therapōn ‘attendant, ritual substitute’ of Asios precisely because he is the chariot driver.

Reference is made at I.12.118 to the left-hand side of the encampment protecting the ships of the Achaeans. So, in terms of the Master Narrator’s perspective, the positioning refers to the east side: see the comment on I.11.497–500. Described here at I.12.118–123 is the opening in the Achaean Wall through which the charioteers drive their chariots from the Achaean encampment to the scene of chariot fighting and then back again. The use of the word pulē ‘gate’ in the plural at I.12.120 does not necessarily point to the existence of more than one gate, since the function of the plural pulai here may be elliptic: ‘the gate and related things that belong to the gate’. There is a reference to the same pulai at I.07.339–340 and at I.07.438–439. On the concept of an elliptic plural, see the comment on I.04.196. And it is next to this gate that the sacred common tomb of the Achaean dead is located, I.07.336–337.

Besides Hector (I.11.295, I.13.802), Patroklos (I.11.604), and Achilles (I.20.046), the hero Leonteus, mentioned here, is the only other Iliadic figure who is called īsos Arēi ‘equal to Ares’ (BA 33). Relevant to the fact that Leonteus qualifies here at I.12.130 as īsos Arēi ‘equal to Ares’ is the fact that he qualifies at I.12.188 as ozos Arēos ‘attendant of Ares’, also at I.02.745, I.23.841. For the etymology of ozos Arēos, see the anchor comment at I.12.188.

In Homeric diction, a neuter plural subject can “take” a verb in the plural instead of the singular.

As noted in the comment on I.12.130, Leonteus is the only Iliadic figure who is called ‘equal to Ares’ besides Hector, Patroklos, and Achilles (see also BA 33). Relevant is the fact that he qualifies here at I.12.188 as ozos Arēos ‘attendant of Ares’, also at I.02.745, I.23.841. The word ozos in this description, which applies also to other heroes as listed above, can be explained etymologically as (h)o-sd-os, meaning ‘seated together with’: so a hero who qualifies as ozos Arēos ‘attendant of Ares’ can be pictured as literally ‘seated together with Ares’ (BA 295 = ch.17§5n8). The application of this epithet to a hero indicates that such a hero, as a warrior, is destined to become a ritual substitute for the war-god Ares, in the sense that generic warriors are described as therapontes Arēos ‘attendants of Ares’ in the Iliad*. See the comment on I.06.067.

In the Battle for the Ships, the objective of Hector is for the Trojans to set on fire the beached ships of the Achaeans, and, for this objective to be realized, the Trojans must break through the Wall of the Achaeans. There is a reference to such a breakthrough already at I.12.090. For further references, which occur mostly in Iliad 12, to the Trojan objective of breaking through the Wall, see I.12.090, I.12.223, Ι.12.257, I.12.261–262, I.12.308, I.12.418, Ι.12.440–441, I.13.679–680. Many of these references mention also the fire that threatens the beached ships of the Achaeans. From here on, further Iliadic mentions of (1) the Battle for the Ships, (2) the fire of Hector and his Trojans, and (3) the breakthrough of the Trojans in penetrating the Wall of the Achaeans will intensify. Accordingly, for practical reasons, comments on these mentions will from here on refer back only to the anchor comment as formulated here at I.12.198.

The meaning of the noun theopropos as ‘interpreter of signs’ is defined clearly in this verse: the role of such a person is ‘to interpret signs’, hupo-krinesthai, that is, ‘to respond to signs’ by distinguishing what is real from what is unreal. See the note on O.19.535. Relevant are the post-Homeric uses of the derivative agent noun hupo-kritēs in two senses, ‘dream-interpreter’ and ‘actor’ (HC 1§14). Also relevant is the implication here at I.12.228 of a coextensiveness between oracular poetry and epic.

Hector here says that he understands the Will of Zeus, and that the god has already signaled his Will by nodding, I.12.236. We have seen such nodding before, at I.01.524–530 and at I.08.175–176. We have also seen, at I.08.175–176, that the Will of Zeus as signaled by his nodding will bring nīkē ‘victory’ to the Trojans and pēma ‘pain’ to the Achaeans. So too the nodding of Zeus here at I.12.236 signals once again the Will of Zeus, expressed in this case by way of the plural of boulē, ‘will’, which is boulai. This noun boulē, as noted already at I.01.005, I.01.524–530, I.10.043–052, I.10.415, I.11.627, also conveys the idea of ‘planning’, not just ‘wishing’. We may compare the plural boulai ‘plans’ of Zeus at O.08.082, as noted in the comments on I.11.347.

Zeus as terpi-kéraunos ‘he whose bolt strikes’ is asserting here his authority as the god of thunder and lightning. He now sends a violent windstorm from the heights of Mount Ida, thus making a positive signal for the Trojans and a negative one for the Achaeans, I.12.252–254.

Zeus, sending a violent windstorm from the heights of Mount Ida at I.12.252–254, now signals at I.12.255 that this kūdos or ‘sign of glory’ goes to the Trojans, who are already starting to break through the Wall of the Achaeans, I.12.256–257. For more on the breakthrough of the Trojans, see the list of references in the comment for I.12.198.

The two warriors who are jointly named by way of the dual form Aiante here, about whom there will be more to say in the comment on I.12.335–336, are urging the Achaeans to keep up the fight. To encourage the Achaeans, the dual Aiante say that it does not matter whether different warriors will make greater or smaller contributions to the effort: after all, warriors are not homoioi ‘the same as’ each other, since some are superior and some are middling and some are inferior in warfare, I.12.269–270. The word homoio- ‘similar to, same as’, used in comparisons, displays the semantics of relativism as well as absolutism in Homeric diction. For more on homoio- ‘similar to, same as’ see the anchor comment at I.05.441.

The objective of the hero Sarpedon, as he declares here at I.12.318 to his fellow warrior Glaukos, is that the two of them must not be akléees ‘without epic glory [kleos]’. The people whom the two of us rule in Lycia, he continues, must recognize such an objective. This way, the tīmē ‘honor’ that the two of us receive in Lycia, I.12.310 (τετιμήμεσθα), which is a sign of our status there as cult heroes, will be matched by the kleos ‘glory’ that the two of us will receive as epic heroes here in the Iliad.

The reference here to Sarpedon’s diet of mutton in the context of his dwelling in his native land of Lycia can be correlated with archaeological evidence showing that cult heroes received from their worshippers primarily the meat of sheep that were sacrificially slaughtered in rituals of hero cult.

The wording of Sarpedon implies here that he is already assured of immortalization as a cult hero, but now he desires another form of immortalization as well, which is the immortal fame conferred by the medium of epic. Sarpedon now thinks that such fame is worth dying for, right away.

Menestheus, the leader of the Athenians who came to fight at Troy, is stationed to guard a purgos ‘tower’ of the Achaean Wall, I.12.332/333/373. It is at this point in the Wall that the attacking forces on the Trojan side are making their breakthrough, and so the station of Menestheus is evidently located next to the political and sacral centerpoint of the Achaeans, where the stations of Agamemnon and Odysseus are also located. On this concept of a political and sacral centerpoint, see the comments on I.11.806–808. The proximity of the Athenian leader Menestheus to such a centerpoint can be seen as a subtle reference to the importance of Athens in the transmission of the Iliad and Odyssey.

The two warriors who are jointly named by way of the dual form Aiante here are to be identified as the greater and the lesser Ajax—in contexts where the hero Teukros, who is the bastard brother of the greater Ajax, is also named as a participant in the action. In other contexts where Teukros is not named as a participant, however, the dual Aiante are to be identified as the greater Ajax and his bastard brother Teukros. Such contexts reveal an elliptic use of the dual. The use of the dual form Aiante in the contexts of Iliad 12 can be cited as evidence for building an evolutionary model for the making of Homeric poetry.

Heroes strive to avoid being seen in situations where they are bested: this way, they can also avoid the boasting of warriors who best them; at I.12.391, such a word for ‘boasting’ is eukhetâsthai, while the ‘words’ spoken in the act of boasting are epea—which are coextensive with the ‘words’ spoken in the act of performing epic poetry.

See the comment at I.12.335–336.

Most appropriately, Hector is the very first of the Trojan warriors to break through the Achaean Wall. See also anchor comment at I.12.188.

analysis of the application of isos Arēi (and variants) to heroes in their aristeiai and of the use of isos aellēi/lailapi in these contexts

analysis of the application of isos Arēi (and variants) to heroes in their aristeiai (here, an exception, namely, Leonteus)

hand as regular metonym for a warrior’s biē

comment on eukhomenos and epos being traditionally and syntactically bound together, despite the separate existence of epos ēuda# as in this verse

analysis of the meaning and uses of piphauskesthai (in the context of analyzing the semantic and formal confusion of piphaskein and piphauskesthai), in this verse as ‘show, reveal’

analysis of kēla as weapons that are thrown pieces of fire

in a list of passages exemplifying the complementary metrical distribution of eukhos and kudos

in a list of passages exemplifying the complementary metrical distribution of eukhos and kudos

Adjectives such as "painless" modify muthos but not epos, and denote speech that is meant to have an active role in resolving a crisis: "And the painless word pleased Hektor" (muthos apēmōn 12.80, 13.748), said of Polydamas addressing the Trojans (Martin 1993:16).

Polydamas' allegorical reading of a bird-sign from Zeus (12.209-22) is one of two augury passages that provide the discourse background for Achilles' bird simile in Book 9 (9.323-26). In full view of the Trojans, an eagle, bitten by the snake he carries, drops it and "did not succeed in carrying it to his children, to give to them" (12.222). He predicts on this basis that the Trojans will not return from a sortie against the ships. Polydamas prefaced his prediction with the words nun aut' exereō hōs moi dokei einai arista (12.215). Achilles, before comparing himself to a bird, uses the similar phrase autar egōn ereō hōs moi dokei einai arista (9.314). Like the augurs, Achilles draws a moral from the depiction of the bird; his individual shaping consists in pointing the moral toward himself and toward the past, not the future, as both Odysseus and Polydamas do in their augury speeches (Martin 1993:204).

For the bird simile in Achilles' speech, see the comment on Iliad 9.323-326.

References

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

Sarpedon's famous defense of the heroic code at 12.310-28 was a key passage in Adam Parry's argument about the "language of Achilles." Parry found that all Iliadic heroes agreed on the main point of Sarpedon's speech—that honor equals tangible goods—and then compared this universal agreement to Homer's formulaic style, arguing that Achilles' disillusionment with this system put him outside the "common language." Claus subsequently pointed out that Achilles and Sarpedon express a vision of heroism that is in fact akin, in its assumption that the hero battles not just for his own glory and gain, but for the honor of having benefited his companions without "pay," and that the two can speak different formulas and use various rhetorical devices and still express the same point of view. The rhetorical questions at 12.310-14, moreover, find a close parallel in Achilles' questions at 9.337-39; yet Achilles asks essentially the same question three times in succession, and this expansion—not the questioning itself—is what is truly idiosyncratic (Martin 1993:152-53, 204).

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.