contra Heiden that the end of Book 15 constitutes one of two major breaks in the performance of the Iliad

analysis of the parallelism between Nestor and Patroclus, reaching its climax in I.16, where Patroclus becomes a horseman, addressed as such in this verse

in the context of discussing the interpretation of Nestor’s name and the meaning of forms from the root *nes- as “safe return home” or without “home” where it needed to be specified

It seems at first as if everything is coming together here in Iliad 16. Achilles, best of the Achaeans, sends out his other self, Patroklos, to fight Hector and his Trojans, who are now on the verge of setting on fire and destroying all the beached ships of the Achaeans. Patroklos does in fact succeed in stopping the fire, which had been endangering not only the survival of the Achaeans but even the very existence of their notional descendants, imagined as the Greeks who are listening to the story of the Iliad in their own time. The conflagration that could have burned down the beached ships of the Achaeans is now literally ‘quenched’ by Patroklos, whose heroic action in putting out the fire of the Trojans is compared in a simile to a cosmic action taken by Zeus himself when this weather-god drenches and thus destroys in a violent rainstorm the farmlands of unjust men. Clearly, Zeus is now once again on the Achaean side of the Trojan War. But the success of Patroklos is not to last: soon after he kills Sarpedon, son of Zeus himself, in the course of a spectacular chariot fight, Patroklos now gets killed in the course of a second spectacular chariot fight. This time, Patroklos has gone too far, daring to attack not only Hector but also the divine protector of that hero, Apollo himself. Now everything is about to come apart again, and Achilles has yet to find out about the tragedy that awaits him.

A chariot driver and a chariot fighter in a biga (two-horses chariot). Terracotta, Late Helladic IIIA–IIIB (ca. 1400–1200 BCE). Louvre Museum, CA 2959. Credit line: Purchase, 1934.  Image Marie-Lan Nguyen (User:Jastrow), 2009-06-28 [CC BY 2.5 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5)], via Wikimedia Commons.

The heroic tendency of Achilles to behave as a lone warrior, not as a member of a group of warriors, is comparable to heroic tendencies that play out in the Indic epic known as the Mahābhārata. In that epic, Bhīma is the “loner,” as it were, while Arjuna is the “joiner.” But the characteristic of Achilles as a “loner” is complicated by the fact that Patroklos, so long as he shares his identity with Achilles, likewise behaves as a “loner” in the Iliad.

lemmatizing: ἔσπετε νῦν μοι Μοῦσαι Ὀλύμπια δώματ' ἔχουσαι

On the use of the plural here, see the comment on I.02.484. I repeat here the translation: ‘tell me now, you Muses who have your dwellings on Mount Olympus’. It has already been noted in the comment on I.11.218- and earlier on I.02.484- that the Master Narrator tends to re-invoke the Muse or the Muses at special moments of poetic self-awareness about the need for high fidelity to tradition. For more on the poetics of re-invocation, see also the comments on I.02.761, I.14.508. Here at I.16.112 the special moment of poetic self-awareness corresponds to the heroic self-awareness of Hector, as analyzed in the comment on I.08.180–183. Since the Muses are the goddesses of poetic memory, their re-invocation by the Master Narrator here at I.16.112 is a fulfillment of the original prediction of Hector: there will be mnēmosunē ‘memory’, I.08.181, of the moment when he will set fire to the beached ships of the Achaeans in the epic Battle for the Ships.

Here is where it all comes together: what the Muses are re-invoked to sing is ‘how the fire of Hector finally reached the ships of the Achaeans’, I.16.113: ὅππως δὴ πρῶτον πῦρ ἔμπεσε νηυσὶν Ἀχαιῶν.

Ajax sees, to his horror, that the dreaded moment has arrived. Now that the fire of Hector is about to reach the ships of the Achaeans, the Will of Zeus is finally about to be fulfilled: what Zeus now literally bouletai ‘wills’ is nīkē ‘victory’ for the Trojans, I.16.121. See also HC 4§109, with a survey of all Homeric situations where either Zeus or Athena awards nīkē ‘victory’.

Ajax makes another strategic partial withdrawal, I.16.122. For an earlier reference to Ajax in the act of withdrawing, see I.15.727–732 and the comment on I.15.704–746. Meanwhile a fiery missile lands on one of the beached ships of the Achaeans, I.16.122–123, and a phlox ‘burst of flame’ envelops the prumnē ‘stern’ of that ship, I.16.123–124. As we know from earlier references to this ship, it had belonged to Protesilaos: see the comment on I.15.704–746. Achilles sees that the beached ship is on fire, and he now urges Patroklos to arm himself and go off to defend the ships from the fire.

Patroklos wears the armor of Achilles, but he leaves behind that hero’s meliē ‘ash spear’ I.16.143. Only Achilles can wield that weapon, I.16.140–144. The symbolism of this spear corresponds to the myth of the bronze generation of heroes in Hesiod Works and Days 143–151, who were born of ash trees and were made of bronze, just as the shaft of the spear of Achilles is made from an ash tree while the tip is made of bronze. By contrast with the immortalizing armor that Achilles receives from his immortal mother Thetis, he receives the ash spear from his mortal father Peleus. For more on the symbolism of the hero’s ash spear, I recommend Shannon 1975.

The word melíē functions as the word for both "ash tree" (e.g. I.16.767) and "ash spear" (as it does here). For a thorough discussion of the Homeric evidence, see The Arms of Achilles and Homeric Compositional Technique (1975) by Richard Shannon, especially pp. 46–48 for his comments on Works and Days 143–155. There is a manifestation of the heroic type represented by the Bronze Men of Hesiod in the heroic character of Achilles himself, and more specifically, in the spear he wields. In fact, Achilles is described as the only hero who could wield this magnificent spear (I.16.140–142), which is also the only piece of the hero's armor that Patroklos did not take with him when he fatally replaced Achilles. In sum, the diction of the entire Iliad makes the bronze-tipped ash spear an emblem of Achilles just as surely as the bronze and ash wood characterize the equally wanton Bronze Men, who are depicted by Hesiod as bent on nothing but húbris and war.

See the comments at O.12.132 and at O.23.246 on myths about solar horses; the name of Xanthos is relevant.

On the word harpuia, personified as ‘Harpy’, see Parts 3 and 4 of the comment at O.15.250–251.

Here, for the first time in the Iliad, Patroklos is marked as the therapōn of Achilles. His dual role as ‘attendant’ and ‘ritual substitute’ is already implicit.

I note here only in passing the semantic and morphological links between these two adjectives kratero- ‘having the power to win’ and hiero- ‘sacred’ in contexts where they describe the noun menos ‘mental power’.

This word biē ‘force, violence, strength’ and its synonym īs are conventionally associated with violent winds.

This word hupophētai ‘spokesmen’ refers to interpreters of oracular pronouncements.

As it was noted in the comment on I.13.111–113, Agamemnon ‘dishonored’ Achilles, I.13.113, as expressed by the verb a-tīmân, and Zeus therefore punished the Achaeans. Again here at I.16.237, the Achaeans are being punished by Zeus, while he ‘honors’, tīmân, Achilles.

Ajax makes another strategic partial withdrawal, I.16.122. For an earlier reference to Ajax in the act of withdrawing, see I.15.727–732 and the comment on I.15.704–746. Meanwhile a fiery missile lands on one of the beached ships of the Achaeans, I.16.122–123, and a phlox ‘burst of flame’ envelops the prumnē ‘stern’ of that ship, I.16.123–124. As we know from earlier references to this ship, it had belonged to Protesilaos: see the comment on I.15.704–746. Achilles sees that the beached ship is on fire, and he now urges Patroklos to arm himself and go off to defend the ships from the fire.

See also the comment on I.13.688.

contrasting Achilles’ philotēs in Iliad 16 (exclusive bond with Patroklos) and Iliad 18 (bond with Patroklos and with the rest of the social group)

analysis of different interpretations of I.16.060-065 (whether Achilles is giving up his mēnis or not, etc.), comparison with the conditions Achilles sets specifies at I.09.650-653

analysis of Achilles’ intentions in sending Patroklos out to fight in his own armor, giving up his mēnis and identification with Patroklos

analysis of Achilles’ intentions in sending Patroklos out to fight in his own armor, giving up his mēnis and identification with Patroklos

analysis of mēnis as a tabu deformation and here specifically an example the relaxation of the speech tabu

analysis of the development of the meaning of Latin spendō, in the context of analyzing the development of uoueō/eukhesthai

in a list of examples of Homeric prayers, in the context of analyzing the meaning of eukhesthai in formula (A) and here specifically the Homeric notion of prayer

analysis of kluein + eukhesthai formulas (here, examples of absolute eukhesthai)

in a list of examples of absolute use of eukhesthai to report prayers (kluein + eukhesthai formulas)

example of a transformation parallel to that of formula (A) to formula (B), where eukhomenos is deleted because of the change of context from sacral to secular [MRBTP: 'ff']

The powerful muthos performed by Achilles as he marshals the Myrmidons begins with an injunction to recall their previous threats (apeilai) against the Trojans: "Myrmidons, let no one forget on me the threats with which you threatened the Trojans at the ships all during the time of anger" (16.200-201). Although Achilles mentions threats, he does so not to threaten anyone himself but to challenge the Myrmidons—a strategy of recalling past speech-acts to shame the present hearers into action, already displayed by Nestor early in the poem (2.349). Achilles' challenge is the more effective because he not only recalls one speech-act but uses a direct quotation to mimic another, one the Myrmidons had employed, and then dismisses these earlier grumbling speeches as mere talk (ebazete, 16.207). In familiar flyting fashion, he contrasts "then" with "now": the Myrmidons used to talk of going home because Achilles was angered, "but now has appeared the great work of strife, of which you were previously enamored" (16.207-8) (Martin 1993:71-72).

For the broader analysis of the flyting genre and the recalled-speech strategy, see the comment on Iliad 4.336-421.

References

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