comment on the goal of the second to last segment of the poem, books 17-20, Achilles’ return to battle, and their relationship with the final segment

By now Achilles has a new set of armor, and he is ready to fight the Trojans. But his first major opponent seems to be a distraction. At least, our initial impression may lead us to think that there is a distraction going on here. The first major opponent of Achilles in Iliad 20 is Aeneas, hero of epic traditions that eventually became absorbed into the Aeneid of Virgil. Is this hero, we may ask, a truly worthy opponent of Achilles? Are the epic traditions that figure this son of Aphrodite / Venus truly worthy of the epic that is the Homeric Iliad? Once we examine more closely the oldest Greek epic traditions of Aeneas, it will become clear that this hero is indeed a most important opponent of Achilles, in that he represents ancient Greek epic traditions that are different from and antithetical to the epic tradition that prevailed in the Homeric Iliad as we know it. Not only does Aeneas challenge Achilles: even the epic traditions that figure Aeneas will challenge the epic traditions that figure Achilles. To say it another way, Aeneas represents a proto-Aeneid that challenges the proto-Iliad of Achilles. What makes Aeneas and his Aeneid—or, better, Aeneids—such a formidable challenge to Achilles is the enormous political prestige of the epic tradition that backs up Aeneas. By virtue of being the son of Aphrodite/Venus, Aeneas possesses a genealogical and dynastic charisma that threatens to overshadow the purely epic charisma of his Iliadic opponent Achilles.

“Venus preventing her son Aeneas from killing Helen of Troy,” Luca Ferrari, circa 1650. Luca Ferrari [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

In this speech, Achilles speaks to Aeneas from the standpoint of an epic tradition that glorifies primarily Achilles. On the other hand, in the corresponding speech of Aeneas to Achilles, I.20.200–258, we will see that Aeneas speaks to Achilles from the standpoint of a different though related epic tradition. This different traditions, as we will see, glorifies primarily Aeneas himself.

Achilles tells about a past encounter with Aeneas in an epic story that is situated outside the time-frame of the Iliad, I.20.187–194. The story supplements what Aeneas says at I.20.089–098 about such an encounter, where that hero tells a different though related version of the same story. The differences are highlighted in the story as told by Achilles here at I.20.187–194, where we find additional details about the escape of Aeneas from Achilles. According to this version of the story, Aeneas seems to have escaped from Achilles not once but twice: after Aeneas ran down from the highlands of Mount Ida and reached the coastland without getting caught by Achilles, he found refuge in the city of Lyrnessos, which Achilles then destroyed—but without catching him, since Aeneas somehow escaped, I.20.190–194. In this narrative, Achilles knows that it must have been the gods who made it possible for Aeneas to escape, but he does not know the exact identity of the god who actually rescued that hero: the wording of Achilles is ostentatiously vague when he refers at I.20.194 to the action of ‘Zeus and other gods’ in rescuing Aeneas from the besieged city of Lyrnessos before Achilles destroyed it. This vagueness about the interference of the gods is relevant to what will happen in the upcoming encounter between Aeneas and Achilles. As we will see in the comment on I.20.290–352, Achilles will be literally kept in the dark about the identity of the god who will rescue Aeneas from being killed when the two heroes finally engage in mortal combat. That said, I return to my focus on the second escape of Aeneas from Lyrnessos—following his first escape when he ran down to that city from the highlands of Mount Ida. The details we have seen about the second escape explain why only Lyrnessos is mentioned in the version of the story as told by Achilles, unlike the version as told by Aeneas, where both Pedasos and Lyrnessos are mentioned. The second escape of Aeneas, from a besieged city, could only have happened at one of the two cities of Pedasos and Lyrnessos, which were both ultimately destroyed by Achilles. Aeneas could not have been present in two besieged cities at the same time. I propose, then, that Pedasos and Lyrnessos were alternative places of refuge for Aeneas in alternative versions of his story, just as these same two cities had been alternative places of residence for Briseis in alternative versions of her own story, as I noted in the comment on I.16.057. In yet another story, there was yet another city from which Aeneas escaped before it was completely destroyed. The dramatic time of this other story, unlike the stories we have just considered about the cities of Pedasos and Lyrnessos, comes after rather than before the dramatic time of the Iliad. This other story is about the city of Troy itself, and, in this story as well, Aeneas managed to escape before the city was completely destroyed. The story was told in an Ionian epic that belonged to the epic Cycle, and the name of this epic was the Iliou Persis ‘Destruction of Ilion’, attributed to Arctinus of Miletus, Proclus summary p. 107.24–26 ed. Allen 1912. On the epic Cycle, see the inventory of Words and Ideas.

comment on the expression ē ou memnēi in the context of analysis of the presence of other traditions in the Iliad, here the Capture of Lyrnessos and Pedasos, and Aeneid tradition vs. one of Achilles and the vocabulary of poetry of blame and kleos

In the wording of Achilles here, his boast about his swift-footedness is a paraphrase, as it were, of the epithets that describe him as swift-footed. There are over 30 occurrences of the epithet podas ōkus ‘swift-footed’ and over 20 occurrences of podōkēs ‘swift-footed’.

In this speech, Aeneas speaks to Achilles from the standpoint of an epic tradition that glorifies primarily Aeneas, not Achilles. At I.20.200, Aeneas uses the word epea ‘words’ in referring negatively to the earlier speech of Achilles, I.20.178–198, where Achilles had spoken from the standpoint of an epic tradition that glorified primarily Achilles. This word epea—pronounced as epē in prose—normally means simply ‘words’ when it is used inside of epic diction, but it can also mean ‘words of poetry’ when it is used outside of such diction in contexts referring to poetry, especially to epic poetry. In prose, this kind of usage leads to the explicit meaning of epē as ‘epic poetry’. And, exceptionally, such a meaning of epē can even occur within the diction of epic poetry itself. That is what seems to be happening in the context of I.20.200, where epea refers to the words of Achilles as if they were the ‘poetic words’ of epic—that is, as if these words were the equivalent of epic itself. Do not try to intimidate me, Aeneas says to Achilles at I.20.200–201, by telling epea ‘words’ about past epic events like our mutual encounter in the highlands of Mount Ida and beyond. Yes, some epics will glorify you, but there are other epics that will glorify me instead. See further in the comment below on I.20.248–250. By implication, Aeneas is saying here that he has access to a different though related version of epic events, and that such a version will glorify him at the expense of Achilles. In fact, the entire speech of Aeneas at I.20.200–258 is a glorification of this hero by way of an epic tradition that is different from though related to the tradition that glorifies Achilles. This different tradition, as Aeneas goes on to demonstrate, glorifies primarily Aeneas himself. Meanwhile, the poetic implications of the word epea as ‘epic’ now become more explicit at I.20.203–205. Aeneas says here that he and Achilles know stories about each other not because they have been eyewitnesses to these stories, I.20.205, but because they both have heard, as other listeners have also heard, the epea that are the stories, and these epea are pro-kluta ‘glorious’, I.20.204. In this context, then, the word epea comes close to meaning ‘epics’, since the idea of pro-kluta as poetically ‘glorious’ is linked with the etymology of this adjective as ‘prominently heard’, just as the idea of kleos as a poetic kind of ‘glory’ is linked with the etymology of this noun as ‘the thing that is heard’. See the comment on I.02.484–487. Also relevant to the sense of epea as ‘words of poetry’ is the mutual negativity of the rivalry that is ongoing here between the two different epic traditions about Aeneas and Achilles. For example, there is an insulting reference that Aeneas makes at I.20.211 to the epea as recounted by Achilles about Aeneas. Those epea or ‘words of poetry’, as a veritable ‘epic’ told by Achilles, were certainly negative about Aeneas, just as Aeneas is now speaking negatively about Achilles and about that hero’s role in those same epea. Such mutual negativity is expressed by way of using words of blame poetry as contained within the epic, even though epic sees itself as a form of poetry that engages primarily in words of praise. The negativity of blame poetry is actually signaled in the words of Aeneas at I.20.251, who uses the noun neikea, plural of neikos ‘quarrel’, in referring to the mutual negativity that the two heroes express in their speeches to and about each other. See further in the comment on I.20.244–256.

So, Aeneas in the Homeric Iliad can boast about the eternal genes that make him the ideal ancestor of any dynasty that claims to be descended from him. And that is how, from the hindsight of world history, Rome could claim its destiny as the Eternal City. I have already noted that Strabo (13.1.53 C608), after listing various dynasties in the past that had been vying with each other for possession of Aeneas as their ancestor, concludes by acknowledging Rome as the world power that ultimately won out in claiming Aeneas as its founder. And Virgil’s Aeneid can go down in history as a most powerful statement of such a claim. But what about the era when the Homeric Iliad took shape? Does this epic make a claim that is comparable to what we see in the Aeneid of Virgil? Such questions need to be consolidated and asked retrospectively, not just prospectively, since the historically earlier cases where dynasties claimed descent from Aeneas are not nearly as well attested as is the case of Rome. So, the consolidated question is this: from the standpoint of the Iliad as we have it, was there any existing political power that could have claimed ownership, as it were, of Aeneas? The answer is simple: there did exist some grouping of Ionians that had such power, and, for them, Aeneas was an Ionian. But the details, as we will see in what follows, are complicated. And, to complicate things further, there were two phases of Ionian ownership, which I summarize here in the form of two points to be made from the start.

Point 1. [Epitomized from HPC 196–197.] The first of two phases for an Ionian ownership of Aeneas can be traced back to the seventh century BCE or perhaps even earlier. It was a time when the Ionians of the Ionian Dodecapolis in central Asia Minor, dominated by the Ionian city of Miletus, were continuing to expand their influence in northern Asia Minor. (For more on the Ionian Dodecapolis, see the inventory of Words and Ideas.) One sign of such expansionism was the success of these Ionians in making inroads into the region of ancient Troy in northern Asia Minor and establishing there a new Troy, as it were. Such success is reflected in the Ionian epic tradition. The primary example is the Ionian epic of the Iliou Persis, attributed to Arctinus of Miletus. Here I offer a brief review of the relevant parts of this epic (Proclus summary p. 107.24–26 ed. Allen 1912):

After Troy was completely destroyed by the Achaeans, a handful of prominent survivors sought to find alternative places to live. The most prominent of these survivors of Troy’s total destruction was the hero Aeneas: foreseeing the destruction that was about to happen, he withdrew from the doomed city and moved to a palace he established in the highlands of Mount Ida.

This version of the Aeneas story matches not only the plot of the epic Iliou Persis. It matches also the local mythology of the city of Scepsis, located in the region of Mount Ida. As we learn from Strabo (13.1.53 C607), Demetrius of Scepsis claimed explicitly that the basileion ‘royal palace’ of Aeneas was in the city of Scepsis. The idea of a royal city founded by Aeneas in the region of Mount Ida reflects the political interests of Ionians in general, not only of Scepsis in particular. To make this point, I start by focusing on two details reported by Demetrius of Scepsis by way of Strabo (13.1.52 C607):

A. The city of Scepsis, after being founded by Aeneas, was later ruled jointly by Ascanius (Askanios) son of Aeneas and Scamandrius (Skamandrios) son of Hector.

B. The population of Scepsis was augmented at a later period by immigrants from the Ionian city of Miletus.

Scepsis had a special meaning for Ionians not only because this city was supposedly the site of the palace of the hero Aeneas but also because the ancient site of Troy was supposedly located within its territory, in the highlands of Mount Ida. Here was the kōmē ‘village’ of the Ilieis ‘people of Ilion’, a site that Demetrius of Scepsis claimed was the real ancient Troy, while the Aeolian site of Ilion, some 30 stadium-lengths to the northwest, was supposedly a false Troy (Strabo 13.1.35–36 C597–598; also 13.1.25 C593). So, the Trojan War, according to this Ionian version, supposedly happened in territory that Ionians once claimed as their own. In this version, ancient Troy was totally destroyed and then later reoccupied as a mere village, while Aeneas established at Scepsis a new city of Troy for the surviving Trojans. And the relocation of Aeneas to Scepsis at a time that anticipated the total destruction of ancient Troy now made it possible for the new Troy that was Scepsis to become the legitimate heir to the Trojan heritage—all within the framework of Ionian territory. In terms of this particular Ionian version of the Trojan War, everything happened within the Ionian territory of Scepsis. In contrast to this version of the Trojan War, which suited the interests of the Ionians, the Aeolians made a rival claim: that Troy was in fact not totally destroyed and that some of its population survived to rebuild the old city, originally called either Troy or Ilion, as the New Ilion, or, more simply, Ilion. See the anchor comment at I.09.328–333 about efforts of Aeolians to possess ancient Troy and its environs in the historical period. This rival version of the Aeolians was actively promoted by the historian Hellanicus of Lesbos, whose publications can be dated as far back as 406 BCE (scholia for Aristophanes Frogs 694). Hellanicus in his Trōïka (FGH 4 F 25b), as mediated by Strabo (13.1.42 C602), says that the city of New Ilion was in fact the same place as the old Ilion, that is, ancient Troy. Strabo (again, 13.1.42 C602) remarks that this claim of Hellanicus—who was a native of Aeolian Lesbos—reflects the historian’s partiality toward the people of the Aeolian city of New Ilion. Modern archaeology, however, has proved that the claim of the Aeolians as represented by Hellanicus of Lesbos was basically right and that the rival claim of the Ionians as later represented by Demetrius of Scepsis was wrong. There is in fact no historical or archaeological support for the claim that the old Ilion, ancient Troy, was located in the Ionian territory of Scepsis. Here I return to the Ionian version as restated by Demetrius and then by Strabo (13.1.35–36 C597–598; also 13.1.25 C593). According to this version, as we saw, the site of the old Ilion was the kōmē ‘village’ of the Ilieis ‘people of Ilion’ in the territory of Scepsis, some thirty stadium-lengths away from New Ilion. Despite the fact, however, that Demetrius thinks of this ‘village’ as the site of ancient Troy, he concedes (via Strabo 13.1.38 C599) that he could see absolutely no trace of any epic ruins there.

Point 2. [Epitomized, radically, from HPC 143–146.] The second of two phases for an Ionian ownership of Aeneas can be traced back to an era that starts, by my estimation, somewhere around the late seventh century BCE. The city of Athens, which was emerging as a primary representative of Ionian identity at that time, was making its own inroads into the region of ancient Troy, eventually establishing there a new Troy of its own by occupying and reconfiguring the city of Sigeion, which had been formerly an Aeolian stronghold. The formerly Aeolian identity of Sigeion is noted by Strabo 13.1.25 C593. As for the reconfigured Ionian identity of Sigeion as a new Troy, I refer again to Points 6 and 8 in the anchor comment at I.09.328–333. This reconfigured city of Sigeion as a new Troy became a rival of another new Troy, Ilion, which had been built by the Aeolians on the foundations of what remained of the old Troy, as noted at Points 1–5 in the same anchor comment at I.09.328–333. See also anchor comment at I.20.302–308 on: Aeneas the Ionian, part 2; and anchor comment at I.20.302–308 on: Aeneas the Aeolian.

In boasting about his own genealogy, the hero Aeneas uses the verb eukhesthai ‘declare’ here at I.20.209, thus making a most definitive epic statement of identity. When the genealogy is completed at I.20.241, the verb eukhesthai ‘declare’ recurs, indicating the simultaneous completion of the boast. For Aeneas, an all-important aspect of his lengthy genealogy is his most immediate genetic link: as this hero boasts by way of that most solemn word eukhesthai ‘declare’ here at I.20.209, he is the son of Aphrodite herself. And, from this goddess of sexuality, who is the embodiment of eternal regeneration, Aeneas has inherited what could best be described as eternal genes, as it were. Such an arresting idea is at the same time a political ideology, since any dynasty that can claim Aeneas as ancestor is thereby destined to be regenerated, successor after successor, for all eternity. There is evidence, as noted by Strabo 13.1.53 C608, for the existence of dynastic powers that did in fact claim Aeneas as their ancestor. In the end, though, only one of these powers noted by Strabo actually succeeded in making permanent such a claim. That power was Rome, and, retrospectively, the surviving record that made such a claim permanent was of course the Aeneid of Virgil, which tells how Aeneas escaped from Troy before it was completely destroyed and how he traveled all the way to Italy, where he became the originator of the world power that became Rome.

The use of the verb eidénai ‘know’ in both verses here at I.20.213–214 is relevant to the poetics of knowing something by way of hearing the authoritative testimony of epic. There is a reference to such poetics already earlier at I.20.203, where eidénai ‘know’ refers to knowing the facts of genealogy by way of hearing epea as ‘epic’, described at I.20.204. On this point, see the general comment on the speech of Aeneas at I.20.200–258. And the basic fact about that entire speech of Aeneas is a fact of genealogy. As we saw in the comment on I.20.209, Aeneas is making a most solemn heroic boast, signaled by the word eukhesthai ‘claim’, that he is the son of the goddess Aphrodite herself.

analysis of cases where speeches introduced/concluded by formulas (X) = introduce speech – Greek speaker – dead Trojan, or (Y) = conclude speech – Trojan speaker – dead Greek, are challenges to a confrontation with another hero, and as here, genos-speeches as in fact challenges

analysis of phanai as contrasting with and substituting for eukhomai, in the context of analyzing the meaning of eukhesthai in genos eukhesthai einai formulas [MRBTP: 'ff']

analysis of the divergent attestations of eukhesthai in the context of genos specification, namely, Aeneas’ specification of both of his parents, with eukhesthai ekgegamen instead of genos eukhesthai einai

in a list of attestations of genos eukhesthai einai and its transformations

comment on the etiquette of naming conventions, the omission of one’s own name in geneē-speeches vs. mentioning another’s name in such contexts, and stating one’s own name as a sign of special fame (in the context of analyzing genos eukhesthai einai formulas)

comment on the etiquette of naming conventions, the omission of one’s own name in geneē-speeches vs. mentioning another’s name in such contexts, and stating one’s own name as a sign of special fame (in the context of analyzing genos eukhesthai einai formulas)

example of an elaborated speech about one’s geneē (Aeneas), in the context of analyzing the more common short genos eukhesthai einai formulas [MRBTP: 'ff']

Aeneas' words to Achilles at 20.203-204—"We know each other's genealogy, we know the parents, from hearing the famous epea of mortal men"—illuminate the fundamental distinction between muthos and epos. The adjective proklut' literally means "heard before"; only in the context of oral tradition can this word come to mean "famous," as happens also with the noun kleos, "glory." Gregory Nagy has shown that epea here refers to poetic utterances in the form of traditional narratives about Aeneas. What the passage underlines is the significant distinction between "telling" blameful things (oneidea)—an act described with the verb muthēsasthai—and "hearing" utterances (epea): muthos is associated with the speaker's action in giving a message, while epos refers to the transmission of the message, the end-product of the speech process (Martin 1993:16-17).

In the same speech at 20.246-50, Aeneas develops the contrast further: muthoi are figured as heavy, tangible goods—"nor could a ship with a hundred benches bear the load"—while epea "travel about here and there in a wide field," like small objects that can be batted to and fro, part of a general system of exchange: "whatever epos you say, you hear in return." Muthoi are the large units, epea the small (Martin 1993:17-18).

References

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