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, 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.

As noted in the general comment on I.20.200–258, Aeneas uses the noun neikea, plural of neikos ‘quarrel’, in referring to the mutual negativity that he and Achilles are expressing in their speeches to and about each other. Also used in the same context is the verb neikeîn ‘quarrel with’ at I.20.252 and I.20.254. On the noun neikos ‘quarrel’ and the verb neikeîn ‘quarrel with’ as programmatic markers of blame poetry, see especially the comments on I.02.221, I.03.059, I.03.100, I.10.249–253. Yet another word that is used in the same context here at I.20.244–256 is the noun oneidea, plural of oneidos ‘words of insult’, at I.20.244. On this word, see the comments on I.02.222.

The word epea is used here at I.20.249 to mean not only ‘words’ but also, more specifically, ‘words of poetry’, such as the words of epic. The words of poetry are spoken here in an act of boasting—which is framed within the act of performing epic. See the general comment on I.20.200–258; see also the earlier comment on I.12.387–391. Here at I.20.248–250, Aeneas is cautioning Achilles about the variability of epea as ‘poetic words’. There is a wide range of different ways of saying different things. Different epics, Aeneas is saying in effect, can have different truth-values in different places. What is said in a positive sense at one place may be said in a negative sense at another place. That is the nature of mūthoi, I.20.248, which are ‘wordings spoken for the record’. For more on the Homeric sense of this word mūthos as ‘wording spoken for the record’, see the comment at I.19.084–085. As I noted in that comment, any wording that is called a mūthos by the Master Narrator himself in the act of actually quoting the words of the wording will have the prestige of reality—to the extent that the listeners were actually expected to accept the idea that such wording had once upon a time been really spoken exactly as quoted by Homer himself. In the context of I.20.248–250 here, however, it becomes clear that there were in fact different regional versions of epics as quoted, as it were, by Homer. As Aeneas says at I.20.248–249, there is no single mūthos in the sense that there is no single way of wording a story for the record: rather, there are many ways of wording a story, and so there are many mūthoi to be heard by listeners, not just one. And, to repeat, there is a wide range of different ways of saying different things. As Aeneas says it, I.20.249, the nomós or ‘range’ of epea as ‘words of poetry’ is vast, varying from place to place. The choice of wording here is most evocative: the word nomós can mean literally ‘range of lands used for pasturing’, as at I.02.475, and the metaphorical application here to the wide range of epics about Aeneas and Achilles may evoke a pastoral scene of a cattle-raid in the highlands of Mount Ida, where Achilles was once upon a time rustling the cattle that were pastured there by Aeneas. Such a pastoral scene is signaled in the story as told by Aeneas at I.20.089–102: he was pasturing his cattle in the highlands of Mount Ida, and Achilles evidently caught him off guard in a cattle-raid, I.20.090–091. See the comment on I.20.089–102.

Aeneas' words at 20.246-50 show that muthoi are the large units and epea the small. "Insults" (oneidea) are figured as weighty, tangible goods: "We both have insults to speak formally (muthēsasthai), many of them, nor could a ship with a hundred benches bear the load." The image of "heavy" speech that Aeneas applies to insults extends to muthoi as a whole. Contrast this with the image of the "pasturage" of epea: unlike muthoi, which can be characterized individually (pantoioi, "of all types"), epea travel about here and there in a wide field. Epea are moreover 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." (Martin 1993:17).