analysis of (the location of) the river Keladon

The centerpiece of Iliad 18 is the shield of Achilles, envisioned as a work of art that defines the universe. The divine artisan Hephaistos makes this shield by way of metalwork, but Homeric poetry reconfigures the artistry of this metalwork by way of verbal art. And the artistry of Homeric poetry will now create or re-create a cosmos that is designed to contain the Iliad itself.

“The Shield of Achilles.” Illustration originally published in The Penny Magazine of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, September 22, 1832.

The god Hephaistos makes a new set of metallic armor for Achilles to wear, replacing the older set that is now worn by Hector. The divine metalworker commences the work at I.18.468 and completes it at I.18.613. Then at I.18.614 the narrative announces that the overall work on the armor has now been completed. The metalwork itself is described as primarily bronzework, I.18.474, since bronze is the very first kind of metal that the god ‘was casting in the fire’ (ἐν πυρὶ βάλλεν), and then there are three secondary metals that are mentioned in succession at I.18.474–475: tin, gold, and silver. But bronze dominates the narrative. And the very first piece of armor to be made by the divine metalworker, as announced at I.18.478–479, is the sakos or ‘shield’, I.18.478, which is the centerpiece of the entire process of manufacturing the new set of armor for Achilles. The narrative that describes the making of the shield, which is already a description of the shield in the making, lasts from I.18.478 all the way to I.18.608. Then at I.18.609 the narrative announces that the work on the shield has now been completed. Just as the beginning of the narrative about the making of the shield announces the word sakos ‘shield’ at I.18.478, so also the ending that announces the completion of the work also announces again the same word sakos ‘shield’ at I.18.609, and thus the narrative has come full circle in a spectacular display of ring-composition. This ring-composition expresses here the circularity of the shield, but that circularity is also expressed by way of the adornment that encircles the shield. This adornment is the rim of the shield, presumably imagined as blue, and its encirclement of the shield is said to represent the cosmic river Ōkeanos, I.18.607–608. Such an encirclement of the shield by a representation of the Ōkeanos corresponds to the encirclement of the cosmos by the ever-circular flow of the Ōkeanos itself. See the comment on I.18.399. So, the correspondence shows that the shield in the making is in fact the cosmos in the making. As soon as the shield, as a narration in the making, is finally complete, the shield as an object in the making can finally be seen as a made object. What then follows at I.18.610–613 is the making of other parts of the armor: breastplate, helmet, greaves. And then comes the announcement at I.18.614, as already noted, that the work is now complete. Thus the beginning and the completion of the work on the shield, signaled in the ring-composition that starts at I.18.478 and comes full circle at I.18.608, is enveloped by a wider ring-composition that starts at I.18.468 and comes full circle at I.18.614.

As noted in the previous comment, which analyzes the wider narrative, the narrower narrative about the making of the shield begins at I.18.478 and comes full circle at I.18.608, followed by an announcement of the completion at I.18.609. For the wider narrative, see again the comment on I.18.468–613. As for the narrower narrative here, the analysis will require a different perspective. As the camera zooms in, as it were, on the world of images that are being worked into the surface of the shield by the divine metalworker Hephaistos, the artistic microcosm that we now see being pictured here represents a physical macrocosm that turns out to be the Homeric cosmos itself, defined by the world-encircling river Ōkeanos as its outer limit. The cosmic essence of this Ōkeanos, signaled at I.18.607–608, has already been analyzed in the earlier comment on I.18.468–613. Also, as noted in the still earlier comment on I.14.245–246–246a, the Homeric traditions about Ōkeanos coexisted with older traditions attributed to Orpheus, and, already in the ancient world, various interpreters developed various influential theories about the cosmos by viewing such Orphic traditions about the Ōkeanos together with the corresponding Homeric traditions. One such interpreter was Crates of Mallos, for whom the Ōkeanos was an essential part of an allegory about the cosmos: see the comment on I.14.245–246–246a. For Crates, his interpretation of the verses about the Ōkeanos at I.14.245–246–246a as a cosmic allegory was evidently coextensive with his interpretation of the verses about the shield being made for Achilles here at I.18.478–609. And there is a further extension: for Crates, the verses at I.11.032–040 about the images worked into the shield of Agamemnon were likewise a cosmic allegory: see the comment on I.11.032–040.

Beginning at I.18.483 and ending at I.18.603 are the verses that actually narrate the images that are worked by the divine metalworker into the surface of the Shield of Achilles. So far in the comments on Iliad 18, I have not capitalized the first letter of the word referring to the Shield, since I have been viewing this object primarily as an object in the making. But now, as I begin to view this imagined object primarily as a narrative in the making, I write Shield, not shield. And I now apply the technical term ecphrasis to this core narrative, by which I mean the narration of visual—or at least visualized—art by way of verbal art. From the start, I find it most noteworthy to report what we learn from the testimony of the scholia A for I.18.483: that Zenodotus of Ephesus (see under Zenodotus in the inventory of Words and Ideas) athetized this entire ecphrasis, that is, all the verses that narrated, by way of verbal art, the visual or at least visualized narrative of the Shield, I.18.483–608. (On athetesis and athetizing, see the inventory of Words and Ideas.) But Zenodotus retained these verses in the base text of his edition. (On base text, see the inventory of Words and Ideas). We know this from the fact that Aristarchus, in his edition of Homer, reported a variant textual reading that had been attested by Zenodotus in the case of one of these athetized verses, I.18.499. See the comment below on I.18.499. By contrast with Zenodotus, an editor like Crates of Mallos considered the entire narrative of the Shield to be an all-important part of the Iliad writ large: see the comment on I.18.478–609.

The first scene to be featured in the city at peace is a wedding. But there is not just one wedding: rather, there is a distributive sequence of wedding scenes to be viewed one after the other, as if each viewing were a repetition of the previous viewing. From here on, I will refer to such a visual trope as a wallpaper effect.

The litigants in this litigation scene are anonymous, but the noun neikos ‘quarrel’ at I.18.497 and the verb neikeîn at I.18.498 are evocative of the quarrel that took place between Achilles and Agamemnon in Iliad 1. If the plaintiff and the defendant in the litigation scene are comparable to Achilles and Agamemnon, then what would be the cause of their quarrel? In terms of the micro-narrative that has been worked into the Shield, the quarrel is about the price of a human life. The quarrel is about payment of a poinē ‘blood-price’, I.18.498, for the life of a man who perished. But who would be this man who perished? In terms of the Iliad as a macro-narrative containing the micro-narrative of this litigation scene, the man who perished could be seen as Patroklos. If Agamemnon had not insulted Achilles in Iliad 1, Patroklos would not have been killed as a substitute for Achilles. So, it would seem justifiable for Achilles to blame Agamemnon for the death of Patroklos. And if Achilles were to prosecute Agamemnon, how much would Agamemnon pay as a blood-price for the life of Patroklos? In the litigation scene, the defendant who is being blamed for the death of the man who perished claims the right to pay the blood-price in full, but the plaintiff refuses to accept any compensation at all. Following the interpretation of Muellner 1976:100–106, I translate as follows the relevant wording at I.18.499–500: ‘The one made a claim [eukheto] to pay back in full, | declaring publicly to the district [dēmos], but the other was refusing to accept anything’ (ὃ μὲν εὔχετο πάντ᾽ ἀποδοῦναι | δήμῳ πιφαύσκων, ὃ δ᾽ ἀναίνετο μηδὲν ἑλέσθαι). In this context, the collocation of the political term dēmos ‘district’ (δήμῳ at I.18.500) with the juridical term eukhesthai ‘make a claim’ (εὔχετο at I.18.499) is cognate with the collocation of the same political term dāmos (da-mo) with the same juridical term eukhesthai ‘make a claim’ (e-u-ke-to = eukhetoi) in the Linear B tablet Ep 704 from Pylos (HR 75–76). In terms of the macro-narrative in the Iliad, there is for Achilles no price that could ever repay the loss of his nearest and dearest companion. But who is to determine how to achieve justice in the course of the litigation as described in the micro-narrative? As we see at I.18.501, both litigants opted for arbitration: ‘both were heading for an arbitrator [histōr], to get a limit [peirar]’ (ἄμφω δ᾽ ἱέσθην ἐπὶ ἴστορι πεῖραρ ἑλέσθαι). The context of the arbitration is narrated at I.18.502–508. Surrounding the litigants is an outer circle of lāoi ‘people’, I.18.502, who shout their approval for one side or the other, and an inner circle of elders who compete with each other in striving to reach the most equitable formula for a successful arbitration, I.18.503–508. These elders are taking turns as each one of them stands up, with scepter in hand, to pronounce their competing formulations (details in H24H 13§36; also GMP 53, 64). Their action is thus distributive, since they make their pronouncements not as a group but individually and competitively (see the scholia A for Iliad 18.506 and the comments in HPC 67). So, when the elders are described at I.18.505 as ‘holding their scepters’, it is not that they are all holding scepters at the same time: rather, each one takes turns in holding the scepter, and you hold it only when it is your turn to speak. Again I see here a wallpaper effect.

The anonymous dead man whose life has been lost is described at I.18.499 as apophthimenos (ἀποφθιμένου), that is, as someone who ‘perished’. This reading comes from the base text once used by Aristarchus, but there was a variant reading apoktamenos ‘killed’ (ἀποκταμένου) in the base text used by Zenodotus. For the implications of such variation between the base texts of Aristarchus and Zenodotus, see the comment on I.18.483–608.

Now the narrative turns from the first city, viewed in a time of peace, to the second city, viewed in a time of war. The city at war is under siege, and the warriors who are besieging this city have not yet decided whether to destroy it completely if they win—or whether they keep the spoils of war, dividing among themselves whatever they acquire by conquest, I.18.509–512. While the besiegers encircling the city are deliberating at ground level down below, the visual narration turns around and looks upward to view the city walls of the besieged: standing up there on the walls are the women and children and old men, I.18.514–515, awaiting their fate. The whole scene evokes the siege of Troy in the macro-narrative of the Iliad.

The scene picturing the besieged city now shifts to a scene picturing warriors on the attack. Leading them are the divinities Ares and Athena, I.18.516, who are pictured here as pictures, so to speak, since the divine artisan Hephaistos has metalworked them in gold, I.18.517. But these two divinities are at the same time pictured also as life-size, so to speak, since they are metalworked as larger in size than the warriors whom they lead, I.18.519. The pairing of Ares and Athena as divinities of war stems from an old tradition going back to the Bronze Age. See the comments on O.14.216.

This epithet arizēlo- ‘most visible’, applied here to the divinities Ares and Athena as worked in gold, marks a notionally everlasting vision, pictured by Homeric poetry as a perfect and permanent work of art.

After an extensive description of life in the countryside, I.18.541–566, the vision centers on occasions of festive celebration marking the successful completion of work on the land. Such celebration is figured as a festival featuring ‘song and dance’, molpē, I.18.572. The singers / dancers are parthenikai ‘young unmarried women’ and ēïtheoi ‘young unmarried men’ who have just completed the harvest, I.18.567. Taking the lead in the singing / dancing is a pais ‘boy’ positioned at the center of a group of celebrating singers / dancers, I.18.569. This leader of the song and dance is figured as accompanying himself on a string instrument while he ‘sings the song of Linus’, I.18.570. The whole group sings and dances in response to the leader of song and dance, I.18.571–572.

In this compressed pastoral scene, we see at I.18.589 three important words referring to places where herdsmen can shelter their herds: stathmos ‘station’; klisiā ‘shelter’; sēkos ‘enclosure’. In what follows, I epitomize from my analysis of these three words in HPC 152–153. All three of these words are applied here in the context of describing a generic pastoral setting. When we compare the etymologies of these three words with the contexts of their usage in other pastoral settings, we find that their reconstructed meanings are interrelated: stathmos, derived from the root sta- meaning ‘stand up’, is the makeshift post of a herdsman’s shelter or tent; klisiā*, derived from the root kli- meaning ‘lie down’ or ‘lean’, is the space in the shelter where the herdsman reclines—or, alternatively, it is a ‘lean-to’ covering that affords a makeshift shelter; and sēkos, derived from the root sak- meaning ‘fill [an empty space]’, is the enclosure where the herdsman’s herd is penned in. By way of metonymy, the klisiā is not only an aspect of the shelter but also the entire shelter; likewise, the stathmos is not only the post of the shelter but also the entire shelter and everything contiguous with the shelter, including the sēkos. In this sense, then, the stathmos is the herdsman’s ‘station’. The pastoral word sēkos refers not only to the enclosure where a herd is penned in but also to the enclosure where a cult hero is entombed and worshipped. And it can be argued that such sacral connotations are attached to the pastoral words klisiā and stathmos as well. On metonymy, see the inventory of Words and Ideas. All three words connote traditional images typical of cult heroes. In the Iliad, the word klisiā refers to the abode that a hero like Achilles frequents in life: his klisiā is his shelter, which marks the place where his ship is beached on the shores of the Hellespont during the Trojan War, as we see at I.08.224, I.11.007, and so on. See the comments on I.08.227–227 and on I.11.005–016. In later poetry we see a related use of stathmos (plural stathma) with reference to the places where the ships of Achaean heroes are beached on the shores of the Hellespont (“Euripides” Rhesus 43); these places are also called naustathma ‘ship stations’ (Rhesus 136, 244, 448, 582, 591, 602, 673). Among these stathma ‘stations’ lining the coast of the Hellespont is the heroic space occupied by Achilles.

analysis of these verses and the meaning of legal eukhesthai in comparison with the Linear B tablet PY Ep 704, and development of the legal and secular usages of eukhesthai (etymology of eukhesthai)

analysis of the legal eukhesthai, the only occurrence of which in Homer is in this passage

analysis of the relative value of psukhē and kleos

analysis of Ajax’s speech (esp. about poinē) and its comparison with Phoenix’s Meleagros story and Achilles’ Shield in this passage