analysis of this passage and I.09.009-078 (assemblies of the Trojans and of the Achaeans, respectively) as an instance of “Zielinski’s law”

analysis of the relationship of Nestor and Diomedes (like father and son)

The Master Narrator now approaches what can surely be seen as the highest point so far in the narrative arc of the Homeric Iliad. Achilles has not spoken since Rhapsody 1. Now, in Rhapsody 9, he will speak again. And what he says will define what can and cannot happen in the rest of the Iliad.

The embassy to Achilles, featuring Phoenix and Odysseus in front of Achilles. Attic red-figure hydra, circa 480 BCE. Public domain image via Wikimedia Commons.

Here at I.09.057–058, Nestor makes a remark to Diomedes about that hero’s relatively young age. You could be, Nestor tells Diomedes, the youngest of my sons. Elsewhere, at O.03.412–415, six of Nestor’s sons are mentioned, including Peisistratos, who figures prominently in the Odyssey, and Thrasymedes, who has a major role in the fighting at Troy in the Iliad. Missing from this list in the Odyssey, because he had been killed in action at Troy, is Antilokhos. There is a passing reference to the death of Antilokhos at O.04.186–188. When Nestor makes his remark at I.09.057–058 about the youngest of his sons, the referent here must be Antilokhos, since that hero’s relatively young age is noted elsewhere as well in the Iliad. For example, in a battle scene where the Achaeans are urging each other to fight hard, Menelaos singles out Antilokhos as he urges him on, telling him there is no Achaean there who is younger. And the relatively young age of Diomedes is likewise noted in the Iliad. In another battle scene, at I.14.109–114, while addressing his fellow warriors, Diomedes boasts that ‘I am the youngest among you’ (νεώτατός εἰμι μεθ’ ὑμῖν), I.14.112. So, it may be that Diomedes is even younger than Antilokhos, but that is not the point. Rather, the point is that Antilokhos and Diomedes are comparably young. Nestor himself highlights the youth of Antilokhos when he addresses him on a later occasion, I.23.306. In view of all these other Homeric references, Nestor’s remark at I.09.057–058 about Diomedes as comparable in age to Antilokhos can be seen as an evocation of an epic moment that is awaiting Nestor in the future. At that future moment, Antilokhos, his own young son, will try to save the old hero when Nestor gets entangled in his chariot and is about to be attacked and killed by the chariot fighter Memnon. Antilokhos will succeed in saving Nestor, but it is the young son and not the old father who will now get killed by Memnon. This epic moment, which is in the future for the Iliad, is evidently narrated in a part of the epic Cycle, the Aithiopis, attributed to Arctinus of Miletus, as we read in the plot-summary of Proclus p. 106 lines 4–6 (ed. Allen 1912). On the epic Cycle, see the inventory of Words and Ideas. There is also a reference to this same epic moment in a song of Pindar, Pythian 6.28–42. These non–Iliadic passages have already been cited in the anchor comment on the relevant Iliadic passage, Ι.08.076–117. In that passage, which is already in the epic past from the standpoint of the current Iliadic passage taken from I.09.057–058, Diomedes was acting as a stand-in for Antilokhos, performing in the epic past a task that mirrors the task that will be undertaken by Antilokhos in the epic future. That task was to save Nestor from his entanglement in his chariot. Diomedes saved the life of Nestor, and Nestor knows it when he now compares young Diomedes to his own young son, I.09.057–058. As for Antilokhos, he too will save the life of Nestor, but, unlike Diomedes, he will lose his own life in performing this same task in the future, which is, to save Nestor from another entanglement. And of course Nestor does not yet know it. So, there is an irony in the remark made by the old hero here in comparing young Diomedes to young Antilokhos, though of course the character of Nestor did not intend such an irony. The intentionality, rather, is to be found in the poetics of evocation.

Nestor makes a remark about the watchfires of the Trojans: these fires, he says, are too close for comfort—too close, that is, to the beached ships of the Achaeans. We see here a premonition of the Battle for the Ships and of the fire of Hector, which will threaten to burn down the ships and thus destroy the Achaeans.

in a list of examples of eukhesthai einai + comparative (regarding age)

analysis of asperches (whether to interpret as “furiously” or “ceaselessly”)

comparison of Agamemnon and Achilles in terms of pherteros and karteros (also, of Zeus and Poseidon in same terms)

Nestor's response to Diomedes' speech in Book 9 introduces the concept of telos muthōn, "the perfection of speeches" (line 56): "No one will find fault with your muthos, as many as are Achaeans, nor speak against it. But you have not reached the utmost point of muthoi" (9.50-56). Nestor approves the substance of Diomedes' remarks (9.57-59), then speaks his own mind as explicit instruction for the younger hero in how one reaches the "perfection of speeches." (Martin 1993:25).

Nestor demonstrates the telos muthōn with his own speech (9.60-62): "But, come, I who claim to be more honored than you, I will say out all and go through it all, and no one can devalue my muthos, not even Agamemnon who rules." He proceeds to deliver a simple proposal in elegant form, full of polyptoton, asyndetic gnomic statements (line 63), and, most important, full praise for his audience—Agamemnon. All approve Nestor's muthon (9.79). The same formulaic outcome appears at 14.133 after Diomedes' speech in Book 14 (Martin 1993:25).

In his first muthos speech in Book 9, Nestor can control three segments of an audience at once: Diomedes, whom he instructs in the art of speech; the kouroi whom he orders to take guard duty; and finally Agamemnon. Nestor commands Agamemnon to give orders, "for you are most kingly" (9.69), a status clearly cast in doubt by the old hero's own leading position. His elaborate praise of Agamemnon (9.73-75) in a triplex polyptoton is self-serving, since Nestor is undoubtedly the nameless "one who plans the best counsel" whom Agamemnon is said to obey. Praise and control—the Nestorian strategy—continue through Book 10, in which Nestor regularly upstages the younger hero. Nestor's proposition for the night mission explicitly involves the winning of kleos, whereas Agamemnon's faulty offer in the preceding book had involved gifts alone—an important distinction (Martin 1993:60-61).

For the broader analysis of Nestor as commander and master of the memory genre, see the comment on Iliad 1.259-274.

References

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

Not only is Nestor advisor to the king and instructor of heroes in speech; Homer depicts him at 9.52-78 as actually instructing Diomedes in the proper way to enact a muthos—one of at least two occasions in the poem on which Nestor explicitly teaches other heroes how to speak (the other being his instructions to the embassy members on the technique to be used in persuading Achilles, 9.179-81). The control of speech appears to rest with Nestor. In his function as repository of Achaean traditions, the old man specifically reports the duties of kings and does so in terms of speech: he reminds Agamemnon that the king "must both speak a word and listen, and give authority to another, whenever one's thumos impels him to speak for the good" (9.100-103). In a gently instructive turn, he tells Diomedes: "You talk intelligently to the kings, since you spoke in proportion" (kata moiran, 9.59) (Martin 1993:104-5, 107-8).

For the broader analysis of Nestor as the ideal speaker whose rhetoric rests on eulogy, see the comment on Iliad 1.253-284.

References

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