This was my literary analysis for the second assignment, it looks at parallels between the arguments between Achilles/Agamemnon and Zeus/Hera at the beginning and end of the first book. Enjoy!

The first book of the Iliad begins with an invocation of Achilles’ rage, the rage that will ultimately cause his own people so much grief and is also the impetus for Homer’s version of the tale of the Trojan War. Whereas the abduction of Helen is the catalyst of the larger, traditional narrative, the feud between Agamemnon and the “swift-footed” hero over a kidnapped girl defines the thematic arc of the Iliad. Both feature a conflict over a woman (Helen and Chryses’ daughter respectively) and a need for resolution, as well as a breach of social contract: Paris steals the wife of his host, breaking the bonds of the xenia guest relationship, while Agamemnon denies Chryse his right to ransom and invokes the wrath of the gods in the form of a plague. In both cases, however, it becomes clear that the conflict will not be resolved shortly, but will continue through the very heart of the story. By “singing of Achilles’ rage” from the first line, the narrator is clearly indicating to the audience that this Trojan war is not the war of Hector or Paris or Helen, but of the proud Achilles and his hero-sized hubris.

It is interesting to note then, that the argument between Agamemnon and Achilles finds a parallel right at the end of the same book in the fight between Zeus and his wife Hera. This produces a somewhat unexpected effect, the first chapter of an epic that is nominally about a foreign military campaign is bookended by scenes of internal conflict: dissent within the ranks of the Greek army and a domestic dispute among the immortals. Even the structure of these exchanges is strikingly similar. In both instances, the antagonizing party (Achilles and Hera) seems to have a legitimate or at least understandable claim to their grievance, but they quickly abandon any hope of legitimacy or resolution by resorting to vitriolic rhetoric and ad hominem attacks against their superiors. And again in each case a third party attempts to mediate the conflict with appeals to common goals and traditional values, but without much success. These intermediary roles are fulfilled by the characters Nestor and Hephaestus, and though they may seem to be peripheral, accommodating figures whose only function is to end the arguments and thus their respective scenes, I would argue that each one can be seen as a kind of symbolic cue to a central message of the Iliad. Fame and glory in war are not the values that the epic endorses, though it may seem to be at first glance. Rather, traditional ideals of family, community, and above all a celebration of transient, mortal life are the things that matter the most in this world. Personal gain and fame and glory can belong to the gods, the Iliad seems to say through these characters, but man’s true glory is in a life well lived.

But first, it would be useful to look at the conflicts in detail, and to understand just how fundamentally disruptive they would appear to an ancient audience. When it becomes clear that Agamemnon’s denial of ransom for the daughter of Chryse is the cause of the plague ravaging the army, Achilles does not air his concerns within the private, inner council of kings and commanders. Nor does he go to Agamemnon personally with the seer Calchas’ assessment of the situation. Rather, he assembles the army and asks Calchas to again deliver his verdict in front of Agamemnon and the entire gathered host, aiming for maximum visibility. It is apparent to Calchas that this is a politically charged and precarious situation, so he asks Achilles for protection for his potentially treasonous remarks, to which the hero responds: “Prophesy to the best of your knowledge/I swear by Apollo […] non one will lay a hand/On you here beside these hollow ships, no not even/Agamemnon, who boasts he is best of the Achaeans.” (Iliad 1.92-97) Achilles is not just being insubordinate by circumventing the proper channels of communication, he actively goes out of his way to call out Agamemnon and humiliate him before the common foot soldiers. His advice to the host, though it is in accordance with the prophecy and Zeus’ divine will and not a very unreasonable proposal, actually forces Agamemnon into a defensive position simply to save face and remain an effective leader. Achilles is trying to gain personal glory and usurp Agamemnon’s position at the head of the army, and so the king of Mycenae has not choice but to react in kind: “[Achilles] wants to be ahead of everyone else/He wants to rule everyone, give orders to everyone/Lord it over everyone, and he’s not going to get away with it./If the gods eternal made him a spearman, does that mean/They gave him permission to be insolent as well?” (1.303-306) Achilles is upsetting the political order not just for the common good of his people, but more to satisfy his own arrogance and pride. The military order is overturned by Achilles tactless speech, which during a time of war is tantamount to treason. This behavior, especially coming from someone who is supposed to be the ideal military man, would probably have been at the least unexpected in a traditional audience. It reinforces the idea that this tale will not be one of Achilles’ strength and valor, but of his stubbornness, his wrath, and his vanity.

We see another kind of order challenged in the last lines of book one: the “natural” hierarchy of the household. When Thetis implores Zeus to bring woe upon the Greeks for the perceived slight against his honor, he must accept her request. Hera sees her husband with Achilles’ mother and confronts him, probing and prodding him for information until he admits that he has cursed the Greek campaign. Zeus is infuriated by her attempts to undermine him and to unravel his plans, and puts her in her place. There are several parallels between this heated exchange and the earlier debate between Agamemnon and Achilles. Zeus, like Agamemnon, may not be just or fair in his decisions, but he is nonetheless sanctioned by his position of authority to make them. Both also must accept courses of action that they might find unpleasant, yet bound by larger forces to honor: Agamemnon must give up his spoils of war at Chryse to stop the plague, and Zeus must hinder the Greeks as a favor to Thetis, who had supported him in an earlier conflict. Both even recognize that they might be in the wrong, as Zeus admits “You witch! Your intuitions are always right./But what does it get you? Nothing, except that/I like you less than ever. And so you’re worse off.” (1.593-595) Achilles was also right about Agamemnon’s folly in the affair at Chryse, but his challenging of the rightful command only creates more trouble for the army in the long term. Here also, Hera upsets the natural (and divine) order of things by challenging the power of the husband, who is the chief commander of the household of gods just as Agamemnon is the patriarch of the Greek army. These hierarchies would have been seen as rigid and fixed by a conservative ancient audience, and their boundaries would have been understandably unmovable in their eyes. The regimented system of rank, like the male-centric view of marriage displayed in Zeus’ threats of violence against his wife, represent limits to acceptable social behavior within the contemporary society. The husband is the ruling parter in a marriage in the same way a commander is the ruling part of a fighting force. Strength determines leadership, not wits or rhetoric. Achilles and Hera upset the hierarchy, and their assaults against it will have far-reaching consequences throughout the epic. Achilles’ pride will permanently change the tide of the war, just as the competition among the gods of Olympus determine the outcomes of many of the individual episodes within it.

But there is one final element that is shared between these two arguments, which I believe provides the most important key to unpacking their true significance for the epic as a whole. The presence of Nestor and Hephaestus, who both try to end the conflict through reason and an appeal to the unity of the group which is harmed by such anti-social strife. Hephaestus says to his mother: “This is terrible; it’s going to ruin us all./If you two quarrel like this over mortals/It’s bound to affect us gods […]” (1.606-608) Likewise, Nestor emphasizes the irony that Achilles and Agamemnon are spending more energy in fighting each other than the enemy they have traveled so far to conquer:

“It’s a sad day for Greece, a sad day.

Priam and Priam’s sons would be happy indeed,

And the rest of the Trojans too, glad in their hearts,

If they learned all this about you two fighting,

Our two best men in council and battle” (1.269-273)

Both men here emphasize that personal bickering and attempts to build up one’s own ego at someone else’s expense are not only fatal for the individual character, but the society at large. There is a greater order at stake which is being challenged by Achilles’ insubordination and Hera’s nagging; it is an order that is supported by the law of nature and the need for unity within an army, family, or culture etc. It is also interesting to see what kinds of sources Nestor and Hephaestus are, as both are outsiders within the groups that they seem to be advocating for. Nestor is an old man within the army, unable to fight, only of use to the able-bodied force as a source of wisdom and experience. Hephaestus is a lame god, and immortal being crippled by a definitively mortal attribute, and (as one sees at the end of the book) something of a fool or jester in the eyes of the other Olympians. They are both disabled men in some way, somehow set apart from the mainstream cultures they participate in. And yet, perhaps this “otherness” of the two characters allows them to function as intermediates in the struggles and messengers for a more universal kind of morality. It is a morality beyond the concerns of glory and social stature, one that values only community and life itself.

When Achilles and Agamemnon fight for advantage over one another, both claim to be fighting for higher ideals of honor, though each is really only invested in his own reputation. When Zeus asserts himself over Hera, he sounds downright fascistic: “If it’s as you think it is, it’s my business, not yours./So sit down and shut up and do as I say.” (1.667-668) Hephaestus comforts his mother, saying that Zeus can do whatever he wants to, and he will do it, so they might as well get along if only for the sake of having a good feast. Hephaestus is a like a child trying to reconcile his parents if only to have a bearable holiday with the both of them together. Nestor takes a similar tactic, invoking his long history of advising men “greater”than Achilles and Agamemnon if only to get them to listen to the voice of tradition. He concedes that Achilles is right in the content of his argument, but he goes about it all sorts of wrong: “Nor should you, son of Peleus, want to lock horns with a king./A scepter-holding king has honor beyond the rest of men […] You are stronger, and it is a goddess who bore you./But he is more powerful, since he rules over more.” (1.292-296) Nestor indicates that the weight of tradition is much greater than any individual truth or ambition to assert oneself. Kings and patriarchs exist to protect the sanctity of community and the natural order, and once pride and personal esteem interfere with that structure of power, something has gone terribly wrong. Achilles and Hera (and many of the other gods later in the epic) are motivated by vanity and their own sense of glory.

Nestor and Hephaestus argue against that selfish worldview in favor of the simpler, more ancient ideal of family, happiness and life. Hephaestus implores his mother to enjoy the feast, wine and song and sleep, the (ironically) mortal pleasures of life, the pleasures of the community of gods rather than stick out her quarrel with her husband. Nestor too reminds Achilles that a soldier is only worth anything as part of an army, that he himself (Nestor) has only attained the gift of old age because he was fortunate enough to have many brave comrades by his side during that life. The voice of the Iliad therefore seems to be saying that the everyday, universal values of obedience, family and brotherhood, are the key to true happiness in mortal life, not the old ideals of glory through deeds and death exemplified by the Golden Age of heroes. What good is fighting and death for, if in doing so one undermines the very institutions that are to be protected by the fight? The Trojan War is at least nominally a war for love and family: a struggle to reunite a sacred bond between Helen and Menelaus that was broken. The conflict within Homer’s version of the epic reflects this violation of the sacred bond, only this time it is Achilles, not Paris, that generates the underlying conflict. The natural hierarchy of the family, reflected in the Greek army and the Olympian gods, must be restored for true peace to be restored. And perhaps that is why this portion of the Trojan War tale ends with Achilles’ ransoming of Hector’s body back to his grieving father: the “swift-footed” hero finally realizes the importance of the father-son bond and the need for traditional roles to be fulfilled if one is to live a worthy mortal existence.