The following essay is written as a companion to a lecture series in the Myths of Greece and Rome course at the University at Albany by Daniel Gremmler. It follows the translation and line numbering ofThe Essential Iliad (Hackett, 2000) and The Essential Homer (Hackett, 2000).
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The most famous moment of Book 24 is the meeting between Priam and Achilles in which the old king kisses the hand of Achilles, convinces the young warrior to relinquish his rage and, with it, Hector’s corpse. The book is more than a mechanical end piece to the plot of the poem, however. The connections between rage, pity, honor, shame, ransom, civilization, and savagery swirl together one last time as order is restored, and the justice of civilization is re-established. We begin with a speech on pity by Apollo to the Olympian gods that is abridged in the Essential Homer/Iliad version of the text. However, it offers analysis that is at the core of our reading of the poem as well as being closely related to Priam’s attempt to persuade Achilles later in the book.
Roman silver drinking cup (1st century CE).
Photo: Marie-Lan Nguyen. Copyright: (CC BY 4.0)
Priam kisses the hand of Achilles as he seeks to ransom the corpse of Hector from the Greek Hero.
The Phrygian cap on Priam’s head is used to denote an “Easterner” or “barbarian.” It was a common device from the 4th century BCE onward. The generational gap between Priam and Achilles is highlighted here, not only by the beard (and lack of beard), but the younger man is displayed almost nude, his muscles detailed, while the older man’s body is covered.
I have kept to the Stanley Lombardo translation in The Essential Homer [1] for the purposes of this project because it is the text I employ most often in introductory level myth and literature courses. However, the translation of Apollo’s speech that I’ve selected to analyze in the following excerpt is by Richard Lattimore. Lattimore’s text is more challenging than Lombardo’s, but it is, in some ways, more faithful to the Greek. My reasons for excerpting it are as follows: his translation highlights the raw savagery of Achilles’ rage, the effect it has on the very possibility of pity and, therefore, civilization. With that in mind, we turn to Apollo’s speech at the beginning of Book 24.
Achilles continues to desecrate Hector’s corpse by intermittently dragging it around Patroclus’ funeral mound. The sight of his savagery is so abhorrent that Apollo summons the Olympians and makes an argument for them to intervene, since Achilles’ rage has such a hold of him that he clearly will not act appropriately on his own:
You are hard, you gods, and destructive. Now did not Hektor
Burn thigh pieces of oxen and unblemished goats in your honor?
Now you cannot bring yourselves to save him, though he is only
a corpse, for his wife to look upon, his child and his mother
and Priam his father, and his people, who presently thereafter
would burn his body in the fire and give him his rites of burial.
No, you gods; your desire is to help this cursed Achilles
Within whose breast there are no feelings of justice, nor can
His mind be bent, but his purposes are fierce, like a lion
Who when he has given way to his own great strength and his haughty
Spirit, goes among the flocks of men, to devour them.
So Achilles has destroyed pity, and there is not in him
any shame; which does much harm to men but profits them also.
For a man must someday lose one who was even closer
Than this; a brother from the same womb, or a son. And yet
He weeps for him, and sorrows for him, and then it is over,
For the Destinies put in mortal men the heart of endurance.
But this man, now he has torn the heart of life from great Hektor,
Ties him to his horses and drags him around his beloved companion’s
tomb; and nothing is gained thereby for his good, or his honor.
Great as he is, let him take care not to make us angry;
For see, he does dishonor to the dumb earth in his fury. (24.33-54) [2]
Apollo begins by characterizing Hector as pious, dutiful to the gods but also his family and community. Apollo draws the contrast between the civilized behavior of Hector and the savagery of Achilles. Rather than allow the burial of the honorable Hector, Apollo argues, the gods aid Achilles, both explicitly by giving aid to him (Athena and Hera) and implicitly by allowing Achilles to defile Hector’s corpse (Zeus et al.). Apollo then shifts from Hector as the example of piety, honor, and duty, to Achilles as their antithesis.
Achilles has no “feelings of justice.” He cannot be persuaded by reason: “nor can his mind be bent.” Instead, Achilles is like a savage beast: “his purposes are fierce, like a lion.” And like a lion, he represents a threat to civilization; he “goes among the flocks of men to devour them.” The carefully nurtured and shepherded flocks or works of mankind are shredded and devoured. In Achilles’ actions, he has “destroyed pity, and there is not in him any shame.” This turn of phrase is poignant. Not only is Achilles incapable of pity, but pity cannot exist in a world dominated by Achilles’ rage. Because Achilles is savage, his actions are no longer constrained by ideas of honor and shame. Shame, Apollo continues, is a negative attribute, something to be avoided at all costs by heroes in a timorous society. Yet, as Apollo explains, it plays an important role in such a society: like the pursuit of honor (the carrot), shame is a corrective that urges members of society to act appropriately (the stick). One acts appropriately in pursuit of deeds that would yield honor and avoidance of those that would bring shame. Honor and shame only exist, however, by way of a social contract, the implicit agreement that one is worth having and the other is detestable. Achilles, the lion, the savage, is no longer a member of society. It’s not that he avoids shame so much as that he is incapable of it. To be incapable of shame is like being incapable of pity: Achilles does not merely act savagely, but he has become an enemy to civilization itself.
Achilles lost a beloved companion, Apollo continues. What of it?, the god asks. He is human. Humans lose loved ones all the time, and those closer in blood than Patroclus was to Achilles; they lose family members: “For the Destinies put in mortal men the heart of endurance.” To live and die, to suffer loss, these are part and parcel with the human condition. Achilles, it seems, is incapable of accepting such losses. He delayed burying Patroclus to the point that it threatened his companion’s place in the underworld (Book 23). Likewise, he refuses to give over Hector’s corpse to Hades. To what end? Apollo asks, does Achilles commit these inglorious deeds: “nothing is gained thereby for his good, or his honor.” If Achilles were capable of feeling shame, he would be embarrassed by his actions, just as Paris was shamed by Hector (Book 3) when he retreated from Menelaus. Achilles gains no honor, no respect, nor any other kind of profit by desecrating Hector’s corpse. He does, however, defy the order of the cosmos, to which Apollo takes offense: “Great as [Achilles] is, let him take care not to make us angry; For see, he does dishonor to the dumb earth in his fury.” Rather than give Hades his due, Achilles profanes the oldest of the gods, Gaia (Earth), by dragging the unclean corpse of Hector across her body. Achilles insults Hades by denying him the psuchē that rightfully belongs to the god; Achilles defies the cosmic order that Zeus represents.
Apollo’s arguments convince the gods, and Zeus sets in motion a plan to ransom Hector’s corpse.
The Iliad began with a ransom gone horribly wrong (Agamemnon’s refusal to ransom Chryseis and the ensuing insult to Apollo). With Priam’s visit to Achilles in Book 24, the poem ends with a ransom completed successfully.
We pick up the narrative at the point where Hermes has guided Priam outside Achilles’ tent with his wagonload of ransom:
[Priam] found [Achilles] inside. His companions sat
Apart from him, and a solitary pair,
Automedon and Alcimus, warriors both,
Were busy at his side. He had just finished
His evening meal. The table was still set up.
Great Priam entered unnoticed. He stood
Close to Achilles, and touching his knees,
He kissed the dread and murderous hands
That had killed so many of his sons. (502-510)
This is the most commonly represented scene from the Iliad in all of Greek art.[3] See the Brygos Skyphos below.
Attic red-figure skyphos attributed to Brygos Painter (ce. 490 BCE).
"The elderly King Priam of Troy begs Achilles for the return of the body of his son, the Prince Hector. The king's beard and hair are set-off in white. Following him are three servants, each bearing gifts for Achilles. Achilles, nude but for a diaphanous garment, reclines upon an elaborate couch, his armor hangs triumphantly above his head after being ripped off of Hector's lifeless body." [4]
Photo: Pilar Torres.
Copyright: (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
From his knees while touching Achilles in the formulaic position of a suppliant that we witnessed with Lycaon (Book 21), Priam attempts to persuade Achilles. He does so according to two distinct lines of reasoning: pity and respect for the gods. The plea is as follows:
“Remember your father, godlike Achilles.
He and I both are on the doorstep
Of old age. He may well be now
Surrounded by enemies wearing him down
And have no one to protect him from harm.
But then he hears that you are still alive
And his heart rejoices, and he hopes all his days
To see his dear son come back from Troy.
But what is left for me? I had the finest sons
In all wide Troy, and not one of them is left.
[….]
Ad the only one who could save the city
You’ve just now killed as he fought for his country,
My Hector. It is for him I have come to the Greek ships,
To get him back from you. I’ve brought
A fortune in ransom. Respect the gods, Achilles.
Think of your own father, and pity me.
I am more pitiable. I have borne what no man
Who has walked this earth has ever yet borne.
I have kissed the hand of the man who killed my son.” (520-43)
Priam’s plea mechanically follows that of Lycaon’s, but its content even more closely follows that of Hector’s dying breath: “I beg you, Achilles, by your own soul and by your parents, do not allow the dogs to mutilate my body by the Greek ships” (22.375-8). The pity that Priam asks of Achilles is, like Hector’s in Book 22, tied to his parents. Priam draws a very clear relationship between himself and Peleus, Achilles’ father. They are in similar situations, old men who fear they’ll die alone, unable to mourn their sons or be taken care of by their respective sons in their old age. At least there is hope for Peleus. Achilles yet lives; Hector is dead, and Priam prostrates himself before his own son’s killer.
Achilles’ reply to Hector was the height of savagery in the poem: “Don’t whine to me about my parents, you dog! I wish my stomach would let me cut off your flesh in strips and eat it raw for what you’ve done to me” (22.383-6). Pity had no place in Achilles’ heart then. Here, however, is a different story:
[Priam] spoke, and sorrow for his own father
Welled up in Achilles. He took Priam’s hand
And gently pushed the old man away.
The two of them remembered. Priam,
Huddled in grief at Achilles’ feet, cried
And moaned softly for his man-slaying Hector.
And Achilles cried for his father and
For Patroclus. The sound filled the room.
When Achilles had his fill of grief
And the aching sorrow left his heart,
He rose from his chair and lifted the old man
By his hand, pitying his white hair and beard.
And his words enfolded him like wings:
“Ah the suffering you’ve had, and the courage.
To come here alone to the Greek ships
And meet my eye, the man who slaughtered
Your many fine sons! You have a heart of iron.
But come, sit on this chair. Let our pain
Lie at rest a while, no matter how much we hurt.
There’s nothing to be gained from cold grief.
Yes, the gods have woven pain into mortal lives,
While they are free from care.” (544-655)
Achilles remembers his parents, he thinks on them, unlike when he refused to respect Hector in Book 22. He feels pity for Priam as he lifts the old man gently from his knees. Pity! The emotion that cannot coexist with rage – one is expulsive of the other.[5] Achilles has turned. He will accept the ransom, the compensation in Book 24 that he outright refused in Book 9. He now nurtures the pity which he previously destroyed according to Apollo's speech at the start of Book 24. These shifts in Achilles behavior, like the ransoms that bookend the epic, set aright that which has gone awry throughout the poem. As if to punctuate this shift, Achilles turns Hector’s insult to Achilles into a badge of honor for Priam: In Book 22, Hector said, “So this is Achilles. There was no way to persuade you. Your heart is a lump of iron” (22.395-7). Here, Achilles turns a brand of savagery into a badge of courage when he says to Priam, “You have a heart of iron.”
Achilles’ madness, his rage, has run its course. Expunged by the pity that he feels in Book 24 and acceptance of the ransom for Hector’s corpse, Achilles figuratively and literally reintegrates into Greek society. He will once again play by the rules of the civilization that Ajax accused him of ignoring in Book 9. By accepting this ransom, Achilles accepts the blood money in Ajax’s analogy. Achilles once more lives within the community of men, and Hector’s psuchē continues to its proper place in the underworld. The society of Greeks, Trojans, and the civilized order of the cosmos may now resume under the watchful eye of Zeus.
[1] Homer. The Essential Homer: Selections from the Iliad and the Odyssey. Stanley Lombardo (trans., ed.). Hackett (2000).
[2] Homer. The Iliad of Homer. Richard Lattimore (trans.). Chicago UP (1951).
[3] Barry B. Powell in Homer. The Iliad . Oxford UP (2014).
[5] David Konstan. Pity Transformed . Bristol Classical (2001).