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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Achilles’ rage is so overweening and his power so great, that he threatens to loose the reigns of fate. As we have discussed in previous chapters, the justice of Zeus and the order of the cosmos are directly tied to fate. Thus, Achilles’ rage becomes not just a threat to the order of civilization (the Greek army), but to the ordering principal of the cosmos. Zeus, acting as custodian to the cosmos and enforcer of fate, takes action in Book 20 to prevent Achilles from exceeding his allotted fate. To that end, the Olympian sky god assembles the rest of his household, and Poseidon asks the purpose of this summons. The following is Zeus’ reply:
“Earthshaker, you know my purpose.
I care for them [mortals], even though they die.
Even so, I will stay in a crevice on Olympus
And sit and watch and take my pleasure. The rest of you
Can go out among the Greeks and Trojans
And help whichever side you please.
If Achilles is the only one fighting out there,
The Trojans won’t last a minute against him.
The very sight of him used to make them tremble,
And now he is in his passion. I fear
He may exceed his fate and demolish the wall.” (22-33)
Book 20 details the confrontations between various Olympians. Those who side with the Trojans either retreat or are defeated, but they balance the battle enough so that the Greeks, led by Achilles, do not evaporate the Trojan lines and penetrate the walls of Troy. Nevertheless, Achilles has his way with the Trojans. Unable to locate Hector, he happens across Aeneas, and he might slay the Trojan hero if not for the intervention of Poseidon who rescues him from Achilles’ wrath. Although this event is absent from our abridged version of the text, it is an instructive scene, so we examine it in greater detail below.
We begin with Poseidon’s speech as he watches “guiltless” Aeneas confront Achilles. There is an exchange between the two heroes, but Aeneas’ attempts are constantly foiled by the god-forged armor of Achilles. Poseidon speaks:
“Alas for great-hearted Aeneas, who will now
Be killed by Achilles and go down to Hades
Because he innocently obeyed Apollo,
Who will do nothing to keep him from perishing.
Why should he, a guiltless man, now suffer
For the woes of others, a man who has always
Pleased the gods in heaven with his offerings?
Let us deliver him from the shadow of death.
Zeus will be angry if Achilles kills him,
For it is destined that Aeneas escape
And the line of Dardanus not be destroyed
And disappear without seed – Dardanus,
Whom Zeus loved more than any of the sons
Born from his union with mortal women.
The son of Cronus has come to hate Priam’s line,
And now Aeneas will rule the Trojans with might,
And the sons born to his sons in the future.” (299-323)
Poseidon sides with the Greeks in the war. He risked the ire of Zeus in Book 13, and he fights in favor of the Greeks in Book 20. Nevertheless, he takes pains to preserve the life of the Trojan Aeneas, Aphrodite’s child who has already been rescued from certain death at the hands of Diomedes in Book 5. What is it about Aeneas that sways Poseidon?
Aeneas is “great-hearted,” meaning more along the lines of valorous or brave than kind and loving in Homeric vocabulary, but the latter is also a traditional characteristic of Aeneas. Poseidon describes the Trojan as innocent and “guiltless,” suffering for the faults of others. These characteristics are the cornerstone of Aeneas as featured in Virgil’s Latin epic, the Aeneid. In the Aeneid, Aeneas is the portrayed as the ideal Roman hero, and his most popular epitaph is “pious Aeneas.” Piety in English is used almost exclusively in a religious context. In classical Latin, however, it covered a wider range of meaning. A more accurate English translation of the term is duty, i.e., “dutiful Aeneas.” In particular, Aeneas’ name is associated with familial piety, duty to the gods, family, and (very important for Romans) the community. In many ways, Aeneas is painted by Virgil as a “better” version of Hector. Both heroes find themselves bound by honor and duty to a losing cause, but they struggle valiantly in the face of overwhelming odds. There is more to say on this relationship in Book 22, but for now, let us continue with Poseidon’s speech.
After characterizing Aeneas as both innocent and dutiful, Poseidon shows a concern for Zeus’ will that may seem contradictory, given his disobedience of Zeus’ orders in Book 13. The will of Zeus is not simply the desire of one god among many. Rather, Zeus aligns himself with the Fates. Recall that he chose to let his own son, Sarpedon, die at the hands of Patroclus in Book 16 despite the god’s desire to rescue his son. The rationale for Zeus’ decision was that his son was fated to die at Patroclus’ hands. A similar imperative governs Poseidon’s actions here in Book 20. Concern for justice and the cosmic order trumps personal desire for Poseidon, a king and dispenser of justice in his own right. Aeneas is fated to survive the destruction of Troy and lead the remnants of the Trojan line to prosperity elsewhere. Even if he does not care for Aeneas, Poseidon is obligated to rescue the Trojan hero because he is concerned with maintaining the cosmic order (the dictates of fate) alongside his brother, Zeus. Significantly, Aeneas is related to the line of Trojan kings and princes, but he is not a child of Priam. Anchises, Aeneas’ father, is a cousin of Priam. Thus, Aeneas shares the blood of Trojan royalty, but he is not connected to the line of succession, the descendants of the foolish Laomedon, as Priam and Priam’s children are.
With these considerations in mind, Poseidon intervenes on behalf of Aeneas:
He poured a mist over Achilles’ eyes
And drew his bronze-tipped, ash-weed spear
From the remnants of Aeneas’ shield
And placed it before Achilles’ feet.
Aeneas he swung up from the ground
And sent sailing over row after row
Of heroes and horses in an immortal vault
From the god’s hand, to land finally
On the perimeter of the battlefield,
Where the Caucones were arming themselves. (328-37)
Books 20 and 21 see Achilles run roughshod over Trojan enemies. Near the end of Book 20, Achilles slays “Polydorus, Priam’s son. His father would not allow him to fight at all, since he was his youngest and the apple of his eye” (419-22). Although renowned for his speed, Polydorus is no match for swift-footed Achilles, and the enraged Greek makes quick work of Priam’s youngest son.
The sight of his younger brother’s death at the hands of Achilles sends Hector into a rage and, defying Apollo’s command, Hector charges Achilles. However, Apollo, acting as an extension of Zeus. will on earth, snatches Hector from certain death at the hands of Achilles, and the Book comes to an end with Achilles even more furious over the near miss at the object of his rage.
Book 21 begins with more of the same: Achilles has cut off a contingent of Trojans from the main force and chases them into the river Xanthus:
Achilles wasted no time. Leaving his spear
Propped against a tamarisk
And holding only his sword, he leapt from the bank
Like a spirit from hell bent on slaughter.
He struck over and over, in a widening spiral.
Hideous groans rose from the wounded,
And the river water turned crimson with blood.
[….]
When Achilles’ hands were sore from killing,
He culled twelve boys live from the river
To pay for the blood of dead Patroclus.
They were dazed and fawns when he led them out,
Their hands bound behind them with the leather belts
They had been wearing around their corded tunics.
Achilles’ men led them back to the ships
And Achilles returned to his killing frenzy. (21-39).
The savagery of Achilles’ onslaught is fully in focus. He turns the waters red with Trojan blood, wading into the river to collect twelve boys, human sacrifices for the funeral of Patroclus. Human sacrifice occurs or is at least mentioned with frequency in Greek myth, but like cannibalism and violations of xenia, it is associated with savagery and the unbridled rule of impulse and bloodlust in opposition to reason (logos) and moderation (sophrosunē). What occurs as Achilles returns to the riverbank confirms the hero’s descent into savagery, but unlike the metaphorical savagery Ajax accused him of in Book 9, Achilles indulges in physical acts of savagery here:
On the way back he met a son of Priam,
Lycaon by name, running from the river.
This boy Achilles had captured once before
In his father’s orchard, where he had come one night
To cut fig saplings for chariot rails
But found Achilles’ iron mask in his face.
That time Achilles sold him, for a good price,
To Jason’s son on Lemnos, where he had shipped him. (40-7)
Attic black-figure neck-amphora by the Tyrrhenian Group (c. 570-560 BCE).
Achilles crouches in ambush behind a fountain with another unidentified warrior as Polyxena prepares to fill a water vessel. Troilos approaches with a pair of horses.
Credit: ArchaiOptix
Copyright: (CC BY-SA 4.0)
This encounter between Achilles and Lycaon is reminiscent of another encounter between Achilles and a son of Priam earlier in the war, that of Achilles and Troilus. In the earlier encounter, Achilles laid in wait behind a fountain from which he leapt out and ambushed Troilus, a young son of Priam who had come to the fountain with his sister, Polyxena, to water his horses. The preponderance of surviving visual depictions of this scene suggest it was particularly popular in the classical world. Indeed, a rare 5th century fresco narrating the encounter survives as a mural in an Etruscan tomb in northern Italy.[1]
During an earlier encounter with Lycaon, Achilles took the Trojan prince prisoner and sold him off into slavery. Hence, Achilles’ surprise when he encounters the face of that same prince in Book 21:
“What’s this I see? The Trojan princes I’ve killed
Are going to start rising from the moldering gloom,
Judging from how this one has escaped his fate
After being shipped off to Lemnos and sold.
All that grey sea couldn’t keep him back.
Let’s give him a taste of my spearhead
And see whether he comes back from that
Or stays put in the teeming earth.” (59-67)
At this point, things go sideways. Lycaon gives up any pretense of combat, instead stripping off his armor, dropping his weapons and, ducking Achilles spear, begs for mercy in a formulaic and shocking way:
Lycaon caught Achilles’ knees with one hand
And held the pointed spear with the other
And would not let go of either as he begged:
“I am at your knees, Achilles. Pity me.
You have to respect me as your suppliant
for I tasted Demeter’s holy grain with you
On that day you took me captive in the orchard
And sent me far from my father and friends,
Sold into sacred Lemnos for a hundred oxen.” (76-84)
Lycaon invokes the law of xenia, claiming guest-friendship with Achilles because, while prisoner in Achilles’ camp, the Greek warrior fed and clothed him. This would seem a dubious claim, given that it makes any prisoner of war a guest-friend. Indeed, there is likely a great deal of poetic license involved in the Homeric depiction of the encounter. However, the lesson or telos of Lycaon’s plea becomes clear in Achilles’ reply:
“Shut up, fool, and stop talking ransom.
Before Patroclus met his destiny [fate!]
It was more to my taste to spare Trojan lives,
Capture them, and sell them overseas.
But now they all die, every last Trojan
God puts into my hands before Ilion’s walls,
All of them, and especially Priam’s children.
You die too, friend. Don’t take it hard.
Patroclus died, and he was far better than you.
Take a look at me. Do you see how huge I am,
How beautiful? I have a noble father,
My mother was a goddess, but I too
Am in death’s shadow. There will come a time,
Some dawn or evening or noon in this war,
When someone will take my life from me
With a spear thrust or an arrow from a string.” (105-20, emphasis added)
In this wonderfully callous and insightful passage, Achilles demonstrates both his uncanny self-awareness and his tragic inability to master his emotional impulses (i.e., practice sophrosunē). First, the matter of xenia. Note the use of the term “friend” in Achilles’ reply: “You die too, friend.” Achilles makes no attempt to deny the formal bond of friendship (xenia) that Lycaon claims they share. In fact, he acknowledges it by referring to Lycaon as “friend.” Yet he does not take the next logical step of showing mercy to his friend. He accepts the fact of xenia but cannot bring himself to spare the life of this child of Priam. Recall Achilles’ response to Ajax when the latter accused him of being a savage and acting inappropriately: “everything you say is after my own heart. But I swell with rage….” (9.668-9). Achilles is acutely aware of how he should behave, even that a part of him wants to do so, but rage dominates his thumos, his heart or spirit.
Yet Achilles does sympathize with Lycaon in a strange way, given what he is about to do. Everybody dies. This lesson is writ large across every myth in the klea andrōn (fames of men). Hector, Achilles, and Sarpedon have made similar points over the course of the poem. Everybody dies. Suffering, aging, and death are part and parcel with human existence. As Achilles reiterates this to Lycaon before killing the Trojan, it is not a matter of cruel mockery but, rather, a show of sympathy from another mortal, a solemn recognition of their shared mortality.
Then in the next breath, Achilles is the most savage of all mortals, not because he slays Lycaon, but because of what he does with the Trojan prince’s corpse:
Achilles slung him into the river by his foot
And crowed over him as the current bore him off:
“Lie there with the fish. They will lick the blood
From your wound, your cold funeral rites. Your mother
Will not lay you on a bier and lament. No,
Eddying Scamander will roll you out to sea,
And fish will dart up under the black ripples
And nibble at Lycaon’s shining fat.
All of you Trojans will die like that,
Die all the way back to Troy’s sacred town
As I whittle you down from behind!
Your river won’t help you with is silver eddies,
The water you’ve sanctified no doubt with bulls
And with live horses thrown into this pools.
No, you’ll all die, die ugly deaths, until you have paid
For the Greeks’ loss, for Patroclus dead,
Killed by the ships while I was away.” (127-42)
By throwing Lycaon’s body into the river, Achilles denies the Trojan a burial. In place of the community washing his body down and placing it on a bier (like a wake today), fish will “clean” his body by nibling first the blood, then the flesh from his bones. His loved ones will not be able to ritually mourn and bury him. And, going unburied, his psuchē or soul will not be permitted to cross the river Styx. Instead, it will be an outcast, a homeless vagabond, even in death. In contrast to the beautiful death, a concept we will explore in Book 22, Achilles promises Trojans “ugly deaths,” the denial of funeral rites, savage deaths, inhuman deaths like animals in the wild. Despite the acknowledgement of a shared humanity between Achilles and Lycaon just a few lines earlier, the greatest of the Greek warriors is consumed by rage and, as was the case in Book 9, is driven savage and without pity.
[1] Etruscans were the dominant Iron Age peoples of Italy before the rise of Rome and the Latin states to the south. Early Rome was ruled by Etruscan kings. A brief overview of the Etruscans and their frescos available here.