The Iliad of Homer

by Richmond Lattimore

  BOOK TWENTY

  5 Themis, goddess of law and social order, is the wife (and aunt) of Zeus, and daughter of Gaia and Ouranos (Earth and Heaven). Okeanos (Ocean: 7) is the cosmic river encircling the disc-shaped earth.

  92 The raid on Lyrnessos has recently been mentioned (19.60) as the event that brought Briseis to be Achilleus’ consort. The detail (perhaps merely imagined by Aineias) that Achilleus was accompanied by Athene there and at Pedasos (city of the Leleges) enables one to imagine him, like Diomedes in book 5, as protégé of the daughter of Zeus, and foreshadows the goddess’ fatal intervention in the encounter with Hektor in book 22.

  105 The Iliad depicts Aphrodite as daughter of Zeus, in contrast to the well-known version in Hesiod’s Theogony (190–206) according to which she arose in the open sea from the cast-off genitals of his grandfather Ouranos, and is thus older than the Olympian cohort. The latter version would make her more like Thetis, connected to open water. The story of how Aineias was fathered on Aphrodite by Anchises, Priam’s cousin, is told in the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite.

  122 From Hera’s speech, it is clear that the theomakhia (Battle of the Gods) has taken on a very human element of competition, to show which ones are highest of the immortals (aristoi).

  127 Yet another view of mortality: Destiny (also translated as Fate: the Greek here has aisa, “portion,” synonymous with moira, “share”) is said to have spun a thread of a certain length corresponding to one’s allotted span of life. In other sources, three Moirai (Klotho, Lachesis, and Atropos) are responsible, respectively, for spinning, measuring, and cutting off the lifethread.

  145 The wall is distinct from the main defenses of Troy and appears to be an improvised shelter that Athene had used to protect another of her favorites. Poseidon (with Apollo, in some versions) built the original walls for Laomedon, but after being defrauded of payment, the sea god sent a monster to ravage the city. Herakles slew the monster (saving Laomedon’s daughter from it) but was also defrauded, receiving mortal horses instead of the divine steeds that had been promised. Mention of this tale foreshadows Achilleus’ upcoming struggle with a watery opponent, the river Skamandros.

  180 Looking to rattle Aineias, his opponent cunningly selects plausible topics that hit at the weakest point—his exclusion from the ruling branch at Troy and his former flight from Achilleus. Despite saying in response (203) that they already know one another’s genealogies, Aineias plunges into a detailed history of the Trojan royal house, perhaps playing for time.

  303 The survival of Aineias is necessary in order to start another chain of saga, culminating ultimately in the foundation account of Rome (elaborated by the Latin authors Virgil [Aeneid] and Livy [History of Rome]). A tradition about this important lineage probably existed in Greek-speaking areas of Asia Minor, where some families might have claimed Aineias as ancestor even at the time of the Iliad’s shaping. The significance of Dardanos (304) as Zeus’ favorite explains why Aineias is at pains to trace his ancestry back to him (215).

  371 The immediate repetition of a half line (a figure of speech called epanalepsis) expresses tense emotion, as if the speaker is fascinated with one thought: cf. 22.127.

  382 Achilleus seems to shares the narrator’s wide knowledge (e.g., locating Iphition in the hills near Tmolos) and adds even more precise details of topography. Knowing the genealogy and origins of the foe lends authority to warriors’ rhetoric on the battlefield and burnishes their own fame by highlighting the importance of the slain.

  404 Helikē, on the Corinthian gulf in Agamemnon’s territory, had a famous shrine of Poseidon (8.203), but the sea god was also worshiped as “Helikonian” in Ionia at Mykalē, a promontory opposite the island of Samos (Herodotus 1.148.1). Site of the Pan-Ionian festival, this has been suggested as a possible location for early performances of Homer, so that this brief allusion would refer to a relevant spot familiar to audiences: see H. T. Wade-Gery, The Poet of the Iliad (Cambridge, 1952).

  BOOK TWENTY-ONE

  26 The sacrifice of these twelve youths will fulfill the vow made by Achilleus to Patroklos (18.336). Only here in the battle are prisoners taken, although there have been several references to earlier instances of opportunistic capture and return for ransom (e.g., 11.105).

  54 The return of Lykaon disconcerts Achilleus since it is as if Trojan opponents are mysteriously being recycled. The same impression arises from the frantic rush of killing at the end of book 20, and the similes comparing victims to masses of locusts and fish (12, 22).

  87 Achilleus already sacked Pedasos (20.92), home of Lykaon’s mother. The weird fate of the son emphasizes the shift in Achilleus’ attitude. Sold off once, Lykaon now must die, like all whom the enraged hero encounters. The change is framed by Achilleus’ consciousness of his own inevitable death (whatever its superficial circumstances will be: 111).

  132 Horses (dedicated to Poseidon) were sacrificed to a spring at Argos (Pausanias 8.7.2), but such offerings are more often associated with more exotic nations—Persians and Scythians, for example (Herodotus 4.61, 7.113). Achilleus may be denigrating it as a “barbarian” Trojan custom.

  145 Xanthos is angered by pitiless slaughter and the buildup of corpses in his stream, but the imminent death of yet another man, who happens to be the grandson of a different river, brings his resentment to a boil. Achilleus uses the fluvial affiliation to mock Asteropaios (184–99), whose backstory centers on the “recent arrival” motif already seen in the case of Lykaon.

  199 The implied threat in this increasingly cosmic standoff is that Zeus can and will evaporate the world’s waters (as nearly happened in his struggle with the monster Typhoeus: cf. Hesiod, Theogony, 844–49). The upcoming contest of Achilleus (great-grandson of Zeus) and the river Xanthos is like a replay of that primeval battle.

  274 The first we hear from Achilleus hints of a crisis of faith. Until now he has been confident of the support of Thetis and Athene; in addition, he has learned that Hera and Hephaistos have given their support. The potential of death by water creates here the same dread that Odysseus feels in the Odyssey, that lack of burial would mean loss of fame (Od. 5.306–12).

  390 For Zeus the battle of gods provides entertainment, since it is known that no one will die (and even their wounds heal easily). As it turns out, their fights do not even affect the central clash of the Greeks and Trojans.

  436 On the service of Poseidon and Apollo, see further 20.145. In reminding Apollo, Poseidon appeals to his honor and self-interest; Apollo’s reply (461) looks like an attempt to save face. For another employment of the image of humans as leaves, see 6.146.

  483 A woman’s death in illness or childbirth could be said to have been caused by arrows shot by Artemis. The usage may be connected with the goddess’s imagined role in symbolic mock “killing” of girls during initiation rituals. The sacrifice of Iphigeneia to Artemis, enabling the Greek expedition to set sail at Aulis (an event ignored by the Iliad), has been tied to such an initiatory motif.

  600 Apollo’s ruse to lure away Achilleus is a foretaste of the disguise taken by Athene to trick Hektor as his death approaches (22.227). With the mass of Trojans thus allowed to seek safety behind the city walls, it also clears the stage for the one-on-one encounter of the poem’s primary antagonists.

  BOOK TWENTY-TWO

  15 The book is structured around dual deceptions by gods, who arrive finally at stunned recognition (anagnôrisis, in later Greek literary analysis): Achilleus is tricked by Apollo, as Hektor is by Athene. The latter’s realization is tragic in tone and outcome (296–305).

  29 Orion’s Dog is Sirius, the “Dog Star” thought to bring the burning heat and fevers of midsummer (its heliacal dawn rising being in mid-July).

  46 To Priam’s unawareness of the deaths of his sons, compare Helen’s equally pathetic ignorance of the loss of her brothers (3.243), noted as she gazes, in similar manner, from the Trojan wall over the plain.

  66 Priam’s supplication of Hektor contains vivid scenes of the fa
te of Troy, should Hektor not choose to defend it from inside the wall. Now it shifts into a lament for Priam himself, who pictures the contrast between beautiful and ugly corpses. He will be killed (according to the Cyclic epic Little Iliad) by Neoptolemos at his own doorway.

  105 As earlier (6.441), Hektor is trapped by his sense of shame and pride, always imagining (to the extent of quoting) what others will say. He briefly considers a pact involving the return of Helen and payment of punitive damages, but rejects it as possibly leading to a disgraceful death.

  147 The hot and cold springs are not only expressive of the heroes who run past them (Achilleus, who has been compared to a blazing fire; Hektor, who feels chill fear). They also embody the open and peaceful existence of earlier Troy in contrast to its present pent-in terror.

  159 The imagery of footraces anticipates an event at the funeral games for Patroklos (23.740). An ox at those games is second prize, the first being a silver mixing bowl.

  255 Hektor apparently still believes Achilleus can be persuaded at least to a covenant covering burial procedures, despite his decision (123) that further negotiation with Achilleus is out of the question.

  299 The realization that he has been tricked is all the more swift and grim, since moments earlier Hektor could seriously doubt that the gods were helping Achilleus (279), even though the audience knew better.

  340 Hektor’s repeated request for kind treatment of his corpse appears to be out of consideration for his family’s feelings. It instead prompts an outburst that shows the depth of Achilleus’ rage: his desire to have the strength to eat Hektor’s flesh (347).

  359 This is the most detailed prediction yet of the manner and causes of Achilleus’ death. It follows the pattern of prophetic last words (e.g., 16.852).

  392 “Victory song” translates paiêon (whence English “paean”), which can also designate a song of thanksgiving after healing, usually for Apollo, Hektor’s protector. The following lines (393–94) can be read as the words of the actual song.

  437 Pathos arises from the poet’s momentary suspension of the tragic scene in order to show Andromachē awaiting her husband in domestic calm. While she has a warm bath prepared, the audience knows his corpse is being dragged to the Greek camp.

  460 “Like a raving woman” translates mainadi isê. In Greek mythical imagination “maenads” or “maddened ones,” enthused female followers of Dionysos, are associated with ecstatic dance and consumption of the god’s substance, wine, in outdoor settings. They also can exhibit murderous loss of control (as in the episode dramatized in the Bacchae of Euripides).

  484 The focus on the experiences of Hektor’s son brings down to human scale the disaster about to befall the entire city. Knowledge that Astyanax will be killed by the victorious Greeks makes all the more pitiful Andromachē’s words imagining her son’s fatherless future.

  BOOK TWENTY-THREE

  13 Riding around the honored dead warrior on his pyre may be an ancient Indo-European custom: cf. the ceremony at Beowulf 3169–82.

  72 It was a common belief that the spirit of an unburied or uncremated person could not enter the realm of Hades but wandered outside it on the far side of the underworld river Styx. In his state of suspension between worlds, Patroklos does not know that Achilleus has planned his funeral for the next day.

  85 Only now for the first time do we learn of Patroklos’ early misfortune, exiled from Opous for manslaughter. Epeigeus (16.571) was likewise received by Peleus at Phthia, after killing a cousin.

  104 Achilleus understands the look and words of Patroklos to indicate that soul (psykhê) and image (eidôlon) survive death. That he draws the conclusion about the absence of the “heart of life” (phrenes, the seat of intelligence, in Homer) is not surprising, since Greeks connected thought and consciousness closely with physical organs. The phrenes were localized near the lungs.

  135 Cutting of hair was an outward sign of grief and symbolic separation. The additional detail that the corpse was thereby covered expresses the sheer number of sorrowing companions. Achilleus had vowed to keep his long hair until, on his return, he would honor the river Spercheios with his locks (significantly, as the gesture often accompanies initiation rituals). Now his hair-cutting will be redirected into a mourning dedication.

  171 Tombs at Lefkandi in Euboea (tenth century BC) and Salamis in Cyprus, among others, have yielded multiple skeletons of horses, sometimes with chariots, in what are clearly aristocratic burials. Evidence for human sacrifice at burial sites in Greece is rare but not unattested: the early site of Lefkandi seems to offer some.

  245 The temporary mound will shelter the urn with Patroklos’ bones until those of Achilleus can be added later and a more splendid tomb constructed. The urn will repose in the hut, it seems (254), only until the smaller barrow is ready for it. The practice of wrapping bones or container in cloth, as here, has been confirmed archaeologically.

  296 A minor but illuminating detail, revealing that at least one potential recruit could buy his way out of service at Troy with a gift to the commander.

  311 Nestor’s advice, on winning despite disadvantages, becomes a hymn to skill or “cunning intelligence” (mêtis), a practical mode of thinking that verges sometimes on guile. Odysseus in the Odyssey is master of this skill and therefore regularly named polymêtis (“very shrewd”).

  441 Antilochos will be pressured later to take an oath that he did not use illegal moves to win, but will decline to do so (582).

  461 The remarks of Idomeneus enable the narrator to introduce a range of potential plot directions (crashes and other mishaps), while holding the audience in suspense. It has already heard the close-up racing sequence and therefore is ironically superior in knowledge to this distant observer.

  485 The first instance of sports betting in Western literature is proposed to depend not on the outcome but on the jockeys’ positions midrace.

  536 The awarding of a consolation prize equal in value to that for a second-place finish ignites a dispute that, in a small way, resembles that between Achilleus and Agamemnon over the spoils of war. Here the impetuous Antilochos plays the role of disgruntled young hero. Achilleus smiles at him (555) in recognition of the kinship in temperament.

  581 The oath procedure is presented as customary (themis, translated “justice” here), which argues for a long tradition of chariot racing and related customs. That it is made to Poseidon makes sense in view of his traditional ties to chariots and horses (and his cult epithet Hippios).

  610 The elaborate exchanges of the prizes satisfy all parties: Eumelos, who would have won, had it not been for divine intervention, nominally gets the award and a substitution prize; Antilochos saves face by claiming the mare and immediately handing it to Menelaos, who finally gains the uppermost hand by displaying princely generosity in giving it back to his young rival (“though she is mine”: 610).

  641 Nestor nearly killed the same twins in a skirmish against the Epeians (11.749), where they are called the Moliones. Tradition held that they were Siamese twins (and thus two were allowed to race against Nestor on his own). The other possible hint of this odd situation is the obscure phrase translated “crossing me in the crowd” (639, plêthei prosthe balontes), if one interprets it (pace Lattimore) as “going ahead by reason of their greater number.”

  665 Epeios made the wooden horse, at the suggestion of Odysseus (a fact not mentioned in the Iliad but at Od. 8.493).

  679 That funeral games for Oidipous were held at Thebes, his native place, goes against the fifth-century tragic dramas that depict him as dying in exile (at Athens, usually) after the discovery of his parricide and incest.

  705 A modern audience finds it unconscionable that a serving woman fetches one-third the price of a tripod, but the ranking no doubt reflects low life expectancy for working women, along with a highly utilitarian outlook and market conditions.

  725 The guile of Odysseus takes on added meaning for an audience aware of his later contest with Aias over the armor o
f Achilleus, which Odysseus was reputed to have finally gained by trick or bribe. (The aftermath is dramatized in Sophocles’ Ajax.)

  826 A lump of pig-iron, said to be useful for making farm implements, disrupts slightly the effort to recreate Bronze Age conditions on the part of the poet, who lets a detail of his own era intrude.

  890 Achilleus’ decision to award first prize to Agamemnon based on status and repute (even before a contest) pointedly demonstrates the change from his earlier attitude to a newfound geniality (as if material goods have ceased to matter). On any account, Meriones deserves an extra prize in further recognition of the spectacular display of shooting skill that won him ten axes (850).

  BOOK TWENTY-FOUR

  24 Hermes (here “Argeïphontes,” one of his epithets) was patron of thieves and master of cunning intelligence (mêtis); he stole Apollo’s cattle when only a newborn baby (as recounted in the Homeric Hymn to Hermes).

  29 This is the only Iliad passage referring to the judgment of Paris. His choice of Aphrodite to receive the apple designated “for the fairest” was taken by the two other competing goddesses, Hera and Athene, as an insult. Aphrodite’s reward for his choice (the favors of Helen) started the war.

  59 Hera’s close relationship with Thetis, not previously disclosed, gives further motivation for her favoring attitude here (though it was ignored in book 1). Apollo’s betrayal of Achilleus, whose good fortune he had predicted at the wedding of Thetis and Peleus, was recalled bitterly in a speech by Thetis that survives from a lost drama of Aeschylus. If the prophecy motif is as old as Homer, the audience will hear even more point in Hera’s denigration of the god as “faithless” here (63).

  119 The solution by Zeus is intended to save Achilleus’ honor by granting him Priam’s treasures while taking into account the objections of Apollo (and Zeus’ own respect for Hektor’s regular sacrifices). Priam’s journey is thus motivated on divine and human levels.