Don't Know Much About Mythology - Kenneth C. Davis [120]
This seemingly minor incident, and the conflict between Achilles and Agamemnon, is at the heart of the poem. More like a sulking child than the greatest warrior of all time, Achilles withdraws into his tent and refuses to fight. Without Achilles, the Greeks are driven back to their ships by the Trojan forces and their leader Hector, son of Troy’s king Priam, and Troy’s greatest champion.
Wearing the armor of Achilles, Patroclus—who is Achilles’ closest friend, tent mate, and, many scholars contend, his lover—tries to lead the Greeks into battle. But he is no match for Hector, who kills Patroclus. With the death of his friend and comrade, Achilles is aroused to seek revenge. Given a new suit of armor made for him by the smith god Hephaestus, Achilles returns to the battle and, after slaughtering many Trojans, kills Hector outside Troy. Lashing the body of the fallen Trojan hero to his chariot, Achilles drags Hector around the walls of Troy and finally back to his own tent. He keeps Hector’s body, executes some Trojan captives, and threatens to cut Hector to pieces until King Priam comes to plead with him. Achilles is commanded by the gods to grant Priam’s request, but it is Achilles’ own sense of human pity that makes him yield to the broken old man. He gives Priam the body for proper burial, and the story ends with the funeral of Hector.
For nearly 3,000 years, readers have found the Iliad a moving expression of the heroism, idealism, and tragedy of war. In addition to the battle scenes, the Iliad tells about life within Troy. It describes the emotional farewell between Hector and his wife, Andromache, who foresees his death. A great soldier, Hector is also a family man, who is called on to defend his country and, in so doing, loses his life. A reluctant warrior, he berates his brother Paris for causing the war but is also loyal to him. In many ways the truest “hero” of Iliad, Hector embodies Homer’s themes of honor, loyalty, and social obligation.
Is the Iliad all there is to go on when it comes to the Trojan War?
In a word, no.
Many of the events that lead up to the Iliad are not actually described in the poem, which is sharply focused on the war itself, with vivid, pulsing descriptions of battle and the conduct of both men and gods. One of the most gruesome moments is told in the play Agamemnon by Aeschylus, and describes the sacrifice of Iphigenia, Agamemnon’s daughter. Ready to sail, the Greeks cannot get a favorable wind, because Agamemnon had once slighted the goddess Artemis. To save the expedition, Agamemnon is advised to sacrifice his own daughter, Iphigenia. Deceived into believing that she is going to marry Achilles, the young girl is dressed in a wedding dress and brought to the altar only to learn that she is going to be sacrificed. Once Iphigenia is dead, the winds blow fair. (In another version, Artemis intervenes at the last second and sends a substitute animal, just as God gave Abraham a substitute ram in Genesis when he was about to sacrifice his son Isaac.)
Another scene not in the Iliad—this one about Achilles—comes from myth. As Ovid tells it, Achilles had been dipped in the River Styx as a baby. Therefore, he could never be wounded, except at the spot where his mother held him by the heel. Achilles dies when he is shot in the heel by Paris. This was, of course, the origin of our phrase “Achilles’ heel,” which means a person’s weakness or vulnerable point.
Continuing the list of what is not in the Iliad is the actual fall of Troy. This scene is described in the Aeneid, an epic poem by the Roman poet Virgil. The Aeneid tells how the Greeks build a huge wooden horse, “the Trojan horse,” and place