The Rage of Achilles

The Rage of Achilles

The first word of the Iliad is rage- which the poem reveals to be the overwhelming anger that both empowers and controls the great Greek warrior Achilles. The first few lines explain that Achilles’ argument with Agamemnon, fueled by his rage, will result in the death of many great heroes, and leave many men on the battlefield to serve as a “banquet” for vultures and scavenging dogs. From the outset, then, we start to think about the consequences of a great man’s selfish actions for the community he is supposed to be leading. Put another way, at no point in the Iliad is Achilles’ excellence (the Greek word is arete) questioned, but every bit of the carnage and suffering endured by the Greeks is understood to be tied to his rage.

The Iliad begins, as we have discussed in class, in media res, or “in the midst of the action,” rather than at the very beginning of all the stories that form the background of the epic and make it fully intelligible. Anyone reciting the great poem (the Iliad would have been performed orally by a bard, a poet who could sing it from memory) in ancient Greece could expect his listeners to basically know the backstories in some form-- although arguments about how exactly that those backstories unfolded was probably part of the fun of hearing any epic recited.

The first book of the Iliad lays out the overarching plot of the entire epic. The first “event” of the Iliad is the arrival of a priest of Apollo into the camp of the Achaeans (the Greeks). The priest asks for his daughter in exchange for a large ransom, but Agamemnon (against the wishes of his men) refused the offer, insults the priest, and threatens him if he ever returns to the camp. The priest then prays to Apollo for revenge, and Apollo obliges him by sending a devastating plague into the camp of the Achaeans. Men are dying so quickly that piles of bodies must be burnt day and night. A seer (prophet) in the camp of the Achaeans reveals that the plague is Agamemnon’s fault, and Agamemnon angrily agrees to give back the girl, but then demands Achilles’ “prize” (another girl taken as plunder) in compensation for his slighted honor. Achilles’ rage fires up in the middle of the assembled leaders, and only the intervention of the goddess Athena stops him from running Agamemnon through with his sword. Athena convinces Achilles to take another route to showing his honor and worth, and so Achilles makes the fateful decision to stay out of the fighting, to remain in his tent while the others fight the Trojans. He does not resume fighting until book 20, and only then to avenge the death of his friend, Patroclus.

To skip from book 1 to book 20 is to do great injustice to the tremendous stories of many Achaean and Trojan heroes, as well as the scheming and backstabbing among the gods of Olympus, who use the war as a kind of proxy for their own petty grievances. A great summary of the action of the Iliad can be found here. In some ways, we could pick almost any episode from the Iliad to talk about key the virtues the Greeks admired and the questions about living in a community, leadership, and what it means to be human raised by the events of the epic. However, our interest in West Civ must focus on the warrior Achilles and his actions. In class we have discussed the many ways in which Achilles’ actions are both heroic and “bestial.” His disrespect for Hector’s corpse, his lack of self-control, his over-the-top grief, all make us wonder if this is really the kind of man we would want leading us. Against this, though, must be weighed Achilles’ tremendous ability, expressed by the Greek word arete. Certainly in terms of the progress of the war against the Trojans, the Greeks are much better off with Achilles fighting than they are with Achilles in the tent. In the end, of course, the gods do convince a reluctant Achilles to give up Hector’s body; the epic ends with the body being carted through the city of Troy and the people mourning him and preparing for his elaborate funeral.

A few key themes from our quick look of the Iliad should stick with you beyond the assessment:

The tension between the values of individual excellence (arete), and needs of community. This theme is expressed not only in our selection from the Iliad, but also in the reading on Greek Values (R 18-19), and on page 7 in the Funtivity book.

The importance of custom, especially respect for the gods and respect for the dead. Achilles only reluctantly respects the gods, and his respect for the dead is limited (at least initially) to those closest to him (in Greek, his philoi). Achilles’ grief over Patroclus drives him to go beyond the accepted norms and customs of Greek society. Only the gods can put him back in line.

The role of logos (reason) and peitho (persuasion) in establishing dike (justice) for the polis (political community). The Iliad is full of bloody hand-to-hand battles, but it’s also full of long speeches in which characters attempt to justify their actions. We will read other stories (Odysseus, Prometheus) that highlight this very important set of values for the Greeks.