Part 2. Nestor’s Homeric Role

Chapter 4. Iliad 11

{102|105} §2.1 The basic text for Nestor’s myth is his story in Iliad 11.670–761. [1] I have already suggested that the essence of Nestor’s myth is that he is a twin who has lost his brother and who therefore must take his brother’s place. What points to this is the etymological correspondence between the solitary hippóta Néstōr and the dual Aśvínā Nā́satyā, provided that the Vedic names each properly designated a different twin. [2] That point, I think, has now been established.

§2.2 For the interpretation of Iliad 11 the other crucial piece of evidence to emerge from the study of the Vedic twin gods is the distinction between a cattleman twin and a horseman twin. This distinction applies directly to Nestor’s story when we consider its basic structure, namely its division into two distinct episodes, a cattle raid followed by a battle between horsemen. Nestor refers to both events at the start of his story (Iliad 11.670–672):

First a cattle raid (boēlasíē), and then a battle (neîkos): this is like the basic myth of the Dioskouroi. [3] Between these two episodes, both of which focus on Nestor’s deeds, is a passage explaining how the Pylians came to be victimized by their neighbors in the first place. It is here that we learn that all twelve of Neleus’s sons except Nestor perished when Heracles sacked Pylos in earlier years, and that Pylos was thus left defenseless against its overbearing neighbors. Left unsaid in this crucial passage is the fact that Pylos’s great defender was Nestor’s brother Periklymenos, who kept Heracles at bay until finally he was vanquished and Pylos was sacked. It is Periklymenos’s place that Nestor must take, and to do so he must first become a “warrior horseman.” This he does in the second part of his story. Nestor’s story in Iliad 11 is, in essence, the story of how he became hippóta Néstōr. It is his version of the twin myth.

§2.3 We have already considered how Nestor’s cattle raid is connected with his name, “he who brings back to life.” [4] That connection is confirmed by the close association of cattle with the Vedic name Nā́satyā. Cattle are the domain of the Indo-European immortal twin, who brings his mortal brother back to life; in the opposition between the twins, cattle represent sustenance and life, horses warfare and death. When Nestor carries out his cattle raid, he brings his people back from virtual extinction. Nestor’s “cattle raid” (boēlasíē, Iliad 11.672) includes sheep, pigs, goats, and horses, all of which represent sustenance and life, even the horses, for they are mares that suckle young (Iliad 11.677–681): [5]

When these abundant herds and flocks are distributed to the Pylians we learn how low the Pylians had sunk, for all of this was a “debt” (khreîos) owed to them in Elis, and they themselves had been reduced to a “few badly off” (paûroi kekakōménoi) survivors (Iliad 11.685–695):

§2.4 In the cattle raid Nestor acts out his name, “he who brings back to life.” In the battle that follows he earns his epithet, “the horseman.” The focus shifts to the battle when the Epeians attack two days after the cattle raid (“on {107|108} the third day” after by inclusive Greek reckoning); this is a force of horsemen, and their horses (híppoi) are mentioned at the outset (Iliad 11.707–709):

The great heroes of the Epeians were the twins called the Molione, whom even Heracles could not defeat in battle; Heracles would kill them one day, but by stealth rather than might. [6] The Molione now rode with the Epeian horsemen against Pylos, but like Nestor they were still young and untested in battle (Iliad 11.709–710):

As for Nestor, his father tried to keep him away from the battle altogether because he thought him still too young for war: when Athena came by night to warn the Pylians and gather them for battle Neleus hid Nestor’s horses. But Nestor went anyway, on foot, and even so he kept pace with the Pylian horsemen (Iliad 11.717–721):

When the two armies clashed, Nestor, still on foot, slew the leader of the enemy horsemen and seized his chariot (Iliad 11.737–746):

§2.5 Although the exciting climax of Nestor’s story is yet to come, the point of his story is already clear: this is the story of how Nestor first became a horseman. When Neleus hides his horses from him Nestor is emphatically not a horseman; to participate at all he must go on foot. He is without horses until he wins them in battle, and win them he must in order to become a warrior. [7] Nestor first becomes hippóta Néstōr when he leaps onto his conquered {109|110} foe’s chariot, and as such he immediately proves himself a match for two men at once: he single-handedly kills the double occupants of fifty chariots as he rushes forward like a dark whirlwind; he would even have killed the Epeian twins if they had not been rescued from his path by their father Poseidon (Iliad 11.747–752):

The Pylians drove the Epeians through the plain all the way to Bouprasion (Iliad 11.753–756):

There Nestor slew his last man and the Pylians turned back for home, hailing Zeus among gods and Nestor among men (Iliad 11.759–761):

Thus Nestor’s story ends. [8]

§2.6 Nestor’s most important encounter in terms of the underlying meaning of his story is the one that does not take place. The Molione, who are rescued from Nestor’s path by Poseidon, are another pair of Indo-European twins with clear distinctions between them. Like the Dioskouroi they have dual paternity, being sons of a god, Poseidon, and a mortal, Aktor: their patronymic Aktoríōne contains their mortal father’s name. [9] In the Catalogue of Ships, where two of the four leaders from Bouprasion and Elis are sons of the Molione, the Molione themselves are given individual names, Kteatos and Eurytos. [10] Pindar Olympian 10.26–27 calls Kteatos the son of Poseidon, and {111|112} Eurytos must therefore be the son of Aktor. In Homer the Molione appear again in Nestor’s story in Iliad 23, where further distinctions between them play a crucial role. [11] Nestor must not kill the Epeian twins in his story in Iliad 11 because Heracles later kills them, and the tradition for that was fixed. [12] But if Nestor cannot encounter the twins in his story, why are they featured so prominently? [13] They are there because Nestor himself has a twin myth, and his virtual encounter with twins signals this myth. The Molione were invincible because they were inseparable. [14] Nestor, who lost his brother, became a {112|113} match for the Molione when he took his brother’s place as a warrior. He too now had the opposed characteristics of a pair of twins. As soon as he wins horses he defeats the double occupants of fifty chariots, and this unlikely feat shows that he has indeed become a match for two men at a time. [15] The Molione are mentioned to put Nestor’s feat explicitly in the context of the twin myth. The same Nestor who carried out the cattle raid two days earlier had now become a horseman, and as such he would have defeated even the invincible Molione had he encountered them. [16]

§2.7 The aged Nestor appears as a horseman in the present action of the Iliad only twice: in Iliad 8 (we will return to this later) and in Iliad 11. The episode in Iliad 11 immediately precedes Nestor’s story, and it sets the stage for what this story tells: how Nestor became a horseman in the first place. In the episode preceding the story the fighting rages around Nestor and Idomeneus, who hold their ground against Hector until Makhaon on the Greek side is wounded by an arrow of Paris. [17] Idomeneus then bids Nestor to {113|114} take Makhaon on his chariot back to the ships, for Makhaon is a physician and as such too valuable to lose (Iliad 11.511–515):

§2.8 Makhaon is a twin. He and his brother Podaleirios are sons of Asklepios, and like Asklepios they are both physicians. [18] With this pair of {114|115} doctors we are again in the realm of the Indo-European twin myth (cf. the dasrā́ bhiṣájā, “two miracle-working physicians,” of Vedic). Makhaon’s name means “warrior” (from mákhomai, “fight”) and it thus identifies him with the mortal twin of the Indo-European myth. [19] This pair of twins, moreover, {115|116} does not stay together; whereas Podaleirios survives the war and becomes the founder of new cities, Makhaon, according to the Little Iliad, dies in battle at Troy. [20] Makhaon is the counterpart to Nestor’s brother Periklymenos, who likewise dies in battle. Periklymenos’s death is the unspoken point of Nestor’s story in Iliad 11; in the episode leading up to this story the overt image is of a pair of figures, one rescuing the other. Nestor and Makhaon are both twin figures, and together they present the image of a pair of twins; in their myths both of these figures become separated from their brothers, but the idea of separation is now left to one side as together they mount Nestor’s chariot (Iliad 11.516–520):

This image of the aged Nestor racing across the plain with the wounded warrior twin Makhaon at his side sets the stage for Nestor’s story, the story of how he first became a horseman; the story of hippóta Néstōr is thus set in the frame of the twin myth from the start.

§2.9 Nestor tells the story of how he first became a horseman to Patroclus. When Nestor emerges from battle Achilles cannot see who the wounded warrior is on Nestor’s chariot, and he sends Patroclus to Nestor’s tent to find out. [21] This is a fateful moment for Patroclus, as is signaled in the {117|118} narrative when Patroclus first hears Achilles call him and he comes out from his tent (Iliad 11.603–604):

After telling his story Nestor urges Patroclus to go back to Achilles and try to persuade him to save the hard pressed Achaeans; if he cannot persuade him, then let Achilles send him into battle in his place, and let him give Patroclus his arms so the Trojans will think that he is Achilles himself (Iliad 11.794–803):

What Nestor here urges Patroclus to do is what is in fact destined to take place. Nestor’s words stir Patroclus’s heart and he sets off at a run to return to Achilles (Iliad 11.804–805):

§2.10 The point of Nestor’s story is that he took the place of his brother Periklymenos as a warrior horseman. His story is thus a paradigm for Patroclus who is to take the place of his warrior companion Achilles in battle. But the point of Nestor’s story, as we have seen, is disguised since Periklymenos is not named in it; his name is left unspoken and the twelve sons of Neleus are mentioned instead. Just so the relevance of Nestor’s story to Patroclus is disguised. On the surface of the narrative Nestor does not relate his past behavior to Patroclus’s future course of action; he contrasts it with Achilles’ present behavior. When Nestor first hears why Patroclus has come to his tent, he wonders why Achilles takes pity on the Achaeans (Iliad 11.656–657):

He goes on to say that in fact Achilles has no pity for the Achaeans, and asks if he is waiting for the ships to burn and the Achaeans to be killed (Iliad 11.664–668):

Nestor himself no longer has the strength to save the day as he once did; he wishes he were as young and strong as he was in the conflict between Pylos and Elis, and with this he begins his story (Iliad 11.668–671):

At the end of his story Nestor contrasts his behavior even more pointedly with that of Achilles (Iliad 11.762–764):

§2.11 Nestor’s story purports to be relevant to Achilles’ behavior, but a moment’s reflection shows that such relevance is only a surface illusion: Achilles does not hear Nestor’s story, and it thus cannot affect his behavior; if the purpose of Nestor’s story is to change Achilles’ behavior, he wastes his breath and his story is pointless. [22] If, on the other hand, the purpose of {120|121} Nestor’s story has to do with Patroclus, it has a great deal of point, but the point is disguised on the surface of the narrative. The point emerges indirectly through parallels between Nestor and Patroclus within the narrative as it develops. As we have seen, Nestor rescues the wounded Makhaon from the battlefield on his chariot. Makhaon has been wounded in the shoulder by an arrow of Paris. When Nestor and Makhaon depart for the ships the scene shifts to the other side of the battlefield, where another hero, Eurypylos, is hit in the thigh by another of Paris’s arrows and he too must depart from the battlefield for the ships, but he goes on foot. When Patroclus finishes his visit to Nestor and sets off at a run for Achilles, he meets Eurypylos limping back to the ships and he stops to tend Eurypylos’s wound. Nestor and Patroclus both tend to a victim of Paris’s arrows, and this is a deliberately constructed parallel between them in Iliad 11. At the end of Iliad 11 Patroclus and Nestor have both tended to their patients’ wounds and for the time being they both remain at their patients’ sides. {121|122}

§2.12 The parallel between Nestor and Patroclus in Iliad 11 is crucial for understanding the purpose of Nestor’s story, but the two are not completely parallel. There is also an element of contrast. This can be seen in the way that they treat their patients. Nestor, for his part, has his maidservant Hekamede prepare a kukeṓn, which he and Makhaon both drink; when Patroclus arrives Nestor and Makhaon are already enjoying a pleasant conversation (Iliad 11.642–644):

In contrast to this nearly magical cure, in which attention is devoted entirely to Nestor’s fabulous cup and the kukeṓn prepared in it (Iliad 11.628–641), while the removal of the arrow goes unmentioned, Patroclus meets Eurypylos and tends to him in an atmosphere of sweat and blood (Iliad 11.806–813):

Eurypylos tells Patroclus of the plight of the Achaeans and asks for help getting back to his ship and removing the arrow from his thigh; Patroclus agrees despite his hurry to return to Achilles. Iliad 11 ends with Patroclus performing surgery on Eurypylos in his tent (Iliad 11.842–848):

The two wounds, one in the shoulder and the other in the thigh, reinforce the element of contrast within otherwise parallel situations; Eurypylos’s thigh wound is more serious than Makhaon’s shoulder wound, and Eurypylos feels the full effect of his wound when he has to make his way from battle on foot. The contrast between Nestor’s rescue and cure of Makhaon and Patroclus’s rescue and cure of Eurypylos is reflected in other characteristics that differentiate the two figures. For Patroclus the dominant theme is pity, which is mentioned immediately when he meets Eurypylos (Iliad 11.814–818):

Pity comes through again at the end when Patroclus says that he will not abandon Eurypylos however eager he is to return to Achilles with Nestor’s message (Iliad 11.838–841):

When Nestor cures Makhaon, on the other hand, Nestor’s intelligence and his serene command of the situation are highlighted. His intelligence is conveyed only symbolically since his serving woman prepares the kukeṓn and he does nothing himself; but this serving woman, who is named Hekamḗdē (“far-counseling”), the daughter of Arsínoos (“sound-minded”), bespeaks Nestor’s own intelligence, for she has been given as a prize to Nestor for being “best of all in counsel” (Iliad 11.622–627):

§2.13 If Patroclus is parallel to Nestor, Achilles, who is out of action (by his own choice, but nevertheless out of action), and whose place in battle Patroclus must therefore take, is parallel to the unnamed Periklymenos of Nestor’s story in Iliad 11. It was the death of Periklymenos, Pylos’s great champion, that put Pylos at the mercy of the Epeians; just so, it is the absence of Achilles, the Achaeans’ great champion, that has put the Achaeans at the mercy of the Trojans. To this extent Patroclus and Achilles reenact the myth of Nestor and Periklymenos, and categories of the Indo-European twin myth also apply to them. When Nestor finishes his story, he immediately contrasts his behavior with that of Achilles, as we have seen. But he then goes on to what Patroclus must do: either rouse Achilles to battle or take his place. In terms of the Indo-European twin myth the immortal twin either brings the mortal twin back to life, as Polydeuces does Castor, or he replaces him, as Nestor does Periklymenos. Nestor guides Patroclus toward what he must do by telling him to remember the words of his father Menoitios when he and Achilles left for the war. Nestor had come to Phthia with Odysseus to recruit Achilles and Patroclus for the war, and he thus heard the advice of Peleus to Achilles, always to excel in war, and the advice of Menoitios to Patroclus, which pointedly contrasted the greater status and strength of Achilles with the greater age and wisdom of Patroclus (Iliad 11.786–789):

This is similar to the contrast between the Indo-European twins: the warrior-strength of the mortal twin on the one hand, and the intelligence of the immortal twin on the other hand. It is in his role as counselor that Patroclus, {125|126} remembering his father’s words, is to try to rouse Achilles to reenter the war (Iliad 11.790–793):

The plan that Patroclus is to try first is exactly that of the twin myth, in which the immortal twin brings the mortal warrior twin back to life, and this action is itself a mental process; for Patroclus it would be an act of persuasion. But if Patroclus fails to persuade Achilles, as he is in fact destined to do, he is to follow Nestor’s own example and take the place of Achilles in battle (Iliad 11.794–803).

§2.14 It is worth looking more closely at the contrast between intelligence on the one hand and might on the other hand in the case of Patroclus and Achilles. The contrast is there, but it should not be overstated. Patroclus’s superior counsel is presented as a matter of greater age rather than greater intelligence, even though good counsel remains a matter of intelligence in the end. Both Patroclus and Achilles, furthermore, are skilled physicians: when Eurypylos asks Patroclus for help he says that Patroclus got his knowledge of drugs from Achilles, whom the centaur Cheiron taught (Iliad 11.828–832):

Like the twins Podaleirios and Makhaon, Patroclus and Achilles both have medical skill. It is interesting that Eurypylos immediately goes on to say that the twin doctors are both unavailable: the wounded Makhaon needs a doctor himself and Podaleirios still fights on the plain (Iliad 11.833–836):

In these passages there seems to be an implicit comparison of Patroclus and Achilles as doctors with the twin sons of Asklepios, [23] and such a comparison makes perfect sense at this point near the end of Iliad 11. It reflects the way in which Patroclus and Achilles have been cast as twins in relation to Nestor and his myth earlier in the book. It bears emphasizing that Nestor himself is the master doctor in this book. [24] {127|128}

§2.15 The carefully crafted parallelism between Nestor and Patroclus in Iliad 11 continues when they both return to action later in the poem. In a pair of scenes in Iliad 14 and Iliad 15 first Nestor and then Patroclus leave their patients as they hear the din of battle coming closer because the Achaeans are now in full retreat. Nestor leaves Makhaon in the care of Hekamede, who will bathe his wounds, and he himself joins the retreating Achaeans for a council. Patroclus, who has been tending Eurypylos’s wounds with drugs, leaves Eurypylos to the care of his own attendant so that he himself can return to Achilles and urge him to fight. In his short speech to Eurypylos it is Nestor’s advice that Patroclus repeats, and the latter part of it in Nestor’s own words (Iliad 15.401–404):

§2.16 The parallelism between Nestor and Patroclus reaches a climax in Iliad 16, but only if we understand the point of Nestor’s story in Iliad 11, namely that his story tells how and why he first became a horseman. For when Patroclus returns to Achilles and puts into effect what Nestor has told him, he too is transformed into a horseman: now for the first time he is called Patróklees hippeû and Patróklees hippokéleuthe, both phrases meaning “horseman Patroclus,” and he is repeatedly addressed as such until he is killed in battle. Not until Iliad 16, when he takes Achilles’ place, does he get these vocative epithets, but in Iliad 16 they occur seven times. [25] The first occurrence is at the beginning of Book 16, when Patroclus comes to Achilles in tears and Achilles asks why he is weeping. In his reply Patroclus, using Nestor’s words, asks Achilles to send him into battle in his place; in the line introducing his speech the poet for the first time addresses Patroclus as “horseman”: τὸν δὲ {128|129} βαρὺ στενάχων προσέφης Πατρόκλεες ἱππεῦ, “groaning deeply you addressed him, horseman Patroclus” (Iliad 16.20). The second occurrence is spoken by Achilles himself after he agrees to let Patroclus go into battle in his place; when Achilles sees the Trojans setting fire to the Achaeans’ ships he urges Patroclus to go: ὄρσεο διογενὲς Πατρόκλεες ἱπποκέλευθε· / λεύσσω δὴ παρὰ νηυσὶ πυρὸς δηΐοιο ἰωήν, “Rise, Zeus-born Patroclus, driver of horses. / I see the rush of destructive fire by the ships,” Iliad 16.126–127).

§2.17 Just as Nestor, in taking his brother’s place, became hippóta Néstōr, so Patroclus, in taking Achilles’ place, becomes Patróklees hippeû/Patróklees hippokéleuthe. [26] Given such a particular correspondence there is every reason to believe that Nestor in his story in Iliad 11 provides the paradigm for Patroclus to follow, and that Patroclus in fact follows it. This must be at least part of what the poet intends to convey when he addresses Patroclus as “horseman” in Iliad 16. If we accept that Patroclus, who has taken Nestor’s advice by replacing his companion in battle, has at the same time followed Nestor’s example, as set forth in his story in Iliad 11, then the point of this story is confirmed: Nestor first became a horseman by replacing his brother, just as Patroclus became a horseman in replacing his companion.

§2.18 Now that we have interpreted Nestor’s story in Iliad 11, and supported the interpretation by considering the place of this story in the larger story of the Iliad, it is time to face squarely the fact that both the interpretation and its support rest not on the surface of the poem, but below the surface. Thus, if the point of Nestor’s story is that he takes his brother’s place, and that it is the example of this deed that Patroclus follows in taking Achilles’ place, Nestor’s actual story does not even mention Periklymenos, but only the twelve sons of Neleus, of whom Periklymenos was one. In other words, his presence in the story is implied but not stated. Likewise, if the story is meant as a paradigm for Patroclus, Nestor does not say so, but instead presents his youthful deeds as a contrast to the behavior and attitude of Achilles. Why is this so? If we are correct in our interpretation only one explanation is possible, and that is that both the point of Nestor’s story and its relevance to Patroclus have been deliberately disguised and intentionally {129|130} withheld. What the reason for this might be we cannot yet say, but the same phenomenon, the intentional concealing of relevance, will be evident in Nestor’s role in other parts of the Iliad and Odyssey, and particularly in the episode that we will consider next, namely the chariot race in the funeral games for Patroclus. {130|131}

Footnotes