4. The Characterization of Agamemnon in the Iliad

A vivid picture of what Agamemnon’s character was like for the Odyssey poet and his core audience emerged from our discussion in the last chapter, and it joins the portrait we began to see develop already in Chapter 2. We have noted that Agamemnon is known within Homer’s tradition as a character who dies a shameful and pitiful death at his wife’s hands. Further, as we began to see in Chapter 2, Agamemnon’s traditional personality in Iliad 4 is shown to be one given to thoughtless, foolish, and rash words and actions. These traits will continue to resonate strongly with the picture the Iliad poet paints in the rest of his epic. Other traits less pronounced in the Odyssey also emerge from a close reading of the rest of the Iliad, where Agamemnon is still the living leader of the war against Troy. In the Iliad, we will encounter Agamemnon in many scenes as a leader with a penchant for arrogance, imperiousness, irreverence, and insult. [1] He also appears as inept and unconvincing in his relations with others, certainly in his dealings with the basileis who have accompanied him on an expedition to regain Menelaos’ wife and honor.

This chapter is written, as was the previous, in the format of a commentary. Further, as we have seen already, characterization for the ancient audience was not abstracted and separated from events, but rather attached inextricably to “word and deed” housed within the tradition already known to singer and audience. Consequently, both of these elements will continue to provide us with an opportunity to see what Agamemnon was like for the poet and his ancient audience.

Immediately following the prooimion, the Iliad begins with strife between Achilles and Agamemnon (1.9). The priest Chryses had come supplicating the Atreidai and the “other well-greaved Achaians” for his daughter (1.12–21). Despite the army’s supporting assent “to reverence the priest and to receive the splendid ransom” (αἰδεῖσθαί θ’ ἱερῆα καὶ ἀγλαὰ δέχθαι ἄποινα, 22), he is irreverently rebuffed (24–32). Agamemnon will not be swayed, but rather gives way to his anger. The language introducing Agamemnon’s reply to Chryses is no less telling than the response itself (24–25): “But not to Atreus’ son Agamemnon was it pleasing in [his] spirit, / badly instead he sent [the priest] away, and a strong command he laid upon [him]” (ἀλλ’ οὐκ Ἀτρεΐδῃ Ἀγαμέμνονι ἥνδανε θυμῷ, / ἀλλὰ κακῶς ἀφίει, κρατερὸν δ’ ἐπὶ μῦθον ἔτελλε). Agamemnon lays a “strong command” (κρατερὸν ... μῦθον) upon the priest. As Martin (1989:22) has demonstrated, the muth- stem marks “proposals and commands or threats and boasts.” It implies authority and implicit power for the speaker. The priest, “a low-status person with special powers” (Redfield 1975:94), is no match for Agamemnon, whose authoritative speech act includes a firm warning (1.26–32):

The vehemence of Agamemnon’s defiant reply is a “brutal rejoinder” (Rabel 1997:40) that forces Chryses to leave immediately and leads to Apollo’s plague. The force of Agamemnon’s threatening reply is seen in the strength and number of negations he employs (1.26, 28, 29, 32). Further, the use of “I” (ἐγώ, 26) is the result not just of metrical filling, but of the active oral delivery of the poet who searches for emphasis in the rhythm of the hexameter. Agamemnon means what he says. Yet, Agamemnon’s arrogant response stands in stark contrast to Chryses’ own powerless supplication and the army’s earlier call to support the priest’s request. The staff of office (skēptron, 28) sets Chryses apart as a priest of Apollo, just as Agamemnon’s staff sets him apart as the leading basileus (Naiden 2006:56–57). The stemmata (“wool ribbons” of the priest’s garb, 14) indicate Chryses’ position as a suppliant (Griffin 1980:26). [2] The sanctity of the priest wearing stemmata is as powerful as that of an altar’s sanctity, showing that the suppliant “is both unthreatening and favored by the gods” (Naiden 2006:56). The priest comes as a suppliant (nb. λίσσετο πάντας Ἀχαιούς, 15), whose role, as Létoublon (1980:334) has shown, predates our epic tradition. [3] Further, suppliants, since they are helpless and receive divine charis, are “more deserving of respect” (aidoioteroi) and when wronged become “incarnate curses” (araioi). [4] The priest Chryses is also old, making Agamemnon’s response all the more irreverent. Yet, can we conclude that Agamemnon was understood by Homer’s audience to be acting irreverently by dishonoring the suppliant? [5] After all, no request for battlefield ransom in the actual time frame of the Iliad’s action is ever successful in saving a suppliant. [6] Perhaps the audience thought that Agamemnon was acting just as anyone else would have.

In the Iliad, there is at least one instance of successful supplication off the battlefield in real time. It proves a contrast to Agamemnon’s own refusal. In Iliad 24, Priam, an elder like Chryses in Iliad 1, comes to Achilles as a suppliant outside of the arena of battle and is successful, albeit he comes for a corpse rather than to ransom a living son. Achilles, however, does respect his plea. [7] Outside of the actual time frame of the Iliad’s action, moreover, one recalls that Achilles himself had, more than once, shown mercy for living prisoners of war before Patroklos’ death (Iliad 6.425–427, 11.104–106; cf. Naiden 2006, n. 99).

Chryses, however, is not a warrior pleading for his life. Neither is he a father pleading for his captured warrior son. Rather, he is a priest of Apollo asking to redeem his daughter for appropriate ransom during a struggle in which he is not personally involved. Surely there are more appropriate comparisons for Agamemnon’s relation to suppliants than warriors begging for their lives on the battlefield or even a warrior-king coming for the corpse of his son. If one assumes resonance not just between the Iliad and Odyssey, but also between the Odyssey and Iliad as argued in Chapter 1, a better comparison may be that of the aoidos Phemios supplicating Odysseus for sanctuary after a tisis perpetrated upon the suitors (Odyssey 22.365–380). There, as in the case of the priest (arētēr) Chryses in Iliad 1, the singer was not personally involved, but instead a victim of circumstances. Yet, quite unlike the reception of Chryses by Agamemnon, when Phemios entreated Telemachos as a suppliant, he was immediately spared by Odysseus’ consent. In Homer’s cultural outlook, priests and singers are a special group worthy of respect. While an arētēr is unsurprisingly not mentioned in the Odyssey’s list of traveling professionals (17:383–386), priests’ importance equally places them with the mantis in a professional religious class deserving of special status and respect. [8] As we saw with Chryses’ supplication, even the army recognized that releasing the captive Chryseïs to her priest-father was the right thing to do (and shouted their support). Yet, Agamemnon persisted in his denial, and so already at the beginning of Homer’s song, he showed his true colors.

Latacz notes that Agamemnon’s is “eine Unverhältnismäßigkeit der Reaktion” (Latacz 2000a:37). This evaluation catches something of the significance of Homer’s creative emphasis. It shows that the story is part of the poet’s tradition and provides a glimpse of a character known for his disproportionate reactions. Yet, the scene’s emphatic placement here at the commencement of the epic, at the outset of the singer’s creation, is equally significant. Its placement is a function of the singer’s choice, when he considered where to begin, the phrase “from which point” (ἐξ οὗ, 1.6) of the prooimion. [9] The singer is in competition with his peers in producing the most impressive story, so the way he begins his rendition sets a mood that strikes the audience. [10] And where he begins, which is intertwined somehow with the cosmic will of Zeus, suggests that he has an interest in displaying aspects of Agamemnon’s character.

Agamemnon is also excessively harsh here, if we read the implications of one idiom. It is not good enough for Agamemnon to send the priest away with a stern warning, but there is also a threatening boast in his tone. The priest’s daughter is to be taken “far from [her] fatherland” (τηλόθι πάτρης, 1.30), an idiom used a total of five times in Homer. [11] The expression is always associated with the misery of permanent separation experienced by an individual because of the loss of one’s fatherland, but also the effect that this loss has on another. A couple of examples will show the idiom’s meaning. The next use, chronologically, of “far from fatherland” (τηλόθι πάτρης) expresses the distance of Sarpedon from his own country in Iliad 16.461, when he is about to die under Patroklos’ spear in Troy. Sarpedon will lose his homeland, with all that meant to the ancient audience. [12] Yet, the expression’s meaning does not stop there. It is further associated with Zeus through his corresponding title as patēr, which was just mentioned by the poet three lines earlier (“father of men and of gods,” πατὴρ ἀνδρῶν τε θεῶν τε, 558). Not only will Sarpedon lose his fatherland, then, but Zeus will also lose a son. The loss is experienced by the “father of men and of gods” sweating, literally “pouring down [from above] drops of blood” (αἱματοέσσας δὲ ψιάδας κατέχευεν, 459), over what was about to take place. So, Homer, through this local clustering of patrēs and pāter, wants his audience to hear about the loss of a homeland experienced by Sarpedon, but as emphatically, the personal loss felt by Zeus. Similarly, this double sense of loss is exemplified by Achilles’ grief over Patroklos’ loss of his homeland, but also Achilles’ own grievous loss of his hetairos Patroklos in Iliad 18.98. [13]

The loss threatened by the idiom “far from [her] fatherland” (τηλόθι πάτρης) in Iliad 1 likewise includes this double traditional reference. It assumes Chryseïs’ loss of a homeland, but also a significant disruption of the oikos and its normal function for Chryses. [14] The priest’s daughter would not be married off, but taken as booty, and Chryses would be left at a loss. Yet, none of this loss appears to concern Agamemnon. He instead taunts Chryses with the future repeated rape of his daughter (ἐμὸν λέχος ἀντιόωσαν, Iliad 1.31). Agamemnon’s brash and irreverent response will have unfortunate consequences, however, in the ensuing narrative, not just for himself but also for the whole Greek expedition. They too will experience loss.

Apollo’s plague follows immediately, resulting in the burning of pyres on a continual basis (αἰεὶ δὲ πυραὶ νεκύων καίοντο θαμειαί, 52), a penalty prayed for by the priest (1.42). The magnitude of the reprisal of Apollo in his wrath is comparable to the excesses of Agamemnon’s own earlier reaction to the priest’s initial “höfliche Bitte” in supplication for his captive daughter (Latacz 2000a:36). The military losses lead Achilles, rather than Agamemnon, to call the Achaians to assembly (1.53–54) on the tenth day. The payback has begun, and Achilles, in light of Agamemnon’s silence, asks that the Achaians engage a prophetic figure of some type to declare why Apollo is angry. Kalchas steps forward hesitantly to use his craft as seer (72, 92). He is worried about Agamemnon’s anger (78) and voices his concern. Kalchas, like Apollo’s priest Chryses (80), occupies a vulnerable position. His role demands he say things that may place him in harm’s way. He is reassured, however, by Achilles, who deflects Agamemnon’s anger from the prophet to himself (Louden 2006:160). Kalchas, now under Achilles’ protection, responds with a priamel that has as its “cardinal point” (Race 1982:14) the singling out of Agamemnon’s dishonorable act (1.93–95):

The seer’s priamel, further enlarged by the addition of details of what Agamemnon did not do and receive (1.95), is accompanied by a threat. There will be continued reprisal by Apollo unless there follows the restoration of the unwed maiden (κούρη) to her father (96–98).

Not insignificantly, in Kalchas’ prophecy [15] Agamemnon is no longer promised any ransom (1.99) as a consequence of his earlier rejection of the priest’s offer. [16] Yet in his reply (106–120), Agamemnon insists upon his preference for Chryseïs over his own wife (113–116):

Agamemnon makes it clear that he wants to take Chryseïs home with him (112–113). Felson and Slatkin note that the competition among males is conducted through a woman, and that the “confluence of desire, strife and gender ... recapitulates the etiology of the Trojan War.” [17] The struggle over Chryseïs is like the struggle over Helen, who, as Blondell articulates it, represents “the conundrum of female beauty,” which is “intrinsically desirable” yet also connected with destruction. [18] Agamemnon’s association of Chryseïs with Clytemnestra, moreover, may resonate for Homer’s audience with implications for more than just its connection in the oral tradition with Helen and the centrality of a woman in the commencement and dilemma of the Trojan War. It may also implicate Agamemnon’s future, his “dismal homecoming” (kakos nostos). We will ponder this point more fully in a moment. It is necessary first to consider the implications of Agamemnon’s comments about his concubine Chryseïs. [19] This is best accomplished by a brief overview of the practice of concubinage in Homer and other early Greek literature. [20]

While the keeping of a “slave-concubine” (παλλακίς) was common practice in Homeric society (at least for the lord of a household) and certainly not considered unacceptable, it could cause conflict. The question of sexual relations with one’s concubine emphatically announced by Agamemnon in Iliad 1.31 was a subject of potential concern. It reflected real tension not to be too quickly dismissed, as evidence from Homer and early Greek literature suggests. Potential problems were related to questions of inheritance and primacy of place among the women (and their children) of the household. [21] The narrative of Phoinix’s autobiography (Iliad 9.450–452), as well as Laertes’ arrangement with Eurykleia (Odyssey 1.433), both point to the possibility of household angst. In each case, the sexual relationship between the male and his concubine in the home is portrayed as vexatious, actually or potentially. In the first instance, with Phoinix, the very act of sleeping with one’s concubine can cause strife. [22] Phoinix’s father Amyntor slept with his concubine, and, so, Phoinix tells us, dishonored (ἀτιμάζεσκε) his wife. Second, in the case of Laertes, the possibility of stirring up anger in his wife kept him from sleeping with Eurykleia. [23] Furthermore, Odysseus’ lying tale to Eumaios (Odyssey 14.200–215) shows some of the potential problems for a bastard son. In a contrived autobiography, Odysseus narrates that he is the son of a concubine and experienced a great deal of competition from his arrogant half-brothers upon the death of their father. [24]

Aeschylus’ Agamemnon offers further relevant cultural information in Clytemnestra’s response to Agamemnon. There we find a litany of references to Cassandra’s and Agamemnon’s sexual relations with each other, and by innuendo, Cassandra’s with other Achaians (e.g. Agamemnon 1438–1447). Nor is the theme of women’s jealousy in the household in Euripides’ plays, such as that experienced with almost unparalleled intensity by Medea over Jason’s marriage to the princess in the Medea, simply all the fabrication or emphasis of the playwright himself. [25] Rather, such dramatic dilemmas join the other examples we have discussed in showing the very real tension that could adhere to the practice of concubinage (and polygyny) in early Greece (as it could in other Mediterranean cultures). [26] All of these instances, however anecdotal, indicate that there could be conflict and tension from multiple female partners sharing one household in ancient Greek society as pictured in the Homeric epics.

I am suggesting that cultural tensions dovetail with traditional implications in the poet’s presentation. Agamemnon’s open and defiant declaration in the Achaian assembly, where he forcefully admits his preference for Chryseïs, creates tension and would have sounded rather thoughtless and foreboding. Homer’s core audience was well aware of Clytemnestra’s infidelity, so patently a theme in the Odyssey (which may be instanced in her very name). [27] For them, Agamemnon’s admission must have resounded loudly with irony and created a sardonic reaction. Not only is Agamemnon upsetting the stability of his warrior culture through his insulting reaction to the priest and his requests, he is also potentially upsetting the stability of his own oikos. His present attitude and actions parallel his wife’s by displaying a lack of concern for the oikos. While Agamemnon is dallying in Troy, his wife is dallying in Argos.

There are also potential references in this scene to Agamemnon’s kakos nostos and the Oresteia in Homer’s tradition. The singer may have been intending a link between Agamemnon’s callousness here and the seer’s earlier activity at Aulis (including his prophecy), an event included in the epic cycle’s Cypria as outlined in Proclus’ epitome (Chrestomathy 138–141):

Agamemnon had sacrificed his daughter at the urging of the prophet. The presence of this backstory in the minds of Homer’s audience seems plausible enough, especially if we accept the proposition that the Cyclic epics belong to the same mythological tradition as the Homeric poems. [29] The allusion to Kalchas’ past prophecies likely created a foreboding tone and impacted the way the scene was heard. [30] It summoned up for the traditional audience a memory of Agamemnon’s past, when he put his daughter to death, but perhaps also his future, when he died at his wife’s hands. His wife’s murderous action upon his return home is an event also linked in later tragedy to Agamemnon’s earlier sacrificing of their daughter at Aulis. [31]

It may be that Homer’s audience heard Agamemnon’s critique of Kalchas himself with this tradition in mind. Agamemnon is certainly actively thinking of the past when Kalchas steps forward as mantis during his heated dispute with Achilles (Iliad 1.106–108): With Aulis as the historical backdrop for Agamemnon’s stern reply, then the “not ever” (οὐ πώ ποτέ) and “always” (αἰεί) of his prophecies join the events at Troy to Aulis. Thus, there are at least two potential examples of metonymic allusion here. First, the comparison between Clytemnestra and Chryseïs and second the characterization of Kalchas at Aulis and Troy. Together, these make Agamemnon’s response all the more ironic and portentous. As we have seen in our consideration of the Odyssey in the last chapter, and now note for the Iliad, past and future are always impinging on the narrative present.

Kalchas’ traditional character as a prophet who speaks the truth (however little Agamemnon likes it!) will cause Agamemnon to accept the necessity of returning Chryseïs. Yet, while grudgingly agreeing to return the concubine to save his Achaian warrior host (1.116–117), Agamemnon demands that he receive a compensatory “war prize” (γέρας): “But for me, prepare a war prize at once!” (αὐτὰρ ἐμοὶ γέρας αὐτίχ’ ἑτοιμάσατ’, 118). The force of Agamemnon’s words are brought out by the joining of “But for me” (αὐτὰρ ἐμοί) with other markers of his authoritarian voice. [32] “But for me” indicates strong emotional involvement by the speaker. Agamemnon is intent on getting what he considers his due and won’t settle for less. He demands his geras, even though, as Achilles immediately observes, the distribution of the spoils by the army has already been made (162). [33] Agamemnon’s retort to the priest’s declaration and his demand for compensation “fatally” disturb “a fragile economy of reciprocal battlefield honors and benefits” (Felson and Slatkin 2004:94) within the warrior community. [34] Indeed, the immediate effect of Agamemnon’s response is strife between himself and Achilles (the “best of the Achaians”). [35] This contention forms the backdrop of books 1 through 9 in particular, although it is ultimately the backstory, too, for action and plot development in the rest of the Iliad.

Considering Agamemnon’s imperious and arrogant rejoinder, it is little wonder that Achilles replies acerbically by calling him “[the] greatest lover of things of all men” (φιλοκτεανώτατε πάντων, 1.122). In response—as though affirming Achilles’ charge—Agamemnon returns to the question of a war prize. He includes a threat made all the more emphatic by the use of the future perfect. He describes what is to be the angry emotional state (κεχολώσεται, 1.139) of the one whom he will visit to take his compensatory prize. As Chantraine expresses it, the future perfect tense has an immediately tangible quality about the certainty of the consequences. [36] The poet next has Agamemnon move from argument to action with the imperative rejoinder, “But now come!” (νῦν δ’ ἄγε, 141), a “rhetorical fulcrum” that divides Agamemnon’s speech and “initiates a call for action” (Foley 1999:224–225). [37] Agamemnon urges that they immediately act to appease the archer god. Yet, he speaks as though his abusive behavior could suddenly be forgotten in the wake of his imperious command.

Achilles, however, is not prepared simply to overlook Agamemnon’s menacing threat, and the tenor of his reaction is carried in a traditional phrase: “At him darkly looking, spoke swift-footed Achilles” (τὸν δ’ ἄρ’ ὑπόδρα ἰδὼν προσέφη πόδας ὠκὺς Ἀχιλλεύς, 148; emphasis mine). As we saw in Chapter 2, Holoka has demonstrated that this formula (τὸν δ’ ἄρ’ ὑπόδρα ἰδών) functions to highlight disrespectful breaches in social conventions, and he suggests its utility as part of a response to encourage propriety. [38] Achilles’ scowl, given him by the poet as narrator, is one that here sums up the state of affairs and means to check the hubristic behavior of the Achaians’ paramount basileus. Achilles’ objurgating response (1.149–171) centers upon Agamemnon’s “lack of shame” and is brought home through local repetition of words centering upon Agamemnon’s “shamelessness” (ἀναιδείην, 149; ἀναιδές, 158). The diachronic meaning of “shamelessness” includes a lack of constraint. [39] Examined in close detail in Homer, however, one finds “shamelessness” used in desperate circumstances that entail the idea of destruction threatened or carried out upon others (especially in the case of instruments like stones) or eventually upon the self (particularly in the case of humans as agents). The word describes stones that smash a warrior’s leg (Iliad 4.521), that are carried by a forceful current (Iliad 13.140), or are pushed to the crest of an underworld peak (Odyssey 11.598, by Sisyphos). The epithet also embodies the tumult of war (Iliad 5.593). It is very often employed to describe the suitors whom Athena, Odysseus, Telemachos, and Penelope want to see destroyed (Odyssey 1.254, 13.376, 20.29, 39, 386, 23.37); but also the unfaithful serving women (Odyssey 22.424) or beggars (Odyssey 17.449) who end up as slaves in foreign lands. The thoughtlessness of human perpetrators of shamelessness is apparent. Of course, stones cannot consider their actions, but many humans seem as deaf or as unresponsive as inanimate objects to warnings about their own self-destruction that portends in each case. Agamemnon’s shameless attitude, then, suggests his unresponsive disregard for self-harm and its inevitable consequences.

Agamemnon’s shamelessness is also given characteristics in Iliad 1. It seeks personal gain (κερδαλεόφρον, 149) and wealth (πλοῦτον, 171). Achilles’ earlier speech had characterized Agamemnon through his address as “[the] greatest lover of things of all men” (φιλοκτεανώτατε πάντων, 1.122). Now he says that Agamemnon gets the greatest portion of any spoil, while he receives but “a precious small” allotment (ὀλίγον τε φίλον τε, 167). [40] There is, consequently, resonance with Achilles’ previous speech (but also with a later moment in the Iliad, as we will see) since Achilles continues to portray Agamemnon as oblivious, not only to the need of the Achaians, but also to what is best for himself. Agamemnon is demonstrating a complete dearth of leadership qualities expected of the paramount basileus. He is acting most thoughtlessly in his selfishness. As a contrast, Achilles reminds Agamemnon that it was not for personal revenge that he came to Troy, nor because any Trojan had done him wrong. It was instead for the honor of Menelaos (157), “and,” Achilles adds most pointedly, “for you, dog-face” (σοί τε κυνῶπα, 158). [41]

Of course, in some contexts, references to canines or canine qualities can have positive or neutral qualities in actuality or in metaphor. [42] Dogs both inside and outside of similes can act as hunting and guard (or attack) dogs or even be kept more as pets for show by noblemen. [43] Yet, dogs are otherwise most strongly characterized as animals (usually with birds, including vultures) that act to scavenge the corpses of fallen heroes. [44] It is likely this last traditional association that makes “dog” (κύων) an apt term to characterize a human enemy with connotations that suggest the basest of qualities. Homer’s traditional lexicon, in fact, carries a wide range of canine words, that, when applied to humans, create a very negative stigma. These include not only “dog” (κύων), but also “dog-like” (= “shameless,” κύνεος), “more like a dog, more shameless” (κύντερος), “most dog-like, most shameful” (κύντατος), “dog-fly” (κυνάμυια), and “dog-face” (κυνώπης/κυνῶπις).

The Trojans call their Achaians enemies “doomed dogs” (κύνας κηρεσσιφορήτους, Iliad 8.527), and Menelaos calls the Trojans “bad bitches” (κακαὶ κύνες, Iliad 13.623), a taunt that is clearly meant not only to suggest their shamelessness but also their absolute weakness as warriors. The Trojans swooping in on Ajax, Menelaos, and Meriones, as they attempt to retrieve and protect the body of Patroklos, are freely compared to dogs (κύνεσσιν ἐοικότες, Iliad 17.725). Penelope uses the term “heedless bitches” (κύνας οὐκ ἀλεγούσας, Odyssey 19.154) for her maidservants who discover her secret and compel her to complete the shroud for Laertes. The serving-women who tease the beggar Odysseus are also called “bitches” (κύνες Odyssey 19.372) for their abusive attitude toward a beggar. Odysseus uses the vocative “dogs” (ὦ κύνες, Odyssey 22.35) to address the suitors in his first public anagnorismos after arriving home on Ithaca. Even Helen, in moments of derogatory self-degradation, refers to herself as a “bitch” (ἐμεῖο κυνὸς, Iliad 6.344, 356). [45]

The comparative κύντερος is used by Zeus of Hera, whose resentment he finds “more bitch-like” (Iliad 8.483) than anything else. Odysseus finds his belly to be likewise “more dog-like” as a driving force that controls him (Odyssey 7.215). Agamemnon describes his own wife in her scheming to murder him in the same terms (Odyssey 11.427), as does Odysseus when narrating the outrage of the Cyclops in eating his companions (Odyssey 20.18). The singular use of the superlative “most dog-like” (κύντατος) expresses anticipated devastation (Iliad 10.503). The dog compound “dog-fly” (κυνάμυια) is used twice in a derogatory manner by the Iliad poet in book 21, the first occurrence clustered in close proximity to the next (394, 421). First, Ares uses it as a derogatory name for Athena (394), calling attention to her earlier assistance of Diomedes that resulted in his wounding by a spear in the stomach (cf. Iliad 5.855–857). Then Hera uses it with equal disgust to name Aphrodite (421), when she sees her leading Ares back into the melee of battle.

The instances of the compound “dog-face” (κυνώπης/κυνῶπις), beyond Iliad 1, are also telling. In Iliad 18, Hephaistos uses it loathingly of his own mother, when describing how she threw him off Olympos onto Lemnos (Iliad 18.396); then again of his wife Aphrodite who has just cheated on him (Odyssey 8.319). Helen turns the expression on herself as the cause for the Achaians stirring up the Trojan War (Odyssey 4.145). Helen’s half-sister, on the other hand, is pictured by Homer as less than contrite. Even after butchering her husband, Clytemnestra refuses to act decently and close Agamemnon’s eyes and mouth. She earns the name “bitch-faced” (Odyssey 11.424) from her husband in Hades as he narrates his sorry tale to Odysseus.

The full metonym “dog-face” (κυνῶπα) is especially suggestive of Agamemnon’s hubristic actions and attitude. What is more, the traditional term “dog-face” (κυνῶπα) used in book 1 appears to have affected the poet’s choice of words in book 9. There, the poet has Achilles say of Agamemnon: “He would not certainly / dare, dog though he is, to look upon my face” (οὐδ’ ἂν ἔμοιγε / τετλαίη κύνεός περ ἐὼν εἰς ὦπα ἰδέσθαι, 9.372–373). [46] The rare use of the perfect optative (τετλαίη) makes the charge of Agamemnon’s “dog-likeness” (κύνεος) stand out all the more for Homer’s audience. Agamemnon’s “dog-likeness” is not the only point of resonance with book 1, however. Rather, within two lines, Achilles describes Agamemnon’s character as one of “constant shamelessness” (αἰὲν ἀναιδείην, 9.372), uttering the same charge he used eight books earlier (ἀναιδείην, 1.149; ἀναιδές, 1.158). It is no coincidence that the poet has Achilles yell “dog-face” and “shameless” in almost the same breath on two separate occasions. The association of these two terms, rare in Homer, but really quite apposite, suggests that the poet is attached to the sort of referential qualities these words bring forward for Agamemnon. [47] Agamemnon’s association with “dog” as voiced by Achilles creates a depth of metonymic meaning that places Agamemnon in the adversary’s camp; he is one who is working against the Achaians’ best interests and is the object of disgust. Achilles closes his rebuttal with a stark declaration—he is heading back to Phthia!

Agamemnon replies that he will not entreat Achilles to stay (he may as well flee, 1.173), since he has others who honor him. The response of Agamemnon to his leading Greek warrior-basileus is arrogant and thoughtless. In his heated reply he uses two equivalent idioms to drive his point home (1.180–181): “But about you I do not care, / Nor do I have regard for you in your anger!” (σέθεν δ’ ἐγὼ οὐκ ἀλεγίζω, / οὐδ’ ὄθομαι κοτέοντος). Agamemnon’s response brings together words that voice a complete rejection of any need for Achilles. “I do not care” (οὐκ ἀλεγίζω) “is characteristic of both mortal and divine figures who suffer the consequences for failing to take due consideration before acting” (Kelly 2007a:346–348). In fact, the joining of “I do not care” (οὐκ ἀλεγίζω) with a second statement, “I do not have regard” (οὐδ’ ὄθομαι), creates, I suggest, an even more emphatic response by Agamemnon, since the poet could have chosen to use just one negative remark as he does elsewhere. [48] The same two negated components used in Iliad 1 in the form of personal statements, “I care” (ἀλεγίζω) and “I regard” (ὄθομαι), are used in Iliad 15.106–107 by a “perturbed” (νεμεσσηθεῖσα, 15.103) Hera to describe Zeus in a negative and malicious way: “but he sitting apart does not care / nor have regard [for us]!” (ὃ δ’ ἀφήμενος οὐκ ἀλεγίζει/οὐδ’ ὄθεται). [49] In the case of Agamemnon as a mere mortal, however, the response carries with it an irony in the larger tradition for Homer’s informed audience. They know that Agamemnon will in fact very soon need Achilles whose absence will bring near-devastation to the Achaian forces at Troy.

Agamemnon is, however, not content to leave things at a rhetorical level. Instead, he presses Achilles with a vexatious threat. As Chryseïs is taken from him by Phoibos Apollo, so he will lead away Briseïs, Achilles’ prize (a threat he soon carries out: Iliad 1.321–325, 387–388). He wishes Achilles to know “how much superior” (ὅσσον φέρτερος, 186) he is, so that no one will again presume “to speak on equal terms” (ἶσον ... φάσθαι, 187) with him (cf. Willcock 1978:191), or even to suggest a verisimilitude! These polemically acerbic words about personal superiority, which deserve to be punctuated with several exclamation points in any English translation, close Agamemnon’s reply to Achilles. The question is not, of course, whether Agamemnon is superior or not. He is. The question is how and why he [mis-]uses his power. As we will see, Agamemnon’s unsuccessful desire to force a public recognition of his own superiority will form a theme that recurs in book 9.

The ensuing scene in Iliad 1 has Athena appear to Achilles alone (198). The conversation between goddess and hero highlights Achilles’ anger but also his decision (214) to show restraint in the face of Agamemnon’s hubris (203). The particulars of the scene need not detain us in their every detail. A few overall observations help in our quest for Agamemnon’s characterization. First, it is important to note that Achilles will show restraint. He will moderate his actions when wronged, and his response will stand out in marked contrast to Agamemnon’s own quick, thoughtless, and despotic decision to seize what he sees as his royal due. Moreover, Athena’s promise of future recompense for present correct and responsive action, something suggested by Kalchas earlier but ignored cavalierly by Agamemnon (cf. 213–214 and 218–219), is implicitly accepted by Achilles. [50] This is another point of contrasting characterization. The poet wishes to amplify the arrogant disposition of Agamemnon at this crucial moment in his song. Second, the proverbial comment of Achilles, that it is better for humans to obey the gods since this brings their active attention and response (note especially ἔκλυον, 218), will stand in direct opposition to Agamemnon’s irreverent reaction to the priest of Apollo. [51] Achilles has in fact responded to Athena’s prompting. He has shown restraint and is first speaking to his own situation when he voices a general truth. [52] Yet, at the same time, Achilles is also here stating the “selbstverständliche kollektive Überzeugungen” (Latacz 2000a:95) of all the Achaians.

Athena quits the scene, and Achilles revisits his impassioned exchange with Agamemnon (1.225–244), but now without the physical violence he had been tempted to employ earlier. The renewed verbal scourge, encouraged as an appropriate alternative by Athena, exceeds the intensity of his last speech (225–231). He charges Agamemnon with taking a war prize the easy way, by snatching it from anyone who speaks in opposition. This is an obvious reference to Achilles’ own predicament. Achilles’ harangue terminates with an oath and a prophetic warning. There will come a future “yearning” (ποθή, 240) for the rebuffed Achilles. The oath is sworn upon a scepter, and the poet creates emphasis by slowing the narrative moment through expansion. He proffers an extended description of the scepter’s emergence from its origins as a tree (234–36). The tree-turned-scepter is now equated with civic justice tended by those who administer justice “from Zeus” (πρὸς Διός, 239). [53] Achilles then makes his case against Agamemnon vivid through action, by flinging the scepter to the ground before sitting down. In hurling to the ground the very object in the assembly connected with the justice of Zeus, Achilles is stating unequivocally that he has received no justice from Agamemnon and that the paramount basileus has even cast down the justice of Zeus himself. He is at this point, as Hammer has argued, quitting the public sphere. [54]

Not surprisingly at this impasse, the poet has Nestor step in. As we saw in Chapter 2, Nestor is a well-respected and positively represented sagacious hero. His counsel is highly valued, and he is known within Homer’s tradition for his heroic feats from a former generation. [55] He advises Agamemnon to let Achilles keep the prize bestowed by the army and Achilles to concede place to the scepter-bearing basileus. Nestor closes by counseling Agamemnon to put aside his “anger” (μένος/χόλος, 282–283) against Achilles. His advice is not taken, however, despite his intentions of reuniting the Achaians behind their leader. This spells doom in the minds of Homer’s core audience who know that such a rejection is full of foreboding. It will lead to a serious division.

Audience foreboding is likely too if we consider the resonance of this moment with the prior warning in the prologue. There the very first word of Homer’s song was mēnis, a “wrath” that is described as “destructive” (οὐλομένην, 1.2), and only found in Achilles among mortals. [56] It is a wrath, too, that the audience knows is connected with strife (ἐρίσαντε, 1.6), when two individuals were staunchly separated (διαστήτην, 1.6), “the ruler of men, son of Atreus, and noble Achilles” (Ἀτρεΐδης τε ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν καὶ δῖος Ἀχιλλεύς, 1.7). Strife was to be the beginning of great losses that hurled Achaian warriors into Hades (1.4–5). It was now, so the audience doubtless recognized, that the Achaian’s sorry losses were set to begin. The likelihood is that the audience of Iliad 1 shared with the poet other prior knowledge of what was about to unfold. The necessity of certain background knowledge is in fact keyed by one assumption the aoidos makes in uttering the prologue. I refer to his use of the epithet “son of Atreus” (Ἀτρεΐδης). It is employed by Homer of Agamemnon and Menelaos as individuals, of both as a pair, and even of Orestes as a grandson of Atreus. [57] So to whom is the poet referring? Clearly Homer believes the audience knows. But do they? The epithet “ruler” (ἄναξ) would be less helpful in determining which brother is meant, since it is used of both Agamemnon and Menelaos (and many others) in Homer’s tradition. [58] Only when the fuller title, “ruler of men” (ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν), is considered, do we find that Menelaos is excluded as a possibility in the proem. The title is nowhere else used of Menelaos. It is, however, used of other heroes, and so the poet clearly assumes referential knowledge in his core audience. [59] Otherwise, the epithet is obfuscating to say the least. The audience, who knew enough of the story to recognize exactly whom the poet was talking about, is waiting for the “anger” (μένος/χόλος) of Agamemnon to cue the greater “wrath” (μῆνις) of Achilles.

Nestor’s advice is not heeded, since Agamemnon rejects any mediation. The assembly is broken up by the two still in contention (1.304–305). Achilles has kept himself from violence, but that will not stop Agamemnon from taking what he wants. Agamenmon will misuse his power and position. He is swift to fulfill his threat against Achilles (318–325), although his own messengers display an immediate revulsion toward carrying out his orders (327). [60]

We need not consider at length all the particulars of the embassy. One comment of Achilles is particularly pertinent, however. In his hospitable address and conversation with Agamemnon’s emissaries, he absolves them of blame for their thankless task. Yet, he remonstrates that Agamemnon chose a thoughtless course of action that wοuld spell destruction for the army. [61] Achilles characterizes Agamemnon’s thoughtlessness (343–334): “And not in any way does he know how to consider at the same time before and after, / so that by the ships safely the Achaians might fight” (οὐδέ τι οἶδε νοῆσαι ἅμα πρόσσω καὶ ὀπίσσω, / ὅππως οἱ παρὰ νηυσὶ σόοι μαχέοιντο Ἀχαιοί). This despairing comment of Achilles carries ironic import. It portends the eventual, desperate fighting of the Iliad’s action, when in book 12 the walls about the ships—yet to be built in the story’s actual linear chronology—will be breached, and the Achaians will in fact be fighting by their own ships in grave danger. Consequently, it seems fair to suggest that the poet would have us take Achilles’ words as accurate metonymic markers of the larger myth, rather than merely representing the isolated and insignificant mumbling of a disgruntled warrior. They resound within the larger context of the Iliad’s story known to the poet’s audience. Agamemnon’s inability here and elsewhere will form part of a negative refrain by those around him, as we will see.

Achilles’ remark about Agamemnon’s deficiency, that he is incapable of discerning “before and after” (πρόσσω καὶ ὀπίσσω), says quite a bit. This traditional element is employed three other times in Homer. It is uttered by Menelaos (Iliad 3.109). He contrasts the sagacity of old age with the impetuousness of youth (a familiar motif in Homer) in his bid to solicit the participation of the elderly Priam in the sacrifice and oath ceremony before the duel between himself and Paris. [62] He remarks that an elder man [e.g. Priam] discerns “before and after” (πρόσσω καὶ ὀπίσσω). His comments bring unity of opinion from the Greeks and Trojans (111). The traditional idiom is also employed by the poet-narrator in Iliad 18.250 to describe Hector’s hetairos Polydamas, who in the Trojan general assembly (ἀγορή) addresses the troops after Achilles’ return to war. The mood is one of fear. He advises the Trojans to return to the protection of Troy’s walls, since they are, he argues, too far from it in the plain (256). Hector censures and rebukes Polydamas, however, and argues instead for pressing on (285–309). The Iliad poet offers his perspective at this point in the narrative for the external audience attending his epic performance. He comments that Hector and the clamoring Trojans are “thoughtless children” (νήπιοι), with all the foreboding undercurrents this traditional term carries. It has the tradition-based effect of highlighting a character’s misapprehension of a situation, while implying unenviable and foreboding consequences, as we saw in Chapter 3. [63] The term carries ironic disdain directed towards the person it references and his choice in a particular situation. Athena, moreover, is described as taking away the Trojan warriors’ wits. The poet further overtly characterizes Hector’s counsel as evil (310–311) in contrast to that offered by Polydamas, who, as Reinhardt noted, is added by Homer as Hector’s “warner” (Reinhardt 1961:272–277). The audience was very much aware that Hector could not see “before and after” and that his own death would consequently follow.

The final occurrence of this formula is found in the Odyssey. There the poet uses it positively to describe favorably the Ithacan warrior-prophet Halitherses (24.452). He advises the disgruntled fathers of the slain suitors not to pursue Odysseus (454–462). Against him stands Eupeithes, father of Antinoos, who urges a “punishment” (τίσις). Not surprisingly, considering the etymology of his name, Eupeithes’ speech wins over a majority, but the poet comments (469–471): Ironically, in the perspective presented once again to the poet’s external audience, the suitors ignore the wise counsel of Halitherses. [64]

Consideration of the formula “before and after” (πρόσσω καὶ ὀπίσσω), and the sort of meaning adhering to its usage, makes it immediately apparent that Achilles’ characterization of Agamemnon is much more damning than it first appears. Read in the traditional register, it portrays Agamemnon as without the requisite thoughtfulness of the sort that can find a wise path. Agamemnon is not a Polydamas or Halitherses character. He is not being portrayed as the sort of person we realize instantaneously will end up right when everyone else is wrong. Instead, Agamemnon is being pictured as an individual sure to err in his hardheaded response to the best of the Achaians, because he is incapable of considering “at the same time before and after” (ἅμα πρόσσω καὶ ὀπίσσω). The poet, familiar with the connotations of the formula he employs, is forecasting the coming disaster originating from the strife of Iliad 1. He intentionally places this formula in the mouth of Achilles so that his audience hears the inherent nature of Agamemnon as a character within the larger epic story, as well as to create narrative momentum for the story plot.

Agamemnon’s guilt is proverbial for the poet’s epic tradition (e.g. 13.111–114). His hubristic seizure of Achilles’ war prize (geras) will form a refrain for the singer in the mouth of various characters: Achilles (1.355–356), Thetis (1.506–507), and Thersites (2.239–240). The act will also unsurprisingly form an ongoing complaint for Achilles himself: “he dishonored [me], for he seized and holds the war prize he himself took away!” (ἠτίμησεν; ἑλὼν γὰρ ἔχει γέρας αὐτὸς ἀπούρας). [65] The local clustering of this refrain, as Di Benedetto (1994:115) remarks, suggests “che nel suo cervello è rimasta depositata una certa memoria e lui riproduce una certa cadenza, anche senza rendersene conto.” The local clustering of this idiom, and the larger influence of this idiom on Iliad 9, suggest its depth within the singer’s traditional register. [66]

Agamemnon is tricked by a “destructive dream” (οὖλον ὄνειρον, 2.6). The poet’s choice of idiom here may in fact suggest at the outset that Agamemnon is headed on a course of action destined for failure. [67] Agamemnon now thinks that he can take Priam’s city. As a result, the poet addresses Agamemnon as a “thoughtless child” (νήπιος, 2.38), a traditional term significant for what it implies negatively about him, as we saw in Chapter 3. [68] It suggests that Agamemnon misapprehends what the best course of action to take is; the idiom is full of foreboding. Indeed, the very propensity of Agamemnon to act thoughtlessly seems traditional, since, as we have seen, “thoughtless child” (νήπιος) is used to describe him in both epics.

The subsequent actions of Agamemnon in testing (πειρήσομαι, Iliad 2.73; πειρᾶται, Iliad 2.193) the troops are problematic too. They include no straightforward mustering of the forces for an assault on Troy, but rather a convoluted and all too enticing form of testing that ends up in disarray. First, Agamemnon calls a council of his leading basileis (2.53–55) where he outlines the imperative of the dream that has come to him in the night, including the taking of Troy. Agamemnon determines that he will make trial of (πειρήσομαι, 73) the troops. He claims that the act of testing he will propose, which is to include his own encouragement for the troops to retreat and engage in a nostos (74), is itself a conventional prerogative (ἣ θέμις ἐστί 73). [69] Agamemnon next announces to his basileis that, after he has ordered the troops to flee, they are to stop the troops’ retreat from every direction (ὑμεῖς δ’ ἄλλοθεν ἄλλος ἐρητύειν ἐπέεσσιν, 75). Significant here is the use of the plural “you” (ὑμεῖς) in his order to all the basileis. They are all to carry out his orders as a group. Clearly Agamemnon feels that the basileis will respond by restraining the men’s urges after he has advised them to give up and go home.

Immediately after Agamemnon sits down, Nestor rises to speak. His reply (2.80–83) is ironic for the poet’s audience who share the narrator’s omniscient point of view:

Nestor says that he would be inclined to disdain such a message as false had it originated from anyone other than the one who boasts that he is the best of the Achaians. The traditional phrase, “boasts that he is the best of the Achaians” (ἄριστος Ἀχαιῶν εὔχεται εἶναι), introducing a reported claim, is an idiom without the speaker’s active validation. [70] Further, I do not think that the bleak reality of the present situation, ironically noted by Nestor’s comment centered on doubt (2.80–81), is meant to be limited to the dream that Agamemnon has just experienced. After all, Agamemnon’s idea to test the troops by a call for a nostos with the possibility of mass pandemonium was also perhaps in Nestor’s mind as he hesitatingly accepted Agamemnon’s plan for the Achaians. [71] Further, it is likely that Nestor’s retort is meant to suggest for the audience the irony of both aspects of Agamemnon’s undertaking: his false belief that the Achaians will take Troy and also the potentially disastrous means he suggests to bring about troop preparedness, an appeal to retreat and nostos. Agamemnon may be making two mistakes, then. First, he believes the dream, and, second, he chooses to test the troops as he does.

Analysts early excised the scene, viewing it as a later addition, and noted that Agamemnon, Odysseus, and Nestor never actually made reference to the dream. [72] But this argumentum ex silentio is a less persuasive reason for denying its place in Homer’s song. More convincingly, Morrison (1992a:42, 132n18) discusses the unusual nature of Agamemnon’s test. He notes that exhortation to battle can include “advice, criticism, or warning (cf. 2.381–393, 4.223–421, 19.408–417).” He follows Schadewaldt (1966:29–40), who notes nine elements in a prelude to battle anticipatory sequence: 1. divine incitement to battle; 2. mortal decision to fight; 3. sacrifice; 4. meal; 5. gathering of the army; 6. arming (the whole army or an individual); 7. marching to battle; 8. review of troops; and 9. exhortation. The action of Agamemnon is certainly novel within exhortations to battle or in other type scenes that form the battle preparatory sequence.

The Trojans, moreover, know nothing of the sort of testing that Agamemnon introduces. [73] Nor, for instance, does such testing form a part of Achilles’ exhortation to battle for his Myrmidons in Iliad 16.198–211, except in one negative way. As Elmer (2013:89) points out, Achilles makes a brief reference to his own troops’ desire to return home (205–206) only to “consign that desire rhetorically to the past,” before charging his soldiers to enter the fray with courage. Achilles as a leader would have none of the sorts of tactics employed by Agamemnon. Further, when the gods appear in human guise to stir the troops, they also act directly without such complications. To take one example, when the gods perceive that the Achaians are perishing in book 5, Hera initiates divine action (711–718). A rally of the troops is done with a forthright appeal to “shame” (αἰδῶς, 787) and is very effective: “Thus having spoken, she stirred the courage and spirit of each man” (ὥς εἰποῦσ’ ὄτρυνε μένος καὶ θυμὸν ἑκάστου, 792).

Further, appeals to what is traditional (themis) do not always represent established custom, as much as the speaker’s own desire (Griffin 1986:38–39). This point should not be missed. The act of testing and the type of test used are two different matters. Nor, as McGlew (1989:288–289) has suggested, can we take Iliad 9.9–78 or 14.27–146 to be equivalent testing scenes in potentia, despite the similarity in vocabulary. [74] As we will see when we survey these other scenes, at each of these narrative junctures Agamemnon really does want to leave.

On the other hand, scholars from various perspectives have tried to justify Agamemnon’s actions. McGlew (1989) argues that Agamemnon was attempting to shame the troops into fighting, and that, since he was without goods to distribute, he maintained his status as wanax by this very act. He suggests that Agamemnon’s plan worked. While his argument is consistently made, I disagree with the conclusion that Agamemnon actually devised the outcome that followed, since it didn’t really go according to plan. [75] Dentice Di Accadia (2010:229) goes further and argues that the test is “assolutamente necessaria” when it is considered through the eyes of the ancient critics (Hermogones, Dionysus of Halicarnasos, etc.). The Ancient critics, however, imbue Agamemnon with a deep capacity for understanding the sentiments of others. [76] As will be apparent from my discussion here and elsewhere, such arguments do not take into account the full character of Agamemnon in Homer’s oral tradition nor its influence on any particular moment of narrative creation. We must consider Agamemnon not within one narrative moment only, but against the backdrop of many other epic moments. Agamemnon is not really that thoughtful or sympathetic a person within Homer’s tradition, as we have already seen in our consideration of him to this point (and will note further). So, the explanation of ancient critics is not convincing.

Kelly’s recent argument for another Homeric theme within an exhortation to battle sequence in Homer’s oral template suggests that part of the test was not entirely odd. Kelly demonstrates that our present scene includes a “uniquely long example of the ‘suggestion of retreat’” theme. [77] Kelly (2014:37n26) outlines the existence of this theme, both here and in other passages in Homer. [78] Interestingly, however, I note that only Agamemnon (of all the Iliadic examples) ever suggests that the Achaians both retreat and also engage in a nostos. Consequently, even assuming a “suggestion of retreat” theme, Agamemnon’s decision is still unparalleled in Homer. As a unique addition to the traditional battle anticipatory sequence, then, Agamemnon’s test of the troops may have thus been employed ironically by the poet to show the foolishness of both Agamemnon’s perception and his qualities as a leader, including his inability to inspire his followers to action. [79] As a traditional “suggestion of retreat” theme, the choice of Agamemnon to include a call for a nostos displays his pathetic character as paramount basileus. As will be the case here and in other moments, whenever he suggests a retreat, no one will follow his lead. The whole diapeira highlights the inept attempt of Agamemnon to stir the passion of his troops. It provides “an important index of Agamemnon’s rather troubled authority within the camp” (Kelly 2014:39). The test is “ill suited” and shows an “indifference toward the principles that undergird political stability” (Elmer 2013:89, 90), much the same as occurred in the opening scenes of Iliad 1.

After the initial meeting with his basileis, Agamemnon and his council (βουλή) gather together with the assembly (ἀγορή) of the entire Achaian force, where Agamemnon delivers his deceptive exhortation to leave Troy. His words to the troops vacillate between several elements: blaming Zeus for falsely misleading him (2.114); [80] an attempt to inculcate shame (119–122); [81] and tempting his homesick men to achieve a nostos and so reunite with their absent spouses and children who “sit in [our] houses waiting; But for us [there is] work / as ever without completion for which we arrived here” (ἥατ’ ἐνὶ μεγάροις ποτιδέγμεναι· ἄμμι δὲ ἔργον / αὔτως ἀκράαντον οὗ εἵνεκα δεῦρ’ ἱκόμεσθα, 137–138). [82] The irony of Agamemnon’s words would have been immediately apparent to the singer’s audience who share his omniscient point of view. While Agamemnon says that Zeus has engaged in an evil deception (κακὴν ἀπάτην, 2.114), really it is Agamemnon himself who is devising the present lying propositions. The audience is viewing Agamemnon both as deceiver and deceived; as a cognizant perpetrator and an incognizant recipient of “deception” (ἀπάτη). [83] Only Homer’s audience, rather than any of the story characters (the internal audience), shares in the full knowledge and implications of the scene’s action. As we will see when we consider his later admission of error against Achilles in Iliad 19, Agamemnon seems incapable of recognizing his true state of delusion and is punished. Agamemnon is a complex figure, one whose ability to recognize his own errors is effectively problematized by the poet here and elsewhere. [84]

Further, if Agamemnon’s speech does include a tradition-based “suggestion of retreat,” one should, I suggest, also compare Iliad 2 with a scene from the Odyssey and suggest resonance. In presenting Agamemnon’s testing of the troops, the Iliad poet may also have had in mind the “suggestion of retreat” found in the Odyssean episode of Helen and the wooden horse. Agamemnon seems to play the sort of role Helen does when she attempts to destroy the morale of the warriors in the wooden horse (also set during the Trojan War). Of course, the surreal scene cannot have Helen actively aware of the presence of the men within, and her role seems to be as temptress. The scene is meant to be heard by Homer’s audience as a struggle to resist her alluring song. [85] She, like Agamemnon, reminds the men of their families back home (Odyssey 4.277–279) and suggests a nostos. [86] As in the Iliad, it is Odysseus who comes to the rescue, providing leadership for the troops (Odyssey 4.284–289). Odysseus is credited with restraining the basileis, as we will see was also his role in Iliad 2. In both cases, moreover, Odysseus makes his voice heard through physical force (Iliad 2.198–199, 265–269; Odyssey 4.284, 287–289). The wooden horse story, as Danek (1998:110) notes, “war zweifellos in unzähligen Versionen ausgemalt worden,” and so was well known. Danek also shows similar motivation with another moment in the Iliad, although he misses the comparison I make here between Iliad 2 and Odyssey 4. Such resonance makes Agamemnon’s actions problematic.

It is difficult to escape the conclusion that Agamemnon thoughtlessly miscalculated the reactions of his troops and overplayed his role. He is portrayed as a weak character. [87] Agamemnon chose a defective form of testing, and, further, was unable to provide the necessary leadership to carry out his plans. His speech nearly cost the Achaian army the telos of its mission as ensuing events illustrate. There follows a flight to the ships, which is barely checked by Odysseus, who hears the voice of Athena urging that he stop the rout (2.173–181). Odysseus takes and puts to use Agamemnon’s “hereditary scepter” (σκῆπτρον πατρωϊον, 186). The action of Odysseus is at best an increase in, and at worst a departure from, the role that Agamemnon seemed to have envisioned any one basileus having to play when he first addressed the council. There he was contemplating a united effort by all basileis (ὑμεῖς, 2.75), each exerting his influence over his own warrior contingent (2.73–75), “one from one place, one from another”:

Odysseus, in reality, takes the place of Agamemnon when the actual consequences of Agamemnon’s troublesome order occur, as Bergold (1977:13–14) notes. The other basileis to a man have apparently ignored his instructions. Odysseus attempts to restrain the fleeing mass of troops by urging the basileis to restrain their own contingents. The “gentle words” he speaks “standing beside” each leader (τὸν δ’ ἀγανοῖς ἐπέεσσιν ἐρητύσασκε παραστάς, 189) include the refrain, “In the council did we not all hear what he spoke?” (ἐν βουλῇ δ’ οὐ πάντες ἀκουσάμην οἷον ἔειπε; 2.194). [89] I take this to be a question. [90] The cause of the inactivity and outright retreat of the basileis and their troops is given in Odysseus’ interjection (2.190): “Daimonie, it is not fitting that you be fearful like a coward!” (δαιμόνι’, οὔ δε ἔοικε κακὸν ὥς δειδίσσεσθαι). [91] It is fear, but a fear that is met by Odysseus’ persuasive appeal to fear (2.195–198): Odysseus has taken charge on the field. Further, in the ensuing assembly, Odysseus, not Agamemnon, speaks to the gathered troops as friends (2.299, φίλοι), encouraging them to endure (2.299, τλῆτε). [92]

Odysseus’ speech is followed immediately by that of Nestor, who, as we saw in Chapter 2, has a consistent characterization in Homer’s tradition. He is not only an excellent speaker (as he shows himself to be here) but also a wise strategist. Nestor’s traditional characterization is highlighted by the poet through the use of the aristocratic and likely martial epithet ἱππότα, used exclusively of Nestor in the Odyssey and nearly exclusively of him in the Iliad. [93] Nestor’s directive to Agamemnon, “But, ruler, you yourself plan well and heed another” (ἀλλὰ, ἄναξ, αὐτός τ’ εὖ μήδεο πείθεό τ’ ἄλλῳ, 360), includes two characteristic elements found within the tradition connected with Nestor. [94] Nestor urges that Agamemnon plan carefully and be guided by another, and he gives specific tactical advice. The action and speech of Odysseus and the speech of Nestor save the day, indeed the whole expedition to Troy, for Agamemnon.

Agamemnon responds with his own speech (Iliad 2.381–393), the content of which displays his ability to direct the army as the paramount warrior-basileus. The disclaimer that precedes this sound call for action, however, is also part of the poet’s presentation of Agamemnon. Here we find the Achaian leader beginning with a divinely directed castigation (2.375–376): “But for me, the aegis-bearing son of Kronos, Zeus, has given grief, / who casts me toward fruitless strife and quarrels” (ἀλλά μοι αἰγίοχος Κρονίδης Ζεὺς ἄλγε’ ἔδωκεν, / ὅς με μετ’ ἀπρήκτους ἔριδας καὶ νείκεα βάλλει). Agamemnon admits that he was the first to become angry in his contention with Achilles. He insists, however, that it was Zeus who drove him to it, a remark that may point to a traditional element of Agamemnon’s character. The motif of blaming the gods is clearly significant throughout the Odyssey, commencing with the prooimion (Odyssey 1.7) and the complaint of Zeus to the divine council (Odyssey 1.32–33). [95] It seems inherent, too, in the Iliad, though it does not receive as direct and programmatic a place in that poet’s presentation. [96] The complaint is simply registered by the poet in Agamemnon’s response. Yet, the audience is here aware (as it will be when they hear Agamemnon’s words in Iliad 19) that it is the chief basileus who has acted improperly.

As we will discover in our consideration of Iliad 19, however, blaming the gods makes an individual no less responsible for his or her actions. Nor is it the case here of theodicic questions, as it is elsewhere in Homer. The gap between divine action and human awareness is pervasive as a motif (and forms a significant type of irony in Homer), but here no such gap seems intended. [97] It is rather Agamemnon’s unbridled thumos that has caused his difficulty, which we saw was also the case earlier in this chapter. Agamemnon appears to Homer’s audience as niggling, and his thoughtless actions make him an unconvincing leader.

Perhaps the capping moment in the poet’s portrayal of the diapeira scene of Iliad 2 is Agamemnon’s prayer, which is full of aspirations that Zeus was not to accomplish. It is a moment in the narrative sharpened through ironic antithesis: “Rather, he [Zeus] in fact received the offerings, but [Agamemnon’s/the army’s] undesired toil he increased” (ἀλλ’ ὅ γε δέκτο μὲν ἱρά, πόνον δ’ ἀμέγαρτον ὄφελλεν, 420). The poet has juxtaposed and contrasted the sacrifice of Agamemnon with the increased labor for himself and the Achaians. Moreover, after the sacrifice and communal meal, Nestor quickly suggests they talk no more about the events that have just transpired but look instead to future military operations (434–440). Perhaps some things are best forgotten! Blame is placed squarely on Agamemnon’s shoulders, however unwilling he is to bear it (cf. Haubold 2000:56).

Two further observations also deserve comment, especially since they affect our understanding of Agamemnon as a traditional character in the poet’s presentation and the audience’s reception of this scene. One observation touches on Agamemnon’s connection to the House of Atreus, while a second deals with the interjection of Thersites in the assembly. At the beginning, we saw that Agamemnon’s address to the troops was exceptional in its lack of thoughtful consideration and was nearly disastrous in its outcome. One wonders also, if the poet, in his representation of Agamemnon’s words and actions, did not also have in mind at least one other disaster from Agamemnon’s own past. I refer to the House of Atreus, a story I have already shown to be reflected in the Odyssey. [98] The point cannot be made in absolute terms here, yet there are verbal cues that indicate it might well have been in the poet’s mental purview when he sang his Iliad.

The feud between Atreus and his brother Thyestes is not actively spoken of in the Iliad. In the lengthy pedigree attached to Agamemnon’s scepter of office, however, we do hear of Thyestes. The passage reviews the history of the scepter of Agamemnon given by Zeus himself (Iliad 2.100–109): [99] Kirk (1985:127) noted no direct indication of a family feud or curse in these lines. He felt, however, that this omission was meant to avoid distracting detail, since the principal point of the passage is kingship passing from Zeus to Agamemnon. It was not overtly emphasized, in order to keep the focus from being drawn away too far from the present narrative emphasis (Cf. Scodel 2002:15). If the feud was well known, however, then the violence that erupted could not be wholly ignored in a passage that names Thyestes, since the very naming of a character would bring to mind stories related to him.

Further, Kirk also suggested that the use of the verb “left” for “gave” (ἔλιπεν for δῶκεν) in line 106 provides an acknowledgment of this tradition by the poet. Analysis of line 106 seems to make Kirk’s suggestion feasible. The verb “left” (ἔλιπεν) occupies the third colon and could as easily be δῶκεν. Perhaps “left” is used here for its ambivalence―the choice of this verb in performance allows for the singer’s (and his core audience’s) knowledge of this latent discord within the tradition. [100] The use of “left” (ἔλιπεν) perhaps influenced the ensuing employment of “was leaving” (λεῖπε) in 107 (a verbal form very common in Homer), with the choice of the imperfect resulting from the need for a spondee. [101] Yet, unless a change in tense was meaningful, why not return to the aorist “gave” (δῶκε)? What are we to make of this change in verb and tense? Does it suggest the ongoing conflict that existed between Atreus’ sons over the right to rule? [102] The line, moreover, ends with the epithet “rich in sheep” (πολύαρνι, a hapax). Unless this is a generic epithet, it may reach into the tradition about the golden ram, first mentioned (securely) in Euripides’ Orestes. [103] The golden ram was at the center of a dispute between Atreus and Thyestes, since its owner was marked as the rightful king. Thyestes seduced Atreus’ wife to get it, and this act led to the tragic events we discussed in Chapter 3, the bane of the House of Atreus. [104] Latacz allows that the story, if known to the Ilias-Dichter, may have been suppressed in all its gruesome details. [105] He notes that the story of Thyestes’ son Aigisthos was known to the Odyssey poet, although he misses the possible allusion to the golden ram here. Since, as I have argued in Chapter 1, the Iliad poet did indeed know some story like the Odyssey, it is likely that he was aware, not only of the later acts of Aigisthos, but also of the earlier family feud. The poet’s choice of language here raises a number of possibilities, then, beyond those we considered in Chapter 3. [106]

A second observation is in order before we leave this section of the Iliad, having to do with Thersites’ negative characterization of Agamemnon. For his speech he received the scepter as physical punishment, as we saw in Chapter 2. [107] I also noted there (Iliad 2.225–242) that Thersites, a socially inferior figure, addressed and chastised Agamemnon, but that what he said was ostensibly true and appropriate. Thersites’ harangue in essence contained much argumentation in common with Achilles’ complaint, as many scholars have noted. [108] Yet Thersites suffered a rebuke by a superior in rank (Odysseus) who acted to maintain the social gradation, and, more importantly, social order (Elmer 2013:94–97). [109] In short, the poet even used socially inferior figures to advance his audience’s understanding of Agamemnon’s character. The man, not the argument, was rejected. Thersites’ words highlighted a character trait involved in Agamemnon’s conflict with Achilles once again: his inept arrogance as paramount basileus. So, while Agamemnon leads by the command of Zeus, as Seibel notes, any ability to plan or act according to a balanced assessment of the emotions of the masses is absent. [110] Proper leadership is lost on him in the poet’s character portrayal. Multiple utterances, even those of underlings, give voice to his dismal personality. These voices were echoing character traits for Homer’s early auditors, from the singer’s tradition.

The Achaians have reentered the war following Agamemnon’s dream and his nearly disastrous call for a nostos. Now, however, under the encouragement of the basileis and Athena, the Achaians have gathered about Agamemnon. He will lead them into battle. At this point, the poet wishes to stress the sheer grandeur of Agamemnon and his role as the foremost leader of the Achaians. The description may be a bit strained at points, as noted in one scholion, but the poet has included a number of traditional themes. [111] Agamemnon is said to have eyes and head “comparable to Zeus, hurler of the thunderbolt” (ἴκελος Διὶ τερπικεραύνῳ, 478). Τhe comparison with Zeus’ head doubtless intends superiority in power. His waist is like Ares, and his chest like Poseidon’s (478–479). Nowhere else in Homer are so many divine comparisons brought together in one place. The oral themes extend beyond artistic images known from real life. However significant the advances in theme found on the vases of the Dipylon Master of the Late Geometric Period, the sort of differentiation suggested here has not yet developed in the plastic arts. [112] The language is taken rather from the traditional imagination of what real warriors of divine stature must surely look like, and the artistry is seen in the metonyms.

As a whole, the description appears to reference the foremost character of Agamemnon as a mighty warrior and hegemon in battle (Cf. Latacz 2000b:139). The ensuing rural simile drives the point home still further, as Agamemnon is compared to a bull, preeminent in the herd. “Bull” (ταῦρος, 481) is made more prominent through its position (i.e. added enjambement). [113] Homer uses rare emphatic terms in the comparison, such as “remarkable” (μεταπρέπει, 481) and “conspicuous” (ἐκπρεπέα, 483). These descriptions draw attention to what was already made clear in the preceding comparison of Agamemnon to various gods: his preeminence as the paramount basileus leading his troops into battle. “Conspicuous” (ἐκπρεπέα) does not occur elsewhere in Homer. [114] It seems that the poet is influenced here by his choice of “remarkable” (μεταπρέπει), a term also used sparsely as a verb.

The poet’s choice of “outstanding” (ἔξοχος 480, 483), however, is particularly notable when employed to suggest Agamemnon’s prominence. A consideration of this more regularly occurring description suggests its meaning for Homer and his audience. Its nineteen occurrences cover a wide territory, yet all are meant to demonstrate a person’s or thing’s superiority in some way or other. The word may suggest a leading military rank, which is related to fighting prowess, strength, or even stature. Both Aeneas and Idomeneus are said to be “outstanding” warriors (Iliad 13.499). Ajax is described in identical terms when he forces other Achaeans to fight with him to guard the corpse of Patroklos, although they want to give ground in the bloody battle (Iliad 17.358). The term may be used to specify superiority in honor or some other virtue. It is employed to describe any soldier who has superior aretē (Iliad 14.118). It also describes animals (Odyssey 21.266) or land (Iliad 6.194) that is of the very best quality, such as that given to the hero Bellerophontes (Iliad 6.194) or said to be the object of Aeneas’ hope (Iliad 20.184). It is even employed by Calypso, eager to retain Odysseus, to describe the driving strength of the gods’ jealousy (Odyssey 5.118). [115]

The use of “outstanding” (ἔξοχος), then, and the employment of other words that support the martial ability of Agamemnon should not be missed. It is clear that, while Agamemnon lacks felicitous qualities of interpersonal skills and the ability to provide capable and thoughtful leadership in the council and assembly, he is nevertheless capable of prowess on the battlefield. Of course, the sorts of virtues that are needed to head a charge into battle are not the same as those required to plan or lead otherwise. There could even be something about Agamemnon’s impulsive rush into battle that, while flattering, also parallels the sorts of thoughtlessness we noted in our consideration of Agamemnon’s character in the Odyssey. After all, “Fools rush in where angels fear to tread” (Pope 1711:36). [116]

Part of the ceremony that will precede the duel between Paris and Menelaos is one of oath-sacrifice, to assure that any “pledges” (ὅρκια) have the gods as witnesses and guardians (3.280). Agamemnon does his part in preparing for the sacrifice, an event meant to solemnize the oath between the Achaians and Trojans (271–274, 292–296). He moves center stage for the action, as we might expect from his rank. He is embodying the sentiment expressed by Priam in the Teichoskopia (clustered near this scene and just proceeding it), who described him as beyond anyone he had seen in his “dignified bearing” (γεραρός, 170), and one who “resembles a kingly man” (βασιλῆϊ ... ἀνδρὶ ἔοικε, 170), having many beneath his sway (183). In our present scene, Agamemnon shows that he is indeed in charge and acting his part, by sending Talthybios to fetch the sacrificial lambs (118–120). Hitch suggests that this is a positive role, although it is a role he usually leaves to others, even when the sacrifice is made at his own shelter (cf. Iliad 7.313–320 and Hitch 2009:85). Achilles also led in making sacrifice (Iliad 24.621–624), but only in slaughtering the animal. The butchering, carving, and spitting of the animal were all left to his men.

During the ceremony, Agamemnon offers a prayer as part of the oath. What is interesting about this prayer is that it not only fulfills the customary requirements of swearing to certain gods, but also includes the tenor of Agamemnon’s personality in its lines. Specifically, the prayer’s balance of customary and ancient consequences, should either side win, is tipped heavily in favor of the Achaians. [117] If Paris wins, so Agamemnon exhorts, let the Trojans keep Helen and the stolen goods she and Paris brought to Troy when they fled Greece. If Paris loses to Menelaos, the Trojans are to return not only Helen and her possessions, “but let them make requital [τιμή] that is fitting, / which, among people yet to be, will come to be known.” [118] The prayer is then sealed with Agamemnon’s personal promise to stay and fight, almost as if solitary, should the ransom not be given at a level that he has stipulated to be fitting (3.288–291):

Whether the poinē that is the object of Agamemnon’s struggle is “compensation or vengeance,” it is still more demanding than the metrically equivalent timē, in Homer’s oral register (cf. Scodel 2008:90). Kirk’s comments seem apt: “The king is in one of his imperious and impressive moods: he will stay and fight (although doubtless he will have to have the Achaians with him)” (Kirk 1985:306). Of course, Agamemnon may be thinking about the wrong done to Menelaos as a host in that sacred relationship. Yet, even here, the large sum suggested seems inordinate, or at least fanciful. [119] There is excess in this addition of Agamemnon in two ways: 1. the extent of what is “fitting”—the timē envisioned: “Which among people yet to be, will be known” (ἥ τε καὶ ἐσσομένοισι μετ’ ἀνθρώποισι πέληται, 3.287); and 2. Agamemnon’s promise, should he be wronged, personally to find an end to the war. We observe, then, that this narrative moment embodies the poet’s comprehension of Agamemnon’s traditional character. We found in the initial portrait the poet paints of Agamemnon that he can be thoughtlessly excessive in his demands, [120] and this seems to be the case here as well. His earlier threat to go personally to Achilles’ hut if need be (Iliad 1.185) also parallels the veiled threat in his current prayer. Certainly Agamemnon will also add inordinate and infelicitous extras in his speech in Iliad 9, as we will see when we consider that narrative moment.

There may also be internal resonance, moreover, in Agamemnon’s personal promise to find an end to the war, with a similar self-exaltation espoused by Achilles to Patroklos in book 16. [121] There, in a moment of intense emotion, Achilles verbalizes his wish for permanent isolation and so the absolute destruction of all that is meaningful in heroic life. Achilles says to Patroklos (16.97–100):

What good would it do to perform such a heroic deed if there were no witnesses to honor the memory of its accomplishment? The community of warriors is not in Achilles’ mind as he speaks. Even so, while Agamemnon does not go as far as Achilles, his sentiments have the same flavor. They sit on the same trajectory that dismisses completely the communal for the individual, the sort of pathway possible for any hero with an unbridled thumos or affected by “harmful delusion” (atē, about which we will say more, at the end of this chapter). It is a remarkable indifference. [122] In short, it does not seem too speculative to suggest that the poet molds Agamemnon’s prayer beyond more typical elements, through expansion (3.288–291), to fit his traditional personality for this narrative moment.

After Paris is mysteriously whisked away by Aphrodite, Agamemnon’s prayer will further metamorphose into a short and impassioned speech (3.456–460). The event causes Agamemnon (and Menelaos, 449) consternation and confusion to say the least. Agamemnon will stand forth to declare Menelaos the clear winner and ask once again for a recompense that will be known to future generations, only to be answered by the divinely appointed (4.70–72) arrow of the oath-breaking Pandaros (4.134–140).

We have already discussed at length the content and tenor of Agamemnon’s address to his troops in Chapter 2. We need here only to highlight points that bear directly on his characterization. What we noted in Chapter 2 was the traditional nature of characterization surrounding Agamemnon’s address (and the poet-narrator’s description), but also, the less than adroit quality of his speeches to Odysseus [123] and Diomedes. [124] In Odysseus’ case, we saw that, as insulting as it was, Agamemnon’s address to him as one “with a heart set on gain” (κεκασμένε κερδαλεόφρον, 339) contained the same significant descriptive element that Athena used to address him in the Odyssey. In an admiring summary, her remarks highlighted “cunning” that attempts to get the best advantage (κέρδος). The comments of Athena were meant to affirm Odysseus’ character, as we noted. Conversely, the remarks by Agamemnon were meant to be anything but flattering. They formed a disparaging censure.

We saw, too, that Agamemnon’s initial impetuous and insulting remarks were soon retracted and replaced with a placating reply (357–363), a wish that the gods make all things “forgotten” (μεταμώνια, 363). No clear apology was forthcoming for Diomedes, however. For the moment the hero took the abuse of Agamemnon who claimed that Tydeus begot a son “worse than himself in fighting, but in the assembly better” (εἷο χέρεια μάχῃ, ἀγορῇ δέ τ’ ἀμείνω, 400). While Diomedes (quite unlike Odysseus) accepted the calumny at this juncture as a respectful minion, Diomedes’ favorable traditional characterization [125] rendered our estimation of Agamemnon’s immediate comments problematic. They were high-handed and rash. As we further noted in Chapter 2, it would not be until later moments in the Iliad poet’s story (9.34–36, 14.126) that we would hear vocalized Diomedes’ repressed feelings and the community of warriors’ judgment of Agamemnon’s actions in Iliad 4. It is to the first of these two scenes that we now turn.

Book 9 acts as a complete scene, with the whole book encapsulated in a large ring structure. [126] It is central to the progression of the plot of the Iliad. When it is done, Achilles will have dug in his heels and resisted reasonable recompense, leaving the Achaians to feel fully the destructive impact of the Trojans’ onslaught (beginning in book 11). Book 9, which has as its telos the embassy’s visit to Achilles, opens with the various past wrongs committed by Agamemnon, who is portrayed as a rather peevish leader (cf. Sammons 2009:172–173). These wrongs, formerly submerged, now come to the fore at a moment of imminent crisis for the Achaians. Within the narrative of book 9, we twice become auditors of the resounding yet significant silence of the Achaians, as well as the complaints of Diomedes, the reprimand of Nestor, and the excessively angry response of Achilles. [127]

The book begins with Agamemnon’s call for an assembly and a nostos. The situation is dire. The Achaians have been beaten back to the ships, held by “panic” (φύζα) and “fear” (φόβος, Iliad 9.2). All the foremost warriors have been struck “by an unbearable grief” (πένθεϊ δ’ ἀτλήτῳ, 9.3), a noun-epithet combination that joins other noun-epithets combinations to picture the plight of individuals suffering the effects of trauma. [128] The warriors are troubled and in doubt (9.8). The Trojans are now on the other side of the defensive ditches keeping watch till dawn (8.508; 9.1, 76–77, 232–235), when they will strike (8.529–538; 9.232–239). They have eaten their evening meal and the horses have been well cared for (8.503–508, 564–565). The watch fires have been set in great number (8. 507–511, 553–563), and all is in a state of preparedness for the morning assault on the Achaian defenses (9.351–352). The poet displays the intensity of the moment by having not only the Trojan men but even their horses eagerly await the arrival of Dawn (Iliad 8.565).

It is at this moment that Agamemnon calls an assembly. In stark contrast to his earlier testing of the troops considered already (2.16–440), where Agamemnon uniquely feigns a desire to return home in order to test the warrior’s mettle and encourage them to fight, here Agamemnon really does want to leave. It is no ruse. [129] This seems clear from the poet’s representation of the paramount basileus. Agamemnon is described by the poet before his address as helping to gather the troops “with great grief struck in [his] heart” (ἄχεϊ μεγάλῳ βεβολημένος ἦτορ, 9.9). It is a line that includes the same verb used earlier to characterize the sorrowful Achaians. [130] Agamemnon is as distraught as the common soldier. The description of Agamemnon in such a high state of fearful grief finds resonance with a synonymous expression in book 10 of the Odyssey. There, a different metrical space necessitates some variation: “in [his] heart with great grief struck” (κῆρ ἄχεϊ μεγάλῳ βεβολημένος, 247). The expression registers the intense grief of Eurylochos who in tears could not speak after witnessing his companions being suddenly changed into swine by Kirke. He is crying in sorrow described by words connected with lamentation. [131] He fears the very worst. Yet, unlike Agamemnon with his troops, Odysseus will provide a resolute and proactive leadership response for his distraught second-in-command, Eurylochos (Odyssey 10.261–227).

As the fearful Achaians sat for assembly, Agamemnon “stood up, tears flowing as a spring from dark depths” (ἵστατο δάκρυ χέων ὥς τε κρήνη μελάνυδρος) and addressed the Achaians “deeply groaning” (βαρὺ στενάχων, 9.16). [132] The inclusion of this last formula, “deeply groaning” (βαρὺ στενάχων), spanning in every instance of its use the better part of the first hemistich of the line, is especially revealing. [133] In each instance of its use by the Iliad poet, the formula is adduced (once in a rhetorical apostrophe) to suggest a deep emotional crisis. [134] It is used by the poet to index the affective state of various characters who are to speak: of Achilles, before his tale of woe to his mother Thetis (Iliad 1.364); of Agamemnon, about to give a fearful reply after Menelaos has been wounded by Pandaros (4.153); of Patroklos, before his response to Achilles, as he grieves over the present fate of the Achaians (16.20); and of Achilles, on the verge of replying to Thetis, as he laments the death of Patroklos (18.78). It introduces the lamentation of Achilles over the loss of Patroklos (18.323) and describes Achilles’ mood in sleep (following the communal lamentation), setting the tone somewhat proleptically before his response to Patroklos’ ghost (23.60). [135]

The formula “deeply groaning” (βαρὺ στενάχων) helps the traditionally informed audience realize that this call by Agamemnon for a nostos is unquestionably real. Agamemnon does not mean it as a test for the troops’ faltering in spirit. His emotion is not feigned; he is in deep distress. [136] Agamemnon feels that Zeus “entangled [him] in a base deception” (ἄτῃ ἐνέδησε βαρείῃ, 9.18=2.111) and calls for a “return home” (nostos). Agamemnon says virtually the same thing for the first nine lines here in book 9 that he did in book 2 (9.17–25=2.110–118). He excludes, however, the emphasis on shame (seen in 2.119–138, before again using the same closing in his speech in 9.26–28 [=2.139–141]). Furthermore, the formula “deeply groaning” is conspicuously absent from the narrator’s introductory description in book 2. [137]

The silence formula with which the troops respond to Agamemnon indicates their present state of discomfort. The poet may have wanted his audience to recall other debacles such as that recorded in Iliad 2, which recollection may well have been cued by the poet’s use of recurring lines. Unlike the last time Agamemnon told them to leave in book 2, however, this time they sit still: “Thus he spoke, but they in fact all were stricken to silence” (ὣς ἔφαθ’, οἱ δ’ ἄρα πάντες ἀκὴν ἐγένοντο σιωπῇ, 9.29). This different response may stem from the troops’ common experience and be meant to represent their collective grievance over the last enticement to flee, when, as we saw earlier, their response was met with stern rebuke. Yet, as I have shown elsewhere, the significance of the “stricken to silence” formula lies not principally in what precedes, but rather in what follows. The formula “Thus he spoke, but they in fact all were stricken to silence” (ὣς ἔφαθ’, οἱ δ’ ἄρα πάντες ἀκὴν ἐγένοντο σιωπῇ, 9.29) is used in both the Iliad and Odyssey in addressing a group and results in a (quite often delayed) response by one of the members of the group that sets out the subsequent narrative trajectory. The formula cues the audience that an “official” or “representative” reply will come, one that is in concert with the feelings of the group. [138] As we will see in a moment, it is just such a representative response that Diomedes steps forward to offer in book 9, when he expresses his “repressed” grievance.

First, however, it is necessary to note that the lower ranks cannot normally express their grievances openly. As I proposed in Chapter 2, and affirmed earlier in this chapter, frank criticism from below is not allowed in Homer’s society where the poet constantly and consistently affirms the social mores of his constituency. [139] Aristocratic values would not likely abide the outburst of an importunate underling. [140] Yet even so, as I also argued, the actual complaint (whether from a lower member of the troops or higher leadership strata) could still further the poet’s purpose and draw the listeners’ attention and the scene’s focus toward the salient moment of narrative action and character portrayal. At this early moment in the assembly (Iliad 9.29), the silence of the troops, in this reading of the scene, speaks volumes. Any attentive audience member would not have soon forgotten the sort of contrasting bedlam that engulfed book 2. The larger story doubtless makes the current narrative moment more poignant, [141] in part through the recurrence of traditional language. [142] Here in book 9, the troops sit still, and Diomedes, on cue from the poetic “stricken to silence” formula, delivers the representative response after a moment of delay. [143] Following Diomedes’ speech, they expectably shout in concert with the reply itself (9.50).

In his speech, Diomedes begins by revisiting the earlier rebuke from Agamemnon that remains a sore point. [144] He turns the tables on the paramount basileus (9.32–39), however, indicting him for his inability to help provide assistance and protection (alkē) [145] for his warrior community:

Agamemnon is incapable of sustaining what Hammer has called “collegial space,” the shared rights in the political sphere inhabited by the Achaian basileis (Hammer 2002:133; see also 114–143). The tenor of Diomedes’ whole speech in the foregoing verses is indicated by the poet’s repetition of “to you” (τοι, 38, 39), after the initial “to you” (σοί, 37) in Diomedes’ intense address to Agamemnon. [146] Diomedes’ whole rhetorical antithesis—note especially the “my” (μοι) and “I” (ἔμεν) of lines 34 and 35—is meant in part to counter Agamemnon’s earlier castigation of him (32–35), revisited here in this relatively respectful complaint. [147] Agamemnon has said they should leave, but Diomedes says they should stay and fight until Troy is sacked (46). Traditionally, and on cue from the “Stricken to Silence” formula, the troops respond in agreement immediately upon the speech’s closure: “Thus he spoke, but in fact all the sons of the Achaians shouted in approval, / marveling at the word of Diomedes tamer of horses” (ὣς ἔφαθ’, οἳ δ’ ἄρα πάντες ἐπίαχον υἷες Ἀχαιῶν / μῦθον ἀγασσάμενοι Διομήδεος ἱπποδάμοιο, 50–51).

The silence of the troops, which awaited the representative reply from higher up, turns to shouting. Diomedes has used Agamemnon’s own earlier rebuke as a springboard against his commander’s present dismal suggestion. Meanwhile, the troops have not begun to move. They are perhaps nursing, as I have suggested, their own dismal reflections of Agamemnon’s past action. Nestor’s reminder of the need for class-conscious and age-appropriate decorum follows. Yet, Nestor does not mean to contradict Diomedes’ rebuke. After all, Nestor says to Diomedes, despite his age, “nevertheless you are speaking wisely / to the basileis of the Achaians, since you spoke sensibly” (ἀτὰρ πεπνυμένα βάζεις / Ἀργείων βασιλῆας, ἐπεὶ κατὰ μοῖραν ἔειπες, 58–59). Nestor uses the same diplomatic tone as Diomedes does with Agamemnon (cf. Hainsworth 1993:67). This mirroring tone in the supportive speech is in keeping with what we see in the other instances of Homer’s use of the “stricken to silence” formula (Porter 2011:496–507). Nestor is more diplomatic, but he is also, like Diomedes, reacting against a past grievance.

In his remarks to Agamemnon, Nestor himself revisits earlier events (those of Iliad 1). His comments are meant to offer an alternative to Agamemnon’s proposed nostos, against which Diomedes was reacting on behalf of the group. Nestor suggests that they try to persuade Achilles to return (9.111–113). In suggesting this course of action, Nestor reprimands Agamemnon for not following his earlier authoritative muthos. He claims that he has had this on his mind for some time (105b–111),

Nestor, I suggest, makes the third claimant (after Diomedes and the Achaians) of a grievance against Agamemnon. His criticism is based upon Agamemnon’s continual unwillingness to be dissuaded from his ways by a wise muthos (πόλλ’ ἀπεμυθεόμην). The placement of antithetical terms in the last lines—the deathless gods “esteemed,” but Agamemnon has “dishonored”—displays Nestor’s character trait as the “clear-voiced speaker of the Pylians” (λιγὺν Πυλίων ἀγορητήν) in action, something that is a traditional character trait for Homer. [148] Nestor next revisits Agamemnon’s crime against Achilles and suggests that he consider how to make good his wrong (9.111–113).

Agamemnon’s reply is bombastic, but also generous. He blames an indwelling “harmful delusion” (atē) (9.115, 116, 119). [149] Agamemnon offers generous compensation, including the return of Briseïs and an oath that he has not slept with her (131–134), along with the traditional pledge of future booty (135–140). Agamemnon ends this speech by insisting that he occupies a higher station in life than Achilles (160–161): “And let him submit to me as much kinglier I am, / and as much older in age I claim that I am” (καί μοι ὑποστήτω ὅσσον βασιλεύτερός εἰμι / ἠδ’ ὅσσον γενεῇ προγενέστερος εὔχομαι εἶναι). Agamemnon’s directive includes a traditional formulaic hemistich, “as much kinglier I am” (ὅσσον βασιλεύτερός εἰμι), that represents a speaker’s statement of authority, in this case, “Agamemnon’s greater age and authority” (Kelly 2007a:79). [150] The comment itself comes as no surprise. Agamemnon has shown himself more verbally abusive and reactive than thoughtful and responsive in many of the scenes we have considered so far. When the embassy does head off to Achilles, and its members deliver their diverse pleas for his return, it is very telling that Odysseus decides to relate Agamemnon’s offer of recompense without this “invidious” (Elmer 2013:78) comment by the leading basileus. [151]

In the plot of the Iliad, however, Agamemnon’s offer is to be refused by Achilles, who is unwilling to let go of his anger. Agamemnon’s offer of compensation is real and fair, however. [152] Certainly Nestor and Phoinix think so (Iliad 9.163–164; 515–523). Achilles, however, is possessed by his grievance against Agamemnon (330–336). This grievance, already alluded to by Nestor as we have seen, is emphatically brought forth by Achilles as the cause of his resolute intransigence in response to the embassy. [153] Unfortunately for Achilles, however, his wish for a penalty (τίσις), for the Achaians to suffer loss as payback for Agamemnon’s hubris, will find partial fulfillment in the death of Patroklos, a topic outside the scope of our present inquiry.

Agamemnon emerges from book 9 as a less than sympathetic character. His leadership skills cannot meet the crisis and he is overwhelmed. While the poet describes the dire situation of the Achaians in the vivid language of suffering, he is equally interested in characterizing Agamemnon’s faltering spirit. Agamemnon wants to “jump ship,” as it were, or rather flee on the Achaean ships to achieve his desperately envisioned nostos. No one will go with him, but instead Agamemnon is reproached for his past leadership debacles. Themes from this scene resonate with past and (chronologically) future difficulties. Various ranks criticize their imperious leader for his lack of wisdom and suggest rapprochement with Achilles. After sufficient excuses, Agamemnon accepts the idea, yet not without an invidious little jab at Achilles that Odysseus’ embassy wisely decides not to repeat. Ingrained habits are difficult to change.

Book 10’s place in the Iliad is questioned in the scholia and by many scholars. [154] I do not dispute the oddity of certain elements of the Doloneia, [155] although its word forms alone, as Janko (1982:201–220; cf. 2012:26) has observed, do not make its actual morphology later than the memorialization of the Odyssey. [156] Furthermore, an ambush story, including the slaying of Rhesos, was doubtless popular and made for favorable retelling. [157] At least some of book 10’s oddities are the result of its concentration on the ambush theme, as Shewan, Fenik, and more recently, Dué and Ebbott have cogently argued. [158] The Doloneia was perhaps included at this point in the Iliad to give grounds for the Achaians’ subsequent, if only short-lived, renewal of spirits, which led them to drive the Trojans back toward their city. [159] The Doloneia heightens the seriousness of the situation that will confront Patroklos and cause him to take to the field in Iliad 16. It is imprudent, then, to excise it. [160]

We meet Agamemnon first in book 10 when, as the poet tells us, he cannot sleep while most others can (1–3). A break in a traditional idiom immediately alerts us to the importance of what is to come, since the conventional use of the formula “they seized the gift of sleep” (ὕπνου δῶρον ἕλοντο) that ended book 9 usually refers to a straight transition from night to morning without nighttime activity. [161] Nighttime activity is usually the preserve of other idioms. [162] The activity that occurs despite the presence of this traditional idiom may be an ironic cue. It is a cue that suggests that something will transpire on this restless night as, only a stone’s throw away, the menacing Trojans await the break of dawn. The poet is perhaps creating suspense, preparing his audience for the approaching night foray. [163]

Agamemnon’s sleeplessness, moreover, is indicated by language that is focused on internal unrest (10.4, 9–10) and a simile, which compares his sleepless state to a storm sent by Zeus (5–10). While the simile’s comparison and structure may not be Homer’s best, [164] the comparison does enhance audience comprehension of Agamemnon’s tempestuous state. The moment is made more vivid with mention of Zeus’ causing “a great storm of rain” (πολὺν ὄμβρον, 6), “or a terrifying hailstorm” (ἀθέσφατον ἠὲ χάλαζαν), “or a snow cloud” (ἢ νιφετόν), the last of which the poet perhaps wants us to see as comparable to a cloud of soldiers (10.8; cf. Dué and Ebbott 2010:238–245). The metaphor’s change to soldiers works well as a transition to what follows. We are next given a portrait of Agamemnon when he “caught a glimpse” (ἀθρήσειε, 11) of the Trojan plain, marveling (θαυμάζε) at the “many fires” (12; cf. 8.553–563) and the voice emanating from the throng of people and “from their double-reed pipes [165] and panpipes” (αὐλῶν συρίγγων τ’, 13). While the “double-reed pipe” (ἀυλός) could be played at both festivals and funerals, the panpipe (σῦριγξ) could not (West 1994:81–107, 109–112). Rather, it was part of extemporaneous musicmaking for Trojan victories during the day just passed. It functions as a sure indicator that the poet is painting a picture of celebration, merriment, and confident leisure in the Trojan camp as a foil for the Achaian’s dismal and defeatist paralysis. After all, the Achaians are quiet by contrast (14), and the only ones stirring are Agamemnon and his worried basileis. [166]

Agamemnon is struck as he lies there by the contrast in what he sees. His reaction is sorrowful lamentation. The quality and intensity of Agamemnon’s sorrow, which we saw in book 9 was also very much present, is again cast before Homer’s audience (cf. the comments of Dué and Ebbott 2010:239–244). Agamemnon even pulls out his hair in helpless distress, an intensely emotional response. It is paralleled, among other places in Homer, by Priam in his desperation to keep Hector from facing Achilles but also death (Iliad 22.77–78). This background referent for Priam’s and Agamemnon’s disquiet is suggested by a ritual parallel. The cutting of the hair for the dead, after all, was something practiced for animals (e.g. Iliad 3.273, 19.254, Odyssey 3.446), when sacrificed, and for humans (Iliad 23.46, Odyssey 4.198, 24.46), when their remains were honored. [167] The traditional resonance and ritual parallel suggest that the present moment reeks of imminent death for Agamemnon. Agamemnon fears utter destruction. The poet follows up this portrayal of the royal aporia with Agamemnon’s decision to go to Nestor to seek someone who could assist him with a “plan” (μῆτις, 19), one that would ward off evil for the Danaäns in their present dilemma.

Agamemnon seems at a loss, yet he is not alone for long. Menelaos has also lain awake and has already put on his leopard’s hide. [168] Menelaos makes it to his brother’s side not long after Agamemnon has left his hut. When Menelaos arrives, Agamemnon orders him to run quickly along the ships and call on Ajax and Idomeneus (10.53–54). He will go to Nestor. Agamemnon even advises his inquisitive sibling to give due honor when calling upon each man, and to avoid haughtiness. [169] It is advice that in many ways sounds curiously thoughtful for Agamemnon given his rash advice and leadership we have witnessed freely displayed in the Odyssey and the Iliad (and for which he was just rebuked in book 9). [170] Yet, while the advice seems a bit odd, and the logic of what is said may be lacking (Stanley 1993:122), Agamemnon’s attitude toward the human objects of his injunction, Ajax and Idomeneus, mimics his own earlier attitude toward these two excellent warriors. [171]

Agamemnon heads off to Nestor, in whose presence he describes himself as sleepless and weighed down by war and the cares of the Achaians. His heightened concern for the Danaäns [172] is leading him to wander utterly distraught. [173] His whole being is “thus shaken by fear” (σαλευόμενος οὕτως ὑπὸ τοῦ φόβου), as ancient commentators noted. [174] His heart is metaphorically jumping out of his chest (ἔξω/στηθέων ἐκθρῴσκει, 95), and his knees are knocking (τρομέει δ’ ὑπὸ φαίδιμα γυῖα, 95). Hainsworth (1993:165) notes a parallelism in Agamemnon’s reaction to that of Andromache (Iliad 22.453–455) when she fears Achilles may have killed her husband (which indeed he had). Yet a nearer parallel in actual language is Patroklοs (Iliad 16.805), when he was made vulnerable by Apollo and Delusion; [175] or Hera and Athena (Iliad 8.452), in Zeus’ threatening description (albeit imagined) of their fearful response should he serve them up a thunderbolt as a consequence for their scheming interference. [176] Agamemnon is completely distraught.

Agamemnon urges Nestor, who is equally sleepless (10.96), to go with him to check the sentries and make sure they are attentive to any possible attack at night. Nestor’s response is to try to reassure Agamemnon that Hector will face difficulties should Achilles ever return (105–107). [177] Moreover, sensing Agamemnon’s fear, he rises to the occasion with support: “For I will myself certainly accompany you!” (σοι δὲ μάλ’ ἕψομ’ ἐγώ, 108). He urges that other Achaian leaders be called on as well. Yet, Agamemnon is not heard from for the rest of the book, even after the return of Odysseus and Diomedes who have perpetrated a stunning night raid on the Trojan lines and have returned to celebrate. It seems as though his leadership is not really needed for the night raid. It is little wonder, considering the picture of fearful and distraught incapacity we have received of him at a critical moment in the war. Schnapp-Gourbeillon is more generous in describing Agamemnon’s actions, but only by passing over the scene’s details and focusing on Nestor as “maître de la mētis” (Schnapp-Gourbeillon 1982:54). Of course, this is part of Nestor’s characterization in Homer, as we saw in Chapter 2, but Nestor’s wisdom does not make Agamemnon’s incapacity any less striking. The royal aporia the poet has brought to our attention was fortunately filled by others, and Agamemnon’s paralysis did not get in the way of heroic efforts to strike under the cover of night.

Book 11 begins with a description of Agamemnon’s arming, the Achaian advance against the Trojans, and Agamemnon’s aristeia. It is the army’s common wish to engage the Trojans in battle rather than leave Troy. [178] In this scene, much appears to emerge that would endorse our viewing Agamemnon as a staunch warrior. Yet, there is a lightly fatalistic tenor in the poet-narrator’s comments and his use of this scene within the greater plot structure. In the end, Agamemnon’s actions seem resolute but somewhat hollow and mundanely and minimally presented by the poet to his audience. [179]

The action begins quickly at dawn with the goddess’s cry, the first of the conventional elements in a battle anticipatory sequence. [180] The action then immediately moves to an arming scene centered upon Agamemnon (11.15–16): “But Atreus’ son cried out and to gird up for action was his order / to the Argives; But he himself got into the gleaming bronze” (Ἀτρεΐδης δ’ ἐβόησεν ἰδὲ ζώννυσθαι ἄνωγεν / Ἀργείους· ἐν δ’ αὐτὸς ἐδύσετο νώροπα χαλκόν). The entire ensuing scene is itself highly traditional. [181] It incorporates a metaphor that makes the glint from Agamemnon’s bronze armor into a lightning bolt (note the use of “flashed,” λάμπ’, in 11.45 ) met by a divine response of thunder sent from Hera and Athena. The effect is to focus our attention on Agamemnon fully armed (44–46):

Our attention is drawn in this poetic description to the warrior fully armed and ready for battle. This arming of Agamemnon and his ardent aristeia initially move him “from victory to victory,” and yet, Agamemnon’s victory ironically assists one of two Achaian advances ultimately “doomed to failure” (Scott 2009:81; cf. Hainsworth 1993:211). This failure brings about first Patroklos’, then Achilles’ own reentry into battle in the Iliad’s plot. The aristeia’s doomed nature is part of the larger poetic purpose, to give, as Zeus planned (and as some of the other Olympians opined), “renown” (κῦδος, 11.79) to the Trojans. Zeus is keeping the promise he made to Thetis to bring honor to her son (Iliad 1.528–530).

Agamemnon’s aristeia itself displays typical elements, including repeated stylized killings and a traditional lion simile. Before refusing the supplications of Peisandros and Hippolochos (characterized elsewhere as villains by the poet [182] ), Agamemnon “rose like a lion” (ὦρτο λέων ὣς, 11.129). The formulaic simile highlights his heroic posture and actions (cf. 11.173–178), and his power in battle, as Scott (2009:83–84) has shown through consideration of traditional referents. This same sort of referential emphasis is given to other heroes or heroic groups, such as Achilles and the Trojans. [183] Clarke (1995:151–152), however, sees a less favorable connotation in the lion simile itself, arguing that it suggests a warrior’s “self-destructive recklessness.” [184] Yet, surely the recklessness that, as Clarke notes, “goes beyond the bounds of mortal self-restraint” is instead just the sort of psychological approach a warrior must take in order to engage in an aristeia in the first place. It is not a matter of the poet’s (or tradition’s) disdain.

Agamemnon, who is said to cause the Trojans to flee in terror (178), takes his place in the fighting. Then, “he rushed forward, but he wished to fight very much ahead of all [the others]” (πρῶτος ὄρουσ’, ἔθελεν δὲ πολὺ προμάχεσθαι ἁπάντων, 217). Even Agamemnon’s hands are given a typically heroic epithet, “redoubtable” (ἀάπτους, 11.169), [185] when he is “eagerly” (σφεδανόν, 165) chasing the Trojans who are running, desiring to reach the safety of the city. The epithet “redoubtable” is regularly employed in battle scenes. The Iliad poet uses it to describe Ajax’s hands (7.309); the Trojan Asios invokes it of his own and other Trojan warriors’ hands (12.166); Poseidon (déguisé) applies it to the Trojans’ hands (13.49); and Idomeneus adduces it for the whole Achaian force that will resist Hector and the other Trojans’ onslaught (13.318). Ajax employs it of Hector’s hands (17.638); the Odyssey poet has Achilles use it of his own hands in the Nekuia (11.502); and the suitors instance it to depict Odysseus’ hands (22.70, 248). As Kelly remarks, “χεῖρες [“hands”] are only ἄαπτοι [“redoubtable”] when they belong to ascendant figures” (Kelly 2007a:338).

We need not, moreover, make Agamemnon out to be uniquely “brutal” [186] when we consider the poet’s full description (11.168–169): “but he, crying out, was following always / Atreus’ son, but with gore he was bespattering his redoubtable hands” (ὃ δὲ κεκλήγων ἕπετ’ αἰεὶ / Ἀτρεΐδης, λύθρῳ δὲ παλάσσετο χεῖρας ἀάπτους). The formulaic phrase “but with gore he was bespattering [his] redoubtable hands” (λύθρῳ δὲ παλάσσετο χεῖρας ἀάπτους) is just the stuff of a proper aristeia and needs to be read as part of any heroic “snapshot” of a warrior at the peak of his glory. [187] The same or similar formulaic collocation is used to describe the valorous accomplishments of other central heroes in Homer: Hector of himself (Iliad 6.268); the Iliad poet of Achilles (20.503); the Odyssey poet of Odysseus (22.402); and Eurykleia describing Odysseus to Penelope (Odyssey 23.48). [188] “Gore” is a good thing for a foremost hero absorbed in his rush for glory through continual slaughter, especially gore on “redoubtable hands.”

Further, Agamemnon has been characterized as especially brutal in what he says when advising his brother Menelaos, in Iliad 6. Menelaos is about to spare a suppliant (51–53), Adrestos, when Agamemnon gives him a timely reminder of the Trojans’ (i.e. Paris’) disgracing of his home. The word is enough to change Menelaos’ mind, and Agamemnon then himself pushes Adrestos back from his brother and kills him. This could be seen as a case of brutality, since he urges the utter destruction of every Trojan male “down to the baby in the womb,” and all this “lest someone should escape” (μή τις ὑπεκφύγοι, 57). Crucially, however, the poet himself does not take it this way, commenting instead that Agamemnon’s advice was “fair” (αἴσιμα). The poet’s use of “fair” (αἴσιμα, 62) says it all, really. The “fair” (αἴσιμ-) root occurs twenty-two times in Homer, helping to create a number of formulae. [189] The present formula applied to Agamemnon, “urged what was fitting” (αἴσιμα παρειπών, 62), is also used in Iliad 7.121. There Agamemnon offers caring words to his brother, who is ready to make up for the lack of spirit in the other Achaians by personally facing Hector in battle. A similar phrase (αἴσιμα εἶπες) occurs in Odyssey 22.46, where Eurymachos speaks in agreement with the “fairness” of Odysseus’ overview of the atrocities committed against his household while he was away. Another expression, “thinking fair thoughts” (αἴσιμα εἰδώς), but this one dealing with thoughts that lead to action, shows a similar concern. Of particular note is its use in Odyssey 2.231, where Mentor voices one favorable characteristic of a good king before the haughty suitors. He employs the idiom “knowing fairness” (αἴσιμα εἰδώς), which forms a natural antithesis to “he would act unfairly” (αἴσυλα ῥέζοι). [190]

It would be strange if Agamemnon as hegemon of the Greek forces at Troy was not at times brutal, since war is by nature gruesome. [191] No one gets ransomed alive in the actual time frame of the Iliad’s battles; every suppliant is slain, as Fenik (1968:83) notes. [192] When a man is in a fight for his life, as Friedrich (1956:57) remarked, we should not be astonished that “hin und wieder ein Krieger den andern durch Abschlagen des Kopfes tötet.” Even the foremost Trojan warrior was not given to clemency during “baleful war” (δαῒ λυγρῇ, Iliad 24.739), as Andromache herself says when describing her deceased husband to their son Astyanax. What else does a warrior enter battle to do? [193]

This reading does not deny that Agamemnon can be brutal in his leadership role, a character trait we discussed earlier in this chapter (but not because of hands sullied by war). [194] Iliad 24, however, has been said to harken back to earlier books’ brutality. [195] Yet, there is little to be labeled as physical brutality in these earlier books, as we have noted. So, how should we read Agamemnon’s role in Iliad 24? And what can be taken from that scene to help us understand the sort of person he was for Homer? In Iliad 24, Priam has made his way to Achilles’ “lofty shelter” (κλισίην ... ὑψηλήν, 448–449). It is not a coincidence that of the nearly ninety occurrences of “shelter” (κλισίη) in all of its cases, this is the only one that is characterized as “lofty” (ὑψηλή). [196] Remarkably distinctive in the Iliad, here we have a glimpse into the inner workings of a camp dwelling, and this has affected poetic diction. There must be room for the singer to present the scene: for Achilles to sit with a couple of his friends (472–474), for others to sit apart, and for Priam to slide in unnoticed (477–479) to entreat Achilles and kiss his “manslaughtering” (ἀνδροφόνους) hands. [197] Achilles accepts the apoina, and Priam is told that he is to depart on the morrow. Priam is to return to Troy under Achilles’ protective aegis to grieve and hold a funeral.

Achilles urges Priam to sleep in a secluded spot lest his visit be discovered. His concern is that someone of the upper echelon (βουληφόρος, Iliad 24.651) may find out and tell Agamemnon. [198] There would then be a delay in Priam’s leaving and in the ransoming of Hector’s body (656). Hermes comes to Priam with similar concerns as he sleeps in the portico of Achilles’ shelter (683–688). He enlarges upon the reason Priam could be delayed in setting out. Agamemnon may in fact learn of Priam’s stay and hold him for three times as much apoina as he was bringing for Hector (686–688). Yet, the only brutality threatened in the whole scene is a moment when Achilles himself seems on the verge of losing self-control and letting his own grief for Patroklos cause him to harm his suppliant-guest (559–570). [199]

It seems, consequently, that the poet is not so much concerned with showing Agamemnon’s brutality in this scene as he is in suggesting that Agamemnon may claim a suppliant as war booty. This connection to war booty may be further suggested by the participle “taunting” (ἐπικερτομέων, 24.649), used to introduce Achilles’ warning to Priam (650–655). The rare word has caused problems of interpretation for some, but the form is strongly connected with the heroic taunt, including adversarial tones in and off the battlefield. [200] The whole scene may be understood, at least in part, to revisit themes from book 1: Agamemnon’s taking advantage of an aged suppliant, but also in taking what he wants regardless of Achilles’ rights, here as host to a suppliant. In book 1, Agamemnon snatched Briseïs from Achilles, part of Achilles’ geras awarded by the army. Here, he may, further, steal away Priam who came with apoina, to increase his own apoina (24), jeering as he does so. There are, then, in Iliad 24, tradition-based connotations of Agamemnon’s proclivity for distasteful despotism. He takes what he wants from his basileis. The poet’s intention is to bring into question Agamemnon’s thoughtless and despotic leadership style. To summarize, the brutality of book 11 is not really odd within the context of the Trojan War, [201] but book 24 does assume an Agamemnon who is selfishly despotic. [202]

In due course in Iliad 11, Agamemnon is wounded in the arm by the Trojan Koön (11.251–253). Yet he fights on, hurling the traditional large stones (265) that so amazed the poet as he described events of the epic past. [203] Eventually, however, pain overcomes him. He shouts an order to his commanders to carry on the fight and returns in his chariot to the ships. Agamemnon’s withdrawal from battle will be the signal for Hector to advance in the first great push of the Trojans toward the Achaian ships. Zeus makes this narrative direction plain in his speech to Iris, aimed at spurring on Trojan Hector (191–194):

We suddenly recognize as attentive auditors that the poet has placed the aristeia of the paramount basileus in a location that is sure to make his effort less significant, since it is destined to end in retreat following Agamemnon’s departure (a point the poet chooses especially to emphasize by these words of Zeus to Iris). As quickly as the Achaian advance has begun, it will know reversal, “ignomy and defeat” (Hainsworth 1993:212). [204] Further, the whole assault by the Achaians, led without preamble by Agamemnon, lacks many traditional elements of an anticipatory battle sequence, such as the sacrifice, the meal, the gathering of the army, the review of the troops, and the exhortation to battle. [205] All the troops ever get is a quick yell (11.15). There exists, then, a suggestive peculiarity in the brevity of the whole scene, in the dearth of traditional cues or expected elements for Homer’s core audience—hardly what we might expect from the poet in a scene involving such a central character. It seems ironic that the longest of the four full-scale arming scenes in the Iliad should be accompanied by so little else, other than a basileus fervently rushing into battle ahead of his forces.

What are the implications of all this? The syncopation may just be meant to accentuate the urgent nature of the situation, which it certainly does. Yet, the fact that the poet places Agamemnon’s aristeia here could suggest rather that he wished to show, not Agamemnon’s lack of fighting prowess, but rather, his impetuous leadership style. [206] It is a theme very much familiar to us by this time. The short duration of this aristeia, as Taplin (1990:72) points out, keeps us from being “mesmerized,” especially when compared to those of Achilles, Paris, Patroklos, and Hector. Mueller (2009:93) describes Agamemnon’s aristeia as “the shortest and the simplest.” [207] The scene’s terseness (and the lesser status of Agamemnon’s actual victims) may even suggest that Homer knew no particular aristeia story connected to Agamemnon and had to make one up on the spot from traditional elements, as Fenik (1968:85–89) proposed. [208]

Yet it is important to note that although the poet’s presentation may be showing us an Agamemnon who is given to impetuous, less thoughtful decisions, Agamemnon’s fighting prowess is seldom disparaged or presented by the poet as second rate. Many short references in the Iliad, besides the episodes we have looked at in detail already, support this conclusion. In the catalogue of ships, Agamemnon is described as leading the largest contingent to Troy. A small ring composition (2.577, 580) opens and closes the description of Agamemnon’s forces from various places (569–575). [209] In the middle of this ring structure, our attention is centered upon Agamemnon himself, who is dressed in gleaming bronze (νώροπα χαλκόν, 578) as he bears himself proudly (κυδιόων, 579). He is distinguished among all the heroes (πᾶσιν δὲ μετέπρεπεν ἡρώεσσιν, 579). Agamemnon is said to be “best” (ἄριστος, 580), in a passage that troubled Zenodotus, who wanted to restrict the use of this description. [210] Despite the concern of Zenodotus, it need not be rigidly circumscribed as an exclusive epithet within any particular part of the Iliad. Rather, its traditional use for Achilles, Agamemnon, Ajax, and Diomedes (5.103) simply supports the foremost martial quality adhering to the traditional recollection of each warrior. [211] The use of ἄριστος carries an emphasis on martial prowess as an identifying quality of Agamemnon’s character, just as it carries an emphasis on other occasions for countless other “best” qualities. [212]

We might compare Iliad 4, for another instance of Agamemnon’s fighting prowess. After Menelaos has been hit and wounded by the arrow of the oath-breaking and fame-seeking Pandaros, the Achaians are assaulted by the ranks of “shield-bearing Trojans” (4.221). At this point in the narrative, through negation (including litotes), the poet’s descriptive narrative creates a positive characterization of Agamemnon as a warrior (223–225): Agamemnon is alert: “Not then dozing would you have seen divine Agamemnon” (Ἔνθ’ οὐκ ἂν βρίζοντα ἴδοις Ἀγαμέμνονα δῖον). He is likewise brave: “Nor cowering in fear nor at all unwilling to fight” (οὐδὲ καταπτώσσοντ’ οὐδ’ οὐκ ἐθέλοντα μάχεσθαι). He hastens eagerly into the “renown-bringing fight” (μάχην ... κυδιάνειραν). Even the panting of Agamemnon’s freshly driven horses helps to suggest the fervid effort of their lord. [213] As we saw in our earlier consideration of the ensuing scene, Agamemnon’s leadership qualities are portrayed less admirably in what follows, and the scene’s force is greatly diminished by the poet’s decision to locate Agamemnon’s aristeia here in his song. [214] Yet this reality doesn’t deter the poet from presenting us with Agamemnon as a capable fighter. [215]

This section of the Iliad includes a third call for a nostos by a dejected Agamemnon. Many of the same themes in his call for a nostos in book 9 recur here. Within this narrative moment, we also glimpse explicit references and possible allusions to earlier grievances, something persistently adhering to the poet’s presentation of Agamemnon and the Troy story he has received and sings with his own emphases. [216] In the poet’s cameo at the end of Iliad 13, the Trojans are being held at the walls they have breached while the leading figure from each side—Hector and Ajax, respectively—makes a speech (13.810–832). When book 14 opens, many of the Achaian basileis are injured and out of action, while the Trojans press the battle to the very ships (14.55–57).

The poet now brings Nestor back into view. He is still drinking the Pramnian wine he began in book 11, a rather long time to be doing so, but quite in keeping with Homer’s storytelling technique (and Zielinski’s law [Zielinski 1899–1901, Janko 1994:150]). All the while he hears the clamor that reaches the aether (13.837–14.1) and considers what he should do. Should he enter the fray, or, alternatively, find Atreus’ son? He decides upon the latter course of action and discovers Agamemnon among the wounded leaders gathered in a safer location by the ships. [217] When Agamemnon sees Nestor, he addresses him, querying why he has left the battle. Agamemnon expresses his fears that mighty Hector’s (ὄβριμος Ἕκτωρ) [218] “word” (ἔπος) may come to pass (14.44). He and other Achaians have had many opportunities to hear Hector, including his exhortations for his troops to engage the Achaians in battle or his direct threats to the Achaians themselves. [219] The fear is that the warrior Hector may be successful in his bid to set fire to the ships.

The present danger is magnified in Agamemnon’s mind because of the possibility for lingering grievances from the troops (a worry that possessed Agamemnon earlier during his emotional crisis in book 9). [220] Agamemnon opines (14.49–51): The poet has Agamemnon use the formula “O my, my” (ὢ πόποι), an exclamation we have seen already in a larger traditional hemistich. [221] As we saw earlier, the formula keys in its onomatopoeic consonance, as well as in its metonymic meaning, the level of personal anxiety and concern that Agamemnon is experiencing. He considers the possibility that the troops will not obey him out of anger for his past actions towards Achilles, and it worries him. [222] Nestor’s reply strongly emphasizes the confusion of the Achaians in the face of the Trojan onslaught, both generally (58–59), and thrice emphatically through closely packed vocabulary in 59–60: “being thrown into confusion” (ὀρινόμενοι), “thrown about” (κλονέονται), [223] and “mixed indiscriminately” (ἐπιμίξ). The defense in which they put their confidence has failed. Nestor advises a plan, but one that does not necessitate that the injured basileis reenter the fighting (61–63).

Agamemnon’s response is meant to accentuate the dire situation facing the Achaians. For the most part, he takes up each of Nestor’s points (14.65=57, 66=55, 68=56, 69=53). He also adds his own expanded commentary on the activity and intention of Zeus, [224] a commentary that includes a fatalistic and somewhat ironic emphasis on Agamemnon’s personal knowledge of just what he himself thinks Zeus is up to (14.71–73): Agamemnon is certain that Zeus is portending destruction and consequently urges for the third time that they flee on their ships. On this occasion, like the last, he means it. After all, so he says, Zeus “honors” (κυδάνει) the Trojans “equally with the blessed gods” (ὁμῶς μακάρεσσι θεοῖσι). Such a comparison to the “blessed gods” is found nowhere else in Homer. [225] The almost exclusive use of “blessed” (μακάρεσσι) with the gods is certainly a traditional component, however. Through this idiom, the Olympian gods are recognized to be in a world apart from humans. [226] It is in fact the very distance the referential aspect of the noun-epithet combination creates for the Trojan advantage that makes Agamemnon’s statement all the more hyperbolic. Well, at least from the audience’s point of view. Agamemnon hardly sees it as overstatement, however, as his subsequent response shows. Agamemnon answers Nestor’s call for a plan of action for the troops in battle (62) with a plan of action for the troops to leave the fighting (75–80), adding the proverb: “Better off is he who fleeing escapes evil than he who is captured [by it]” (βέλτερον ὃς φεύγων προφύγῃ κακὸν ἠὲ ἁλώῃ, 81). The ships closest to the shore, he directs, should be dragged down during the day, and the rest during the night.

Odysseus’ retort begins with the idiom “looking darkly” (ὑπόδρα ἰδών), a formula that, as we noted in Chapter 2, highlights a significant breach in social convention, [227] and this traditional cue is followed by another Homeric formula that reinforces this sentiment: “what sort of word has escaped the barrier of your teeth!” (ποῖόν σε ἔπος φύγεν ἕρκος ὀδόντων, 14.83). [228] This traditional, idiomatic expression, as Foley (1999:226–227) discovered, and as we saw in Chapter 2, means more than the sum of its parts in what it implicates. The idiom, as we saw, is employed in circumstances that mean, to employ another English expression, “I expected better things from you!” Indeed, Agamemnon should know better, and both Odysseus and the troops had expected better things from their paramount basileus.

The direct address that follows shows the increased agitation of Odysseus at Agamemnon’s leadership (14.84–85): “Cursed [229] man! Would that you, of another shabby army / were leader, but not a ruler over us!” (οὐλόμεν’ αἴθ’ ὤφελλες ἀεικελίου στρατοῦ ἄλλου / σημαίνειν, μὴ δ’ ἄμμιν ἀνασσέμεν). Odysseus, however, is not yet finished. He continues his confrontational assault by sarcastically asking Agamemnon if he really intends to leave (88–89). In the very next breath, however, he tells him to keep quiet, so that none of the other Achaians will hear any “order” (μῦθος, 91) for going home. This is the sort of order, Odysseus berates, that neither man nor king should utter. In Janko’s summary of Odysseus’ argument, we note immediately that Odysseus deftly uses the device of climax in an ascending scale of significance, beginning at line 91 and ending at line 94: [230] Haubold’s (2000:67) comments are apt: “Agamemnon’s counseling as a ‘leader of the people’ ... is so directly detrimental that he had better not counsel at all.” [231]

Agamemnon’s reply suggests that he is affected by Odysseus’ rebuke, and his response is both revisionist and apologetic (14.104–106): The μέν of line 105 belongs to “μέν the bachelor,” rather than “μέν the widower” (Denniston 1950:359). It is patently an emphatic μέν meaning “certainly,” and it makes the preceding “but not” (ἀτὰρ οὐ) that much stronger (Denniston 1950:362, 55). This collocation makes Agamemnon’s personal denial all the more resounding. On the one hand, if Agamemnon is not trying to redeem himself here and did actually think that some heroes would stay and others leave (something that I doubt and his fellow warriors missed), then we have a thematic corollary with similar stories of dissension in the Epic Cycle. An example is the contention between Agamemnon and Menelaos, as told in the Nostoi tales:

In Proclus’ story, it is Agamemnon who stays. In Iliad 14, by contrast, it is Agamemnon who wants to leave, despite his plea and assurance that he did not in fact issue an authoritative command (14.91, 105), but just an invitation (105–106). Agamemnon is backtracking. He wishes to revise the past with a new interpretation. It occurs, because “Heroes fear and detest any threat to their positive face” (Scodel 2008:14). If the reactions of others are relevant in our evaluation of Agamemnon, they imply that Agamemnon has acted impetuously and miscalculated the response of his fellow warriors. I suggest that he now feels regret for what he has proposed. In the Iliad poet’s story, this will be the last time we hear him recommend a nostos. Any nostos must remain hypothetical in any case, since it resides “outside ... the will of the gods and established Trojan myth.” To allow a nostos at this point would be to transgress “the dictates of the epic tradition.” [232]

Agamemnon emerges from Iliad 14 as an inept leader once again. Nestor came to him for advice and got none, but instead was treated to yet another call for a nostos. Odysseus and the troops expected superior things from their leader, yet all anyone seemed to get was a peevish attempt to revise the past or retract patently thoughtless plans. Agamemnon’s personal crisis of book 9 was mirrored here also, since personal anxiety and self-doubt hindered any effective decision. In Agamemnon’s speech, his fear of the Trojans is nearly apotheosized, and he not only miscalculates the response of his fellow warriors, but also acts impetuously enough to lose any face he may have been trying to save.

An assembly has been called (apparently by Achilles, 19.34, 41), and the Achaians gather. Achilles there “unsays” his anger (35, 67–68, 74–75), prompting a joyous response by the Achaian warriors. Agamemnon, to whom Achilles’ speech is addressed, is the first to respond. His rejoinder (78–144) follows an ambiguous, uneasy, if not self-deprecating, introduction. He will offer restitution to Achilles; yet, by sitting rather than standing, fashions himself overtly as a victim. [233] He shows limited signs of personal regret for the disastrous consequences his actions have caused, however, even though he is held accountable by others and must pay the indemnity. The introductory lines of Agamemnon’s speech seem meant to suggest his hesitation at speaking (78–82): Not surprisingly, considering the results of Agamemnon’s words and actions narrated in Iliad 1, Agamemnon is uneasy about the subject he raises. On the whole, Agamemnon’s immediate opening to his speech suggests his incapacity and hesitation in the present situation (the “tentative” nature of his introduction), rather than his audacity as a speaker. [234] Agamemnon’s remarks are preparing his audience for the upcoming explanation of his quarrel with Achilles (a natural part of a prooimion). [235] “How would any man listen or speak?” (πῶς κέν τις ἀκούσαι ἢ εἴποι;) he asks. This may be Agamemnon’s attempt to ingratiate himself with a hostile crowd. Agamemnon’s words appear, at first glance, to have a kernel of what Dentice Di Accadia (2012:225) classifies as a gnomic captatio benevolentiae. The first part of Agamemnon’s saying, however, would not really have sounded especially endearing to either Homer’s internal or external audience. A speaker earns no credit with his audience by saying that they make so much of a “racket” (ὅμαδος) that he can hardly speak. [236] Agamemnon is a little tongue tied here, to say the least. This is to be expected. Agamemnon’s attitudes and actions towards Achilles and many other basileis have been the target of strong criticism by the Achaians throughout the Iliad’s narrative. This background now causes renewed discomfort for the paramount basileus. If Agamemnon’s hesitation here is real, as I suggest, rather than rhetorical, it may be caused in part by the “instability of the crowd” (Hammer 2002:156). Yet, it is an instability created by Agamemnon’s own past actions now returning to haunt him.

The poet elucidates overtly this ineluctable history, not only by what Agamemnon says, but also by how he has him say it (19.83–85): Agamemnon has been over these things before, though Achilles has not been present. He well knows the sentiments of his troops and is fully aware that any conversation with Achilles will bring forward in the men’s minds their own aggrieved feelings. These are feelings they have expressed again and again (πολλάκι ... ἔειπον, 84), and on more than one occasion. [237] What the men have said seems indicated in Agamemnon’s present denial, which reaches over the past conversations in one broad sweep. They had, on the one hand, been consistently blaming him; yet now Agamemnon emphatically asserts, he (was and) is not the blameworthy “cause” (αἴτιος, 85) of the quarrel and Achilles’ subsequent refusal to fight. As Dentice Di Accadia (2012:227) argues, at this point Agamemnon is less concerned with convincing Achilles than he is in convincing the rest of the troops.

What or whom then does Agamemnon blame, if it was not in fact his “unbridled greed” (Teffeteller 2003:19) that caused his unacceptable behavior? Agamemnon diligently places blame on the gods: “Zeus and Moira, and the mist-walking Erinys” (Ζεὺς καὶ Μοῖρα καὶ ἠεροφοῖτις Ἐρινύς, 19.87). They are at fault, Agamemnon says, because on “that day” (ἤματι τῷ, 89) when the Achaians came together under siege from Apollo, “they in the assembly cast into my mind wild atē” (οἵ τέ μοι εἰν ἀγορῃ φρεσὶν ἔμβαλον ἄγριον ἄτην, 88). He asks, seeking the sympathy of those who hear: “But what could I have done?” (ἀλλὰ τι κεν ῥέξαιμι; 90). As we see from his subsequent explanation, the ellipsis in thought, when expanded, can be understood as part of a past contrary-to-fact conditional question that ran something like, “Even if I had tried, what could I have done?” [238] At face value, when we read Agamemnon’s response in isolation, it seems that he is the helpless victim of atē, “[harmful] delusion” (Cairns 2012, Porter 2017). An appeal to atē comprises, in fact, the better part of Agamemnon’s speech.

Agamemnon’s speech following his claim to atē pursues the well-known story of Hera’s deception of Zeus, in which she takes advantage of the leading god’s public declaration. Zeus had announced (19.103–105): Hera’s subsequent conniving, described in a virtual figura etymologica as a ruse contriver contriving ruses, [239] sees her next coaxing out an oath from her unsuspecting husband, one that would guarantee he keep his word. The gist of Hera’s covert plan is to replace Zeus’ chosen ruler over the Argives, Herakles, with her own choice, Eurystheus (19.101–124), by slowing up the birth of the former and speeding up the delivery of the latter. [240] While atē-words are not present in the story proper, Agamemnon does interject into the middle of his tale the comment that Zeus “was deceived” (ἀάσθη, 113), in this case by swearing a “great oath.” In contrast, the introduction to the tale and the actions of Zeus following Hera’s intrigues (as interpreted by Agamemnon) are full of atē-words, both nouns and verbal forms. [241] The poet’s presentation is made all the more striking by his extremely rare inclusion of a personified Atē herself. [242] Following this etiological story, we hear Agamemnon declare what he feels naturally follows from his personal entanglement with atē: he should pay restitution (137–138): [243] “Yet, since I was deluded and Zeus snatched away my wits, / I am willing to make things right again and to offer considerable compensation” (ἀλλ’ ἐπεὶ ἀασάμην καί μευ φρένας ἐξέλετο Ζεύς, / ἂψ ἐθέλω ἀρέσαι, δόμεναί τ’ ἀπερείσι’ ἄποινα).

Modern audiences are unsurprisingly struck by the force of causal “since” (ἐπεί). What Agamemnon assumes as his personal responsibility seems not to follow from his atē-based plea. Certain earlier scholarly explanations for this apparent logical discrepancy sought to address the assumed contradiction in Agamemnon’s speech. [244] The consensus that developed, and the one that seems most representative of Homer, is a dual model of causality: internal and external, human and divine, or “double motivation” (see Porter 2017:3). Further, as I have shown elsewhere, human cause (paralleling divine impetus) for the onset of atē is discernable in each instance of atē’s onset, when the full story around each scene is considered (Porter 2017). What becomes clear is that Homer’s core audience assumed, in each case, a human cause for the onset of atē. No matter what Agamemnon may claim, then, those accustomed to the poetic rendition were quite used to hearing about individuals being at least partly the cause of their own atē. This would not change, no matter what Agamemnon claimed. Moreover, as Cairns and others have shown, [245] Homer’s listeners were also used to recognizing that each individual was accountable (and suffered consequences) for his or her actions, except when prayer warded off a negative outcome (Iliad 9.502–512); and also, understandably, in the case of Zeus. Who, after all, can hold Zeus accountable? [246] In short, there are usually human causes and harmful consequences for anyone infected by atē.

Consequently, Agamemnon’s idiom of expression, his appeal to atē, is in no way unique to himself; nor is it negated by the causal use of “since” (ἐπεί), when his response is heard within the tradition. Agamemnon’s expression is not declaring that he is unaccountable and is free from any consequences. His traditional appeal to atē does not mean in the eyes of either the internal or external core audience that he is not the “subject” or “agent” of his own actions, to borrow Blondell’s (2010) terminology for Helen. In Agamemnon’s case, however, with the unique story of the deception of Zeus and very rare use of a personified Atē as a comparison for his own actions, he certainly attempts to appeal to his internal audience’s pity. It is a rhetorical conclusio a maiore ad minus, as he seeks to hide behind the harmful delusion of Zeus to shelter his own faltering ego. [247]

But what about responsibility? The need for Agamemnon to recognize that he is accountable, I would further suggest, includes the presumption that he is also responsible. This is so, not only because Agamemnon, like all others affected by atē, suffers negative consequences, but also because he can take action to avoid a similar outcome in the future. It seems that the internal audience of Homer’s narrative, as well as the poet himself, assumes that action can be changed through advice. This is something Odysseus makes clear to a rather thick-skulled Agamemnon in Iliad 19.181–183: There is a note of emphatic indignation in Odysseus’ voice. He suggests that Agamemnon has learned his lesson and will no doubt improve by acting more responsibly next time round. [248] Such counsel to act responsibly mirrors a familiar choice formula first used by Athena to Achilles (Iliad 1.207). She urges him to stop his anger from ending in a physical assault on the leading wanax; that is, she prods in her address to him, “if you will obey” (αἴ κε πίθηαι). This traditional saying indicates that an important decision is at hand. It does not, despite certain scholarly opinion (e.g. Kirk 1985:75), assume that Achilles will agree and relent. It is in no way a fait accompli. After all, the same formula on another occasion (Iliad 11.791) references a decision of Achilles, and whether he will be willing to relent, when approached by Patroklos. When the moment comes, Achilles will not in fact agree to help his comrades, but only gives in a bit by allowing Patroklos to enter the battle in his armor. The expression “if you will obey” (αἴ κε πίθηαι), then, is not deterministic, but rather, as Schadewaldt (1966:140) observes, typical of “Ungenauigkeit.” Odysseus’ words seem to be a real call for more responsible action the next time round. It is up to Agamemnon to react appropriately and to embody a clear response in the future.

It is with the foregoing understanding of Agamemnon’s appeal to atē that we are to hear Agamemnon’s claim, “but I am not blameworthy” (ἐγὼ δ’ οὐκ αἴτιος εἰμι, 19.86), a conclusion that naturally precedes his appeal. Agamemnon, after all, in accordance with oral style, followed his conclusion by the evidence of his assertions. [249] The evidence, as we have seen, helps us to recognize that Agamemnon’s appeal does not deny his responsibility in the matter, at least not for Homer’s audience used to hearing about atē. Further, Agamemnon is called to change by Odysseus.

But would Agamemnon act differently on a future occasion? His character, as we have seen it unfold from this and earlier chapters, seems consistent enough for his audience to doubt that possibility. Even Agamemnon’s claim of blamelessness (ἐγὼ δ’ οὐκ αἴτιος εἰμι), moreover, depends upon how the core (external) audience, who know the fuller stories Homer sings, viewed his character. [250] This is especially important since a survey of this traditional idiom shows that it can be either true or false, sincere or otherwise. For instance, in Iliad 3, we are given a picture of Priam and other senior Trojan leaders with Helen on the citadel walls overlooking the battlefield and troops. There, we become privy to Priam acting as perhaps any male would, to borrow Blondell’s assessment, when he says that Helen is not to blame (οὔ τί μοι αἰτίη ἐστί, 3.164) for the Trojan War. He does so despite the likelihood of Helen’s agency, demonstrated by her own self-blame. [251] Whether, as Teffeteller (2003:23) asks, Priam is blinded by Helen’s charms as are the other elders (3.156–160, which seems likely from the poetic portrait) or just demonstrates the affection of a father-in law (or both), we cannot know for sure. Priam’s use of the traditional address, “dear child” (φίλον τέκος, 162), [252] does suggest that Priam takes his role as a caring father-in-law figure seriously. So, Priam’s words are kind, but are not likely meant to represent objective truth. [253]

In another example of Homer’s use of blame language, we find Odysseus in the underworld exclaiming to Ajax that Zeus, rather than himself, is to blame (αἴτιος, Odyssey 11.553–560). [254] He makes this claim despite the probable backstory that he beguiled the Achaians into giving him the arms of Achilles. [255] The backstory of Odysseus gaining Achilles’ arms instead of Ajax clearly affects Homer’s presentation. Odysseus adopts an assuming approach (οὐκ ἄρ’ ἔμελλες ... λήσεσθαι, 553–554) that is markedly rebuffed, even though Odysseus reminds Ajax that he “is indeed dead” (οὐδε θανών, 554). Ajax will not let go of his anger against Odysseus, however, “stemming from the accursed arms” (εἵνεκα τευχέων οὐλομένων). There follows a possible reference to Ajax’s suicide in lines 556–558.

At other times, however, when for example Achilles’ talking horse Xanthos says that he and Balios are not to blame (οὐδέ τοι ἡμεῖς / αἴτιοι, Iliad 19.409–410) for his master’s imminent doom, but rather “a great god and powerful Moira,” the objective reality seems probable enough. [256] A talking horse is divinely appointed to speak the truth. Why else would he be given articulate speech? And, we can probably take Zeus’ word for it when he complains that he is tired of listening to mortals blaming the gods for their own “recklessness” (atasthalia) in the Odyssey’s opening speech (Odyssey 1.32–34). [257]

The informed external audience knows the fuller stories, even when unknown to the poem’s internal audience. They could hear past the surface influence of gender (Helen and Priam), narrative silence (Odysseus and Ajax), and questions of narrative perspective and power (Xanthos and Zeus), when listening to the characters speak. Homer’s core audience could consider the narrative moments against (diachronically) past, present, and future stories. They remembered the sort of traits that made characters who they were from their words and actions at other times. Helen’s character resonated for Homer’s audience with implications from her connection in the oral tradition with the commencement and dilemma of the Trojan War. As we saw earlier, she represents “the conundrum of female beauty,” which is “intrinsically desirable” yet also connected with destruction. [258] Her ability to entice males, even her own husband after Troy fell (cf. Euripides Troades 1036–1059), is always just under the surface. Priam is not exempt from her influence. Odysseus’ role, as we saw in Chapters 1 and 2, is also known to the Iliadic audience from the Odyssey story. As we saw in Chapter 2, he is a hero marked by “cunning, stratagems, and endurance,” whom Plato thought was an even stronger speaker than Nestor. While Odysseus’ claim on Achilles’ arms raises a number of questions that cannot detain us here, his ability as a “ruse-strategist” would come as no surprise to the singer’s audience. [259] Can Odysseus help it if his abilities are not matched by those of Ajax who, as we saw, was known as a hero whose martial prowess was equaled by a corresponding terseness of speech? [260] Xanthos was, presumably, regarded as a faithful and almost magical horse of Achilles. He was known to the audience in any case, since he was apparently famous enough to be sought out by Dolon (Iliad 10.321–323) in that traditional story, as we saw earlier in this chapter. [261] Of course, as noted, Xanthos’ utterance is tied to his receiving privileged, revealed knowledge, a traditional pattern related to special moments in epic narrative. Further, Zeus’ claims are related to his own traditional character and the theme of justice in human affairs, admittedly a controversial but character-based question, nonetheless. [262]

In Agamemnon’s case, too, the audience is well aware of his larger character traits. [263] Agamemnon’s response is itself to be read against this backdrop. We saw earlier in this chapter that Agamemnon would not deny that he was the problem to his leading basileis (although there too he had blamed atē: 9.115, 116, 119). [264] Yet, despite this awareness, we observed that he nevertheless added on something extra to his offer of recompense to be brought by the embassy to the estranged Achilles; something less than conciliatory to his offer of compensation—an insistence that his higher station in life be recognized. It is consequently unsurprising, when Agamemnon comes face to face with Achilles in book 19, that he adds not merely a conventional comment about atē, but also an extra-long “explanation” about why he himself is not to blame. In the end, the difficulty seems to be that the troops have to force Agamemnon’s hand to make him see that he has acted inappropriately. It is not like him to come to this realization himself.

For the core audience who had heard the whole of the Iliad and Odyssey in some form before, and for the singer who works within a deep performance tradition, Agamemnon is not a suddenly invented character. Rather, he is traditionally recognizable to the poet and to the external audience (and, in a more limited way, to the internal audience also). What they know of him moreover, is that he is, in short, a pathetic despot, with few redeeming qualities. While a full summary of Agamemnon’s personal qualities must await the next chapter, suffice it to say here that he is just the sort of character who could all too easily make a claim to no blame. In the end, as in many other moments of Agamemnon’s innate ineptness in Homer’s songs, no one is really convinced. To adapt what Seneca says about people trying to cure a malady of the soul by going on vacation, Agamemnon’s problem is simply this: secum fugit. [265] Ηe is stuck with himself, a self well known to both singer and audience. Perhaps Agamemnon’s less-than-admirable character also provides answers to other questions not dealt with here: Why is it that some individuals are affected by atē, while others are not? Why was Agamemnon likely both a recipient and at least a partial cause of atē in others? [266]

Agamemnon seems a marked contrast to certain other characters affected by atē who take more responsibility for their actions. We might instance Helen. She affirms her own agency in the actions that led to the Trojan War despite the gendered silence of males around her. Or, we might contrast Achilles’ different attitude toward his own excessive anger, an anger that led to Patroklos’ death. [267] At least Achilles is shown by the poet mourning Patroklos by self-deprecatingly describing himself as “a useless burden upon the earth” (ἐτώσιον ἄχθος ἀρούρης, 18.105) who was no “light” (φάος) for his friends (102–104). [268] Achilles, like Agamemnon, is really at fault, as he himself admits. Yet, there is no quibbling when Achilles realizes where his aloofness from battle has led, and no plea that he is not to blame for the death of his friend or the losses of his fellow warriors. Rather, just the opposite. There is a personal realization of the consequences of his prolonged anger and a resolute plan of action to honor his fallen companion.

The poet and audience knew the sort of character Agamemnon was. It is in this context, the context of character traits known within the performance tradition, that we must read Agamemnon’s claim regarding atē and statement that he is not “blameworthy.” Agamemnon’s plea that he is not aitios, then, is really no excuse at all. The words of Poseidon from book 13 offer an objective “control” for my assertions. The narrative perspective of a divinity, after all, is certainly a step up from the more limited human vista. Poseidon addresses the Achaian troops (Iliad 13.111–114): Poseidon’s “if” is met by an instantaneous and unified reaction from the Achaians, who eagerly rally behind their leaders in tight battle ranks. If action is a reply, it is a resounding confirmation that Agamemnon is to blame. This is the last we really hear from Agamemnon. As Taplin notes, Agamemnon is “out of sight” for the rest of the Iliad, except for a minor appearance in the funeral games for Patroklos. [269]

As we have seen throughout this chapter, Agamemnon appears to be impetuous—he acts first and thinks afterwards—but he is also given to unusually insulting and even irreverent comments. His actions are often chastised by his inferiors and end up in apology and retraction; he blames divinity, yet is still responsible and suffers the consequences. As we noted in the preceding chapter, the Odyssey is one with the Iliad in presenting us with an Agamemnon who is impetuous, thoughtless, rash, and foolish. As we saw for the Odyssey in Chapter 3, Agamemnon is on the bottom of an ascending scale of outcomes among leading Greek heroes, a scale woven into the very fabric of the Odyssean tradition. Agamemnon’s disappointing character seems as much a part of the Iliadic tradition. The Iliad, however, since its setting is the battle for Troy, foregrounds other traits not as immediately apparent in the context of the Odyssey’s narrative. We are presented with an Agamemnon who is also inept and unconvincing as a leader, plagued with a personality displaying problems of arrogance, imperiousness, irreverence, and insult.

What is the background of Homer’s picture of Agamemnon? Why is Agamemnon such a pathetic leader? Is there an impinging influence within the underlying oral tradition that has affected his characterization? These questions inform our consideration of Agamemnon’s character in the next chapter.