Why does zeus decline to save hector

Introduction . . .

The Iliad and the Trojan Legend The Trojan legend, in which the quarrel of Achilles and Agamemnon is a

brief episode, concerns a central event of Greek mythology. The Greeks (or, in Homer’s own term, the Achaeans) band together and cross the Aegean Sea to wage war against Troy, a gracious, prosperous city in Asia Minor (present-day Turkey). Their motive is revenge, for the Trojan prince Paris has stolen Helen, the most beautiful woman in the world, from her husband Menelaus, a major Greek chieftain. Under the leadership of Menelaus’ brother Agamemnon, the Greeks fight around Troy for ten years and finally succeed in destroying the city and regaining Helen. The Iliad gets its title, which in Greek is Ilias and means the story of Troy, from one of the Greek names for Troy, Ilios or Ilion.

The Iliad focuses on Achilles’ clash with Agamemnon, which occurs in the final year of the war. But that brief episode is presented in ways that allow it to stand for or suggest the whole of the larger story of which it is part. The events of the Iliad represent a decisive turning point in the war. Although Achilles remains stubbornly resistant to Agamemnon’s attempts to appease him, he does eventually return to battle, drawn back by an overwhelming need to avenge the death of his closest companion, Patroclus. . . .

Shamed and outraged by Patroclus’ death, Achilles is filled with anger against Hector and returns to the battlefield, where he eventually meets and kills Hector.

The Iliad ends soon after this, with Achilles’ decision to return Hector’s body to his father, Priam, and with the funeral for Hector that can then take place. But it is clear that the story of the Trojan war is effectively over: by killing Hector, Achilles has eliminated Troy’s indispensable defender, assuring the fall of the city and the victory of the Greeks. The story of Achilles is also over: as he learns from his mother, Thetis, who is a goddess, his own death is fated to follow soon after Hector’s. The poet goes out of his way to keep us aware of these looming consequences, although he does not recount them.

Beyond that, the poet weaves into his narrative the names and stories of many other, less prominent figures, striving for comprehensiveness in a way that is typical of epic, the poetic genre that, as the earliest example in the Western tradition, the Iliad in part defines.

Epic is a monumental form which recounts events with far-reaching historical consequences, sums up the values and achievements of an entire culture, and documents the fullness and variety of the world. While the Iliad uses Achilles’ story as a means of organizing and concentrating its portrait of the Trojan war, it differs from the sharply focused explorations of individual experience found in many modern novels or in classical tragedy. One of its aims is to record the sheer number of people, each with his or her own history and circumstances, whose lives are decisively shaped by the war. . . .

The Iliad is the portrait of an entire society, structured around the experience of one individual who struggles to define himself within it and against it.

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The Historical Context In considering the self-presentation of the Iliad’s poet and his stance toward

the story he tells, it would obviously be helpful to know something about the person who composed the poem and the circumstances under which it was produced. In fact, we know much less than we would like to about how and when the Iliad came into being. Ancient tradition attributed the poem to Homer, who was also considered responsible for another epic about the Trojan legend, the Odyssey, which tells about the return of the Greeks from Troy, and several shorter poems about the gods; but we have no reliable information about Homer that can contribute to an understanding of these works.

Where questions of chronology are concerned, it is not really possible to pin the poem to a single historical period. There is a strong—but far from complete— scholarly consensus that the Iliad was first written down in something like the form in which we now have it in the last half of the eighth century B.C.E., the time at which the Greeks acquired the art of alphabetic writing and written literature thus became possible. At the same time, we know the Iliad to be the result of a long tradition of earlier poetry, stretching back over many centuries, to which we have no direct access, because it was never written down, and which we can approach only through the traces it has left on the Iliad and other early Greek literature. The immense scholarly effort devoted to Homeric poetry over the last several centuries has made it clear that the Iliad reflects several historical periods, in a complicated amalgam whose layers we can only approximately distinguish.

First, it is important to recognize that the Iliad is itself a work of history, that it presents its story as a recollection of long-past events taking place in a time very

different from that in which those events are being recalled. The characters in the story are seen as belonging to a superior, even semi-divine breed that no longer exists, and they perform actions that no living person could duplicate. This sense of a gap between the world of the poem and the poet and his audience surfaces in occasional comments, as when the poet describes how Diomedes in the middle of combat “levered up in one hand a slab of stone / Much too large for two men to lift— As men are now …” (5.328–30). It also informs the poem’s frequent use of similes, which assimilate the distant world of heroic combat to a more ordinary, everyday world familiar to the poem’s audience.

The Trojan legend is a story of large-scale destruction. It includes not only the annihilation of Troy, but the many disruptions, almost as devastating as what they have inflicted on the Trojans, experienced by the Greeks as they return: they are blown off course and lost at sea, or they make it back, only to find their homes in turmoil and their own positions there under attack. For the ancient Greeks, this legend recorded the passing of an age of heroes that was understood to precede the drearier world of the present. To a modern historian, it reflects the end of the first stage of ancient Greek history, which is known as the Bronze Age, after the widespread use of bronze during that time, or the Mycenaean period, after the city of Mycenae, one of the main power centers of that era.

Mycenaean civilization developed in the centuries after 2000 B.C.E., which is approximately when Greek-speaking people first arrived in the area at the southern end of the Balkan peninsula that we now know as Greece. Those Greek- speakers gradually established there a rich civilization dominated by a few powerful cities built around large, highly organized palaces. These palaces were at once fortified military strongholds and centers for international trade, in particular trade with the many islands located in the Aegean Sea, to the east of the Greek mainland. On the largest of those islands, the island of Crete, there was already flourishing, by the time the Mycenaeans arrived in Greece, the rich and sophisticated Minoan civilization, by which the Mycenaeans were heavily influenced and which they came ultimately to dominate.

From the Minoans the Mycenaeans gained, along with many other crafts and institutions, a system of writing: a syllabary, in which each symbol stands for a particular syllable, as opposed to an alphabet—like the Roman alphabet now used to write English—in which each symbol stands for a particular sound. The Mycenaeans adapted the syllabary which the Minoans used to write their own language (a language which, although we have examples of their writing, still has

not been deciphered) and used it to write Greek. This earliest Greek writing system is known to present-day scholars as Linear B, and archaeologists excavating at the mainland centers of Mycenae and Pylos have recovered examples of it incised on clay tablets. These tablets contain not— as was hoped when they were found—political treaties, mythological poems, or accounts of religious rituals—but detailed accounts of a highly bureaucratic palace economy: inventories of grain or livestock and lists of palace functionaries assigned to perform such specialized roles as “unguent boiler,” “chair-maker,” or “bath- pourer.”

Mycenaean civilization reached its height at about 1600 B.C.E. and was essentially destroyed in a series of natural disasters and political disruptions about four hundred years later, around 1200 B.C.E. We do not really know what happened, but all of the main archaeological sites show some evidence of destruction, burning, or hasty abandonment at about that time, and a sharp decline thereafter in the ambition and complexity of their material culture. Among these is the site of Troy itself, which was discovered in the late nineteenth century by Heinrich Schliemann, who followed the topographical details given in the Iliad; through this discovery, Schliemann both vindicated the historical validity of Homer and helped to found the field of archaeology.

Related in some way to the disruptions that ended the Bronze Age was the emergence of a new group of Greek-speakers as the dominant people on the mainland. The Classical Greeks referred to these people as the Dorians and believed that they had invaded Greece from the north. Modern historians are uncertain whether they were new migrants or people already present in Greece who newly came to power in the upheavals of this period. In any case, many people left the mainland as a consequence and moved east, settling on various islands of the Aegean and along the coast of Asia Minor, in the area that is now western Turkey but which then became, in its coastal region, as much a part of the Greek world as was the mainland itself.

Both the Greeks who remained on the mainland and those who migrated to Asia Minor lived in conditions that involved less material prosperity and less highly organized concentrations of political and military power than had been characteristic of the Mycenaean period, and their period is traditionally known as the Dark Age, both because their physical remains suggest a less magnificent level of civilization and because we know relatively little about it. One result of the transition to the Dark Age was that writing, which was probably practiced in the

Mycenaean period only by a small class of professional scribes, fell out of use, and the Greeks became once again a culture without writing. On the other hand, they had always relied, and they continued to rely, on oral communication as their central means of recalling, preserving, and transmitting the historical memories, religious beliefs, and shared stories that in our culture would be committed to writing—or now to various forms of electronic media. In particular, the Greeks of Asia Minor, known as the Ionians, developed a tradition of heroic poetry through which they recalled their own history, looking back and recounting the experiences of that earlier, lost era. This poetry centered on certain legendary figures and events, among them the events surrounding the Trojan war, which, as mentioned above, appear to reflect the final moments of Mycenaean civilization.

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Iliad Book 1

Sing, Goddess, Achilles’ rage, Black and murderous, that cost the Greeks Incalculable pain, pitched countless souls Of heroes into Hades’ dark, And left their bodies to rot as feasts For dogs and birds, as Zeus’ will was done. Begin with the clash between Agamemnon— The Greek warlord—and godlike Achilles. Which of the immortals set these two [10] At each other’s throats? Apollo, Zeus’ son and Leto’s, offended By the warlord. Agamemnon had dishonored Chryses, Apollo’s priest, so the god Struck the Greek camp with plague, And the soldiers were dying of it. Chryses Had come to the Greek beachhead camp Hauling a fortune for his daughter’s ransom. [20] Displaying Apollo’s sacral ribbons On a golden staff, he made a formal plea To the entire Greek army, but especially The commanders, Atreus’ two sons: “Sons of Atreus and Greek heroes all: May the gods on Olympus grant you plunder Of Priam’s city and a safe return home. But give me my daughter back and accept This ransom out of respect for Zeus’ son, Lord Apollo, who deals death from afar.” [30] A murmur rippled through the ranks:

“Respect the priest and take the ransom.” But Agamemnon was not pleased And dismissed Chryses with a rough speech: “Don’t let me ever catch you, old man, by these ships again, Skulking around now or sneaking back later. The god’s staff and ribbons won’t save you next time. The girl is mine, and she’ll be an old woman in Argos Before I let her go, working the loom in my house And coming to my bed, far from her homeland. [40] Now clear out of here before you make me angry!” The old man was afraid and did as he was told. He walked in silence along the whispering surf line, And when he had gone some distance the priest Prayed to Lord Apollo, son of silken-haired Leto. . . . Apollo heard his prayer and descended Olympus’ crags Pulsing with fury, bow slung over one shoulder, The arrows rattling in their case on his back As the angry god moved like night down the mountain. He settled near the ships and let loose an arrow. Reverberation from his silver bow hung in the air. He picked off the pack animals first, and the lean hounds, But then aimed his needle-tipped arrows at the men [60] And shot until the death-fires crowded the beach. Nine days the god’s arrows rained death on the camp. On the tenth day Achilles called an assembly. Hera, the white-armed goddess, planted the thought in him Because she cared for the Greeks and it pained her To see them dying. When the troops had all mustered, Up stood the great runner Achilles, and said:

“Well, Agamemnon, it looks as if we’d better give up And sail home—assuming any of us are left alive— If we have to fight both the war and this plague. [70] But why not consult some prophet or priest Or a dream interpreter, since dreams too come from Zeus, Who could tell us why Apollo is so angry, If it’s for a vow or a sacrifice he holds us at fault. Maybe he’d be willing to lift this plague from us If he savored the smoke from lambs and prime goats.” Achilles had his say and sat down. Then up rose Calchas, son of Thestor, bird-reader supreme, Who knew what is, what will be, and what has been. He had guided the Greek ships to Troy [80] Through the prophetic power Apollo Had given him, and he spoke out now: “Achilles, beloved of Zeus, you want me to tell you About the rage of Lord Apollo, the Arch-Destroyer. And I will tell you. But you have to promise me and swear You will support me and protect me in word and deed. I have a feeling I might offend a person of some authority Among the Greeks, and you know how it is when a king Is angry with an underling. He might swallow his temper For a day, but he holds it in his heart until later [90] And it all comes out. Will you guarantee my security?” Achilles, the great runner, responded: “Don’t worry. Prophesy to the best of your knowledge. I swear by Apollo, to whom you pray when you reveal The gods’ secrets to the Greeks, Calchas, that while I live And look upon this earth, no one will lay a hand On you here beside these hollow ships, no, not even Agamemnon, who boasts he is the best of the Achaeans.” And Calchas, the perfect prophet, taking courage: “The god finds no fault with vow or sacrifice.

[100] It is for his priest, whom Agamemnon dishonored And would not allow to ransom his daughter, That Apollo deals and will deal death from afar. He will not lift this foul plague from the Greeks Until we return the dancing-eyed girl to her father Unransomed, unbought, and make formal sacrifice On Chryse. Only then might we appease the god.” He finished speaking and sat down. Then up rose Atreus’ son, the warlord Agamemnon, Furious, anger like twin black thunderheads seething [110] In his lungs, and his eyes flickered with fire As he looked Calchas up and down, and said: “You damn soothsayer! You’ve never given me a good omen yet. You take some kind of perverse pleasure in prophesying Doom, don’t you? Not a single favorable omen ever! Nothing good ever happens! And now you stand here Uttering oracles before the Greeks, telling us That your great ballistic god is giving us all this trouble Because I was unwilling to accept the ransom [120] For Chryses’ daughter but preferred instead to keep her In my tent! And why shouldn’t I? I like her better than My wife Clytemnestra. She’s no worse than her When it comes to looks, body, mind, or ability. Still, I’ll give her back, if that’s what’s best. I don’t want to see the army destroyed like this. But I want another prize ready for me right away. I’m not going to be the only Greek without a prize, It wouldn’t be right. And you all see where mine is going.” And Achilles, strong, swift, and godlike: [130] “And where do you think, son of Atreus, You greedy glory-hound, the magnanimous Greeks Are going to get another prize for you? Do you think we have some kind of stockpile in reserve?

Every town in the area has been sacked and the stuff all divided. You want the men to count it all back and redistribute it? All right, you give the girl back to the god. The army Will repay you three and four times over—when and if Zeus allows us to rip Troy down to its foundations.” The warlord Agamemnon responded: [140] “You may be a good man in a fight, Achilles, And look like a god, but don’t try to put one over on me— It won’t work. So while you have your prize, You want me to sit tight and do without? Give the girl back, just like that? Now maybe If the army, in a generous spirit, voted me Some suitable prize of their own choice, something fair— But if it doesn’t, I’ll just go take something myself, Your prize perhaps, or Ajax’s, or Odysseus’, And whoever she belongs to, it’ll stick in his throat. . . . Achilles looked him up and down and said: “You sorry, profiteering excuse for a commander! [160] How are you going to get any Greek warrior To follow you into battle again? You know, I don’t have any quarrel with the Trojans, They didn’t do anything to me to make me Come over here and fight, didn’t run off my cattle or horses Or ruin my farmland back home in Phthia, not with all The shadowy mountains and moaning seas between. It’s for you, dogface, for your precious pleasure— And Menelaus’ honor—that we came here, A fact you don’t have the decency even to mention! [170] And now you’re threatening to take away the prize That I sweated for and the Greeks gave me. I never get a prize equal to yours when the army Captures one of the Trojan strongholds. No, I do all the dirty work with my own hands,

And when the battle’s over and we divide the loot You get the lion’s share and I go back to the ships With some pitiful little thing, so worn out from fighting I don’t have the strength left even to complain. Well, I’m going back to Phthia now. Far better [180] To head home with my curved ships than stay here, Unhonored myself and piling up a fortune for you.” The warlord Agamemnon responded: “Go ahead and desert, if that’s what you want! I’m not going to beg you to stay. There are plenty of others Who will honor me, not least of all Zeus the Counselor. To me, you’re the most hateful king under heaven, A born troublemaker. You actually like fighting and war. If you’re all that strong, it’s just a gift from some god. So why don’t you go home with your ships and lord it over [190] Your precious Myrmidons. I couldn’t care less about you Or your famous temper. But I’ll tell you this: Since Phoebus Apollo is taking away my Chryseis, Whom I’m sending back aboard ship with my friends, I’m coming to your hut and taking Briseis, Your own beautiful prize, so that you will see just how much Stronger I am than you, and the next person will wince At the thought of opposing me as an equal.” Achilles’ chest was a rough knot of pain Twisting around his heart: should he [200] Draw the sharp sword that hung by his thigh, Scatter the ranks and gut Agamemnon, Or control his temper, repress his rage? He was mulling it over, inching the great sword From its sheath, when out of the blue Athena came, sent by the white-armed goddess Hera, who loved and watched over both men. She stood behind Achilles and grabbed his sandy hair, Visible only to him: not another soul saw her. Awestruck, Achilles turned around, recognizing [210] Pallas Athena at once—it was her eyes—

And words flew from his mouth like winging birds: “Daughter of Zeus! Why have you come here? To see Agamemnon’s arrogance, no doubt. I’ll tell you where I place my bets, Goddess: Sudden death for this outrageous behavior.” Athena’s eyes glared through the sea’s salt haze. “I came to see if I could check this temper of yours, Sent from heaven by the white-armed goddess Hera, who loves and watches over both of you men. [220] Now come on, drop this quarrel, don’t draw your sword. Tell him off instead. And I’ll tell you, Achilles, how things will be: You’re going to get Three times as many magnificent gifts Because of his arrogance. Just listen to us and be patient.” Achilles, the great runner, responded: “When you two speak, Goddess, a man has to listen No matter how angry. It’s better that way. With that he ground his heavy hand [230] Onto the silver hilt and pushed the great sword Back into its sheath. Athena’s speech Had been well-timed. She was on her way To Olympus by now, to the halls of Zeus And the other immortals, while Achilles Tore into Agamemnon again: “You bloated drunk, With a dog’s eyes and a rabbit’s heart! You’ve never had the guts to buckle on armor in battle Or come out with the best fighting Greeks [240] On any campaign! Afraid to look Death in the eye, Agamemnon? It’s far more profitable To hang back in the army’s rear—isn’t it?— Confiscating prizes from any Greek who talks back

And bleeding your people dry. There’s not a real man Under your command, or this latest atrocity Would be your last, son of Atreus. Now get this straight. I swear a formal oath: By this scepter, which will never sprout leaf Or branch again since it was cut from its stock [250] In the mountains, which will bloom no more Now that bronze has pared off leaf and bark, And which now the sons of the Greeks hold in their hands At council, upholding Zeus’ laws— By this scepter I swear: When every last Greek desperately misses Achilles, Your remorse won’t do any good then, When Hector the man-killer swats you down like flies. And you will eat your heart out Because you failed to honor the best Greek of all.” [260] Those were his words, and he slammed the scepter, Studded with gold, to the ground and sat down. Opposite him, Agamemnon fumed. Then Nestor Stood up, sweet-worded Nestor, the orator from Pylos With a voice high-toned and liquid as honey. He had seen two generations of men pass away In sandy Pylos and was now king in the third. He was full of good will in the speech he made: “It’s a sad day for Greece, a sad day. Priam and Priam’s sons would be happy indeed, And the rest of the Trojans too, glad in their hearts, If they learned all this about you two fighting, Our two best men in council and in battle. Now you listen to me, both of you. You are both Younger than I am, and I’ve associated with men Better than you, and they didn’t treat me lightly.