After the review, the first major battle scene of the Iliad begins. The significant comparison between the scenes involving the gods and those involving Agamemnon and the troops is that for the gods, their decisions are almost jokes; Zeus can mock Hera and Athena even though he knows that he will send Athena to Pandaros and that the war will continue. In contrast, for Agamemnon and the soldiers, the taunting and the fighting are matters of life and death, of individual and collective survival.
The significance of Pandaros' shot at Menelaos should not be overlooked; it is a crucial moment in the epic. If Pandaros does not take the shot, the war could end. To accentuate the importance of the moment, Homer describes the bow and the shot in extended detail. Such involved descriptions of weaponry are common in both the Iliad and the Odyssey.
The technique is also used in later epics, such as the long histories of the swords in the great Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf. Humor in the Iliad is most often associated with the gods but does occasionally show up among the humans, most often in connection with Nestor. Agamemnon's concern for his brother may be genuine, but he comes across as overprotective. Finally, the graphic nature of the battle scenes startle some first-time readers, but the straightforward nature of these depictions is part of Homer's technique.
The description of wounds and death may be realistic, but the actual battle descriptions are stylized, examples of the set pieces used in epic composition see Introduction. Examples of this stylized description are phrases such as, "the sound of struggle roared and rocked the earth," "rushing madly to strip his gear," or "loosed his limbs. The gods, representing elemental forces and passions, help both sides.
Aias the Greek forces in the Iliad have two Aiases also known as Ajax. The stronger and more prominent one is Telamonian Aias, King from Salamis. He is a notable fighter often referred to as the Great Aias. Oilean Aias is from Locris and is sometimes called Little Aias. Hector found Patroclus then and slew him, stripping him of his splendid armor.
When Achilles received news of Patroclus' death he threw himself on the ground in a frenzy of grief and had to be restrained. His mother, Thetis, brought him new armor fashioned by Hephaestus, but she warned him that if he killed Hector he himself would perish soon after.
Nevertheless, Achilles was determined to slay Hector and a host of Trojans besides. The next morning he made a formal reconciliation with Agamemnon and began fighting immediately. The clash of arms that day was terrible. While Hector and Aeneas killed many Greeks they could not stop Achilles in his furor of bloodletting.
In fact, both Aeneas and Hector had to be rescued with divine help. Achilles filled the Scamander River so full of bodies in his dreadful onslaught that the waters over-flowed and nearly drowned him. The gods, too, engaged in battle among themselves, as Athena felled Ares, Hera boxed Artemis' ears, and Poseidon provoked Apollo. Eventually Achilles encountered Hector outside the walls of Troy.
Hector ran from his opponent in a lapse of courage, circling the city three times. But Athena duped him into making a stand, and Achilles' lance caught him in the throat. Although Hector had pleaded with Achilles to let his parents ransom his body as he died, Achilles denied him jeeringly.
Then Achilles took Hector's corpse, tied it behind his chariot, and dragged it back to the Greek camp as Hector's wife watched from the walls of Troy. Since Patroclus' ghost demanded burial, Achilles prepared a glorious funeral. He cut the throats of twelve Trojan nobles as a sacrifice on Patroclus' pyre, and funeral contests in athletics followed. For eleven days Achilles dragged Hector's body around the pyre, yet Apollo preserved the corpse from corruption.
Zeus also sent Hermes to Priam, and Hermes guided the old king with his ransom through the Greek lines to Achilles' camp. Achilles treated Priam with courtesy, for Priam reminded him of his own aged father, Peleus. Achilles took Hector's weight in gold and gave Priam the body, which Priam took back to Troy. During the next eleven days there was a truce as the Trojans mourned for the dead Hector, whom they cremated and buried. Achilles managed to kill the Amazon Queen, Penthesileia, in the battles that followed.
And when the Trojans brought in Ethiopian reinforcements under Prince Memnon, things went hard with the Greeks, for many were slain. However, Achilles' life was drawing to a close, as he well knew. One day in battle Paris shot at Achilles, and the arrow, guided by Apollo, struck him in the right heel, the only place where he was vulnerable.
The Greeks had a difficult time retrieving his corpse from the field. Only the efforts of Ajax and Odysseus saved Achilles' body from the Trojans. The hero was given a magnificent funeral. There arose a dispute as to whether Ajax or Odysseus should receive Achilles' resplendent armor.
The Greek commanders voted on it and awarded the armor to Odysseus. Dishonored and furious, Ajax resolved to kill a number of Greek leaders, including Odysseus. But Athena visited him with madness, and that night Ajax butchered a number of cattle under the delusion that they were the men who had slighted him.
When Athena removed his frenzy Ajax saw his irremediable folly and committed suicide out of shame. With their two most valiant warriors dead the Greeks became anxious about ever taking Troy.
Force of arms had been unsuccessful, so they turned to oracles increasingly. Calchas told them they needed the bow and arrows of Heracles to win the war.
These items were in the hands of Prince Philoctetes, a warrior the Greeks had abandoned years before on the way to Troy at the island of Lemnos because of a loathsome wound that would not heal. Odysseus and Diomedes were dispatched to fetch the weapons. On Lemnos, Odysseus tricked Philoctetes into handing over the bow and arrows and prepared to leave, but Diomedes offered to take Philoctetes back to Troy with them, where he would be cured of his wound.
Philoctetes swallowed his long bitterness, sailed for Troy, and killed Paris with the arrows of Heracles. Paris might have been spared if his former mistress, the nymph oenone, had agreed to heal him, but she refused and then hanged herself. The death of Paris and possession of Heracles' weapons did not change the stalemate, so Calchas told the Greeks that only Helenus, the Trojan seer and prince, knew how Troy's downfall might be brought about.
Odysseus captured Helenus on Mount Ida. Helenus bore a personal grudge against Troy, having fought for Helen after Paris died and having lost her, and he was willing to betray the city.
First, the Greeks had to bring Pelops' bones back to Asia from Greece. Agamemnon accomplished this. Second, they had to bring Achilles' son Neoptolemus into the war, and a group of Greeks went to Scyros to get him.
Third, the Greeks had to steal the Palladium, a sacred image of Athena, from the goddess's temple in Troy. Diomedes and Odysseus undertook the dangerous mission.
Once in Troy Odysseus was recognized by Helen, who saw through his disguise but did not give him away. The two heroes seized the sacred image of Athena and escaped unharmed.
If Odysseus claimed credit for the notion of the huge wooden horse, Athena had given the idea to another. Nevertheless, Odysseus helped the plan succeed. A great horse of wood was constructed under Greek supervision, one with a hollow belly to hold several soldiers. One night this horse was brought to the Trojan plain and warriors climbed in under Odysseus' direction. The rest of the Greeks burned their camps and sailed off to wait behind the nearby island of Tenedos.
The next morning the Trojans found the Greeks gone and the huge, mysterious horse sitting before Troy. They also discovered a Greek named Sinon, whom they took captive. Odysseus had primed Sinon with plausible stories about the Greek departure, the wooden horse, and his own presence there.
Sinon told Priam and the others that Athena had deserted the Greeks because of the theft of the Palladium. Without her help they were lost and had best depart. But to get home safely they had to have a human sacrifice, and Sinon was chosen, yet he got away and hid. The horse had been left to placate the angry goddess, and the Greeks were hoping the Trojans would desecrate it, earning Athena's hatred.
These lies convinced Priam and many Trojans. No one believed Cassandra anyhow. The Trojans needed no further proof: they drew the gigantic horse inside their city gates to honor Athena.
That night the soldiers crept from the horse, killed the sentries, and opened the gates to let the Greek army in. The Greeks set fires throughout the city, began massacring the inhabitants, and looted. The Trojan resistance was ineffectual. King Priam was killed by Neoptolemus. And by morning all but a few Trojans were dead. Of Trojan males only Aeneas, with his father and son, had escaped the slaughter.
Hector's young son Astyanax was thrown from the walls of the city. The women who were left went into concubinage as spoils of war. And the princess Polyxena, whom Achilles had loved, was sacrificed brutally upon the tomb of the dead hero. Troy was devastated. Hera and Athena had their revenge upon Paris and his city.
Having accomplished their aim in sacking Troy, the Greeks now had to face the problem of getting back to their various kingdoms. This was a problem, for the gods had scores to settle with many Greeks. Soon after the Greeks set sail a fierce storm arose that blew much of the Greek fleet far off course.
Of those who went by ship Agamemnon was one of the few that escaped the storm and reached home easily. But immediately upon his return Agamemnon's wife, Clytemnestra, and her lover, Aegisthus, slew him and his followers, including Cassandra, at the banquet table.
Clytemnestra had never forgiven her husband for sacrificing Iphigenia. Menelaus had resolved to kill Helen when he found her in Troy, but on seeing her naked breasts he lost his determination and took her again as his wife.
The goddesses, Hera and Athena, join in on the Achaean side. Book 6. Hektor returns to Troy to ask the Trojan women to make a sacrifice to Athena to win her pity. He discovers Paris at home with Helen and rebukes his brother for abandoning the battlefield.
Hektor takes the opportunity to visit his own home and in a moving scene, says an emotional good-bye to his wife, Andromache, and their baby, Astyanax, before returning to battle. Book 7. Back on the battlefield, Hektor proposes a duel with one of the Achaeans. However, none of the Achaeans is brave enough to accept the Trojan heroes challenge.
Nestor chides the warriors until nine of the Achaean champions volunteer to fight Hektor. Finally, Telamonian Ajax is chosen by lot and the warriors engage in a ferocious fight, but the duel ends in a draw as night falls. Both sides agree to a truce to bury the dead, and the Achaeans build a wall and a trench to defend their ships and fortify their camp. Book 8. The battle resumes. At a council on Olympus, Zeus tells the gods that he is planning on bringing the war to an end and orders them not to interfere on either side.
Book 9. The Achaean leaders hold an assembly. Agamemnon, on the verge of tears, proposes to go home, but Diomedes and Nestor dissuade him, for it is fated that Troy will eventually fall.
Agamemnon admits his mistake at having insulted Achilles and Nestor convinces him to return Briseis and offer Achilles splendid gifts in reconciliation. Achilles, putting his injured pride above all else, rejects their appeals.
Book On the way, they capture Dolon, a Trojan nobleman sent by Hektor to spy on the Achaeans. After extracting advantageous information from Dolon, they kill him. They then sneak into the Trojan camp, brutally murder Rhesos, a Trojan ally, and twelve of his warriors, and lead off their magnificent horses as spoils. Battle resumes the next morning and several prominent Achaean warriors are wounded and must leave the fighting.
Achilles watches the defeat and, troubled by the turn of events, sends Patroklos, his comrade-in-arms, to find out about the casualties, since his own wounded pride will not allow him to openly show an interest in the fate of the Achaeans. Books The battle is bloody. Agamemnon, Diomedes and Odysseus are all wounded and the Achaeans are forced to take refuge behind their wall. Hektor and the Trojans breach the wall and storm the Achaean camp.
Hera figures out what Poseidon is up to and seduces Zeus to distract his attention away from the battle. As the Achaeans rally, Hektor is wounded. Having fallen asleep, Zeus wakes up and threatens the gods to cease their assistance. Hektor returns to the battle, drives the Achaeans back to their ships, and tries to set them on fire.
Achilles warns him to do no more than rescue the ships, which are now burning, and to return once he has driven the Trojans away. The Trojans are driven back and Patroklos kills many of them including, Sarpedon, a mortal son of Zeus. Hera persuades Zeus not to intervene to save him. Patroklos ignores Achilles' warning and pursues Hektor all the way to the walls of Troy where he is finally slain by Hektor, with the aid of Apollo.
A battle immediately develops between the two sides over Patroklos' naked corpse.
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