Homer’s “ The Iliad” is the story of various conflicts and resolutions. Against the overall backdrop of the Trojan War, Homer presents a situation in which characters make and break agreements, based around particular objects or people. These agreements are characterized as possessing a certain logic, in which a group of things is subsumed under a single item of inestimable importance, and in which this latter thing is given absolute priority. “The Illiad” can be seen to be a the story of in which three objects are lost and in which each loss leads to either the breaking or formation of an agreement, as well as providing a pivotal point in the plot of the poem. This paper will demonstrate this by paying attention to the three objects: the woman Briseis, the body of Patroclus and the body of Hector.
Arguably the most important breach of agreement that takes place in Homer’s poem concerns Achilles and Agamemnon. The dispute, which causes Achilles to withdraw from battle prior to the opening of the poem, is over the girl Briseis. She, whom Achilles had planned to take as his prize, was instead taken by Agamemnon, in an act which so alienated the former that he refuses to fight any further. In book IX of the poem, Agamemnon makes it clear that this was a foolhardy decision and that he must do everything in his power in order to convince Achilles to return to battle. In this process, the important of Briseis is shown through the excessive amount of objects that Agamemnon is willing to offer to Achilles.
Prior to attempting to convince him to join, he states that, alongside returning Briseus, he will offer Achilles: “Seven tripods never touched by fire, ten bars of gold, / twenty burnished cauldrons, a dozen massive stallions, / racers who earned me trophies with their speed…/Seven women…flawless, skilled in crafts” (1998 255). In this description, it is clear that Agamemnon will effectively attempt to go infinitely far in order to attain Achilles’ service again and to persuade him to fight. Achilles, however, refuses, and insists that he will stay with Patrocles and leave for home the following morning. At this point, it is clear that the act of breaking faith and the insult which Agamemnon has inflicted upon Achilles by taking Briseis in the first place overrides any possible form of compensation. Briseis is a lost object that can influence of the entire war.
It is only when harm is done to another loved object of Achilles that he is persuaded to rejoin the battle. The event occurs with the death of Patroclus, something that forces Achilles to fight, and also to begin to gather together Trojan individuals to sacrifice in order to honour his friend. After having proven to be devastatingly effective in battle, Homer writes that Achilles “grew arm-weary from killing, twelve young Trojans / he rounded up from the river, took them all as the blood-price for Patroclus’ death” (521). The body of Patroclus is something that motivates Achilles’, and the need to perform funeral rights for results in the taking a dozen prisoners, and the sacrifice of bulls, oxen, together with a funeral games. Within this context, Patroclus himself is presented as inordinately more important than all of these objects and events, at the same time that he justifies their existence. The very excess by which Achilles responds to his friends death can be seen to be proof of this. As well as forming a key moment in the plot of the poem, Patroclus can be seen to be the second lost object within the works as a whole.
The third object is Hector’s body; which forms the point of antagonism in the poem’s final book and which results in Priam humbling himself before Achilles in an attempt to bring his son home. By effectively begging Achilles to release his son so that he may be given proper funeral rights, Priam risks his own personal safety, together with that of the entire city of Troy. Once again, in this situation the singular body of Hector is shown as being literally the most important object in the world of the poem. Before departing for the Trojan camp, Hector is compared to all other members of Priam’s family and, by extension, all other people in the world. He is found to be vastly superior. One reads how: “So he [Priam] lashed out at his sons, / cursing the sight of Helenus, Paris, noble Agathon, / Deiphobus and Hippothous, even lordly Dius – / the old man shouted at all nine, rough commands / ‘Get you to your work! My vicious sons – my humiliations!” (596). In the moment of grief, and under the command of the Gods, Hector stands over and above all others to the extent that their own existence becomes an insult to his memory. The attempt to rectify this by retrieving his body forms the final moment of the poem, and forces the encounter between Priam and Achilles that leads to the temporary truce which concludes it. As such, the loss of Hector motivates the final exchange of the poem and the temporary reconciliation that for Hector’s funeral, as well as forcing Priam to pass a final judgement on his life and his family.
In conclusion, this paper has argued that the structure of “The Illiad” can be seen be focused around three lost objects, or people, whose loss for either Achilles or Priam serves to provide a dramatic linchpin for the action of the poem, as well as leading to either the establishment, or breaking a contract or agreement between two of Homer’s characters. By considering each of these lost objects, it is possible to see how the poem, while it is set against the backdrop of an epic war, nonetheless moves according to a sequence of varying antagonism and reconciliation between individual characters.
- Homer. The Iliad. Translated by Robert Fagles. Penguin: London, 1998
