Female Figure in the Iliad: Masculinity, Power, and Honor

Warrior Ethos in The Iliad: The Tug of War Between Physical Prowess and Political Dominance in Ancient Greece

In ancient Greece, society revolved around a warrior culture where men were praised based on their prowess and competence in warfare and battle. This praise led directly to one’s gaining glory and social status in Greek society. The characters in Homer’s The Iliad place a premium on the values of honor, bravery, and glory. Men sacrifice the chance to live a long life to obtain these values exemplifying the importance of personal honor and glory.

The notions of masculinity, bravery, and the idea of fatalism shape events in the work and reveal the extent to which the warrior culture was central to all aspects of life in ancient Greek times. Men were considered to be excellent if they were great warriors and great strategists. In their warrior culture, the greatest fighter is considered the most excellent man or one having an arete. Gaining honor and glory allowed Greek men to gain and exert influence in their society, elevating their social standing. The higher one’s social status in society, the more power one can exert. In Homer’s epic poem, the focus is on the conflict of values between two of the key Greek warriors, Agamemnon, the Greek leader, and Achilles, their greatest warrior. Achilles represents the kind of physical power that one wishes to have on a battlefield. Agamemnon represents political power, the power one received by virtue of being the king of the greatest number of men. Homer’s The Iliad revolves around the complexities of these main ideas: elitism and excellence, shame and honor, and hospitality, with the conflict of values being between political power and the physical power of an excellent warrior, and just what type of power is the most significant in Greek culture.

Clashing Codes of Honor: Achilles, Agamemnon, and the Hierarchies of Ancient Greek Valor

The confrontation between Achilles and Agamemnon highlights a dominant aspect of the ancient Greek value system, which is the importance of personal honor. The war provided opportunities for a warrior to gain personal honor and status, exemplifying his heroism. The concept of heroism is one of the major themes running throughout the poem. The clash of values comes about from the fact that one warrior’s individual sense of personal honor did not always coincide with another’s. Achilles has his own heroic code, one that revolves around his belief in an honor system that awards glory to the greatest warrior, as opposed to Agamemnon’s honor and power, which rely on royal and political privilege. In Greek society, a warrior’s individual status was precarious and could always be gained and lost. Society conferred status, and therefore power, based on one’s heroic deeds. The measure of those deeds was very precarious and shifting. Therefore, it was necessary to continually protect one’s honor. As much as the epic revolves around honor, so too does it revolve around the concept of elitism, which showcases how highly the Greeks valued elitism in their culture. Only the greatest warriors matter, unlike common men who are seen as inferior. The only time that a commoner appears in Homer’s epic is when he is described as “bandy-legged” and “the ugliest man who ever came to Troy,” whom Odysseus, considered an elite warrior, beats with a scepter. Odysseus tells him that he counts “for nothing, neither in war or council” and is wrong to mouth the names of kings (Homer 107). Homer clearly uses the Trojan War as a fountainhead for the value system that the ancient Greeks celebrated, that in a heroic culture, one’s only goal in life is to achieve arete or excellence.

Dualities of Power: Achilles’ Struggle Between Physical Might and Political Ascendancy

There are often conflicting ways of achieving status and respect in warfare, and what is even more problematic is who to reward, the physically powerful or the one who commands the greatest armies of men. The most obvious is whoever is most successful in battle, but as Homer shows, there is a conflict between the supremacy of physical power and political power and how the Greek world may have been moving towards more of a consolidation of political power. The poem remains fundamentally focused on the conflict within a single man, Achilles, and this opening passage conveys this focus to the reader. Initially, Achilles seems to be violence incarnate, and in fact, the title of the first book in the epic is “The Rage of Achilles,” but he is a character “whose motives and actions form an intelligible unity” (Homer 77; Knox 47). The epic itself is set and moves through a world of organized violence and campaigns in which Achilles justifies his existence through the killing of other men and is known as “the most violent man alive” (Homer 82). In killing, Achilles exerts his talents to their fullest potential, and he is invincible in this chosen sphere exemplifying the notion of arete. His devotion to glory and war goes hand in hand with his fate, however, which ends with his eventual death at Troy.

Iliad Female Characters: Briseis at the Nexus of Power and Honor Struggles

The majority of Homer’s epic hinges on Achilles’ rage, which Agamemnon incites when he treats Achilles as an inferior by taking Achilles’ woman Briseis whom Achilles had won in another campaign. Agamemnon brings shame upon Achilles by taking his spoils, which shows the two kinds of power that struggle against each other throughout the epic: the kind of power that comes from being a great warrior and the other that comes from being a commander of many men. Achilles accuses Agamemnon of taking more than his fair share of the spoils of war, even though Achilles bears the “brunt of the raw, savage fighting” (83). Agamemnon responds to Achilles incriminating words and states that he will take Achille’s woman Briseis, illustrating how much greater a man Agamemnon thinks he is than Achilles. Agamemnon’s power comes from his ability to “rule so many men” that holds sway over “many warriors, vast armies” (254). In seizing “[Achilles] gift of honor,” the woman Briseis displays his raw power that no man can rival him “strength for strength” (255, 83). When Achilles’ honor is struck down by Agamemnon, this amounts to a repudiation of Achilles’ very sense of self. Achilles’s very essence centers around his honor and his ability to excel in war. Both Agamemnon and Achilles prioritize their own personal glories over the welfare of the army. Agamemnon believes that as the supreme commander of the armies, he deserves the highest available prize, Briseis, and is willing to alienate Achilles in order to achieve what is owed to him, not to mention knocking down Achilles’ pride.

Clash of Titans: The Duality of Heroic Excellence and Political Dominance in the Iliad

Achilles contemplates killing Agamemnon, and as the physically more powerful of the two, he could, but Athena comes down and asks him to “check [his] rage” and spare Agamemnon (84). Achilles decides to spare Agamemnon and calls him a “king who devours his people” who never once did “arm with the troops and go to battle” (85). Achilles withdraws from the war until “a yearning for Achilles” strikes Agamemnon and his armies (85). Then Nestor, the wise man, intervenes and espouses his wisdom in an attempt to reconcile the two men. He advises Agamemnon not to take Briseis from Achilles, as powerful as he is, though he is capable of doing it. Similarly, Nestor advises Achilles not to pit his force against Agamemnon since ‘no one can match the honors dealt to a king’ because Agamemnon is a “sceptered king to whom Zeus gives glory” and who has more “power because he rules more men” (86). However, neither man listens to Nestor’s council, and Agamemnon takes Briseis while Achilles removes himself from the war. The basis of the poem is not just the conflict of interest between two men but of the conflict between values in Greek culture. Achilles represents the excellence of the heroic warrior, while Agamemnon represents the power of a man who commands many men. In society, both deserve honor for what they embody, but the conflict is how society should reward these men and how much. In Homer’s character Nestor the author seems to indicate that, potentially, society was moving more towards political power as Nestor defends the power of Agamemnon and says that he is even given his power through divine right. The fight between Agamemnon and Achilles shows the conflict between two key values in a society that is trying to decide which is more important. As illustrated previously through the character of Briseis, an important indicator of status in this culture was the spoils of war.

Agamemnon vs. Achilles: Contending Values and the Role of War Spoils in Ancient Greece

In ancient Greek society, the spoils of war were an indicator of personal status and honor. When the Trojan prince Paris stole Helen, this struck a personal blow to Menelaus and his own honor, which became the initial cause of the war between the Greeks and the Trojans. Helen being stolen lends justification to the war, and the later theft of Achilles’ woman, escalates the war when Achilles refuses to continue fighting. Agamemnon and Achilles struggle to retain their honor publicly in front of their men and society in general; both men see their women as a sign of personal status and honor. It is clear that there are different perspectives on honor within society as the conflict between the two men continues. Ultimately, Achilles realizes he must give up the chance of attaining glory on the battlefield to preserve his honor off the field in society. Achilles would rather defend his claim to Briseis, his personal spoil of victory from Lyrnessus than alleviate the situation between the two men. To defer to the other would be a humiliation rather than an act of honor or duty. Achilles even prays to the gods that as short as his life will be, they “should give [him] honor” in fairness for his sacrifice (89). Achilles knows that his early death will have no meaning if his honor is besmirched, for his shortened life span goes hand in hand with his personal honor. Only when Patroclus is dead does he then return to fighting to avenge Patroclus’s death and his own honor? Achilles is a complex character: he is a man that is seemingly imprisoned in his god-like rage, compelled to protect his honor, even at the expense of forgoing opportunities to increase that honor. This goes against Greek values and everything that the warrior culture exemplifies. However, Achilles does eventually return to the war.

Power and Pride: Achilles’ Quest for Honor Amid Agamemnon’s Hollow Apologies

Even though Achilles seems like a mindless killer, his sense of honor is acute, and when Agamemnon offers to recompense Achilles for offending him, even by offering his own daughter in marriage, Achilles refuses because he knows the truth of Agamemnon’s supposed apology. Achilles feels that Agamemnon is parceling “out some scraps” but is keeping “the lion’s share” (263). Despite his supposed eagerness to repair the rift between the two, Agamemnon never issues anything resembling an apology. Though he admits to having been “lost in my own inhuman rage,” he seeks to buy back Achilles’ loyalty rather than work with him to achieve some mutual understanding of their relationship (255). Achilles isn’t really seeking an apology, as much as he wants restitution for the restoration of the honor and glory for which he has worked for. Internally, Achilles understands that he would have to submit to Agamemnon if he accepted his apology, but he struggles with the notion that Agamemnon treats the great warriors and common ones alike, which is an affront in an honor/shame culture of the ancient Greeks. This apology is one of a king to a subject, not to one of equal status, as Agamemnon states, “Let him bow down to me” because he is the greater king and the “elder-born” (256). Neither man is willing to reduce his own power or honor.

From Glory to Grief: Achilles’ Struggle with Honor, Mortality, and the Weight of Choice in the Shadow of War

In refusing Agamemnon’s gifts, Achilles has a momentary awareness that his dedication to glory is not worth his death, stating, “a man’s life breath cannot come back again” because his glory has been taken away by Agamemnon, and fight and die for Agamemnon’s cause would not be worthy of his death (265). In the past, before Agamemnon’s slight, he would have chosen the short life of glory if his honor had not been besmirched and regarded as less than because “glory never dies” in the Greeks warrior culture (265). Achilles has an intense moment of introspection when he states, “The same honor waits for the coward and the brave” in death (262). Through this statement, Achilles is not only denying the importance of the warrior culture but undermining the values that the Greeks epitomize. He is challenging the values of his society by choosing a long life rather than a short one of glory, all to spite Agamemnon. Achilles seems to be evolving past his culture’s values and is less concerned with public honor, yet on the other hand. It also seems just as likely that this is just a shortcoming of Achilles’ inability to get past petty slights to help save the lives of his fellow Greek soldiers. With mortality always on the minds of ancient Greeks, every action has meaning because one only gets a certain amount of time. The best that the Geeks could hope for is that they accomplish something worthy before death, and for Achilles to deny himself the opportunity to achieve greatness attests to his wounded pride. Achilles only returns to battle because of Patroclus’s death and only because if he didn’t, it would be a renunciation of his ultimate goal in life: which is attaining his own glory. Even Patroclus seems to see through Achilles’ rage and makes the statement that Achilles is “cursed in [his] own courage,” almost as if Achilles’ heroism is for nothing if he does not use it for his fellow countrymen (413). We see a different Achilles during the funeral games in Book 23 after Patroclus’s death, a man of nobility and of civility. In this new situation of peace, we see how Achilles could have been in a world without war and violence, one who lived a longer life. This seems to signal the end of his self-imposed isolation, his god-like rage that separated him from everyone else, and his return to the business of war. However, not all Trojans exemplify arete and are not accustomed to the grim business of war.

Paris Defiant: A Contrast to Greek Valor and the Ambiguities of Divine Favor

As glory is central to the values of the ancient Greeks, one character, in particular, stands out as the opposite of all those values that the Greeks hold dear. The character of Paris, the prince of the Trojans, not only defies the guest-host relationship by stealing Helen and igniting the war, he chooses to spend time with Helen rather than fight in the war. Accordingly, both the text and the other characters treat him with derision. In Book 3, Paris’s cowardice throws him into stark contrast with Hector and many of the other leaders. When Paris sees Menelaus on the battlefield, he decides to flee. His brother Hector “raked his brother with insults,” who is much more devoted to the ideal of heroic honor; Hector criticizes him for the disgrace that he has brought upon himself and is made a “mockery in the eyes of all [their] enemies” (129). Paris’s fight with Menelaus proves embarrassing, and he must be rescued by Aphrodite, the goddess of love. While the rest of the Trojan army is forced to fight for the woman whom Paris stole from the Achaeans, he sleeps with her. This is such an affront to the heroic code of conduct even Helen lashes out at Paris for his behavior because she knows ultimately that she will succumb to the will of Aphrodite, who wishes for them to be together, even if she feels that her choices have cost those around her. As much as Paris is harangued for his actions, he knows his strengths and limitations, and he accepts both the mockery of Helen and Hector with the claim that war is not the whole of his life and “the gifts of the gods, those glories” that has been given to him defines his fate regardless of what he chooses (130). Even as Hector praises Paris for being a good soldier, he berates him for hanging “back of [his] own accord” and refusing to fight, and Hector aches for his brother when other Trojans “heap contempt” on him (213).

References:

1. Knox, B. The Heroic Temper: Studies in Sophoclean Tragedy. University of California Press, 1964.
2. Homer. The Iliad. Translated by Robert Fagles, Penguin Classics, 1990.

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