out a world away from Argos!” (XIV 84–85). Oblivion: It’s a terrible prospect for a fellow as accustomed to glory as Agamemnon.
But though Agamemnon is the greatest ruler, he is not the greatest warrior. That distinction belongs to Achilles, “best of the Achaeans.” Both facts are known to both men, and to the Achaean and Trojan ranks alike. To understand how the inner greatness of a hero expresses itself, we have looked at the second phase of Achilles’s rage in the Iliad, that over the death of Patroclus. To see just how great a threat such a hero can be to even the greatest king, we can look at the first phase of the rage of Achilles, his row with Agamemnon.
Like the Trojan War itself, which began with the Trojan prince Paris stealing the fabulously beautiful Helen away from the Spartan King Menelaeus, the quarrel between Achilles and Agamemnon also starts out over a woman. As the Iliad opens, the Achaeans have been besieging Troy for nine years. They are frustrated and tired, and what’s more, a plague has now broken out in their ranks. The obvious conclusion is that the gods are angry. But why?
In addition to laying siege to Troy, Agamemnon’s forces, often led by Achilles, have been sacking Troy’s allies in the neighborhood. In the course of one such venture (before the action of the Iliad begins), Agamemnon has taken the beautiful Chryseis, daughter of a priest of the temple of Apollo, for his concubine as a battle prize.
So that explains to the satisfaction of pretty much everyone, except Agamemnon, who among the gods is punishing them—Apollo—and why. At a tense assembly of the leading Achaeans, Achilles warns that defeat at Troy is imminent unless Agamemnon does the right thing and gives Chryseis back.
The “lord of men” doesn’t like this a bit. But he soon assents, with the proviso that if he must give up Chryseis, he will take another prize in her stead, lest he “alone of the Argives go without my honor.” We note here that Agamemnon’s sense of self, his own greatness, is (so to say) other-directed. It requires validation: glory and prizes. A world in which all the “men” of the “lord of men” get prizes and the lord himself does not get a prize is a world turned upside-down. The legitimacy of the king requires constant acknowledgment by those who owe him their allegiance.
Achilles tries to appeal to a sense of honor in Agamemnon higher than the demand for a trophy fit for a king. Achilles points out that all the booty has already been distributed among the fighters: “collect it, call it back from the rank and file? That would be the disgrace” (I 147–148). It would be conduct unbefitting the “lord of men.” Achilles tries to direct Agamemnon’s sense of honor inward. He also suggests that after Apollo has been appeased with the return of Chryseis, and the Achaeans defeat the Trojans, Agamemnon will have prizes aplenty.
Achilles’s comments only escalate Agamemnon’s sense of indignity. The king says that in the absence of other compensation for giving Chryseis back, he will take a different captive for his concubine—perhaps, come to think of it, Achilles’s own Briseis.
Agamemnon’s response infuriates Achilles, whose appeal to an inner sense of honor instantly vanishes. Instead, he gives voice directly to an exceedingly delicate albeit largely unspoken subject: the tension between the greatest king and the greatest warrior. Achilles essentially claims that he has been doing Agamemnon a favor by fighting on his side. He points out that he and his Myrmidons never had a quarrel of their own with Priam. They came “to fight for you, to win your honor back from the Trojans” (I 187–188). Achilles feels that Agamemnon has now slighted him, disgraced him. He, Achilles, is the best warrior. His comment here indicates he may think Agamemnon on his own might not be up to the task of winning against the Trojans. Achilles is, moreover, a Myrmidon king, not an Argive subject of Agamemnon’s. He owes Agamemnon no allegiance—except, perhaps, in the sense that he has previously agreed to join with Agamemnon in the war with Troy.
Yet in the view of the greatest warrior, the rewards in prizes and glory have not been at all commensurate with his deeds:
“[ . . . ] My honors never equal yours,
whenever we sack some wealthy Trojan stronghold—
my arms bear the brunt of the raw, savage fighting,
true, but when it comes to dividing up the plunder
the lion’s share is yours, and back I go to my ships,
clutching some scrap, some pittance I love,
when I have fought to exhaustion.” (I 193–199)
Here, then, the relationship of the greatest warrior to the greatest king dissolves into a one-sided exercise in resentment. In the heat of the moment, Achilles loses touch with the inner sense of greatness that has been largely responsible for his heroic deeds, instead focusing on the insufficiency of the prizes he has won in compensation for them. He is right that the prizes have been inadequate to his achievements, but he is wrong, of course, in thinking that better prizes would have somehow satisfied him. Unlike Agamemnon, for whom the prizes are an essential acknowledgment of his authority as “lord of men,” the greatest warrior in his heart knows he needs no such acknowledgment, that he alone is master and judge of himself. This becomes burningly clear once Patroclus dies, as we have seen in the previous chapter. Now, however, Achilles threatens to walk out on Agamemnon, to quit the war and go home to Phthia.
Achilles’s complaint enrages Agamemnon further. With Achilles both denying the authority of Agamemnon over him and calling into question the fairness of his treatment at the hand of the lord of men, the confrontation between the two is getting into very dangerous territory. Agamemnon now chooses to belittle Achilles’s martial prowess as something for which Achilles himself deserves no credit: It is “just a gift of god” (I 211). He then paints Achilles as a deserter. The king warns him:
“[. . . ] I will be there in person at your tents
to take Briseis in all her beauty, your own prize—
so you can learn just how much greater I am than you
and the next man up may shrink from matching words with me,
from hoping to rival Agamemnon strength for strength.” (I 217–221)
At this, Achilles considers drawing his sword on Agamemnon. Homer describes the timely arrival of the goddess Athena, whom only Achilles can see. She urges him on behalf of herself and the goddess Hera to restrain himself: “Obey us both” (I 251). The appeal sways Achilles. He sheaths his sword and rounds once again verbally on Agamemnon, calling him a drunk and a coward, and admonishing him that the day will come when the Achaeans beg Achilles to return to fight for them.
Agamemnon is in turn unrelenting, berating Achilles:
. . . “this soldier wants to tower over the armies,
he wants to rule over all, to lord it over all,
give out orders to every man in sight.” (I 336–338)
Achilles replies that he himself would be a coward if he were willing to submit to any order Agamemnon chose to give: “Never again, I trust, will Achilles yield to you” (I 347). He says contemptuously that he won’t fight over Briseis, since the Achaeans, having been the ones who gave her to him in the first place, could have her back if they want. But he informs Agamemnon in the bloodiest of language that he will kill him if he attempts to take anything else “against my will” (I 353).
The two part ways. Agamemnon arranges for the return of Chryseis. Achilles, for his part, is now so enraged that he importunes the gods
