Homer's Divine Audience

Title Pages
Homer's Divine Audience: The Iliad's Reception

on Mount Olympus
Tobias Myers
Print publication date: 2019

Print ISBN-13: 9780198842354
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: August 2019
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198842354.001.0001
Title Pages
Tobias Myers
(p.i) Homer’s Divine Audience (p.ii)
(p.iii) Homer’s Divine Audience
(p.iv) Copyright Page
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Dedication

on Mount Olympus
Tobias Myers

Print ISBN-13: 9780198842354
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198842354.001.0001
(p.v) Dedication
Tobias Myers
for Nina (p.vi)
Page 1 of 1

Acknowledgements

on Mount Olympus
Tobias Myers

Print ISBN-13: 9780198842354
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198842354.001.0001
(p.vii) Acknowledgements
Tobias Myers
It is a task both pleasurable and daunting to recall the process by which this
book came into being, and the many people who contributed to its making. I can
still recall the desk where I was sitting, by the window of a 9th-floor apartment
on 110th Street in Manhattan, when I first felt the Iliad’s gods begin to work on
my perceptions in the way that this book argues they may. My 2011 Columbia
University doctoral dissertation was a first attempt to explore the relationship
between Homer’s audience and his gods. Subsequent revisions, deletions, and
expansions have resulted in a book that retains relatively little of the
dissertation’s content, but still reflects the formative ideas and critiques of those
who lent their assistance during my time as a graduate student, as well as those
who provided support and suggestions over several further stages of
development, during my time as a lecturer at Columbia and an assistant
professor at Connecticut College.
The faculty and graduate students at Columbia during my time there contributed
to a wonderfully conducive environment for research on Homer. Elizabeth Irwin
gave generously of her time throughout my dissertation work and beyond. Her
brilliant criticism, support, and enthusiasm over a period of many years were
invaluable. Katharina Volk not only improved my work with her comments, and
suggested the book’s eventual title, but also provided a necessary, steadying
perspective at a moment of crisis when I took the prior existence of an article
focusing on ‘my’ passages as evidence that I had arrived too late, and might as
well give up on the spot. Deborah Steiner, my dissertation adviser, introduced
me to the bewitching world of Homeric poetics, and improved my work
immeasurably through rounds of exacting readings and extensive comments.
Also, my sincere thanks to Jenny Strauss Clay, Helene Foley, Joseph Howley,
David Ratzan, Suzanne Saïd, Elizabeth Scharffenberger, Laura Slatkin, and
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Acknowledgements
Nancy Worman for their engagement with my work at this time. Special
additional thanks are owed to Jenny Clay for sharing her then unpublished book
Homer’s Trojan Theater with me at a crucial moment in my dissertation’s
development, for giving (p.viii) me needed confidence by taking my comments
on it seriously, and for her support.
Writing a book while teaching at a small liberal arts college presents its own
challenges and rewards. Absent the chance meetings with fellow Hellenists on
street-corners and in stairwells, or the fierce discussions in lounges after invited
talks, and without the push to publish as primary justification for one’s stipend
or salary, one feels all the more keenly the value of support and interest from
friends outside one’s speciality. I wish to thank friends with whom I discussed
the ideas in this book; I think especially of Joshua Babcock, Michael Caramanis,
Michael Fish, John Murray, Desiree Sykes, and Andrew Waight. I also wish to
thank the many people at Connecticut College who gave friendship and
professional advice, especially Ginny Anderson, Simon Feldman, Afshan Jafar,
Eileen Kane, Steve Luber, Ross Morin, and Caroleen Sayej. A pre-tenure
sabbatical leave granted by Connecticut College in the fall of 2016, and support
from the Judith Opatrny fund, provided time for research. The book’s final
revisions were completed with the generous support of Sofia Koutsiana and
Jackson Kellogg, who gave me the use of their Athens apartment as a daytime
writer’s retreat in the winter of 2017–18.
Several classicists offered encouragement, comments, and advice, mostly from

afar, whose importance to me would be hard to overstate. Eleanor Dickey gave
the right advice at a crucial moment in the quest to get this book published. I
thank Helen Lovatt for her encouragement, for sharing her then unpublished
book The Epic Gaze, and for her many insightful comments. I am also very
grateful to Hayden Pelliccia for his kindness, for the example of his scholarship,
and for his deep engagement with my own work by correspondence. Special
thanks are owed to Sarah Nooter for her unflagging support and brilliant
comments on draft chapters, typically offered within a space of days or hours, at
many times over the course of this project’s development. And I thank James
Uden warmly for conversations which always left me with a profound sense of
the fun, value, and limitless possibilities of scholarship, for his good company
throughout many days writing in an Athens library, and most of all for his
generosity in reading the entire penultimate draft of my manuscript in just over
six days. His comments proved crucial to the final stage of revision.
Valuable feedback on parts of this book was offered by audiences for talks, or
conference participants, at Columbia University, the (p.ix) Open University,
Cornell University, the University of California at Davis, The George Washington
University, Boston College, Connecticut College, and Amherst College.
Alexander Loney in particular went the extra mile as a respondent for a paper
that would eventually become this book’s Chapter 1. Sincere thanks are owed to
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Acknowledgements
the readers for Oxford University Press—it is sobering to think what this book
would lack, without the benefit of revisions in response to their comments. I also
wish to thank the editorial and production teams at Oxford University Press,
especially Charlotte Loveridge for her guidance and care with the review
process in the final months. Responsibility for any faults that remain in the book
belongs to moira, myself, and atē—though not necessarily in that order.
I thank my parents for always encouraging honest exploration, and my siblings

Emma, Paul, Peter, and Tamsin, who are each my hero in their own ways. I am
very grateful to my children, Nora and Natalia, for their admirable patience
while I worked on this project over what has been, after all, their entire lives to
date—and for their interesting suggestions and demands about the content of
my next book. Most of all, I thank my wife, Nina Papathanasopoulou, for her
support, energy, and the countless hours she devoted to revising my work and
finding the patterns I could not yet see, sometimes reading new drafts on a daily
basis. She also carried our lives at times when I was lost in research, and kept
the greater joys of life from ever slipping out of view. I dedicate this book to her,
with love and wonder. (p.x)
Page 3 of 3

List of Figures

on Mount Olympus
Tobias Myers

Print ISBN-13: 9780198842354
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198842354.001.0001
(p.xiii) List of Figures

Tobias Myers
0.1. Sixth-century Attic black-figure amphora depicting Heracles

wrestling a lion. Attributed to the Painter of Berlin or the Painter of
Tarquinia. The Art Institute of Chicago; Katherine K. Adler Memorial
Fund, 1978.114. 15
Photo: The Art Institute of Chicago/Art Resource, NY.
1.1. Sixth-century Attic black-figure amphora depicting two female
figures, hands upraised, who flank two duelling warriors on whom they
also gaze. Attributed to the Medea Group, c. 520 BCE. Side B, The
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Purchase, Christos G. Bastis Gift,
1961, 61.11.16.
www.metmuseum.org. 52
(p.xiv)
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Zeus, the Poet, and Vision

on Mount Olympus
Tobias Myers

Print ISBN-13: 9780198842354
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198842354.001.0001

Tobias Myers
DOI:10.1093/oso/9780198842354.003.0001
Abstract and Keywords

Chapter 1 argues that the Iliad’s proem anticipates certain key elements of the
battlefield spectacle to come: its central action (warfare and the desecration of
corpses), and its staging and direction (with Zeus and the poet as joint
orchestrators of the battlefield conflict). While the agency of Zeus and that of
the poet are highlighted in various ways throughout the text, they overlap
specifically in respect to their control of the warfare. Such moments of overlap
heighten excitement during performance, as the ‘now’ of performance and the
‘now’ of mythic Troy become momentarily indistinguishable. The chapter
concludes by bringing the lessons of its close readings together, to motivate and
describe a new approach to the metapoetics of the Iliad’s gods, in place of the
prevalent tendency to describe Zeus and the gods as drivers of ‘plot’. Instead,
the chapter suggests, divine control should be seen as the flip side of divine
viewing, and Zeus recognized as a figure who controls the course of the battle
(not the whole plot). One should ask not just how Zeus’ role and the poet’s
relate, but also what difference it makes for the Iliad as a performance event.
Where textual cues are sufficient, certain scenes of divine viewing can be
usefully read as a mise en abyme of the spectacle experience offered by the poet
to his listeners.
Keywords: plot, proem, nucleus, enargeia, staging, direction, Zeus, poet, metaperformative
A god can do it. But tell me, how
might a man follow through the narrow lyre?
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Rainer Marie Rilke1
It is right for me to sing to you as to a god.
Phemius2
The gods’ role as spectators does not become prominent until passages in Book
4 and later. Yet the spectacular quality of those passages depends in no small
part on their power to harvest the fruit of ideas introduced much earlier: in
particular, the idea that the poem’s essential action is playing out not as a result
of happenstance, but as the product of intentional orchestration. Starting with
its opening lines, the poem introduces and develops this idea primarily through
the presentation of two figures: the poet himself, and Zeus.
μῆνιν ἄειδε θεὰ Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος

οὐλομένην, ἣ μυρί᾽ Ἀχαιοῖς ἄλγε᾽ ἔθηκε,
πολλὰς δ᾽ ἰϕθίμους ψυχὰς Ἄϊδι προΐαψεν
ἡρώων, αὐτοὺς δὲ ἑλώρια τεῦχε κύνεσσιν
οἰωνοῖσί τε δαῖτα, Διὸς δ᾽ ἐτελείετο βουλή,
ἐξ οὗ δὴ τὰ πρῶτα διαστήτην ἐρίσαντε
Ἀτρεΐδης τε ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν καὶ δῖος Ἀχιλλεύς.
τίς τ᾽ ἄρ σϕωε θεῶν ἔριδι ξυνέηκε μάχεσθαι;
Λητοῦς καὶ Διὸς υἱός…
– 1.1–9
(p.28) Sing, goddess, the wrath of the son of Peleus, Achilles –

the destructive/accursed [wrath], which set countless sufferings on
the Achaeans,
and hurled forth to Hades many noble souls
of heroes – and them it was making into prey for dogs,
and a banquet for birds, and Dios boulē [‘a/the plan/will of Zeus’]
was coming to fulfilment –
yes, from when first they stood apart, in strife,
the son of Atreus, lord of men, and bright/godlike Achilles.
Which of the gods, then, brought them in strife to vie?
The son of Leto and Zeus…
By directing the Muse to sing (ἄειδε 1.1), specifying the subject matter (μῆνιν…
Ἀχιλῆος 1.1), and selecting a starting point for the narrative (ἐξ οὗ δὴ…and τίς
τ᾽ ἄρ σϕωε…1.6–9), the poet introduces himself as a figure of agency. That is, he
not only makes these decisions, but enacts the decision-making in propria
persona. During these initial moments, the Iliad’s dramatic ‘stage’ is not the
plain of Troy, but the setting of the poem’s performance. The dramatic action is
the performer’s assumption of the role of aoidos (‘singer’), in view of and for the
benefit of his audience, and his presentation of an initial vision of the Iliad:
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Achaean suffering, heroes dying, the exposure of corpses, and Zeus’ role in
bringing all of this about (1.2–5).
With the sudden statement in line 5 that Zeus’ boulē was being accomplished,
the poet invites listeners to conceive of the elements he has just highlighted—
violent death, the exposure of corpses—as being not only central to his song, but
also crucial, perhaps culminating features of Zeus’ designs. One effect of this
move is to set the poet’s vision of the Iliad in a tragic light: the song’s focus, we
are told, will be dying and defilement as the realization of an ineluctable divine
plan. Another effect is to suggest a parallel between Zeus and the poet. After all,
hearing these lines in their dramatic context—the invocation of the Muse—we
are also being told that the song’s focus will be dying and defilement as the
realization of the poet’s request. The roles of the poet and Zeus are thus
suggestively connected, through the results that their activities jointly produce—
the epic drama that the audience is about to experience.
The invocation presents a conundrum. As many scholars have noted, bodies are
never actually consumed by dogs and birds in the Iliad. Yet the poet presents
this situation, which is never to be narrated at all, as though it is foremost in his
mind as the poem begins. Zeus, for (p.29) his part, will memorably work to
ensure the preservation and proper burial of bodies—not their consumption by
birds and dogs.3 I will return to this apparent problem later, to offer a new
solution, which emerges in the course of pursuing the chapter’s main objectives.
This chapter explores the programmatic significance of the poem’s early focus
on the agency of both Zeus and the poet. It argues that the proem looks ahead to
an epic which puts mortality on display—a promise fulfilled at climactic
moments in which the audience is led to perceive violent action as the object not
only of viewing, but also of deliberate staging and direction. I use ‘staging’ as a
shorthand for these interrelated ideas: the act of arranging for an event or set of
events to occur (for instance, the day’s battle); the act of arranging for them to
occur before the eyes of a viewership; and finally the act of making these staging
operations evident to that viewership—that is, the creation of what might be
called a staged quality.
‘Direction’ I use to refer to ongoing direct control of a spectacle that has been
staged, and is in progress. The word is intended to capture loosely the following
set of ideas: Zeus sometimes directs as a general directs—commanding Iris and
Apollo, for instance, to deliver his orders to others. He also affects the direction
in which the battle turns, toward the Trojans or the Achaeans, as they push back
and forth. Like battles, a story may take a particular ‘direction’ (a metaphor
particularly apt for story-tellers working in an oral tradition who visualize their
story as linear sequence4), and when it comes to the progress of the spectacle at
Troy, Zeus, like the poet, sometimes organizes what he sees into narrative form.
Finally, we may think of the director of a play—anachronistic as the analogy may
Page 3 of 36

be, it does point to another important quality of Zeus’ direction, namely his
interest in creating a powerful dramatic effect. The language of staging and
direction is not intended to be prescriptive. Rather, I find it a useful alternative
to what has become the standard way of talking about Zeus’ special agency in
the Iliad, namely Zeus’ control of the poem’s ‘plot’ (see further below). The key
point, which links the various ideas in the foregoing list, is that Zeus’ control
helps to define, (p.30) and is itself defined in relation to, the central action—or
‘nucleus’—of a spectacle.5
Both Zeus and the poet stage and direct, in ways that are generally distinct, but
sometimes overlap to the point that attempting to distinguish between the two
figures seems to run against the grain of the text. Consider, for instance, the
opening of Book 11, where Zeus and the poet stage (in all three senses
enumerated above) the military spectacle of the third day of fighting.6 First,
Zeus sends Eris to the Achaeans’ ships holding a πολέμοιο τέρας (‘portent of
warfare’ 11.4). Eris’ shout makes the Achaeans eager for war and fighting
(11.12), and makes warfare sweeter for them than going home (11.13). Zeus
rouses a wicked confusion, and sends drops wet with blood from the sky οὕνεκ’
ἔμελλε / πολλὰς ἰϕθίμους κεϕαλὰς Ἄϊδι προϊάψειν (‘because he was about to
hurl many noble men [lit. “heads”] to Hades’ 11.52–55). This language recalls
that of the proem (1.3), while presenting a clearer and more tangible impression
of Zeus’ agency: where the proem intimates a vague connection between the
fulfilment of Zeus’ boulē (‘plan’ 1.5) and the sending of many noble souls to
Hades, in 11.53 Zeus himself is named as the one who will be doing the sending
(ἔμελλε…προϊάψειν ‘he was about to hurl’). It is Zeus’ direct control, as much as
his observation, that will define this conflict as a spectacle.7
For whose benefit is Zeus’ red rain? It does not seem to be for those who will be
fighting. There is no mention of any characters’ reactions to rain tinged with
blood, though this would surely be a bizarre and terrifying portent, especially for
peoples accustomed to look to celestial and atmospheric phenomena for clues in
times of uncertainty.8 The lack of a thambēsan (‘they were amazed’) or chlōron
deos (‘green fear’) suggests that the poet is thinking less of an omen for the
mortal actors, and more of a signal to his audience that the day’s battle will be
extraordinary and terrible.
Further, Zeus’ act smacks of ritual, suggesting something of the nature and
import of what Homer’s audience is ‘seeing’ at Troy. (p.31) The evidence of
Book 16—where Zeus will again pour down ‘bloody drops’ to the ground,
explicitly to ‘honour’ Sarpedon, who is about to die—suggests that the bloody
rain in Book 11, too, honours those who are about to perish.9 Indeed, the
pouring of blood onto the ground would be familiar to ancient audiences as a
very old way of honouring the dead.10 For one accustomed to such rituals, to be
witness to this falling blood might be felt as a kind of participation in the act of
honouring. Notably, the order of events is here reversed: the blood sent by Zeus
Page 4 of 36

descends to the ground to honour warriors who are not yet dead, at least in the
time-frame established by the narration.11 Yet for Homer’s audience, hoi nun
(‘men of today’), the race of heroes perished long ago, and so the evocation of
death ritual is particularly appropriate. Is this rain, then, a sign sent by Zeus, or
by the poet through Zeus? At this point, it would be hard to distinguish; nor, I
think, does the text ask us to do so. What is interesting is how the agency of
those two figures is highlighted at a point where they largely overlap, thereby
presenting the battle as a spectacle intended to command attention, and a
complex form of involvement, on the part of the viewer. This is what I mean by
‘staging’; an example of ‘direction’—in the battle for Sarpedon’s corpse in Book
16—is discussed in section 1.2 below.
This preliminary reading points to a nest of related questions. What is the nature
of viewer involvement in the spectacle at Troy? How is the poet’s agency made
manifest in the text? How does it relate to that of Zeus? These are complex
issues, which this chapter addresses beginning with the proem. Before taking
them up, however, it is worth noting another, perhaps more fundamental issue
that connects them all: namely, the problem of how to understand the
relationship between the world in which the poet sings to his (p.32) audience
on the one hand, and the world in which Achilles rages and Hector is buried, on
the other.
Three approaches to the problem of how these two worlds relate suggest
themselves. Classical narratology would relate them hierarchically, as located on
distinct ‘levels’ of narration. The poet’s world—containing himself and his
audience—is on an extradiegetic level (that is, outside his own diegesis), and
Zeus with all of the other characters are on an intradiegetic level (within the
diegesis). This hierarchical conception is fundamental to analysis of the Iliad as
narrative. Yet the Iliad does not present itself simply as narrative in the
abstract.12 Rather, it is a live event that seeks to involve audiences in the terror
and glory of their authentic past.13 The Iliad is art, but it is not fiction. There is a
reality that it seeks to attain, however imperfectly, and the poet draws on the
divine to make this happen.
A second way to describe the gap between Zeus and poet, or between audience
and Troy, is with reference to time-frames. The war is being run by Zeus in the
past; whereas the Iliad is being performed by the singer in the present. Indeed, a
double temporal perspective is woven into the fabric of our text, which implicitly
constructs its audience among ‘the people of the present’ (hoi nun) and, in other
passages, among ‘the people of the future’ (essomenoisi). This temporal gap is in
some respect bridged, from the audience’s point of view, whenever Homer
succeeds in making them feel they are eye-witnesses to past events.
Page 5 of 36

Jenny Strauss Clay, in a study illuminating the remarkable consistency of the

spatial layout of ‘Homer’s Trojan Theater’, describes the relationship between
worlds in the following way:
To claim that the Homeric poet makes the past present to his audience or
that he transports them from the present into the past – although he
manages to do both – does not quite do justice to the kaleidoscopic and
shifting character of the aoidos’ relation to the heroic world of which he
sings. I would prefer to describe that relation less in terms of past and
present but instead in spatial terms. The world of the heroes is not only (p.
33) past, it is elsewhere. The Muses can convey it to us not because they
were there when the Greeks and Trojans fought but because they are
present (πάρεστε) on the battlefield before Troy and are able to transmit
what they witness into our field of vision.14
This spatial sense of the shifting relationship between the performance setting
and the ‘heroic world’ does indeed emerge from the text, as I will argue,
contributing to the Iliad’s presentation of its action as spectacle. In general, I
have tried to remain alert to how all three of these basic ways of describing the
relationship between worlds—the hierarchical, temporal, and spatial—may
interact to shape audience perceptions in a given passage.
This chapter falls into three parts. The first part considers the role of the poet,
and then that of Zeus, in the proem and looking forward. It argues that the
proem’s interest in narrative content is bound up in its interest in enargeia (the
quality of vivid immediacy and presence). The second part moves far ahead in
the Iliad to consider an example of the sort of passage for which I see the proem
preparing: a passage that draws attention to the union of the poet’s and Zeus’
intentions in a spectacle displaying battle, death, and defilement. A conclusion
brings together the lessons of each of the chapter’s close readings, to outline a
new way of looking at the metapoetics of the Iliad’s ‘divine apparatus’.
1.1. The Proem’s Promise

1.1.1. The Poet and Audience Involvement
Discussions of the proem’s programmatics often focus on narrative content: plot;
theme; character; what the Iliad will be a story ‘about’. But the proem’s
anticipation of content, I suggest, is closely bound up with its anticipation of
enargeia. The audience is primed not only for the telling of a story, but for a way
of conceptualizing the intensity of their experience as they listen to the telling.
In supporting this claim, I consider first some stylistic features of the brief,
striking narrative of (p.34) lines 2–5 and the speech act of which they form a
part (the invocation). I then ask how reminders of the poet’s agency beyond the
proem may impact on audience experience of the Iliad’s ongoing performance.
Page 6 of 36

Homeric poetry is famed for making readers as well as listeners into eye-
witnesses, ‘riveting our attention to the act in itself and by itself’.15 According to
Erich Auerbach’s influential assessment of Homeric style, the story’s action
unfolds in a ‘uniformly illuminated’ present that ‘knows no background’.
Phenomena are presented ‘in terms perceptible to the senses’, and ‘in a local
and temporal present which is absolute’.16 Even scholarship demonstrating
shortcomings in Auerbach’s views has often reaffirmed his reading of a vividness
that is characteristically Homeric: that is, the smooth, rhythmical succession of
phenomena, each of which captivates the mind’s attention in turn.17 As Michael
Lynn-George puts it, ‘The achievement of his [Auerbach’s] analysis has been to
retrieve another time as a pure present, to make “once long ago” the same as
“now”.’18 Whereas Auerbach described Homeric vividness in terms of an
unconscious reflex, a ‘need’ to leave nothing obscure,19 subsequent scholarship
has shown that on the contrary, enargeia for Homer ‘was a quality to display,
reflect on and worry about’.20 The poet wants us to appreciate his poem’s
enargeia, and invites us to understand it as deriving from the Muse’s vision,
presence, and supreme skill in song.21
I would emphasize that this invitation begins with the proem itself. In a certain
respect, lines 2–5 resemble the regular narrative of the (p.35) Iliad. They
consist of declarative statements in the past tense, in the same traditional
language as the rest of the poem. Yet they present the reverse of what Auerbach
claimed to be the essence of the Homeric style. Homeric battles feature vivid
anatomical detail, but here fighting and dying are not described—they are
evoked obliquely, by reference to their causes (Achilles’ anger, Zeus’ plan) and
their effects (souls sent to Hades, bodies made vulnerable to scavengers).
‘Wrath’ is not normally the subject of verbs such as hurling and making. What is
missing is precisely that sense of visual immediacy and presence that the Muse’s
song is about to supply.22 ‘Homer cannot but concentrate all passion in a
momentary scene,’ writes Auerbach. ‘Before and after hardly exist, blank ages
that can scarcely be imagined or accounted for.’ Here, however, the gulf
between past and present is measured by the contrast between the present
imperative ‘sing’ and the past tense verbs of lines 2–5. Instead of the brilliance
of a world ‘fully illuminated’, we have the opacity of Dios boulē.
In the next lines, with the Muse successfully invoked, we are to understand that
the gulf between past and present has been bridged. The poet indicates the
approaching prayer-man, Chryses, by using a deictic, as though Chryses were
part of a visual field shared by poet and audience: τὸν Χρύσην (‘that man,
Chryses’ 1.11—trans. Lynn-George 1988: 51). Additional details prolong the
shared imagining of Chryses: his fillets, his hands, and his staff of gold (1.13–
14). Then, Chryses speaks. Character (or ‘mimetic’) speech breaks down the
distinction between the past and present, for it fosters the illusion that the
audience is directly hearing voices of long ago.23 Beseeching the assembled
Achaeans (λίσσετο πάντας Ἀχαιούς 1.15), Chryses first wishes that ‘you’ may
Page 7 of 36

sack Troy and return safely (1.19–20), then formally requests his daughter’s
return, using another deictic to indicate what he brought: τὰ δ’ ἄποινα δέχεσθαι
(‘take these things, the ransom’ 1.20).24 As the bard performs this speech, his
audience is (p.36) meant to feel themselves present at the assembly, listening
along with the Achaeans to Chryses’ plea.25
One might ask at this point just how much the poet’s agency actually figures in
the Iliad’s performance following the proem. After all, Homeric performance
poses on some level as the enactment of an old, unaltered tradition, in which the
poet’s freedom might be perceived as more or less circumscribed.26 Also, in this
variation of the opening invocation it is the Muse who has been asked to
‘sing’ (ἄειδε).27 Nevertheless, in continuing to think about the perspective of the
implied audience, I would point to the poet’s voice as a potent emblem of
continued agency. By calling on the Muse to sing, Homer invites his audience to
hear his own living, human voice—when he begins the song proper—as imbued
with the numinous power and authenticity they associate with the goddess.28
When Muses sing (ἀείδειν) in their own voices (as at Iliad 1.601–4), they do so
for the pleasure of gods. Thus, there is a sense in which the poet of the Iliad is,
like Phemius to Odysseus, offering to sing to each of his listeners ‘as to a
god’ (ὥς τε θεῷ Od.23.348).29
(p.37) Gregory Nagy similarly connects agency to voice: the poet who must ask
the seeing Muses for aid (at Il.2.486) is nevertheless himself ‘the master of kléos’
precisely for the reason that ‘it is actually he who recites it to his audience’.30
Emily Vermeule posits a special delight on the part of poet and audience, a
delight derived from their collective, continual appreciation of the poet’s
artistry: ‘the goal of a good epic poet…is to kill people with picturesque detail,
power and high spirits…and Homer the murderer never bores us.’31 Vermeule is
highly attuned to the poem’s artistry (she makes repeated comparisons to
ballet), but does not, I think, make sufficient allowance for the poetry’s claim to
provide access to a kind of truth that is not available in quotidian life. Vermeule
is nevertheless persuasive in positing the audience’s awareness of another kind
of truth: that men die precisely when and precisely how the poet’s voice tells us
they die; that is, when his words induce us to see it happening.32
On the evidence of the Odyssey, a bard will be judged on the basis of μορϕὴ
ἐπεῶν (‘shapeliness of words’), and whether he speaks κατὰ κόσμον / μοῖραν
(‘according to the ordering’ or perhaps ‘in the right way’).33 The latter phrases
would seem to emphasize the need for authenticity, such as that associated with
autopsy: the poet must convince.34 Meanwhile, it is his words, their shapeliness
(μορϕὴ ἐπεῶν), that must make each phenomenon real for the audience. In this
sense, the poet’s agency is palpable throughout.
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Additional attention is drawn to the poet’s ongoing role by his use of certain
identifiable techniques, as a growing body of scholarship shows.35 These
techniques include: references to οἱ νῦν (‘the men of (p.38) today’); statements
of what ‘would have’ happened next; apostrophes to characters; (re)invocations
of the Muse; and the introduction of a ‘hypothetical observer’ or ‘would-be
eyewitness’ (e.g., ‘then not even an observant man would have recognized
Sarpedon…’). Emphasizing his role as performer entails reminding listeners of
their own corresponding role as his audience. Hence, the use of these devices
may also be understood as a way of re-emphasizing that sense of separation—
first established in the proem—between the ‘now’ of narration and the ‘now’ at
Troy.
Yet reminders of the poet’s and audience’s roles should not necessarily be seen
as a way of ‘breaking the spell’ that reveals the other world. In many cases,
vividness may actually be enhanced. Distance and proximity are not exclusive.36
In fact, the poetry can be at its most captivating when it insists on both at once.
Consider this passage from Book 13—one which later tradition will record that
Homer chose as his best:37
ἔϕριξεν δὲ μάχη ϕθισίμβροτος ἐγχείῃσι

μακρῇς, ἃς εἶχον ταμεσίχροας· ὄσσε δ᾽ ἄμερδεν
αὐγὴ χαλκείη κορύθων ἄπο λαμπομενάων
θωρήκων τε νεοσμήκτων σακέων τε ϕαεινῶν
ἐρχομένων ἄμυδις· μάλα κεν θρασυκάρδιος εἴη
ὃς τότε γηθήσειεν ἰδὼν πόνον οὐδ᾽ ἀκάχοιτο.
– 13.339–45
Then battle, that wastes men, bristled with the long spears
they held, that slice flesh; and eyes were blinded
by the gleam of bronze from their beaming helmets,
and new-forged breastplates and shields shining,
as they came together. Fierce-hearted indeed would be one who
was gladdened then, looking on the struggle, and not grieved.
Helms, breastplates, and shields shine brilliantly. In a move from the abstract to
the palpable, the idea behind phthisimbrotos (‘that wastes men’ 13.339), used of
the ‘battle’, is recalled and made concrete in the (p.39) next line by
tamesikhroas (‘that slice flesh’), used of the ‘spears’.38 One might call this
moment the epitome of Auerbach’s ‘illuminated’ present—the foreground
reaches out as though to blot out any possibility of a background. Yet pace
Auerbach, the illumination is in no way an unconscious reflex.39 I read ὄσσε δ᾽
ἄμερδεν (‘and eyes were blinded’ [literally ‘harmed, damaged’]) as a climactic
moment—not in terms of the plot, but in terms of audience involvement. As no
one’s eyes are specified (no τῶν δέ introduces ὄσσε ἄμερδεν), the reach of the
gleam that blinds is open-ended; it dazzles any eyes it reaches.40 So the poet
says; then he makes us see it. This broadly shared visual experience is couched
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in a language of harm—amerdo, to ruin or damage. It is as though, in this one

respect, even those removed in space and time could be harmed along with the
fighters.
Yet in the very words that make this enargeia so compelling, joining past and
present, we also find a reminder of continued separation from that brilliant
reality. By enumerating the objects sending forth light, the poet compels their
visualization: the audience can still see, as can he. The paradox is this: the better
we ‘see’—the more successful the poet is in uniting past and present—the more
blinded we are. But the blinding will never be total, for we will never be only at
Troy.
Reflection on this paradox is evident in the succeeding statement: only someone

‘fierce-hearted’ (θρασυκάρδιος) would be gladdened, not grieved, by looking
(13.344–5). The poet is making an evaluative comment, thereby increasing
audience awareness of his mediating role (distance). Yet the comment also
prompts the audience to think of their relationship to the spectacle in terms of
direct visual perception (presence; proximity).41 It does so by posing the
question: are you gladdened, or grieved? To entertain this question is to grant,
at least provisionally, its premise: that one has, in fact, been seeing the battle.
(p.40) The very self-consciousness of the Iliad’s enargeia, then, can increase its
power to captivate. One might say that Homer has indeed achieved a present
that is ‘pure’ (Auerbach)—not because it excludes all other time-frames, but
because it acknowledges two time-frames while claiming them both as a single
present. In this way the separation between worlds that the proem establishes
on the one hand, and the enargeia that it anticipates on the other, are working in
tandem to generate an effect of greater enthrallment. The proem not only
anticipates a story in which Achilles’ anger leads to battlefield death and
defilement, but also anticipates an enhanced sense of directly experiencing
those past events, through the poet’s ceaseless execution of his song. It remains
to be seen how the statement that Zeus’ plan was coming to fulfilment interacts
with these other programmatic elements of the proem.
1.1.2. Dios d’eteleieto boulē

The formulaic phrase Dios boulē (‘plan/will of Zeus’),42 here itself used within
the larger formula Dios d’eteleieto boulē (‘[the/a] plan/will of Zeus was coming to
fulfilment’), serves more than one programmatic purpose. It establishes right
away the Iliad’s connection to the larger mythological tradition in which Zeus’
plans figure so prominently.43 Thinking somewhat more locally, one may note
that the phrase also anticipates the central importance of Zeus’ decision-making
in the Iliad as it proceeds to unfold.44 Of primary concern for the present study,
however, is the way that Dios d’eteleieto boulē functions in concluding the series
of emotionally charged statements in lines 2–5.45 In this section and the next I
will argue that these lines taken (p.41) together serve to anticipate a particular
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kind of metaperformative moment that recurs in the Iliad: moments when the
poet will pause, while bringing to life a particularly terrible and riveting
spectacle, to draw his audience’s attention to the roles of both Zeus and himself
in orchestrating all that they are seeing.
By concluding a short narrative (in this case, lines 2–5) with the idea of Zeus’
will coming to pass, Homer appears to be employing a trope of early hexameter
poetry. Let us compare passages from two texts roughly contemporary with the
Iliad: the Odyssey, and Hesiod’s Theogony. In Odyssey Book 11, Odysseus is
telling the Phaeacians of his journeys since Troy. He concludes a brief and
partial account of the story of Melampus and the cattle of Iphicles in the
following way:
ἀλλ’ ὅτε δὴ μῆνές τε καὶ ἡμέραι ἐξετελεῦντο

ἂψ περιτελλομένου ἔτεος καὶ ἐπήλυθον ὧραι,
καὶ τότε δή μιν ἔλυσε βίη Ἰϕικληείη,
θέσϕατα πάντ’ εἰπόντα· Διὸς δ’ ἐτελείετο βουλή.
– Od.11.294–7
But when indeed the months and days were filling out their course,
with the year coming round again, and the time came –
then it was that the might of Iphicles freed him [Melampus],
after he [Melampus] told all that was ordained. And the plan of Zeus
was coming to fulfilment.
Two related points can be made about Odysseus’ use of Dios d’eteleieto boulē.
First, he is marking a moment of narrative transition, within the larger story of
his travels: having said as much as he will on the subject of Melampus, he moves
on. Second, it seems that Zeus’ plan was coming to fruition through the freeing
of Iphicles—the very event which Odysseus, the story-teller in this case, has
chosen as an ending for his narration of the tale. Lexical repetition supports
such a reading—compare ἐξετελεῦντο, of the time of imprisonment, with
ἐτελείετο, of Zeus’ plan. Indeed, the binding of Iphicles has itself been attributed
just a few lines earlier to an allotment set by a god (χαλεπὴ δὲ θεοῦ κατὰ μοῖρα
πέδησε Od.11.292).46
A nearly equivalent formula is used in Hesiod’s Theogony to conclude a story of

Jason, Medea, and their child Medeius. Hesiod (the (p.42) voice of the singer)
has just told how Jason led Medea away from her homeland βουλῇσι θεῶν
αἰειγενετάων (‘through the plans (boulai) of the immortal gods’ Hes.Th.993). He
concludes his short narrative with Medeius’ birth (Μήδειον τέκε παῖδα ‘she bore
Medeius, her child’ Hes.Th.1001), and upbringing: τὸν οὔρεσιν ἔτρεϕε Χείρων /
Φιλυρίδης· μεγάλου δὲ Διὸς νόος ἐξετελεῖτο (‘Cheiron, son of Philyris, was
raising him in the mountains—and the mind (noos) of great Zeus was coming to
fulfilment’ Hes.Th.1002). Though noos appears instead of boulē, exeteleito
ensures that we understand noos as a plan with a goal—essentially a synonym
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for boulē. Evidently, Zeus’ intention was to see Medeius conceived and raised to
manhood. Hesiod, like Odysseus, concludes his mini-narrative with these words
and moves on.
In both the Odyssey and Theogony passages, the formula looks backward,
marking an ending—not to the larger story, but to the events that have just been
recounted. Narrator and god, it turns out, have been aiming for a particular
telos.47 If that of Zeus has not yet been fully achieved—as the imperfect
(ex)eteleieto hints—neither perhaps has the speaker come to the end of the
song-path on which he first embarked. Probably, he sees always further ahead.
Homeric epic, certainly, does not lend itself to finality.
Contemporary criticism loves to find reflexivity in art. It has become common

even among classicists (a tribe noted for our resistance to trends in criticism) to
discuss Zeus’ control of the poem’s ‘plot’, often explicitly or implicitly assigning
a metapoetic significance to his activities. Zeus’ boulē in line 5 is no exception:
the phrase ‘appears to define’ the poem’s plot initially,48 has the poem’s plot as a
‘referent’;49 or indeed is ‘the self-proclaimed “plot” of our Iliad’.50 (p.43) Yet
caution is in order. There is no word for (literary) plot in Homeric Greek.
Instead, we find words richly expressive of the social and cultural contexts in
which story-telling is embedded—words such as aoidē (‘song’), oimē (‘song-
path’), and klea andrōn (‘glories of / stories about men’).51 Whereas metapoetic
readings of the Odyssey begin firmly grounded in the philologist’s demesne—
Demodocus and Phemius are aoidoi (‘singers’)—the lexeme boulē does not make
so clear an invitation.
Metapoetics will be discussed more fully at the end of this chapter. For now, I
would like to suggest that in the case of the Iliad’s proem, the idea of the story’s
‘plot’ is bound up inextricably with the dynamics of the poet’s invocation, his
perspective, and his choices. I am not arguing that Archaic Greeks did not
conceive of story-lines in the abstract. Indeed, accustomed to hearing traditional
tales in many forms and circumstances, they surely must have formed some
habits of thinking about story-lines independently of any particular wording,
performance, genre, or even medium. Nevertheless, the Iliad proem, by
foregrounding the circumstances of performance, pushes audiences away from
such abstraction and toward the concrete. Plot does not exist anywhere in
particular. Zeus and the story-teller both do. These are figures who appear
before the audience on stage, can grip their imagination, and are presented as
commanding a direct impact on their experience.52 As the Iliad begins, Zeus is
not abstract, so much as distant—like Troy itself. He will not be for long. I
suggest therefore that what we tend to read as reflections on the progress of the
plot, an abstraction congenial to our critical habits, would be more likely
received in live performance dramatically, in terms of intentions realized—those
of the poet and of Zeus.
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How far do those intentions reach, as portended in the proem? The poet’s
narration and Zeus’ plan intersect at line 5. This ‘ending’ looks ahead, unlike the
parallel moments in the narratives of Odysseus and Hesiod. Yet it need not look
ahead to the poem’s conclusion. No evidence from early hexameter poetry
suggests that audiences would expect to be oriented at the beginning of a song
by phrases defining or (p.44) referring to the entire plot of the coming
narrative.53 Rather, in Hesiod and the Homeric Hymns, as in the Iliad and the
Odyssey, audiences are oriented initially by the naming of a theme, an aspect of
whose importance is then elaborated. The Odyssey proem’s elaboration of the
‘man’ theme does feature at least one specific plot development from the
Odyssey proper—the consumption of the cattle of Helios—but makes no attempt
to signal the scope, let alone the outline, of the coming narrative. In the case of
the Iliad proem, no specific plot events are mentioned except for the opening
quarrel.
One could—joining many critics—detect in this Dios boulē a reference to Zeus’

plan to glorify Achilles by granting Trojan success, which appears later in Book
1. Taking a somewhat longer view of Zeus’ planning, one could also see the
phrase referring to the plan of Zeus that aims for Troy’s fall. The destruction of
Troy makes a kind of telos toward which the Iliad seems to tend, without ever
reaching it.54 A third possible referent, on an even larger scale, is a plan by Zeus
to reduce the human population by means of the Trojan War.55 However, critics
have been most persuasive in arguing for an ‘open’ or ‘indeterminate’ referent in
the Dios boulē of Il.1.5.56 Notably, each of the three referents just listed would
situate the poem’s stated theme, mēnis Achilēos, in a different causal
relationship with Dios boulē. The phrase thus creates tension, by raising
questions of causality, responsibility, and the nature of beginnings.57 Unable to
pin (p.45) down the plan, we are left imagining how the words and images we
are given—the dying and desecration—may fit with what follows.
The Iliad’s proem poses particularly stiff resistance to being read as an

anticipation of the poem’s plot. According to the vision adumbrated here, it is
not the ransoming and burial of Hector’s body (in Book 24) that contributes to
the fulfilment of Zeus’ plan, but the hurling of souls to Hades and the making of
heroes into feasts for animals. Moreover, as James Redfield has observed, the
arrangement of aorist to imperfect tenses in the four verbs of lines 2–5 create
the troubling impression that the desecration of bodies (in the imperfect), even
more than the killing (in the aorist), is the ‘special accomplishment’ of Zeus.58
How is it that the climactic moment of the proem’s narrative seems to be, in the
Iliad proper, a non-event—often threatened but never described?
In the face of this obstacle, Redfield nevertheless sees the proem reaching out to
embrace the whole Iliad: ‘The poet asks his Muse for the Iliad, and in asking for
it must say what it is. The proem thus states in brief compass the whole of which
it is the introductory part.’ To reconcile the proem’s content with the content of
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the Iliad, Redfield treats content primarily in terms of theme rather than plot:
‘The Iliad, [the proem] tells us, will explore the relations between man, beast,
and god; it will be a story of suffering and death, and will go beyond this to tell
of the ultimate fate of the dead.’59 This reading, by illuminating thematic
connections between poem and proem, does perhaps make the apparent
contradictions seem less important. But it does not really explain them. On the
subject of Zeus’ agency, Redfield suggests that the proem is ‘partly right’, since
‘gods bring war’, and war brings out human savagery, which leads to the
defilement of corpses.60 But finding that the proem is ‘partly right’, by way of
such an extended chain of logical connections, is not very satisfying.61
James Morrison has argued that the proem’s carrion-eaters constitute an

example of intentional misdirection on the part of the poet. The benefit of this
misdirection is found in the cultivation of (p.46) suspense: a ‘first-time’
audience for the Iliad would have to wonder whether Achilles will in fact carry
out his threat to see Hector’s body devoured by scavengers, since the narrator
has ‘authorized’ such an eventuality from the beginning.62 By this reading, the
proem does look ahead to the end of the Iliad after all, since it is only through
the ransoming and burial of Hector in Book 24 that the ‘real’ ending finally
supersedes that which the proem had seemed to anticipate. I can imagine that Il.
1.4–5 might well have the effect Morrison describes on some listeners. Yet I
would read the proem as a whole somewhat differently.
It is perfectly possible that an aoidos at the beginning of his performance might

be contemplating the song he plans to sing in its entirety.63 However, this is not
what the poet of the Iliad gives us. Rather, the impression his words create as he
asks the Muse to sing is that of a man gazing out ahead, over the song-path. He
sees something essential, and terrible; something that gives him pause. The
pause is signalled, even prior to his sudden shift to Zeus, by the imperfect tense
of τεῦχε (‘was making’ into prey for dogs…1.4)—a little discussed but significant
feature to which we will return. I do not think it is possible to identify a specific
moment in the poem on which the poet is pausing (unlike the Odyssey’s explicit
reference to the consumption of Helios’ cattle). But I do think that the
anticipation he sets up in the proem resonates most powerfully in moments of a
certain kind. Let us too journey out far along the song-path, to consider an
illustration of the sort of passage that, I suggest, re-echoes with the proem’s
promise.
1.2. Realizing the Proem’s Promise: An Illustrative Example from Book 16

Sarpedon lies dead. The fight to capture Troy has become, at least in this area of
the front lines, the fight to capture his body. The struggle (p.47) is so ferocious
and prolonged that mutilation and dust have robbed the dead man of any visible
traces of his individuality (16.638–40). This turn is not without irony, for it is
Sarpedon’s particularity—son of Zeus, king of the Lycians, and one of Troy’s
greatest defenders—that have made corpse and arms so desirable. Yet at the
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centre of the warriors’ frenzy is a bloody shape that might now to all
appearances be any body. ‘Not even a discerning man could have recognized
him’ (16.638–9), but surely no one in the melee is trying to look. The aggression
is relentless, mindless; so much is conveyed by the simile that follows, which
likens the men fighting for the corpse to flies swarming over milk in a pail
(16.641–4).
At this moment, the poet ‘steps back’ to recontextualize the scene, which he has
just been describing so vividly, as the object of Zeus’ gaze:
ὣς ἄρα τοὶ περὶ νεκρὸν ὁμίλεον, οὐδέ ποτε Ζεὺς

τρέψεν ἀπὸ κρατερῆς ὑσμίνης ὄσσε ϕαεινώ,
ἀλλὰ κατ᾽ αὐτοὺς αἰὲν ὅρα καὶ ϕράζετο θυμῷ,
πολλὰ μάλ᾽ ἀμϕὶ ϕόνῳ Πατρόκλου μερμηρίζων…
– 16.644–7
Just so they were moving round the corpse – nor ever did Zeus
turn his shining eyes from the fierce fighting –
but continually he was looking at them and pondering in his thymos,
contemplating the slaughter of Patroclus…
It often happens in the Iliad that an extended description of fighting concludes

with a short sentence, introduced by ὥς (just so, thus) and summing up what has
been described, before a switch of scene—that is, a move to another area of the
battlefield.64 At line 644, however, the sudden incorporation of Zeus who ‘never
turned his eyes away’ (16.644–5) rejects, for the moment, that well-established
narrative possibility. The poet, as well as Zeus, is refusing to turn away.
The Iliad loves to compel, and comment on, the viewing of a corpse—its beauty,
or its violation. Iliadic contests—whether military or funerary—are regularly set
in relation to a corpse. The body may be (p.48) the struggle’s product, cause,
prize, or honorand.65 Indeed, it may take only a small cue from the poet to ‘flip’
a scene in a listener’s mind, or position the corpse in multiple relations at once,
as we will see.
The fixed intensity of Zeus’ gaze defines the nucleus of the spectacle with
precision: περὶ νεκρὸν ὁμίλεον (‘they were moving round the corpse’ 16.644);
κρατερῆς ὑσμίνης (‘the fierce fighting’ 16.645).66 As the father of the dead man,
Zeus has good reason to be interested. The lines carry an emotional charge, as
Zeus stares continually, thinking about the killing of his son’s killer (αἰὲν…ἀμϕὶ
ϕόνῳ Πατρόκλου μερμηρίζων 16.647). Yet the quality of Zeus’ emotion is
difficult to read. Sarpedon’s death was part of a plan of Zeus (as we learned in
15.67). In contrast to Priam, who sees his son Hector killed and defiled in Book
22, Zeus is in total control here, as the passage is composed to emphasize. The
opening of Book 13 signalled Zeus’ loss of command with the phrases τρέπεν
ὄσσε ϕαεινὼ / νόσϕιν (‘turned his shining eyes far away’) and ἐς Τροίην…οὐ
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πάμπαν ἔτι τρέπεν ὄσσε ϕαεινώ (‘no longer turned his shining eyes toward Troy
at all’). The present passage recalls and reverses that language: οὐδέ ποτε Ζεὺς /
τρέψεν ἀπὸ κρατερῆς ὑσμίνης ὄσσε ϕαεινώ / ἀλλὰ κατ᾽ αὐτοὺς αἰὲν ὅρα (‘nor
did Zeus ever turn away his shining eyes from the fierce struggle, but he was
looking at them continually’).
Earlier in Book 16, Zeus had balked at the prospect of his son’s death (16.431–
8). Hera then protested, by invoking Sarpedon’s ‘assigned allotment’, predicting
the gods’ disapproval, and reminding Zeus that he could ensure that Sarpedon’s
body receive funeral rites (16.439–57).67 But it should be noted that Zeus’
hesitance in that earlier scene in no way reduces the importance of his role as
director (p.49) of this scene. The opposite is true. Responding to Hera, Zeus
uses language that underscores his own, personal agency: ἦ ἤδη ὑπὸ χερσὶ
Μενοιτιάδαο δαμάσσω (‘or shall I kill him now, at the hands of the son of
Menoetius?’ 16.438). ‘Shall I kill him?’ If Zeus’ heart is divided, his hand and eye
are firm.
The poem offers multiple ways of understanding the temporal limits of this
spectacle. The battle for Sarpedon’s corpse is well delineated as a coherent
episode in its own right, within Book 16.68 Yet that episode also represents one
phase of a larger spectacle, itself coherently defined, namely the fighting of the
whole day (Books 11–17).69 The day’s fighting, in turn, constitutes a phase in the
still greater spectacle of Iliadic warfare—all the battlefield contests that follow
Achilles’ quarrel with Agamemnon (Books 3–22), as announced in the proem.70
Moving beyond Zeus, let us now consider the part of the poet. As in the case of
the proem, so too the present passage first highlights the poet’s agency and his
audience’s involvement, and only then turns suddenly to Zeus. Here are the lines
leading up to the moment in which Zeus’ gaze is (re)introduced:
τῶν δ᾽ ὥς τε δρυτόμων ἀνδρῶν ὀρυμαγδὸς ὀρώρει

οὔρεος ἐν βήσσῃς, ἕκαθεν δέ τε γίγνετ᾽ ἀκουή,
ὣς τῶν ὄρνυτο δοῦπος ἀπὸ χθονὸς εὐρυοδείης
χαλκοῦ τε ῥινοῦ τε βοῶν τ᾽ εὐποιητάων,
νυσσομένων ξίϕεσίν τε καὶ ἔγχεσιν ἀμϕιγύοισιν.
οὐδ᾽ ἂν ἔτι ϕράδμων περ ἀνὴρ Σαρπηδόνα δῖον
ἔγνω, ἐπεὶ βελέεσσι καὶ αἵματι καὶ κονίῃσιν
ἐκ κεϕαλῆς εἴλυτο διαμπερὲς ἐς πόδας ἄκρους.
οἳ δ᾽ αἰεὶ περὶ νεκρὸν ὁμίλεον, ὡς ὅτε μυῖαι
(p.50) σταθμῷ ἔνι βρομέωσι περιγλαγέας κατὰ πέλλας
ὥρῃ ἐν εἰαρινῇ, ὅτε τε γλάγος ἄγγεα δεύει.
πολλὰ μάλ᾽ ἀμϕὶ ϕόνῳ Πατρόκλου μερμηρίζων…
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– 16.633–47
And from [the combatants] a din arose – as of tree-cutters,

in a mountain glade – and the sound occurs from far away –
so their crashing sound arose from wide-pathed earth,
[a sound] of bronze and leather and well-made hides,
as they kept on striking with swords and two-edged spears.
Not even an observant man would any longer have recognized
brilliant Sarpedon, since he was covered by arrows
and blood and dust from his head to his feet.
And they were moving continually (aiei) round the corpse – as when
flies
in the stable buzz over buckets overflowing with milk –
in spring-time, when milk moistens the pails –
just so they were moving round the corpse – nor ever did Zeus
turn his shining eyes from the fierce fighting –
but continually (aien) he was looking at them and pondering in his
thymos,
contemplating the slaughter of Patroclus…
The two similes, and the ‘hypothetical observer’ invoked at 16.638, all serve to
emphasize the poet’s mediating role, and hence the separation between past and
present—even as they contribute to the scene’s vividness. The din must be truly
great, we are asked to sense, because it (like the felling of trees) is audible from
so far off (ἕκαθεν δέ τε γίγνετ᾽ ἀκουή 16.634). The description of what the
‘observant man’ would see is riveting—the mess of blood and arrows
(16.438-40). Yet the optative verb also recalls the audience’s own liminality.71
With the simile of the flies (16.641–4), the poet’s visual focus broadens out again
from the corpse itself, to include many small, living bodies—wild motion, against
a broader peaceful backdrop. To see fighters as flies requires a capacity for
emotional (p.51) distance; or, more precisely, for awareness of the possibility of
an emotionally remote perspective on the scene.
At the moment that Zeus is introduced, it becomes possible to understand in

retrospect all of the shifts of view, the spatial and emotional distancing, as
reflecting the possibilities of divine perspective available to Zeus as well as to
the poet and his audience. Zeus, like the poet, can adopt the ‘bird’s-eye’ view.
From a distance, he can hear the clash of arms (16.634)—as clearly as if it were
near (16.635–7). He could see Sarpedon’s body with clarity, recognize him—as
the poet can—despite the wounds (16.638–40), even from a great distance. And
from as far above as Zeus is perched, the motion round the corpse might well
resemble the motion of flies (16.641–3). The repeated use of αἰεί (‘continually’),
once for the men fighting and once for Zeus watching them fight (οἳ δ᾽ αἰεὶ περὶ
νεκρὸν ὁμίλεον…ἀλλὰ κατ᾽ αὐτοὺς αἰὲν ὅρα καὶ ϕράζετο θυμῷ 16.641, 646),
serves to connect the poet’s description of what we and he have been viewing to
the viewing activity of Zeus. The effect, ultimately, is to convey a sense that we—
Page 17 of 36

that is, Zeus, poet, and audience—have all been engaged in watching the same
action.
The idea of a spectacle that unites viewers qua viewers, even across time and
space, finds a parallel in visual art of the Archaic period. Consider Figure 1.1, a
sixth-century Attic black-figure vase showing two female figures, hands
upraised, who flank two duelling warriors on whom they also gaze.72
As Stansbury-O’Donnell notes in
his treatment of this vase, the
women would not
(naturalistically) be found on
the battlefield, and ‘we have to
consider that their presence
here as spectators is conceptual
rather than actual’.73
Stansbury-O’Donnell classifies
these women as ‘pure
spectators’ because they do not
belong to the time and space of
the nucleus: nevertheless, they
look on.74 Temporal separation
between spectator and nucleus
is thus self-consciously (p.52)
acknowledged (by the cues,
such as dress, that Stansbury-
O’Donnell identifies), and
rendered as spatial separation.
Figure 1.1. Sixth-century Attic black-
I suggest that both Homer and figure amphora depicting two female
the painter of this vase are figures, hands upraised, who flank two
effectively claiming that the duelling warriors on whom they also
spectacle at the centre of their gaze. Attributed to the Medea Group, c.
work can defy temporal 520 BCE. Side B, The Metropolitan
boundaries. It is not the case Museum of Art, New York; Purchase,
that Homer actually depicts (p. Christos G. Bastis Gift, 1961, 61.11.16.
53) viewers from a different www.metmuseum.org.
time and place, in the manner
of the vase painter. But he does
draw on audience awareness of their own viewing experience. The principle is
the same: shared vision implies a shared temporal frame. The two cases also
have at least some similarity in terms of artistic effect, for both painter and poet
show an interest in underlining the trans-temporal importance of the action
displayed in the nucleus. ‘The mythological past, like the contemporary battle, is
physically removed from the time and place of the viewer, but its impact is real
Page 18 of 36

and immediate as part of the fabric of civic life and belief.’75 These same words
could easily be applied to the Iliad’s vision of the Trojan War.
The next lines exploit this moment of textual self-consciousness, to present Zeus
in the act of deciding on the direction that the battle will now take:

πολλὰ μάλ᾽ ἀμϕὶ ϕόνῳ Πατρόκλου μερμηρίζων
ἢ ἤδη καὶ κεῖνον ἐνὶ κρατερῇ ὑσμίνῃ
αὐτοῦ ἐπ᾽ ἀντιθέῳ Σαρπηδόνι ϕαίδιμος Ἕκτωρ
χαλκῷ δῃώσῃ, ἀπό τ᾽ ὤμων τεύχε᾽ ἕληται,
ἦ ἔτι καὶ πλεόνεσσιν ὀϕέλλειεν πόνον αἰπύν.
ὧδε δέ οἱ ϕρονέοντι δοάσσατο κέρδιον εἶναι
ὄϕρ᾽ ἠῢς θεράπων Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος
ἐξαῦτις Τρῶάς τε καὶ Ἕκτορα χαλκοκορυστὴν
ὤσαιτο προτὶ ἄστυ, πολέων δ᾽ ἀπὸ θυμὸν ἕλοιτο.
Ἕκτορι δὲ πρωτίστῳ ἀνάλκιδα θυμὸν ἐνῆκεν…
– 16.646–56
But continually he was looking at them and pondering in his thymos,

contemplating the slaughter of Patroclus,
whether right away shining Hector should kill him, too
– in the fierce fighting – on the spot, over god-like Sarpedon –
with bronze, and take the armour from his shoulders,
or whether he should keep increasing the steep toil/warfare (ponos),
for even more men.
(p.54) And in this way it seemed most profitable to him as he
thought,
that the noble therapon of Achilles son of Peleus should push
the Trojans and bronze-helmed Hector in turn
toward the city, and take the lives of many men.
And he sent a courage-less spirit into Hector first of all…
Zeus is in effect choosing whether Patroclus’ aristeia will continue or stop right
away.76 How is Homer’s audience to react? Are they to sense, on some level, that
the poet, through Zeus, is reflecting on his own process of choosing? I would
describe the effect in the following way. In this passage, the poet has issued a
powerful reminder of the ways in which the spectacle at Troy is being
orchestrated. To do so, he has heightened awareness of both his role and that of
Zeus. The proem had sharply distinguished the two figures, locating them worlds
apart. Now, though, it is not so easy to distinguish fully between them, for the
single area in which their manifold roles overlap the most—that is, their
relationship to the spectacle they see and control—has now, at this moment in
Book 16, become the focus of attention. The passage is reflexive in that it
celebrates the power of this song to deliver such an experience.
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Let us now think back to the proem. The mini-narrative of 1.2–5 reads well as
anticipation of the kind of moment we find rendered in 16.633–56. Time slows
down around the battle for Sarpedon, as the poet turns the scene around, to
inspect it and reflect upon it. Zeus’ gaze marks and sustains the pause. Zeus is
about to send Sleep and Death to rescue the body—an iconic scene in Greek art.
But in this extended moment, what we find is Zeus presiding over the body’s
defilement. Even the idea of the corpse as food is evoked, by the simile of the
flies (the warriors) swarming round milk (the body). The moment is marked by
the meeting of poetic and divine intentions, in the construction and presentation
of a spectacle.
Similarly, in the proem the aorists of 1.2–3 (‘placed sufferings’ and ‘hurled
souls’) suggest action accomplished—however invisible and distant that action
is, for now. Then the tense changes: τεῦχε, ‘them, it was making into prey…’.
The aorist τεῦξε does appear elsewhere in Homer, and is metrically equivalent.
The aorist would be the (p.55) unmarked choice, naturally continuing the
series of aorists. Yet the poet switches to the imperfect. Why? I suggest that, as
with the imperfect ἐτελείετο of Zeus’ plan, so with τεῦχε the point of the verb is
not so much action completed in the past, as the direction in which processes
are moving at the time of which the poet speaks. With the imperfects of 1.4–5
(‘was making’, ‘was coming to fulfilment’), the poet seems to pause on the horror
of bodies becoming less and less recognizably human—not as an accomplished
fact but as an ongoing drama. What is so conspicuously absent from the proem
is the single ingredient that is most emphasized in the passage from Book 16,
the ingredient that catalyses all the rest: the gaze.
This is mortality as spectacle. In the long sweep of the Iliad, it is an idea evoked
again and again, with great variety.
1.3. The Gods and Metapoetics

I would like to conclude this chapter by asking in what sense it is appropriate to
talk about a metapoetic level to the Iliad’s divine apparatus, given the
performance medium assumed by the text. The Iliad’s poetics can be usefully
defined as ‘Homer’s implicit account of the connections between poem, poet,
and audience’.77 As attention to the proem should remind us, the audience will
be aware at all times, on some level, of the physical setting of performance
around them, and of their own and the poet’s roles in that performance. If the
bard is doing his job well, they will also be aware of the past world of which they
are made to feel a part, and hence aware of the roles of Achilles, Hector, Helen,
and the rest. For the audience, then, the Iliad advances, from start to finish, in
both worlds ‘at once’. For them, the poem becomes metapoetic—or the
performance becomes metaperformative—when what is transpiring at Troy and
on Olympus appears to comment on, or somehow relate directly to, what they
themselves are doing by participating in this performance of the Iliad.
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The Odyssey shows a great degree of self-consciousness in its representations of

story-telling and bardic performance. The Iliad, by contrast, exhibits self-
consciousness more often in other ways: it (p.56) loves to point out its power to
confront audiences with compelling visions.78 The Iliad’s self-consciousness
about this power comes through in each reminder of the extraordinary temporal
gulf separating the performer and his audience from the story’s action—a point
on which this poem dwells far more than does the Odyssey.
Let us step back from the particulars of the passages analysed so far, to consider
the significance of Zeus’ control of events in the Iliad as a whole. In the
traditional language of Homeric poetry, Zeus’ agency is bound up in language
suggesting a process of allotment or apportioning: particularly the terms moira,
aisa, and moros, and their cognates.79 However, Homer offers no consistent
account of how this cosmic process of allotment functions, or the gods’ role in it.
Some language posits Zeus’ agency: Helen asserts that Zeus has assigned her
and Paris their ‘evil portion’ (κακὸν μόρον 6.357) and the traditional phrase Διὸς
αἶσαν ‘portion from Zeus’ is used not only by mortal characters but also by the
narrator.80 Other passages suggest that it is the gods as a group that decide how
events will come out.81 Some passages hint that ‘Zeus’ and ‘the gods’ are in fact
two different ways of referring to the same idea;82 others suggest that this is
true of Zeus and moira (or Moira).83 Sometimes Moira, or Aisa, is a personified
figure who spins out the thread of a mortal’s life at his (p.57) birth, apparently
independently of Zeus and the gods;84 other passages make moira an impersonal
construction.85 Given this range, it is impossible to tell whether, for example,
Hector refers to a personified Moira or an impersonal ‘allotment’ when he tells
Andromache than none have escaped moira (μοῖραν δ’ οὔ τινά ϕημι πεϕυγμένον
ἔμμεναι ἀνδρῶν 6.488). It is striking that within a few lines Achilles, in his
famous speech to Priam in Book 24, mixes up both imagery and agency with no
discomfort as he first describes ‘the gods’ in the act of ‘weaving’ a mortal’s
future, and then ‘Zeus’ in the act of ‘dispensing’ evils and blessings from two
jars.86 It is evidently not the case that Achilles is confused, but rather that the
discourse about cosmic design in which Achilles participates does not value
consistency of this kind.
The lack of a coherent framework means that the old debate as to whether Zeus
or moira is the ultimate cosmic authority can have no winner. Indeed, as most
today would agree, it seems to have been the wrong question all along, involving
an anachronistically rigorous test of logical consistency on the Iliad’s
conceptions of cosmic design. Nevertheless, that debate was a response to a
genuine problem. If the Iliad were merely unclear about the limits on Zeus’
power to determine outcomes, one could set that issue aside on the grounds that
it is one in which the text is not interested. In fact, however, the poet draws
attention to and manufactures tension out of this uncertainty, by representing
Zeus in the process of making decisions, as he weighs factors such as the wishes
of the other gods, the existence of previously established ‘allotments’ (moirai),
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and the gods’ awareness of those allotments. Thus, while the poet may not be
interested in displaying a consistent mechanism for how the cosmos runs, he is
(p.58) for some reason very interested in displaying fraught and dynamic
scenes of divine decision-making. The question is why.87
Many scholars have seen a reflexive dimension to cosmic design in the Iliad: ‘if
an early fall of Troy is proclaimed by Zeus to be ὑπὲρ μόρον [“beyond
allotment”], this means also that it would conflict with the organization of the
story by the poet.’88 Thus, ‘fate in Homer, μοῖρα (or μόρος or αἶσα), can have a
narrative significance.’89 But to whom is this narrative significance significant,
and why? After all, it is a disservice to the poet to assume that he is unable to
work out a narrative in which his planning and control are not exposed.90 Nor do
I think that the poet’s primary concern is to form and present a conception of a
relationship between ‘fate’ and processes of narrative and composition. While
the Iliad responds wonderfully to analysis, it is aimed not at analytical critics but
at audiences ready to be swept away by wonder, pleasure, terror, and tears.91 To
consider the effect of (p.59) reflexivity in performance, it is better to leave
aside consideration of ‘fate’ as a conceptual object, and instead to concentrate
on what the poet has made available in the particular: that is Zeus observing and
directing the action at Troy, sometimes in conjunction with other gods.
There are only four times in the Iliad when Zeus (and the poet through Zeus)
verbally challenges the idea that events at Troy must proceed according to the
allotted moirai. The first follows the poem’s initial depiction of combat, the duel
between Paris and Menelaus in Book 3. The last appears during the poem’s final
depiction of combat—the confrontation of Hector and Achilles in Book 22. The
third and fourth appear in Books 16 and 20, one preceding the duel between
Patroclus and Sarpedon, and the other preceding the theomachia.92 All four
passages highlight divine viewing and emotional response to what the god or
gods are seeing, particularly pleasure (terpesthai, 4, 20) and pity (eleein, 16,
22). This arrangement suggests that the challenge-to-moira motif, whatever its
application may have been in the broader epic tradition, is in our Iliad tightly
bound up in the poem’s developing conception of armed conflict as spectacle.
One way to discuss the metapoetics of Zeus’ decision-making is to say that he is

guiding the ‘story’ or ‘plot’, or to say he takes on an ‘authorial’ role.93 This
language, used carefully, can usefully convey the recognition that we find
ourselves responding to Zeus, at least in part, on the same level on which we
respond to indications of narrative design. But a poem of the Iliad’s complexity
invites multiple (p.60) understandings of its plot,94 and Zeus is not everywhere
authorial. Most especially, he is never noted watching or guiding council scenes,
including the crucial decision-making scenes in Books 1 and 9, on which the plot
of Achilles’ wrath initially turns. Scenes emphasizing Zeus’ direct control are
targeted.
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What Zeus does see and control is the course of the warfare on the Trojan plain.
This chapter has looked at passages in which Zeus’ gaze defines the object of his
control (16.633–56), and in which his staging activities define the parameters of
the battle that he will observe (early in Book 11). This same point holds true for
other passages often discussed with regard to Zeus’ authorial role in the Iliad. In
Zeus’ speech following Hera’s seduction, a speech in which Zeus reclaims
control of the course of the battle (or of the ‘narrative’ as is commonly stated,
with metapoetic implications), his train of thought closely tracks the course of
the conflict on the field (15.53–76). Schadewaldt accurately called Zeus’ speech
at 11.185–94 a presentation of ‘the poet’s program for the battle’.95
Extant scholarship dealing with the metapoetics of the Iliad’s gods has focused
almost exclusively on their decision-making, rather than their viewing. Yet in
both areas, we are dealing with more or less the same set of passages.
Beginning with Book 4—when the military spectacle at Troy gets underway at
last—every instance of decision-making on the part of Zeus (alone or with ‘the
gods’) constitutes a follow-up to a depiction of him (alone or with the group)
watching. By recognizing viewing and decision-making as two facets of a single
phenomenon, we will accomplish two things. First, we will discover that
emotional response and viewer complicity—two themes that the Iliad closely
associates with viewing—are as central to the Iliad’s interest in narrative
direction as to other aspects of the poem. Second, we will find ourselves better
positioned to take up a question that is not often explored in discussions that
refer to Zeus and the gods as ‘authors’ of the plot, or expressions of the poet’s
will: namely, at what point is the poem’s audience invited to recognize the
metapoetics that scholars detect, and to what purpose?
(p.61) One scholar who has read divine viewing in (what I would call) a
metapoetic sense is Pietro Pucci. In his 2002 article ‘Theology and Poetics in the
Iliad’, Pucci points to textual cues which, he suggests, realize the gods’ potential
as analogous to the ‘extratextual’ audience. These cues have to do with the
setting of the daïs, which resembles Odyssean daïs scenes featuring poetic
performances by Phemius and Demodocus. In his analysis, Pucci takes the vital
step of asking what sort of emotional impact might be delivered by audience
recognition of these cues.
Scholarship since the 1980s had recognized the gods’ role as sometime
‘focalizers’ of the poem’s action,96 and had also flirted with the idea that
audiences were meant to sense that their special vision was related to that of the
gods in the text.97 But Pucci goes further in arguing for a special ‘effect of
mediation’ produced by scenes of divine viewing. ‘Mediation’, for Pucci,
essentially means the transfer of the pleasure or pity of a watching god or gods
to the Iliad’s audience.98 The mechanism identified by Pucci does involve
focalization.99 But he also sees the contagious influence of the gods’ emotions as
being amplified by special resemblances between gods and audience. Pointing to
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the gods’ pleasure at 4.1–4, as they drink and view the duel between Paris and
Menelaus, Pucci writes that we should recognize this effect of mediation:
…For, of course, this [i.e., the Iliad’s] extra-textual audience is also

leisurely sitting and drinking, if the Odyssey gives us a realistic (p.62)
description of the setting in which the bard is singing (1.339–40, etc.), and
observing, by means of the narrative, what is happening. Therefore the
text implicitly induces the extra-textual audience (the Narratees) to receive
the scene of the duel with pleasure, just as the gods do…
What Pucci seems to be saying is that a member of the extratextual audience

who recognizes similarities between the gods’ environment and his own will
share the gods’ emotion as a result of that recognition. But as a general rule,
that reasoning does not seem to hold up. I can envision a film shot which pans
back from a graphic lynching scene, to reveal a man who is seated in a cinema
very much like the one in which I am watching that film, perhaps seated in my
seat, and who is laughing and munching popcorn as he watches. This thought
experiment tells me that the director’s trick would not induce me to laugh. Or
eat popcorn.
To be sure, I am not an ancient audience. Yet many ancient readers also found
the gods’ behaviour troubling. Would their unease have become pleasure
instead, if they had been listening to the rhapsode at a daïs? It does not seem
obvious that they would. A scholiast’s remark about Il.4.1–4, ‘they say it is not
fitting if the viewing of wars gives pleasure to the gods’,100 speaks to the shock
or discomfiture that can be delivered by the depiction of the gods taking
pleasure at their daïs.101
Consumers of compelling narrative art might experience, at least to some extent,

the sensations and emotions of any of the characters in a narrative. Focalization
can magnify that experience. But to do so is not necessarily to sympathize or
‘identify’ with those characters in other ways—an important factor in
considering the Homeric gods, who, as characters with their own desires and
relationships, rarely draw much sympathy.102 With the notable exception of
Thetis (not (p.63) an Olympian),103 even child-loss for gods, when it happens,
only seems to underline the much greater tragedy of human bereavement. Yet,
these are the characters that Homer portrays as his most consistently present,
and most audience-like, audience.
For this study, the concept I have found most useful in describing the reflexivity
of the divine audience in the Iliad is that of the mise en abyme. In its broadest
sense, this phrase is used to refer to ‘any aspect enclosed within a work that
shows similarity with the work that contains it’.104 Classic examples include the
play that Hamlet stages within the play called Hamlet; Escher’s drawing of two
hands drawing; the Odyssey’s depiction of Phemius singing about the Achaeans’
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return from Troy—a play within a play, a drawing within a drawing, a song of
return within a song of return. For the consumer of art, the inner representation
has the effect of ‘reflecting’ back on the larger work—on its purpose, the nature
of its functioning, the process of its production—thereby opening interpretive
possibilities. Scholars have fruitfully applied the mise en abyme and similar
models to analysis of the Iliad, mostly in studies of narrative content—such as
plot, theme, and speeches.105 But the mise en abyme’s usefulness for studying
the Iliad goes beyond its application to plot and theme.106 Any aspect of Iliadic
poetics might be set en abyme. What is needed is a cue sufficiently prominent
that the reflexivity can be justifiably analysed as part of the work’s reception.
The flexibility of the mise en abyme allows for greater precision than, for
example, might be attained by a straightforward claim that Homer’s audience is
‘like the gods’ or vice versa. The commonly used (p.64) mirror metaphor for
reflexivity is likewise too rigid: the gods are not at all a mirror for Homer’s
audience, for they are gods. It would be better instead to say that certain scenes
of divine viewing constitute a mise en abyme of the spectacle experience offered
by the poet to his listeners. Gods and audience may or may not share a given
reaction. What they do share is a particular way of relating to the action. Only
the gods and Homer’s audience perceive the conflict at Troy as an orchestrated
spectacle, because only they are aware of Zeus’ operations or (in the case of
Homer’s audience) the poet’s—which overlap with those of Zeus at key points.
The spatial metaphor in the phrase mise en abyme (the same metaphor that we
find in the terms ‘extra-’ and ‘intra-diegetic’) proves especially well suited to the
Iliad’s spatial and visual poetics. But the relationship between outer and inner is
not straightforwardly hierarchical, as in the standard narratological model. The
gods may be ‘within’ the Iliad, conceived as a narrative. But they are not so
obviously ‘within’ the Iliad, conceived as a live event that connects past and
present. Rather, by constructing a conflict as the nucleus of a spectacle, the Iliad
situates observers as relatively more or less ‘central’ and ‘peripheral’ to it. The
construction of such a spectacle, and the positioning of observers, begins
already with the divine and poetic staging of the first battle scenes of the poem,
as will be seen in the next chapter.
Notes:
(1) ‘Ein Gott vermags. Wie aber, sag mir, soll / ein Mann ihm folgen durch die
schmale Leier?’ (Die Sonnette an Orpheus 1, iii.1–2. The translation is mine.)
(2) ἔοικα δέ τοι παραείδειν/ὥς τε θεῷ - ‘It is right for me to sing to you
[Odysseus] / as to a god’ Od.23.347–8.
(3) Cf. Redfield 2001. On the gods and care of corpses, cf. Macleod 2001: 94 on Il
.22.358 and 24.54. Macleod writes of ‘a “law of the gods” which requires that all
corpses be buried’, citing also Soph.Aj.1343, Ant.450–5; Eur.Supp.563.
Page 25 of 36

(4) See n. 63.
(5) For ‘nucleus’ see Introduction, pp 14-17.
(6) Other aspects of this staging scene are discussed in Chapter 4.
(7) The verb of seeing comes at 11.83: εἰσορόων Τρώων τε πόλιν καὶ νῆας
Ἀχαιῶν, ‘[Zeus] gazing upon the city of the Trojans and the ships of the
Achaeans’. See further Chapter 4.
(8) Contrast, for instance, the fear of the soldiers as Zeus thunders at night,
following the first day of battle: τοὺς δὲ χλωρὸν δέος ᾕρει (‘and green fear
seized them’ 7.479).
(9) αἱματοέσσας δὲ ψιάδας κατέχευεν ἔραζε/παῖδα ϕίλον τιμῶν, τόν οἱ

Πάτροκλος ἔμελλε / ϕθίσειν ἐν Τροίῃ ἐριβώλακι τηλόθι πάτρης. 16.459–61.
(10) Burkert 1985: 59–60. See also Nilsson 1967–74: 186; Seaford 1994: 114;
Pucci 2002: n. 20. Blood sacrifices performed before battle, by contrast, were
intended to prevail upon the gods to bring about a particular outcome.
Therefore, such sacrifices seem a less relevant comparandum to Zeus’ sending
of blood than death ritual. The latter, like Zeus’ act, is intended as a means of
public honouring.
(11) The reversal by which death ritual precedes death is itself thematic to the
Iliad: Andromache famously raises a ritual lament for Hector though he is ‘still
alive’ (ἔτι ζωόν 6.500). For the imagery and language of funerary spectacle in
Hector’s final confrontation with Achilles, see Chapter 5.
(12) Bakker 2009 raises this issue in regard to both Homeric epics, and proceeds
to outline some consequences for how we should understand the Odyssey.
(13) Cf. Bakker 2005: 60: ‘…[performance] is the occasion when the community
allows a meaningful past to shape its present.’ My treatment of viewer
‘involvement’ is strongly influenced by Bakker 1993, though I do not use
‘involvement’ only in the technical linguistic sense employed in that paper.
(14) Clay 2011: 26. This excerpt is from a discussion of Homeric poetics that is
not limited to the Iliad, but is heavily based on the evidence of the Iliad. For my
part, I see the Iliad making use of this aspect of Homeric poetics differently than
the Odyssey.
(15) Vivante 1970: 137, also cited in Lynn-George 1988: 15.
(16) Auerbach 1953: 7. Ancient writers theorized enargeia, including Homeric

enargeia, as achievable variously by completeness of detail (cf. Auerbach), or
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selectiveness in providing detail, among other strategies (Zanker 1981;

Meijering 1987: 39–44).
(17) Auerbach’s reading was founded on what he saw as Homer’s inability to

leave anything undescribed, and Homer’s complete lack of interest in creating
suspense, or suggesting ‘unplumbed depths’ beyond the surface of this world of
illuminated forms. In fact, however, Homer does leave much undescribed, the
narrative does generate suspense, and depths ‘where the narrative surface
cracks’ (Haubold 2011: 26) are precisely where the Homeric poems’ interest
often seems to lie. See especially Lynn-George 1988: Chapter 1; Bakker 2005:
Chapter 4; Haubold 2011.
(18) Lynn-George 1988: 13.
(19) Auerbach 1953: 4.
(20) Haubold 2011: 26.
(21) See Ford 1992: 53–6. Of the ‘epiphanic’ quality of the Muse’s involvement
Ford writes: ‘It is vividness as a feature of divine epiphanies that is involved in
poetry’s power to make the invisible past appear to its hearers…because we are
granted [the Muses’] perspective; when the great speeches are given we seem to
be on the edge of the assembly, and when the heroic actions are performed we
seem to be present as onlookers’ (55).
(22) Cf. the comment of Schol. bT on Il.6.467: ὅτι οὐ μόνον ἀκούεται τὰ

πράγματα, ἀλλὰ καὶ ὁρᾶται. In the proem’s narrative, the situation described by
the scholiast is reversed—we are not yet seeing the phenomena, but are hearing
of them.
(23) Cf. Clay 2011:17 ‘For the direct speeches of an Achilles or an Agamemnon
shift the deictic center from the present moment of the performance in which we
are participating to the here and now of the characters: the Greek camp in the
tenth year of the War.’
(24) A demonstrative like οὗτος ‘conveys that the thing or person pointed at is
perceptually shared between speaker and interlocutor; οὗτος signals
“presence”’ (Bakker 2009: 128). On these particular deictics, cf. Lynn-George
1988: 51–52, whose translations I have used in this paragraph.
(25) For the Iliad’s involvement of audiences with decision-making in council

scenes, see Elmer 2013: esp. 204–24.
(26) Debate on this issue, following the rise of oral theory in Homeric Studies,
has been vigorous. Lord 1960/2000 esp. 13–29 is fundamental. For some
orientation on subsequent developments, see the useful discussions in Foley
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1995: esp. 19–65 and Jensen 2011: esp. 108–44, both of which take Parry and
Lord as a starting point.
(27) Redfield 2001: 460–1 assembles comparanda and sees the use of ἄειδε here
as ‘marked’. Rabel 1997: 23–5 contends that everything that follows line 8
should be considered to be no longer the poet’s voice, but the Muse’s. This
seems to me to draw too fine a distinction. The illusion would be hard to
maintain; after a few lines, or a few hundred, listeners would see the poet as
plying his craft. In any case, the later invocations of the Muses make little sense
if the poet is not to be thought of as the voice issuing the narrative which
precedes them. On the issue of where the poet’s agency can be distinguished
from the Muse’s, Garvie 1994: 245 has a balanced view, and gathers relevant
evidence. A key passage is Od.22.347–8 (Phemius is ‘self-taught’ and yet ‘a/the
god put oimai’ in his heart’).
(28) Cf. Clay 2011: 15; Ledbetter 2003: 25.
(29) Pelliccia 1995: 122 notes in his analysis of Homeric θυμός-speeches that
‘Homer could, when he wished to, observe a distinction between a speech’s
addressee…and its audience’ (emphasis in original), and explores Homeric
character speeches whose addressee(s) and intended hearer(s) are not
equivalent. One might add the proem as a variation: here, it is the performer
himself who addresses the Muse while aiming his speech (additionally) at his
audience.
(30) Nagy 1979/1999: 16.
(31) Vermeule 1979: 94, 97. One detects in Vermeule’s (I suppose intentionally
provocative) evocation of Homer’s own agency the possibility of a parallel with
the Iliad’s gods, who are sometimes said to kill men ‘at the hands of’ the mortal
character who does the actual slaying.
(32) See also Dalby 1998: 197 on aoidoi as ‘artisans’ and craftsmen; Dalby works
from the evidence of the Odyssey (esp. Od.17.382–5), and also by comparing
evidence for singers in Sumerian and Sanskrit traditions.
(33) Finkelberg 1998: 121–30 argues that kata kosmon means according to the
(true) order of the events, and kata moiran according to the right portion/i.e.
according to the truth. But see the trenchant critique of Halliwell 2011. On these
phrases, see also Walsh 1984: 16–17; Ford 1992: 122–3. For τέρπεσθαι as a
positively valued effect of poetry, see Chapter 2.
(34) For Macleod on ‘authenticity’, see Introduction n. 53.
(35) De Jong 1987 and Richardson 1990 are seminal. See also, Edwards 1991: 1–
10; Haubold 2000: 26; Clay 2011: 14–26. Cf. Lovatt 2013: 3 (on the simile
describing the far-gleaming cloud round Achilles’ head at Il.18.207–14): ‘The
Page 28 of 36

simile also moves the reader, in the wake of the narrator, out far beyond the
immediacy of Achilles’ vision, to dip briefly into another story, to be aware of the
crafted nature of epic narrative.’
(36) Clay 2011: 18: ‘The space constituted by epic is paradoxically near and far.’
(37) On the dating of the so-called ‘Contest of Homer and Hesiod’, see Uden
2010: 121–3.
(38) The epithets strike the ear as two elements in a succession, because of
assonance (-SIM-bro-tos and -SIKH-ro-as) and because of their appearance in the
same metrical position in successive lines.
(39) On this passage and Auerbach, see also Haubold 2011.
(40) Contrast Hes.Th.698–9 ὄσσε δ’ ἄμερδε καὶ ἰϕθίμων περ ἐόντων / αὐγὴ

μαρμαίρουσα κεραυνοῦ τε στεροπῆς τε, where the viewers, the Titans in this
case, are specified by the genitive.
(41) I do not think the poet’s point is that he has created a scene ‘so grueling
that we would not want to witness it directly’ (Haubold 2011: 26). The
conditional assumes vision; what it questions is the reaction.
(42) I tend to agree with Wolfgang Kullmann (1956: 167–8) that ‘plan’ is a better
translation than ‘will’ for boulē, because the former implies specificity.
(43) I find Murnaghan 1997 and Allan 2008 especially useful here. But I do not
follow Allan’s account at all points: e.g. ‘The Dios boulê is ever present and
embraces all of the god’s plans, whether local or cosmic’ (Allan 2008: 207). It is
not clear to me why the phrase need ‘always’ embrace ‘all’ the plans. Including
the English definite article (‘the Dios boulê’) begs the question.
(44) Studying Zeus’ thoughts and plans as the Iliad unfolds can tell us much
about the poem’s narrative structure: valuable work includes Rousseau 1996,
Clay 1999, and Heiden 2008.
(45) On the affective quality of οὐλομένην (1.2), see Redfield 2001: 463–64, who
concludes: ‘The bard thus brings before us his own reaction to, almost his
distaste for, his theme’ (464). Cf. Halliwell 2011: 47: ‘The request is elaborated…
by a cluster of emotionally charged judgments which disclose the immense
gravity of the theme.’
(46) For these reasons the interpretation offered in the main text is preferable to
the alternative interpretation, that the prophecies (θέσϕατα) pronounced by
Melampus were the plan of Zeus that was coming to fulfilment.
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(47) Feeney 1991: 58 likewise describes a converging telos: ‘As the νόος or βουλή
of Zeus reaches its fulfilment (τέλος, telos), so does the plot of an epic.’ But it is
significant that in none of these cases does the telos of Zeus’ νόος or βουλή
correspond to the epic’s final conclusion.
(48) Murnaghan 1997: 23: ‘The opening lines of the Iliad give two apparent
definitions of the poem’s plot’, the mēnis of Achilles and the Dios boulē, and
‘both of these rather abstract formulations appear to correspond to the same
specific course of events, which is set in motion in the first book of the poem…
This scheme or plot (in a literal sense) among the principal divine and human
characters thus appears to define the plot (in a literary sense) of the poem in
which it is narrated.’
(49) Allan 2008: 207: ‘Of course, the primary (local) referent for the Dios boulê is
the plot of the Iliad itself, that is, Zeus’ plan to bring honour to Achilles by
strengthening the Trojans (1.508–9, 11.79, 13.523–5, 16.121, 17.331–2).’
(50) Nagy 1979/1999: 81. Cf. the more recent formulation in Nagy 2003: 27:
‘Moreover, the Iliad prophesies – even at its very beginning – that its own
ultimate telos “fulfilment” will be the same thing as the irrevocable will of Zeus:
Διὸς δ᾽ ἐτελείετο βουλή ‘and the will of Zeus was reaching fulfilment
[telos]’ (1.5).’
(51) Nagy 1979/1999 e.g. 16–18; Ford 1997: esp. 401–6.
(52) As Bakker 2009: 127 has emphasized, ‘on the stage of orally performed
narrative…no voice, neither the narrator’s nor the character’s, is fictional’.
(53) Cf. Allan 2008: 210–12.
(54) For example, 22.410–11 anticipates Troy’s destruction by means of an apt

simile. Troy’s fall is the last event in the prediction voiced by Zeus at 15.70–1.
Redfield 2001 understands ‘Zeus’ plan’ in the Iliad proem as shorthand for ‘Zeus’
plan as revealed in a prophecy’ about the destruction of Troy.
(55) For the plan to lighten the earth of its burden, see Cypria fr. 1, also
employing the formula Διὸς δ᾽ ἐτελείετο βουλή. For this story’s possible
relationship to the Iliad, see Kullmann 1956 (who argues that this theme
predates the Iliad), and the rejoinder to Kullmann in Allan 2008: 206–7. See also
Murnaghan 1997: 24–25, including n. 2. Rousseau 2001 sees in the proem an
anticipation of the final destruction of the race of heroes, a plot that he sees as
woven through the entire poem. The conclusion of Demodocus’ first song in the
Odyssey may well refer to this plan, or to the destruction of Troy, or both: τότε
γάρ ῥα κυλίνδετο πήματος ἀρχὴ / Τρωσί τε καὶ Δαναοῖσι Διὸς μεγάλου διὰ
βουλάς (‘for then indeed was rolling the beginning of doom for the Trojans and
Danaans, through the plans of great Zeus’ Od.8.81–2).
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(56) Lynn-George 1988 (‘indeterminacy’); Murnaghan 1997; Clay 1999 (‘all three’
plans together drive the poem’s narrative); Allan 2008 (‘open’); cf. Elmer 2013:
157.
(57) On beginnings, see e.g. Rabel 1997: 35–57; Myers 2014.
(58) Redfield 2001: 474. Note that Hesiod’s tale of Medeius likewise represents
the final action before the switch to Zeus with an imperfect after an aorist:
Μήδειον τέκε παῖδα, τὸν οὔρεσιν ἔτρεϕε Χείρων / Φιλυρίδης· μεγάλου δὲ Διὸς
νόος ἐξετελεῖτο (Hes.Th.1001–2). Contrast aorist ἔλυσε, the penultimate verb in
Odysseus’ tale (Od.11.296).
(59) Redfield 2001: 476.
(60) Redfield 2001: 474.
(61) Rousseau 2001, pursuing another tack, reads the proem’s imagery as
‘figurative’ (141) and connected to destruction of the (race of) heroes (ἡρώων Il.
1.4).
(62) Morrison 1992: 90–2.
(63) Research into the practice of story-tellers in oral traditions reveals the
importance of visualization for remembering the sequence of events in a given
story; see Bakker 2005: 64–5 and Clay 2011: 112–13 on the relevance of the
work of the cognitive psychologist David Rubin for Homer.
(64) Richardson 1990: 31–5; De Jong and Nünlist 2004: 74 n. 19; Lovatt 2013: 39–
45. Shortly, the poet will indeed ‘follow the line of Zeus’ gaze’ to another
character, namely Hector. Nevertheless, the time spent on Zeus’ contemplation
of Sarpedon and the fighting constitutes an extended pause.
(65) In the present case, all four are true: Sarpedon is killed in the fierce fighting
(cf. Hera enjoining Zeus to allow Sarpedon to fall in the κρατερῇ ὑσμίνῃ 16.451),
his death sparks the Lycians to fight harder, with his body as prize, and Zeus
meanwhile makes the fighting especially destructive in his honour (16.567–8).
(66) Note the difference between my use of ‘nucleus’, which is rooted in

Stansbury-O’Donnell’s analysis of vases (see Introduction, pp.14–17), and the
original use of the term by Barthes for narratives. Barthes would describe Zeus’
act of gazing (as of 16.644) as constitutive of a new ‘nucleus’ of action in the
flow of the narrative, because we now see Zeus gazing in our mind’s eye. By
contrast, I am interested in how Zeus’ gaze helps to (re)delineate the nucleus of
the spectacle constructed for us by Homer—much as viewers depicted on vases
help to define a central nucleus of action, as constructed by the vase painter.
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(67) Hera’s conversation with Zeus also implies that the gods as a group will be
watching, and signals that their role affords them some kind of collective
importance in terms of their approval or disapproval.
(68) The battle for the body is first anticipated by Sarpedon himself. Dying, he
bids Glaucus urge the Lycians to Σαρπηδόνος ἀμϕιμάχεσθαι (‘fight around
Sarpedon’16.486), and asks Glaucus to fight ἐμεῦ πέρι (‘over me’ 16.497).
Glaucus follows through, first by urging the Lycians (Σαρπηδόνος ἀμϕιμάχεσθαι
16.533), then by asking Apollo to heal him αὐτὸς τ’ ἀμϕὶ νέκυι κατατεθνηῶτι
μάχωμαι (‘so that I may fight around the perished corpse’ 16.526). When at last
battle is indeed joined around the dead body (σύμβαλον ἀμϕὶ νέκυι
κατατεθνηῶτι μάχεσθαι 16.565), Zeus’ control is emphasized. He stretches
baneful night over the ‘fierce fighting’ (κρατερῇ ὑσμίνῃ 16.567) so that there be
terrible ponos around his son (16.567–8).
(69) Staged that morning by Zeus and the poet (11.1ff—p.30, this chapter), the
day’s fighting continues until Hera sends the sun below the horizon, and the
Achaeans cease from the fighting: παύσαντο δὲ δῖοι Ἀχαιοὶ / ϕυλόπιδος κρατερῆς
καὶ ὁμοιΐου πολέμοιο (18.241–2). See further Chapter 4.
(70) See further Chapters 3 and 4.
(71) On this function of ‘hypothetical observers’, see further Chapter 2, p. 67.
(72) Terracotta neck-amphora attributed to the Medea group, c. 520 BCE, Side B,
Metropolitan Museum of Art. Image printed in Stansbury-O’Donnell 2006: 21.
(73) Stansbury-O’Donnell 2006: 20.
(74) Stansbury-O’Donnell 2006: 12–24 distinguishes four classes of spectator,

according to their relationship to the nucleus or ‘kernel’ of action: the ‘invested
spectator’, with ‘a stake in the narrative’, and who may become involved; the
‘interested spectator’ (slightly lower involvement); the ‘detached spectator’ (who
is at least present); and the ‘pure spectator’, who ‘does not belong in the time
and/or place of the central action’. Athena and Hermes in the vase analysed in
the Intorduction are of the first kind.
(75) Stansbury-O’Donnell 2006: 21. The ‘mythological past’ of which he writes is

that depicted on the vase discussed in the Introduction (Figure 0.1),where
Heracles fights a lion. In the Heracles vase, Stansbury-O’Donnell reads the two
unidentified observers as additional examples of ‘pure’ spectators: ‘Their dress,
or lack thereof, is consistent with their being in the time and space of the viewer,
and so they serve as indexes for the viewer of the vase’ (21).
(76) A warrior’s aristeia is a section of an epic poem during which that warrior is
dominant on the battlefield.
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(77) Ledbetter 2003: 11, with bibliography (ibid n. 9); Ledbetter is referring to
the Odyssey as well as the Iliad. See more recently Halliwell 2011: Chapter 2.
(78) Slatkin 2007 is thought-provoking on this topic.
(79) On these terms, see Introduction n. 14 and pp. 103–8.
(80) Διὸς αἴσῃ by Achilles 9.608. The narrator fashions ὑπὲρ Διὸς αἶσαν (17.321)
as a combination of Διὸς αἶσα and ὑπὲρ αἶσαν (examples of the latter include
3.59 and 16.780). For the distinction drawn in both Homeric epics between
mortal ignorance and the privileged view of divine workings granted by the poet,
see, e.g. Lloyd-Jones 1971: 7; Winterbottom 1989: 33; Taalman Kip 2000 passim.
(81) At 16.693 the narrator speaks of ‘the gods’ calling Patroclus to death (Ἔνθα
τίνα πρῶτον τίνα δ’ ὕστατον ἐξενάριξας / Πατρόκλεις, ὅτε δή σε θεοὶ θάνατον
δὲ κάλεσσαν; 16.692–3). Cf. Priam’s assertion that the gods instead of Helen are
to blame for the war (θεοί νύ μοι αἴτιοί εἰσιν 3.164). Dietrich offers several
examples to demonstrate that Zeus alone or θεοί together can assign a fate
(1967: 322–33), but does not acknowledge the fact that all of his examples are
taken from the speech of a (potentially ignorant) mortal rather than a god or the
narrator.
(82) As Yagamata 1994: 4 points out, the people ‘pray’ (ἠρήσαντο 3.318) and
reach out their hands ‘to the gods’ (θεοῖσι 3.318); but address ‘Zeus’ (3.20):
λαοὶ δ’ ἠρήσαντο, θεοῖσι δὲ χεῖρας ἀνέσχον, / ὧδε δέ τις εἴπεσκεν Ἀχαιῶν τε
Τρώων τε· / Ζεῦ πάτερ Ἴδηθεν μεδέων κύδιστε μέγιστε. 6.318–20.
(83) Lycaon says that because destructive Moira (or perhaps a destructive moira)
has placed him in Achilles’ hands he must therefore be hateful to Zeus, ‘who
gave me again to you’: νῦν αὖ με τεῇς ἐν χερσὶν ἔθηκε / μοῖρ’ ὀλοή· μέλλω που
ἀπεχθέσθαι Διὶ πατρί, / ὅς με σοὶ αὖτις δῶκε 21.82–4. Zeus and moira appear to
be interchangeable here. Cf. Dietrich 1967: 215.
(84) Hera speaks of Achilles’ life having been spun out by a personified Aisa:
αἶσα / γιγνομένῳ ἐπένησε λίνῳ ὅτε μιν τέκε μήτηρ 20.125–8. Hecuba apparently
uses the same traditional language as Hera when she refers to Hector’s lot spun
out by a personified Moira: τῷ δ’ ὥς ποθι Μοῖρα κραταιὴ / γιγνομένῳ ἐπένησε
λίνῳ, ὅτε μιν τέκον αὐτή 24.209–12.
(85) E.g., the Trojans fighting the Achaeans for Patroclus’ corpse vow to fight
even if ‘it is allotted (moira) that all alike die beside this man’ (…εἰ καὶ μοῖρα
παρ’ ἀνέρι τῷδε δαμῆναι / πάντας ὁμῶς 17.421–2).
(86) ὡς γὰρ ἐπεκλώσαντο θεοὶ δειλοῖσι βροτοῖσι / ζώειν ἀχνυμένοις· αὐτοὶ δέ τ’

ἀκηδέες εἰσί. / δοιοὶ γάρ τε πίθοι κατακείαται ἐν Διὸς οὔδει / δώρων οἷα δίδωσι
κακῶν, ἕτερος δὲ ἑάων· / ᾧ μέν κ’ ἀμμίξας δώῃ Ζεὺς τερπικέραυνος…24.525–9.
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(87) Elmer 2013 is now indispensable on this question. Elmer’s approach to these
scenes differs from mine in several ways: first and foremost, Elmer’s book looks
at divine decision-making as it relates to mortal decision-making, while I look at
divine decision-making as it relates to divine viewing. But the results of Elmer’s
book and the present study converge in certain ways; both, for instance, see the
text implicitly involving Homeric audiences in decision-making scenes.
(88) Bremer 1987: 34. The reference is to the theomachia, when Zeus sends the
gods to the battlefield μὴ καὶ τεῖχος ὑπέρμορον ἐξαλαπάξῃ (‘lest [Achilles] even
tear down the wall [i.e. of Troy] beyond what has been allotted (hypermoron)’
20.30). Cf. Nagy 1979/99: 40 on the Odyssey: ‘The poet Demodocus lives up to
the challenge of Odysseus that he recite the story of the Trojan Horse κατὰ
μοῖραν “according to destiny (viii 496).” Within the conventions of epic
composition, an incident that is untraditional would be ὑπὲρ μοῖραν “beyond
destiny.”’
(89) Richardson 1990: 194. Marks 2008 explores the significance of terms and
expressions ‘commonly translated as “fate”’ (p. 6 n. 4) in the Odyssey, while
making the larger argument that Zeus’ decision-making in the Odyssey tracks
the poem’s navigation of the (then extant) tradition of stories about the heroes’
returns from Troy.
(90) Aristotle criticizes what he sees as a deus ex machina solution to the

stampede for the ships at Il.2.155ff, halted by Hera and Athena: ϕανερὸν οὖν ὅτι
καὶ τὰς λύσεις τῶν μύθων ἐξ αὐτοῦ δεῖ τοῦ μύθου συμβαίνειν, καὶ μὴ ὥσπερ ἐν
τῇ Μηδείᾳ ἀπὸ μηχανῆς καὶ ἐν τῇ Ἰλιάδι τὰ περὶ τὸν ἀπόπλουν. ‘It is clear
therefore that the resolutions of the stories should happen through the story
itself, not as in the Medea from the mechanē, and in the Iliad in the episode
concerning departure by ship.’ Poet.1454a37–b2. Similarly, Dietrich 1967: 297–8
comments: ‘[The Olympian gods] become a machine, always at the poet’s
disposal, who uses their superhuman strength to impose his will on the action of
the poem. This machine is a convenient tool, often detrimental to the art of the
epic…’ Cf. Bremer 1987: 32 on Nilsson et al. Bremer himself takes a more
neutral stand (see his comments, ibid 34).
(91) Cf. the salient remarks of Ledbetter 2013: 13: ‘The fundamental question the
critic asks becomes not how does Homer view poetry, but rather how does
Homer want his poetry to be viewed, and why does he want his audience to view
it that way.’ Ledbetter sees Homer wanting his audience to understand their
experience as acquisition of a ‘kind of divine knowledge that has the immediacy
and pleasure of sensory experience’ (ibid).
(92) The passages in 4, 16, and 22 are of course closely related as ‘type’ scenes,
sharing a good deal of language. I include the passage in 20 as well, because
there too Zeus suggests that moira need not be final, and thereby prompts a
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response from his listeners: in this case, not an angry retort from Hera or
Athena, but a descent en masse to Troy.
(93) Cf. Ready 2012: 79: ‘To the extent that he guides the story in each epic, Zeus
adopts an authorial stance’ (79), in a lucid discussion to which I owe the
Schadewaldt reference in n. 95. Ready uses ‘story’ in a technical narratological
sense: the ‘story’ denotes the events of the narrative as abstracted and
reconstituted into chronological order (rather than in the order in which they
are made known to the narratee via the narrator’s discourse). Ready further
argues that Zeus’ control of analogical omens is suggestive of an authorial role
(ibid 79–81).
(94) For instance, Rabel 1997 distinguishes contrasting points of view within the
Iliad, from which the main plot is the story of the Trojan War (in the eyes of the
Trojans and Achaeans) or else the story of Achilles’ wrath (from the point of view
of the ‘Muse-narrator’).
(95) Schadewaldt 1938: 110 ‘das Programm des Dichters für die Schlacht’—
emphasis mine (cited in Ready 2012: 75 n. 97).
(96) Bremer 1987; de Jong 1987. Focalization, to offer a gross oversimplification

sufficient for present purposes, is the technique by which a narrator narrates
from a particular character’s perspective. In fact, narratologists do not agree on
what constitutes focalization. Mieke Bal’s account of focalization remains the
important one for Homerists because of its adoption by Irene de Jong for her
influential 1987 monograph Narrators and Focalizers: The Presentation of the
Story in the Iliad.
(97) E.g. Janko 1994: 3: ‘But the bard claims a special vision, and can always say
which deity is involved, showing us the world through the eyes of the gods
themselves.’
(98) An example is Zeus’ statement at 20.23 that he is going to take pleasure in

watching the gods fight. Pucci calls this ‘mediation’, and explains his reasoning
this way: for ‘certainly listeners and readers of the narrative cannot be expected
to have a different reaction’ than Zeus.
(99) Pucci 2002: 31: ‘Of course [the gods] act as focalizers or mediators of
readers’ attitudes, tensions, and participation. Accordingly, when Zeus begins
the talk with a lamenting expression (22.168f.): “ὢ πόποι, he is a dear man
(ϕίλον), the one I see with my eyes pursued around the walls! My heart is
distressed,” how can the heart of the reader not feel the same pity and sympathy
for Hector?’ (emphasis added).
(100) The bT scholia at 4.4: ἀπρεπές ϕασιν, εἰ τέρπει τοὺς θεοὺς πολέμων θέα.
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(101) Cf. the astute caution of Bremer 1987: 41–2: ‘the real audience…is invited
to share the focalization of [the gods]…and at the same time to feel that it is only
a partial appreciation of what is going on.’
(102) To ‘identify’ with a character can mean many things. Gervais 2013, in an
article comparing violence in Quentin Tarantino’s films to violence in Lucan,
makes excellent use of Murray Smith’s typology of ‘identification’. The gods, by
Smith’s schema, might prompt one kind of sympathetic response,
‘alignment’ (i.e. focalization), without a second kind, ‘allegiance’ (which is ‘based
on the moral evaluation of a character’). The experience of a character’s
emotions by a consumer of narrative art (which Smith calls ‘emotional
simulation’) can likewise occur in isolation from feelings of sympathy for that
character. While I have not adopted the terminology for the present project, I
have learned much from both the typology and Gervais’ use of it.
(103) See Slatkin 1991 on the exceptional role of Thetis.
(104) Dallenbach 1989: 8. The metaphor was created by André Gide and is
derived from heraldry: to inscribe an image en abyme is to place it in the shield’s
centre.
(105) De Jong 1985 reads Achilles’ speech to his mother at 1.366–92 as a ‘mirror’
of the tale that the poet just told his audience; Alden 2000 is a monograph
devoted to arguing that shorter narratives within the Iliad reflect on the main
narrative, as a ‘coded reference’ (13); Rengakos 2006 looks at the funeral games
in Book 23 as a mise en abyme of themes from the main plot.
(106) See the interesting work of Becker 1995 on the Shield of Achilles in Iliad
18. ‘I treat ekphrasis as a mise en abîme of the poetics, not just of the themes of
the Iliad: in ekphrasis not only does the bard become one of us, an audience, but
also the description itself, metonymically, becomes a model for the poem’ (5).
Rinon 2008: 116–18 reads Demodocus’ first song as a mise en abyme of ‘the
interepic dialogue of the Odyssey with the Iliad’.
Page 36 of 36

The Duel and the Daïs: Iliadic Warfare as Spectacle

on Mount Olympus
Tobias Myers

Print ISBN-13: 9780198842354
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198842354.001.0001
The Duel and the Daïs: Iliadic Warfare as

Spectacle
Tobias Myers
DOI:10.1093/oso/9780198842354.003.0002

Chapter 2 explores how the Olympians and the Iliad’s audience are positioned as
viewers for the warfare in Books 1–4, and their roles defined. The first section
focuses on the gods. Homer initially defines the gods’ role as viewers by drawing
on two specific paradigms of live event: entertainment at a daïs (banquet), and
the formal duel. Each of these paradigms carries its own suggestions as to the
nature of the event, its stakes, and the relationship between viewer and action.
As entertainment accompanying a daïs, the warfare may generate pleasure
(terpein) for viewers whose critical role is to praise or blame the dramatic figure
pulling the strings. As a spectacle modelled on the formal duel, the warfare is
observed by implicated, partisan viewers, who are themselves a part of the
conflict, and can become actors by entering the central space. Rich tension is
generated by the combination of these paradigms. The chapter’s second section
reads the opening of Book 4, in which the gods watch a duel from their daïs, as a
mise en abyme of the spectacle experience offered by the Iliad to its listeners. On
the one hand, the combination of duel and daïs shapes audience understanding
of the kind of spectacle that they, too, are witnessing, and their own relationship
to the action. On the other hand, the gods’ particular responses—both to the
events on the ground and to their staging and direction—dramatize possible
responses on the part of Homer’s audience.
Keywords: daïs, duel, battlefield, warfare, Helen, mise en abyme, terpein, pleasure, complicity
Song is being. For the god, it is easy.
Page 1 of 42

But when do we exist? When does he turn
toward our existence the earth and the stars?
Rainer Marie Rilke1
Come here, dear girl, to see the theskela erga
of horse-taming Trojans and bronze-greaved Achaeans.
Iris2
The previous chapter argued that the Iliad’s proem anticipates certain key
elements of the battlefield spectacle to come: its central action (warfare and the
desecration of corpses), and its staging and direction (with Zeus and the poet as
joint orchestrators of the battlefield conflict). While the agency of Zeus and that
of the poet are highlighted in various ways throughout the text, they overlap
specifically in respect to their control of the warfare. Such moments of overlap
heighten excitement during performance, as the ‘now’ of performance and the
‘now’ of mythic Troy become momentarily indistinguishable.
The present chapter focuses on viewership.3 It explores how the Olympians and
the Iliad’s audience are positioned as viewers for the warfare in Books 1–4, and
their roles defined. Of course, the (p.66) gods do not only see warfare, and the
poet makes vivid to his audience much more than just the battle scenes. Yet in
practice, the poet restricts his use of the divine viewing motif almost entirely to
military and funerary contexts—and the latter, as we will see in later chapters,
are in fact integrated into the military contests so as to create the impression of
a single Iliadic spectacle centred on both killing and memorialization of the
dead. As a result, passages that show correspondence between the gods’
viewing role and that of the extratextual audience come overwhelmingly in the
context of this battlefield spectacle. As Zeus’ and other divine gazes make
evident a ‘nucleus’ of action, an additional emphasis on the audience’s own
visual engagement with the scene contributes to the illusion that all parties—
gods, poet, and audience—are engaged in observing the same spectacle.
The chapter’s first section focuses on the gods. Homer initially defines the gods’
role as viewers by drawing on two specific paradigms of live event:
entertainment at a daïs (banquet), and the formal duel. Each of these paradigms
carries its own suggestions as to the nature and purpose of the event, what is at
stake, and the relationship between viewer and action. As the entertainment
accompanying a daïs, the warfare may generate pleasure (terpein) for viewers
whose critical role is to praise or blame the dramatic figure who is pulling the
strings. As a spectacle modelled on the formal duel, the warfare is observed by
implicated, partisan viewers, who are themselves a part of the conflict they view,
and can become actors by entering the central space. The rich tension
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generated by combining these paradigms—and, later, the additional paradigm of

funeral rites—is no small part of what distinguishes the Iliad’s divine audience
from poetic representations of watching gods in the Iliad’s Near Eastern cousins,
in Hesiod, and even in the Odyssey.
To appreciate fully the power of this uniquely Iliadic conception of spectacle, it is

necessary also to recognize its metaperformative dimension. This chapter’s
second section reads the opening of Book 4, in which the gods watch a duel from
their daïs, as a mise en abyme of the spectacle experience offered by the Iliad to
its listeners. On the one hand, the combination of duel and daïs shapes audience
understanding of the kind of spectacle that they, too, are witnessing, and their
own relationship to the action. On the other hand, the gods’ particular responses
—both to the events on the ground and to their staging and direction—dramatize
possible responses on the part of Homer’s audience.
(p.67) The chapter ranges over material in Books 1–4: the pointed lack of a
divine audience in Book 1; the divine and poetic staging of the Iliad’s warfare in
Book 2; sophisticated reflections on the visual quality of Iliadic warfare in Book
3, including the duel between Paris and Menelaus, and Helen’s weaving of
battlefield ‘contests’; and, in Book 4, the gods’ first appearance as a collective
viewership, followed by the poem’s first large-scale battle scenes, and its first
‘hypothetical observers’, which characterize audience viewing of the warfare.
2.1. Defining the Gods’ Role as Audience

2.1.1. Divine Viewing Linked to Battle and Corpses (Book 1)
On one level, the Iliad’s representations of divine viewing reflect cultural
expectations of divine oversight for all mortal affairs.4 Yet in the Iliad, we
repeatedly learn, the gods cannot look in two places at once.5 This means that
their attention cannot be taken for granted. And indeed, the first information
that the poet provides about the activity of the gods as a group emphasizes
precisely their lack of attention to events at Troy. Achilles and his wrath must
wait, Thetis explains in Book 1, for Zeus has gone with the gods, all of them, to a
daïs in distant Aethiopia:
Ζεὺς γὰρ ἐς Ὠκεανὸν μετ’ ἀμύμονας Αἰθιοπῆας

χθιζὸς ἔβη μετὰ δαῖτα, θεοὶ δ’ ἅμα πάντες ἕποντο.
– 1.423–4
For Zeus went toward Ocean, to the blameless Aethiopians –

yesterday – to a daïs – and all the gods followed with him.
‘Yesterday’ (χθιζὸς 1.424) is a significant detail; it puts the gods’ departure prior
to Achilles’ quarrel with Agamemnon. The key events of Book 1 so far have not
been the object of their collective gaze. It is true that individual gods are
involved in different ways in that quarrel, in passages discussed in a moment.
Nevertheless, Thetis’ comment provides an initial picture of an Olympus that is
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empty, with comparatively little attention being paid to events at Troy.

Furthermore, when the gods ‘all’ (p.68) (πάντες) subsequently return with
Zeus to Olympus (1.494–5), the text does not convey at any point the impression
that they have begun to gaze at the Trojan plain. Gathered at their banquet (daïs
1.602), they stand to greet Zeus as he enters (1.533–5); bristle at his treatment
of Hera (1.570); then drink immortal nectar ‘all day, till sunset’ (πρόπαν ἦμαρ ἐς
ἠέλιον καταδύντα) while enjoying, by turn, Hephaestus’ antics and the music of
Apollo and the Muses; finally they go home to sleep (1.597–608, 2.1–2).
To be sure, some gods are already involved in events at Troy in Book 1, despite
the inattention of the group as a whole. Yet only one passage in Book 1 explicitly
mentions a divine gaze.6 That passage functions as a kind of preview of the
spectacle motif that will be developed as the poem progresses. Hera watches as
Apollo strikes the Achaeans with plague:
δεινὴ δὲ κλαγγὴ γένετ’ ἀργυρέοιο βιοῖο

οὐρῆας μὲν πρῶτον ἐπῴχετο καὶ κύνας ἀργούς,
αὐτὰρ ἔπειτ’ αὐτοῖσι βέλος ἐχεπευκὲς ἐϕιεὶς
βάλλ’· αἰεὶ δὲ πυραὶ νεκύων καίοντο θαμειαί.
Ἐννῆμαρ μὲν ἀνὰ στρατὸν ᾤχετο κῆλα θεοῖο,
τῇ δεκάτῃ δ’ ἀγορὴν δὲ καλέσσατο λαὸν Ἀχιλλεύς·
τῷ γὰρ ἐπὶ ϕρεσὶ θῆκε θεὰ λευκώλενος Ἥρη·
κήδετο γὰρ Δαναῶν, ὅτι ῥα θνήσκοντας ὁρᾶτο.
– 1.49–56
And the clash of his silver bow was terrible –

first he went after the mules and swift hounds –
but then [the men] themselves – sending sharp missiles [lit. a sharp
missile],
he struck [imperfect tense] – and the pyres of corpses were burning
continuously.
For nine days the god’s weapons were going through the army;
but on the tenth day Achilles called the people to assembly –
for she put it into his mind to do so, the goddess, white-armed Hera;
for she felt care for the Danaans – because indeed she was watching
them dying.
(p.69) The Achaeans perceive a plague. But Homer’s audience sees what he
sees: the camp is under attack. We hear the clamour of Apollo’s weapon (1.49)
even before its effects are felt. After shooting at dogs, Apollo begins to fire his
missiles at men, with an emphasis on the wounding itself (enjambed βάλλε 1.52).
The barrage continues for nine days, while funeral fires burn ‘continuously’ (αἰεί
1.52). Having brought this attack, these deaths, and these funeral fires before
our eyes, the poet suddenly shows us Hera, in an attitude of watching. We are
not told for how long she watches before intervening, but the verbal tenses
suggest an extended duration: the imperfect ὁρᾶτο (‘was watching’ 56) picks up
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the imperfects of Apollo’s shooting and the burning fires (1.50, 52, 53). By
introducing Hera watching in this way, the poet has already begun to associate
divine viewing with both the military and funerary paradigms of spectacle that
will feature in later books.
One further passage implies (without a verb of seeing) that Hera continues to
observe, while the result of her intervention plays out. This passage, too, can be
read as a subtle preview of the spectacle motif to come. Following Hera’s
prompting, Achilles has assembled the Achaeans, and has been trading barbed
words with Agamemnon. Finally, Achilles ponders whether or not he should
attack Agamemnon on the spot:
…ἦλθε δ’ Ἀθήνη
οὐρανόθεν· πρὸ γὰρ ἧκε θεὰ λευκώλενος Ἥρη
ἄμϕω ὁμῶς θυμῷ ϕιλέουσά τε κηδομένη τε.
– 1.194–67
…and Athena came

from the sky – for the goddess, white-armed Hera, had sent her forth,
loving and weighed with care for both [heroes] alike in her heart.
We have here an apparent anomaly: gods do not normally intervene during

Iliadic council scenes. Yet a close look at this ‘exception’ reveals that it tends to
reinforce rather than undermine the broader pattern. For quite some time
(1.100–87), the action has consisted of (p.70) Achilles and Agamemnon trading
insults and threats whose content resembles battlefield taunts (‘flyting’).8 When
Achilles, contemplating an attack in this public space, before seated observers,
begins to actually draw his sword from his sheath (1.188–94), the poet has
nearly completed a transformation of this council scene into a duel scene.
Indeed, both of the actual formal duels in the Iliad end, like Achilles’ aborted
attack on Agamemnon, with divine intervention. As the Book 1 passage suggests
that Hera and Athena have (effectively) rescued Agamemnon from Achilles, so
too does Aphrodite (actually) rescue Paris from Menelaus in the first formal duel
in Book 3 (3.373–6). As Hera cares for both (potential) combatants in the Book 1
scene, so too when the heralds put an end to the formal duel between Hector
and Aias in Book 7, Idaeus proclaims that Zeus cares for both (actual)
combatants.9 In sum, though the warfare has not yet begun in Book 1, the poet
is already subtly linking divine viewing to the spectacle that will feature later.
The Iliad’s selectivity in the depiction of divine viewing does two things. First, it
leaves one feeling that these gods—like humans across many times and cultures
—are especially attracted to watch when it is fighting or bodies that are on
display. And indeed, from Book 4 onward the gods’ collective attention remains
focused on Troy, during daylight hours, at least through Book 22.10 Second, by
reserving his descriptions of divine viewing for military and funeral contexts, the
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poet is positioning his gods as an audience for the very type of action that his
invocation in the proem had heralded.11 Book 2, as we (p.71) will see, develops
more overtly this connection between the action that the gods will be watching
and the proem.
2.1.2. Staging the Spectacle of War (Book 2)

The staging of the military spectacle at Troy, a focus of Book 2, builds
anticipation by emphasizing the extraordinary scope and visual appeal of the
coming conflict. It also characterizes that conflict as a product of ongoing
orchestration by Zeus and the poet, sometimes blurring the distinction between
them.
Quite early on, Book 2 emphasizes that this spectacle will constitute the
realization of both divine and poetic intentions. On the divine level, Zeus sets in
motion the marshalling of both the Achaean and the Trojans forces, in
accordance with his planning (2.1–2; cf. 1.5). The process begins before dawn,
when Zeus sends Agamemnon a deceitful dream, exhorting him to attack in
force, and promising victory on that very day (2.15). Later, Iris comes ‘from
Zeus’ (πὰρ Διὸς 2.787) to Troy to warn of the Achaeans’ approach, prompting
the Trojans to take the field as well.
Poetic intentions are underscored and linked to Zeus’ intentions, first of all, by
language recalling the proem. After Zeus sends Agamemnon his dream, the poet
elaborates thus: θήσειν γὰρ ἔτ’ ἔμελλεν ἐπ’ ἄλγεά τε στοναχάς τε / Τρωσί τε καὶ
Δαναοῖσι διὰ κρατερὰς ὑσμίνας (‘for [Zeus] was again about to set pains and
groanings on the Trojans and Achaeans through fierce fighting’ 2.39–40). This
reminds us that it was the poet himself who asked the Muse for a song in which
Achilles’ wrath ‘set pains on the Achaeans’ (Ἀχαίοις ἄλγε’ ἔθηκε 1.2) in
fulfilment of Zeus’ boulē (1.5). In the present iteration, Zeus’ role is more
prominent, reflecting the fact that thanks to the poet’s song we can now see
Zeus at work. Also, the warfare that Zeus sets into motion will be grievous not
only for Achaeans but also for Trojans.
The poet’s agency, as argued in Chapter 1, becomes prominent not only in his
choices when invoking the Muse(s), but also through a variety of techniques
which emphasize his ongoing role as singer. Following Agamemnon’s failed
testing of his troops’ morale,12 as the (p.72) Achaeans race for their ships,
eager to go home, the poet makes his presence felt:
Ἔνθά κεν Ἀργείοισιν ὑπέρμορα νόστος ἐτύχθη

εἰ μὴ Ἀθηναίην Ἥρη πρὸς μῦθον ἔειπεν…
– 2.155–6
Then would the Argives have had a home-coming hypermora,

if Hera had not spoken to Athena…
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The adverbial hypermora, ‘beyond moira’, has long been seen in this passage
and others as a way of gesturing toward narrative directions not taken.13 In this
case, an early nostos (home-coming), would have pre-empted the rest of the
performance, while leaving the poet’s audience incredulous at such a
denouement: Achaeans gone home early; Troy not sacked. The poet’s part in
making the battle happen thus comes to the fore here, in a way that shows
overlap with divine agency. That sense of an overlap is picked up a bit further
on, as we learn that Athena continues to rouse the men by making battle seem
‘sweeter than nostos’ (2.446–54).
Iliadic staging, I have suggested, involves not only making the spectacle happen,
but also arranging that it happen for viewers to whom the staging process is
somewhat evident. The interests of Zeus and the poet appear to overlap in this
respect as well. Thus, the poet employs a virtuosic series of three similes to
render the Achaean armies dazzlingly vivid, and to call attention to his power to
do so (2.455–77). Immediately afterward, we are shown Zeus using his own
power to make one warrior, Agamemnon, stand out gloriously among the rest
(2.477–83). It is now that the poet once more recalls the proem overtly, calling
upon the Muses for help in recounting the whole catalogue of Achaean forces
(2.484–93). His praise of the Muses’ divinity, presence, vision, and knowledge
draws attention to this spectacle’s paradoxical power to engage viewers even
across great gulfs of time.14
When we learn in Book 4 that ‘the gods’ have for some time been ‘gazing upon
the city of the Trojans’ (Τρώων πόλιν εἰσορόωντες 4.1–4), we intuit readily that
the day’s spectacle of war is what has captured their attention.15 One might
wonder, then, why no mention (p.73) is made of Olympians looking down in
Book 2 itself. After all, each of the three subsequent mornings of battle (in Books
8, 11, and 19) will emphasize divine viewing along with staging. This timing is
best explained, I suggest, if we recognize the importance of the formal duel in
Book 3 for characterizing the gods’ role as viewers.
2.1.3. The Duel as a Paradigm of Military Spectacle (Book 3)

The formal duel between Paris and Menelaus occupies most of Book 3. Divine
viewing features only once: when Menelaus is dragging Paris off by the helmet
strap, Aphrodite notices (νόησε 3.374), rescues Paris, and spirits him away in a
mist. Nevertheless, the duel episode provides an important basis for
understanding the gods’ role as an audience for the warfare, because the divine
audience is introduced in Book 4 in the context of the duel, and it remains a
fundamental paradigm thereafter. It is therefore worth spending time to analyse
in detail how this duel is placed in the narrative, how it is structured, and how it
positions viewers in relation to the action.
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The duel is inserted at an odd moment—after the armies clash, but before any
blows are actually narrated. It is introduced with a flourish. Anticipation for the
battle scenes has been building since the proem. Now, as battle is about to be
joined at last, and the clamorous Trojans are rushing at the disciplined and
determined Achaeans (3.1–9), the poet compares the dust that is tossed up to a
vision-obscuring fog (3.10–14):
Εὖτ’ ὄρεος κορυϕῇσι Νότος κατέχευεν ὀμίχλην

ποιμέσιν οὔ τι ϕίλην, κλέπτῃ δέ τε νυκτὸς ἀμείνω,
τόσσόν τίς τ’ ἐπιλεύσσει ὅσον τ’ ἐπὶ λᾶαν ἵησιν·
ὣς ἄρα τῶν ὑπὸ ποσσὶ κονίσαλος ὄρνυτ’ ἀελλὴς
ἐρχομένων· μάλα δ’ ὦκα διέπρησσον πεδίοιο.
– 3.10–14
As when on mountain peaks the South Wind pours down fog,

no friend to shepherds, but better than night to a thief,
and a man sees only as far as [one could] throw a stone –
so the dust rose dense from under their feet
as they came on – and very quickly they crossed the plain.
(p.74) This last magnification or glorification of the armies also removes them
from sight. That dusty blur is the last the armies are seen until Hector and
Agamemnon bring them all to a halt (3.76–85) for the purpose of announcing the
duel. In terms of narrative sequence and expectation, a small spectacle has been
set in the place of the grand one, in the last possible moment.16
The duel not only replaces the warfare for the moment; it threatens to replace it
entirely. Whatever the duel’s result, both sides agree that the Achaeans will go
home and the Trojans remain at Troy, with friendship established between
them.17 Indeed, both duel and warfare represent the same conflict, stemming
from the same dispute and fought for the same prizes: Helen (ἑθεν εἵνεκ’ 3.128,
περὶ σεῖο 3.137)18 and riches (3.91–3, 136–8). The identity of the combatants in
the duel suggests a particular narrative about the war, framing it in terms of
transgression and punishment.19 With Paris as the transgressor and Menelaus
the aggrieved, the death of either would remove the ostensible cause for the
conflict.20 This situation is reflected in the terms of the duel, which looks to the
death of one or the other.21
Discussions of the duel episode have often focused on the apparent lack of logic
in the scene’s placement; a duel between Paris and Menelaus would more
properly belong at the beginning of the war (p.75) (rather than nine years in),
as would Helen’s identification of Achaean leaders for Priam, the teichoskopia,
which takes place during preparations for the duel. Scholars have shown how
through this and other scenes in the early books (such as the Catalogue of
Ships), the poet is able to reach beyond the poem’s narrative horizons.22 I
suggest however that the duel episode does not only look toward the war’s
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beginning. It also looks ahead, in the time-frame of the Iliad’s performance, by

offering a set of terms for conceiving of this warfare as spectacle.
One lesson of this episode is that to be a spectator for the duel is to be a part of
the larger conflict that it represents; subject to observation by other spectators;
and possibly the object of critical discussion as well. In the teichoskopia, Helen
and Priam view and discuss Achaean leaders who have just set down their arms
to watch the duel. Helen herself, when she appears on the wall to watch, is
likewise spotted (εἴδονθ’ Ἑλένην 3.154) by the Trojan elders. Helen attracts
comments on her dangerous beauty (3.155–60); Agamemnon on his ability to
marshal large forces (3.182–90); Odysseus on his eloquence as an ambassador
before the opening of hostilities (3.203–24).
The duel is structured by a spatial, as well as a conceptual, distinction between

actors and viewers. Hector and Odysseus first ‘measure out’ a space (χῶρον μὲν
πρῶτον διεμέτρεον 3.315). This circumscribed area corresponds to the ‘middle’
space in which Menelaus and Paris will fight (ἐν μέσσῳ 3.69, 90). The spatial
coordinates of the spectacle are re-emphasized just after the combatants arm
(3.329–39):
Οἳ δ’ ἐπεὶ οὖν ἑκάτερθεν ὁμίλου θωρήχθησαν,

ἐς μέσσον Τρώων καὶ Ἀχαιῶν ἐστιχόωντο
δεινὸν δερκόμενοι· θάμβος δ’ ἔχεν εἰσορόωντας
Τρῶάς θ’ ἱπποδάμους καὶ ἐϋκνήμιδας Ἀχαιούς.
καί ῥ’ ἐγγὺς στήτην διαμετρητῷ ἐνὶ χώρῳ
σείοντ’ ἐγχείας ἀλλήλοισιν κοτέοντε.
πρόσθε δ’ Ἀλέξανδρος προΐει δολιχόσκιον ἔγχος…
– 3.340–6
(p.76) Then, when they had armed on either side of the throng,
they marched into the middle of the Trojans and Achaeans,
glaring fiercely – and wonder held them as they looked on,
the horse-taming Trojans and the well-greaved Achaeans.
And they stood close within the measured out space
brandishing their spears at each other fiercely.
Paris first hurled his long spear…
While the armies are immobile and seated,23 the actors, Paris and Menelaus,
take up arms and enter the middle (ἐς μέσσον 3.341). It is now that viewers and
actors assume their roles in earnest: wonder strikes the armies ‘as they look
on’ (θάμβος δ’ ἔχεν εἰσορόωντας 3.342). Spears are brandished, and the first
cast is made (3.344–5). The entry into the arena (ἐγγὺς στήτην διαμετρητῷ ἐνὶ
χώρῳ 3.344) has marked the beginning of the action. This sequence is soon to be
reprised, as the poet constructs his large-scale battle scenes as a spectacle on
the same paradigm, with the gods and his own audience as viewers.
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2.1.4. The Significance of Duel and Daïs for the Gods’ Viewing Role (Book 4)
We are now ready to examine the key passage, which introduces the gods as a
collective viewership. With Paris having vanished, rescued by Aphrodite,
Menelaus seeks for him in vain. The poet marks the gods watching from Zeus’
house on Olympus:
Οἳ δὲ θεοὶ πὰρ Ζηνὶ καθήμενοι ἠγορόωντο

χρυσέῳ ἐν δαπέδῳ, μετὰ δέ σϕισι πότνια Ἥβη
νέκταρ ἐοινοχόει· τοὶ δὲ χρυσέοις δεπάεσσι
δειδέχατ’ ἀλλήλους, Τρώων πόλιν εἰσορόωντες.
– 4.1–4
But the gods for their part, seated beside Zeus, were assembled
on the golden floor, and among them lady Hebe
was the ‘wine’-pourer of their nectar. And they, with golden goblets
made toasts to each other, gazing upon the city of the Trojans.
This passage invites us to situate the gods in the context of two distinct
paradigms of live event: the daïs (prepared in Book 1) and (p.77) the duel
(detailed in Book 3). The last time we saw the gods as a group was the
conclusion of Book 1, the daïs 1.602 at Zeus’ house:
Ὣς τότε μὲν πρόπαν ἦμαρ ἐς ἠέλιον καταδύντα

δαίνυντ’, οὐδέ τι θυμὸς ἐδεύετο δαιτὸς ἐΐσης,
οὐ μὲν ϕόρμιγγος περικαλλέος ἣν ἔχ’ Ἀπόλλων,
Μουσάων θ’ αἳ ἄειδον ἀμειβόμεναι ὀπὶ καλῇ.
– 1.601–4
In this way then all day until the setting of the sun
they banqueted (dainunto), nor did their hearts lack whatsoever in
measured daïs,
nor in the beautiful phorminx [a lyre-like instrument] held by Apollo
and the Muses who picked up each other’s singing with lovely voice.
The scene in Book 1 ensures that for audiences hearing about Olympus in the
Iliad, as for those hearing about Scheria in the Odyssey, the performance of
poetry is marked as the natural ‘companion of the daïs’.24 When Book 4 opens,
the gods are again gathered at Zeus’ house; a ‘wine’-pourer (Hebe rather than
Hephaestus) makes the rounds, glasses are raised and a fine time is being had
by all. Similarities of setting and mood emphasize a contrast which adds to the
present scene’s dramatic effect. While the gods making toasts ‘to each
other’ (ἀλλήλους 4.4) still recall the inward-looking revellers at the end of Book
1, the final phrase following the strong caesura marks a switch: ‘gazing on the
city of the Trojans’ (Τρώων πόλιν εἰσορόωντες 4.4). With this, the poet has
neatly substituted spectacle for song as the entertainment at the gods’ banquet,
implicitly drawing an analogy between the gods’ viewing activity and the
Page 10 of 42

reception of poetry. Indeed, the shift from Book 1, where the gods are an
audience for poetic performance, to Book 4, where the gods are a live
viewership for the spectacle at the centre of the Iliad, can be seen as a metaphor
for the mental transformation sought by the poet for his audience from hearers
of song to viewers of what his song describes.
(p.78) While the setting in which the gods are drinking evokes one type of
arranged event, the entertainment at a daïs, the immediate narrative context
involves another: the formal duel. Book 3 has just ended with a survey of
viewers’ responses to the duel’s uncertain outcome: the Trojans would throw
Paris back to Menelaus if they could see him; Agamemnon claims victory for
Menelaus; the Achaeans voice agreement (3.451–61). Here one might expect a
reply from Hector, or another Trojan prince. Instead, the discussion of the duel’s
outcome and implications continues on Olympus among the gods.25
Agamemnon’s assertion νίκη μὲν δὴ ϕαίνετ’ ἀρηϊϕίλου Μενελάου (‘indeed the
victory clearly belongs to war-loving Menelaus’ 3.457) is essentially restated by
Zeus to the gods a few lines later: ἀλλ’ ἤτοι νίκη μὲν ἀρηϊϕίλου Μενελάου (‘but
as you see, the victory belongs to war-loving Menelaus’ 4.13). Agamemnon’s μὲν
(3.457) looks ahead to his demand in the δὲ-clause that the Trojans give over
Helen and the treasure (ὑμεῖς δ’ Ἀργείην Ἑλένην καὶ κτήμαθ’ ἅμ’ αὐτῇ / ἔκδοτε
3.458–9).26 Zeus’ μὲν (4.13) looks ahead to his entertainment of the idea that the
Trojans be allowed to do just that (4.14ff). The movement from Troy to Olympus
is almost seamless in that the conversation is continuous, picking up above from
where it left off below.27
The duel’s audiences form a kind of tier arrangement: the first tier is constituted
by the Trojans and Achaeans on the field, who remain outside what the poet has
described as the ‘marked-off space’ (διαμετρητῷ ἐνὶ χώρῳ 3.344), and marvel as
they gaze at the combatants (θάμβος δ’ ἔχεν εἰσορόωντας 3.342). Farther away
and higher up on the walls of Troy are Helen, Priam, and the Trojan elders; this
second tier observes not only the combatants, but also the first tier, and each
other. On Olympus, the gods effectively constitute a third tier of spectators. They
observe not only the duel and the first ring, but also the second ring of
spectators on the city walls: this expansive (p.79) view is encapsulated in
Τρώων πόλιν εἰσορόωντες (‘gazing upon the city of the Trojans’ 4.4). The effect
is a continuous regression of ever more remote audiences. One might be
tempted to imagine, at one further remove, the poet’s audience, who can see the
fight, the various viewers, and presumably each other as well.
The combination of duel and daïs is highly charged. In one respect, the two
paradigms resonate harmoniously: each fosters the impression that the gods’
viewing activity constitutes participation in an arranged event. On the other
hand, each paradigm suggests different expectations about the nature of that
participation. Consider the gods’ seated position (καθήμενοι 4.1). On the one
hand, this detail nicely fits both paradigms: the Trojans and Achaeans sit down
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‘in their ranks’ to become audiences for the duel,28 and the ideal daïs features an
audience ‘sitting in order’ (ἥμενοι ἑξείης Od.9.7–8). But where the gods violate
the expectations of the duel, they tend to fit the expectations of the daïs, and
vice versa. Thus, the verb used by Zeus to denote the gods’ pleasure, terpesthai
(4.10),29 jars with the duel context, for that verb never denotes a mortal viewer’s
response to fighting. Instead, it typically evokes pleasure that is shared,30 often
pleasure that is taken at leisure.31 It is regularly used of those enjoying a daïs,32
and is the expected effect of poetry in both Homeric epics. (p.80) Drinking and
observing the Trojan War at their daïs on Olympus, the gods resemble the
Phaeacians of the Odyssey who enjoy poetry about the Trojan War (τέρποντ’
ἐπέεσσιν Od.8.91) while drinking together at their daïs on Scheria.33 And yet the
gods violate the expectations of the daïs context, in ways that fit the duel
paradigm. They are personally involved in the conflict that the duel represents,
like the duel’s other audiences. The seated warriors on the field, like some
among the divine audience, will soon rise, arm, and join the conflict, according
to their partisan allegiances and personal feelings.
It is the gods’ participation, as viewers and as actors, that creates and maintains
a perspective from which the Iliad’s great battle scenes are a live event with
resemblance to both the daïs and duel paradigms. In order to see most clearly
the connection between the duel that has finished and the battles that now will
begin, let us momentarily pass over the gods’ conversation, which results in a
decision to break the truce, to consider how that truce-breaking is accomplished
and represented in the text.
Athena darts down like a comet (4.75–8), to enter the very space in which Paris
and Menelaus were fighting:
κὰδ δ’ ἔθορ’ ἐς μέσσον· θάμβος δ’ ἔχεν εἰσορόωντας

Τρῶάς θ’ ἱπποδάμους καὶ ἐϋκνήμιδας Ἀχαιούς·
– 4.79–80
And she leapt into the middle, and wonder held those watching –
A spectator just 70 lines earlier (εἰσορόωσαι 4.9), Athena has now become the
object of viewing (εἰσορόωντας 4.79). Compare the language that signalled the
beginning of the duel:

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– 3.341–2
[Paris and Menelaus] marched into the middle of the Trojans and
Achaeans,
glaring fiercely – and wonder held those watching,
(p.81) The unmistakable suggestion is that a new spectacle is beginning, in the

place of the old. The poet has gone out of his way to accomplish this effect, by
making Athena go out of her way. The Trojan Pandarus, the human agent of the
breaking of the true, is surrounded by the strong ranks of his spearmen (4.90–1)
amid the crowd of the Trojans (Τρώων…ὅμιλον 4.86). Instead of going to
Pandarus directly, Athena first symbolically enters the arena (ἐς μέσσον 4.79).
The transition between spectacles of duel and war is wonderfully fluid: the
Trojans and Achaeans are momentarily held in their spectator roles, as they
recognize a divine portent and wonder what the gods have decided (4.81–4).
Then the familiar sequence proceeds: just as Paris struck the first blow after
entering the arena (3.346–9), so now Athena will join Pandarus in striking the
first blow in the larger conflict for which the duel had till now been a substitute.
The parallelism between the two scenes is underlined by the fact that in both
cases Menelaus is the target of attack.
Accepting the invitation to conceive of the poem’s battle scenes in the terms of
the duel, one finds correspondences. In spatial terms, the ‘marked-off’ space of
the duel in Book 3 corresponds to the space in which the poem’s central action
takes place: the city, the ships and the plain between. Within the text, this space
is most clearly defined by the descriptions of the gods’ viewing activity. Thus for
example when Zeus sits glorying on Ida he looks down at ‘the city of the Trojans
and the ships of the Achaeans’ (εἰσορόων Τρώων τε πόλιν καὶ νῆας Ἀχαιῶν
11.82); Zeus’ position outside of the ‘theatre of war’ helps the poet demarcate it
as a particular area.34 The ‘nucleus’ of action shrinks and expands at times, but
nevertheless is maintained with a great deal of continuity, for it is defined not
only by its spatial boundaries but also by the nature of the event taking place
within it: the conflict, or contests, of Trojans and Achaeans. As Troy corresponds
to the arena of the duel, Olympus—the usual site of the gods’ viewing, from their
seats—corresponds to the area for interested onlookers, everything outside the
duel’s ‘marked off’ space.
Of course, the gods are sometimes far from passive. In fact, the Iliad sometimes
presents the conflict at Troy as the expression of a divine conflict, between
Athena and Hera on the one hand and (p.82) Aphrodite on the other (4.7–12;
24.28–30), or between opposing factions of deities (20.19–40, 54–155; 21.328–
520). Yet the gods never attack one another except upon the Trojan plain—
everything from Athena’s attacks on Ares and Aphrodite in Book 5 to the
theomachia in Books 20 and 21 transpire at Troy. When the gods do want to take
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action they, like Paris and Menelaus stepping into the marked-off middle space,
must typically descend from Olympus to Troy: that is, they must enter the
arena.35
The daïs, too, continues to play a significant role far beyond this scene on
Olympus. Passages in Books 8, 15, 19, 21, and 24 especially reinforce the idea
that the setting for the divine audience’s collective viewing activity is the daïs at
Zeus’ house. In 8.436–7, Athena and Hera return and rejoin the others in their
golden chairs; on Hera’s return after seducing Zeus, the other gods raise their
glasses to her (15.84–6) and she invites Themis to lead the gods in the daïs
(15.87–8, 95). Hera’s suggestion that the daïs might be less than pleasant
‘already’ due to the machinations of Zeus in support of the Trojans (15.96–9)
indicates that the military contests at Troy are still the gods’ chief entertainment
as they drink together. That the setting of the daïs at Zeus’ home on Olympus
remains constant through Book 24 is made plain when Iris brings Thetis up from
the sea, and they find Zeus and ‘all the other blessed gods who are eternal
gathered around’ (24.98–9). Hera offers Thetis a goblet, which she accepts,
drinking (24.101–2). ‘Zeus’ house’ is often specified as the location of the
gathering (cf. 15.84–5, 19.355, 21.438).
The above analysis can help explain the impression commonly voiced by critics,
that the Iliad’s gods not only watch the action but constitute an ‘audience’ for it.
Two specific types of arranged event, the duel and the daïs, define their
relationship to what they see. Also, the warfare they witness is the result and
object of intentional orchestration. To be sure, the gods can only perceive Zeus’
work, not the poet’s. And yet, as we have seen, the distinction between those
figures’ activities is often blurred. Consequently, I suggest that in some (p.83)
moments in the Iliad, an additional reason that we perceive the gods as an
‘audience’ for a live event is that the Iliad itself is a live event, whose central
action the gods are following, moment to moment, as we do. It is this possibility
that is explored in the next section.
2.2. Implications for Homer’s Audience

Even as Homer is positioning the gods as an audience for the warfare, he is also
drawing attention to his success in rendering that warfare an object of viewing
for the audience of the Iliad. Accordingly, this second section reads the opening
of Book 4 as a mise en abyme of audience experience. A brief recap of
methodology: any audience for the Iliad must be assumed to be responding to
the events unfolding at mythic Troy, on the one hand, and to the poet’s
performance on the other. Metaperformative readings are justifiable when we
find textual cues suggesting that what is happening at Troy refers in some
noticeable way to what is happening in the hic et nunc of performance.
If we assume that the Iliad’s narrator is a consummate practitioner of his art,

then metaperformative moments should be explicable as strategies enhancing
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the success of the performance. This assumption presents a difficulty, since the
question of what constitutes a successful performance is open to debate. But one
of my aims here is to contribute to that debate. The gods’ metaperformative
function may provide one kind of evidence, to be evaluated in accordance with
how well it fits with other evidence, as to what responses the poem’s audience is
being encouraged to adopt.
2.2.1. Textual Cues Pointing to a Mise en Abyme

Both of the paradigms used to construct the divine audience, the duel and the
daïs, contain cues inviting a metaperformative reading. The Olympians’ daïs, as
we have seen, is introduced as a setting for poetry (in Book 1) and resembles
Odyssean daites that feature poetry. But the duel, too, is introduced in such a
way as to reflect on audience experience of the Iliad.
The duel episode features one of the most discussed metapoetic moments in the
Iliad, a passage reflecting on both the visual appeal and the temporal paradoxes
of epic. Iris has come to summon Helen (p.84) to the city walls to watch the
duel. She finds her in her chambers, weaving a tapestry that depicts πολέας…
ἀέθλους / Τρώων θ’ ἱπποδάμων καὶ Ἀχαιῶν χαλκοχιτώνων (‘many contests/toils
(aethlous) of the Trojans and Achaeans’ 3.126–7). Critics from antiquity to today
have taken Helen’s weaving as a metaphor for the poet’s craft.36 The tapestry, as
Anne Bergren has convincingly argued,37 emphasizes the power of epic to
transcend time: the weaver captures ephemeral moments, and holds them
outside of time by making them available for repeated viewings—what Bergren
calls ‘metatemporal permanence’. The tapestry’s ability to ‘capture’ and
preserve the moment in this way corresponds to epic’s implicit claim to save
ephemeral moments from oblivion, by means of repeated performances over
time—to give what the poem refers to as ‘unperishing glory/fame (kleos)’38 to
those whose deeds it recounts. Thus, to see the Iliad as tapestry is to take a step
back from the current performance, and to see the poet’s craft and the poet
himself as part of a larger tradition.
Three lines later, Iris summons Helen to become a viewer of the duel, which she
describes with highly charged language:
δεῦρ’ ἴθι νύμϕα ϕίλη, ἵνα θέσκελα ἔργα ἴδηαι

Τρώων θ’ ἱπποδάμων καὶ Ἀχαιῶν χαλκοχιτώνων
οἳ πρὶν ἐπ’ ἀλλήλοισι ϕέρον πολύδακρυν Ἄρηα
ἐν πεδίῳ ὀλοοῖο λιλαιόμενοι πολέμοιο·
οἳ δὴ νῦν ἕαται σιγῇ, πόλεμος δὲ πέπαυται,
ἀσπίσι κεκλιμένοι, παρὰ δ’ ἔγχεα μακρὰ πέπηγεν.
αὐτὰρ Ἀλέξανδρος καὶ ἀρηΐϕιλος Μενέλαος
μακρῇς ἐγχείῃσι μαχήσονται περὶ σεῖο·
τῷ δέ κε νικήσαντι ϕίλη κεκλήσῃ ἄκοιτις.
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– 3.130–8
Come here, dear girl, to see wondrous deeds [theskela erga] –

of the horse-taming Trojans and bronze-clad Achaeans.
Those who before waged grievous Ares against each other
in the field, eager for terrible warfare,
(p.85) those same men now sit silent – and the warfare has stopped
–
[they] leaning on their shields, and their long spears are fixed beside
them.
But Paris and war-loving Menelaus
with their long spears will fight over you:
and you will be called the victor’s dear wife.
Erga is odd here. After all, warriors’ erga are usually displays of battle prowess
(πολεμήϊα ἔργα).39 The ‘terrible work (ergon) of the Trojans and
Achaeans’ (ἔργον…ἀργαλέον Τρώων καὶ Ἀχαιῶν 4.470–1) should properly
consist of fighting with wolf-like ferocity (4.471–2). But here, their erga seem to
consist of disarmament. There is an unsettling reversal in the move from the
tapestry, in which the Trojans and Achaeans engage in motionless ‘contests’, to
the duel, in which the Trojans and Achaeans are not cloth but flesh and blood—
yet have ceased to move, becoming themselves passive viewers of the spectacle
that is beginning.
Theskela erga appears in only two other places in the Homeric epics, both in
Book 11 of the Odyssey.40 The first time it is used there, it denotes the spell-
binding narrative of a poet-like story-teller: Alcinous, after comparing Odysseus
to a singer of poetry urges Odysseus to continue to tell theskela erga: μῦθον δ’
ὡς ὅτ’ ἀοιδὸς ἐπισταμένως κατέλεξας…(And your story—like a singer of poetry
(aoidos) you’ve skilfully told it…—Od.11.368)…σὺ δέ μοι λέγε θέσκελα ἔργα (…
tell me theskela erga!—Od.11.374). Later, Odysseus describes the designs on the
belt of Heracles’ eidolon in the underworld:
χρύσεος ἦν τελαμών, ἵνα θέσκελα ἔργα τέτυκτο,

ἄρκτοι τ’ ἀγρότεροί τε σύες χαροποί τε λέοντες,
ὑσμῖναί τε μάχαι τε ϕόνοι τ’ ἀνδροκτασίαι τε.
– Od.11.610–12
Golden was the baldrick, and there theskela erga had been worked:
bears and wild pigs and bright-eyed lions,
fierce battles and killings and the slaughter of men.
Heracles’ belt is an artistically fashioned visual representation of wild beasts

and ‘fierce battles and killings and the slaughter of men’ (ὑσμῖναί τε μάχαι τε
ϕόνοι τ’ ἀνδροκτασίαι τε Od.11.612). These passages suggest (p.86) that
within the Homeric song tradition,41 theskela erga may describe both the power
of vivid narrative description, and unsettlingly42 life-like visual representations
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of combat: on both counts, this is just what a singer provides his audience
through performance of the Iliad.
What is striking about the juxtaposition of these phrases—the aethlous and the
theskela erga of the Trojans and Achaeans—is that each points to the context in
which the other appears. Aethloi, used of Helen’s weaving, suggests spectacle:
while the term can mean ‘toils’ in Homer, it also frequently refers to ‘contests’ in
the sense of athletic contests in front of crowds, fought for particular prizes—
very much like the duel between Paris and Menelaus.43 Theskela erga, on the
other hand, referring to the duel, suggests craftsmanship: aside from the
theskela erga of Heracles’ belt noted above, erga often refers to such things as
the works of an artisan (χαρίεντα ἔργα Od.6.234)—or indeed to a woman’s work
of weaving (6.490–2), like that in which Helen is engaged. The two phrases, so
similar, positioned so closely to each other, and pointing to each other in the way
just described, ask to be interpreted in terms of each other.
I suggest that the tapestry and the spectacle are juxtaposed here as
complementary models of the Iliad’s functioning. While it is a wonderful
interpretive tool the tapestry model is markedly incomplete: within the text
Helen’s work has no viewers other than herself, and even the poet’s audience is
denied a description of the imagery.44 Without viewers, the tapestry model
conveys its sense of the eternal, (p.87) of a moment that is held forever outside
of time, without treating the immediacy of live performance. It is these gaps
which the duel fills, offering a neat complement to the model of the tapestry by
providing an invitation out of ‘metatemporal permanence’ and into the story-
world, where a live viewership responds to events as they happen from moment
to moment. No sooner has Helen’s weaving been mentioned, than she herself is
called away from the tapestry to become one of many viewers for a spectacle
happening in real time: the theskela erga of the Trojans and Achaeans. In this
sense, Iris’ call to Helen, ‘come look!’ (δεῦρ’ ἴθι…ἵνα…ἴδηαι 3.130), suggests
also a call to the poet’s listeners to join the duel’s many audiences: to experience
Iliadic combat not just as enduring art that captures and preserves the past, but
as a public, high-stakes spectacle fought by living human beings before their
very eyes.
To consider the Iliad as woven art is to celebrate its human craftsmanship. To

conceive of it as a live event, however, is to recognize a union of divine and
poetic design. Iris’ summons to Helen reflects this difference. Her appearance in
and of itself constitutes divine agency: perhaps Zeus, through her, is executing a
‘staging’ move by adding another, key viewer. Then, too, the roots of theskela
suggest ‘produced by a god’, and the word may have connoted as much to early
Greek audiences.45
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The conjunction of divine and poetic intention is another cue suggesting

metaperformative significance. The duel, as we have seen, is fought on terms
that guarantee friendship thereafter between Trojans and Achaeans (3.94).
Thus, by inserting the truce episode, the poet has implicitly invited his listeners
to consider a scenario in which Troy does not fall after all—an event already
labelled as being ‘beyond moira’ (2.155).46 Now, with the outcome of the duel
and truce still (p.88) unresolved, Zeus explicitly issues the same invitation to
the gods on Olympus:
αὐτίκ’ ἐπειρᾶτο Κρονίδης ἐρεθιζέμεν Ἥρην

κερτομίοις ἐπέεσσι παραβλήδην ἀγορεύων·
δοιαὶ μὲν Μενελάῳ ἀρηγόνες εἰσὶ θεάων
Ἥρη τ’ Ἀργείη καὶ Ἀλαλκομενηῒς Ἀθήνη.
ἀλλ’ ἤτοι ταὶ νόσϕι καθήμεναι εἰσορόωσαι
τέρπεσθον· τῷ δ’ αὖτε ϕιλομειδὴς Ἀϕροδίτη
αἰεὶ παρμέμβλωκε καὶ αὐτοῦ κῆρας ἀμύνει·
καὶ νῦν ἐξεσάωσεν ὀϊόμενον θανέεσθαι.
ἀλλ’ ἤτοι νίκη μὲν ἀρηϊϕίλου Μενελάου·
ἡμεῖς δὲ ϕραζώμεθ’ ὅπως ἔσται τάδε ἔργα,
ἤ ῥ’ αὖτις πόλεμόν τε κακὸν καὶ ϕύλοπιν αἰνὴν
ὄρσομεν, ἦ ϕιλότητα μετ’ ἀμϕοτέροισι βάλωμεν.
εἰ δ’ αὖ πως τόδε πᾶσι ϕίλον καὶ ἡδὺ γένοιτο,
ἤτοι μὲν οἰκέοιτο πόλις Πριάμοιο ἄνακτος,
αὖτις δ’ Ἀργείην Ἑλένην Μενέλαος ἄγοιτο.
– 4.5–19
Right away the son of Cronus began trying to provoke Hera

by speaking obliquely47 with teasing words:
‘Two goddesses are the helpers of Menelaus,
Argive Hera and the defender Athena.
But look!, those two sit apart looking on and
taking delight (terpesthon). But as for him [Paris] – laughter-loving
Aphrodite
consistently protects him and wards off death.
Even now, she has spirited him away, when he thought he would die.
Well, look now – as to the victory, it belongs to war-loving Menelaus.
But as for us, let us take thought how these things will be:
whether we will again stir up the evil warfare and the terrible strife,
or whether we will cast friendship among them on both sides.
And if, somehow, this thing in its turn should be welcome and sweet
to all –
well!, the city of lord Priam could continue to be inhabited,
and Menelaus could lead Argive Helen back again.’
(p.89) By having Zeus articulate this provocation,48 the poet is able to give it
voice himself as well, for Zeus’ words, like all the words of the poem, are to be
imagined issuing from the singer’s lips.
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Zeus’ speech brings the tensions latent in the treaty episode to the surface, and
confronts listeners with the question of whether such an ending would be sweet
at this moment.49 Such ‘confrontation’ may occur very subtly, in the manner
typical of narrative art: perceiving a character confronted with a question, we
imagine how the character feels in response, and thus engage with the question
ourselves, albeit from another’s perspective. I would like to remark, however, on
the additional possibility of a moment of ‘recognition’ during Zeus’ speech, if any
among Homer’s audience feel that on some level the performer is indeed asking
them to think about what would be sweet to them. The performer’s presence and
voice are a constant, even as he shifts between the roles of ‘Homer’ (narrating)
and Zeus.50 As he is physically present before his audience, the question that he
has voiced might trigger the ingrained human habit of mentally forming a
response to a question that one has been asked. Working from our written text,
there is no way to judge how likely such a moment of ‘recognition’ would be.51 In
general, however, it seems (p.90) that self-referentiality of this sort—whereby a
question posed by a character is also implicitly, perhaps playfully lobbed in the
direction of the audience by means of eye contact or a change in expression—is
more common, or perhaps simply more detectable, in live story-telling traditions
world-wide than is its equivalent in written literature.
Be that as it may, the poet’s audience in some way sits where the gods sit:
confronted with the question of what comes next, and how they feel about it.
How the gods respond, then, may affect how listeners feel about their role as
participants in the live event that is the Iliad.
2.2.2. The Effect of the Mise en Abyme

Zeus’ speech begins a conversation on Olympus, in which Zeus and Hera agree
to and thereby confirm Troy’s future destruction, sending Athena to accomplish
the breaking of the truce which will set the necessary chain of events in motion.
This conversation and its consequences raise questions of causality, temporality,
and divine morality in the epic, to which previous scholarship has been fruitfully
attentive. In terms of divine morality, at issue has been Hera’s excessive wrath,
and the ready acquiescence of both her and Zeus to the destruction of their most
beloved cities, on the principle which they appear to hold in common that a
god’s wrath against mortals takes precedence over a god’s protection of those
same mortals.52 In terms of temporality, the discussion on Olympus and
confirmation of Troy’s doom is seen by some as a ‘reenactment’ of a divine
discussion that one should imagine having taken place before the war began—in
much the same way that the teichoskopia and other episodes in (p.91) Books 2
and 3 are seen as being out of sequence chronologically.53 Finally, the episode of
the truce-breaking, like others in the poem, presents an apparent paradox of
causation—and responsibility—whereby the Trojan Pandarus’ truce-breaking
bow-shot is ‘doubly motivated’ by the gods’ decision and Athena’s intervention
on the one hand, and Pandarus’ desire for glory on the other.54 As I aim to show,
all of these tensions take on another layer of significance for listeners who
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accept the poet’s invitation to consider the gods as an audience for the spectacle
with which they themselves, too, are engaged.
Stephen Halliwell has persuasively argued that the Odyssey’s Eumaeus ‘takes
the best singers to represent the deepest form of emotionally engrossing
narrative’, and ‘can be considered an “exemplary” audience for epic’.55 The
following readings tend to support Halliwell’s thesis. The singer of the Iliad too,
seeks to move his audience with emotionally engrossing narrative: to provoke,
on the one hand, delight at the skill with which he negotiates his material and, at
the same time, a host of more visceral responses to the world his narration
reveals, such as vicarious pain, fear, grief, and the thrill of deadly combat.
The gods in this initial description appear unified in the conviviality and
merriment of the daïs as they ‘make toasts to each other’ and gaze at Troy. (4.4).
If one were to apply the standards of the Phaeacian king Alcinous in the Odyssey
to judge this daïs on Olympus, it could be called a success. Alcinous values
shared enjoyment, in contrast to which Odysseus’s weeping (ὀϊζυροῖο γόοιο Od.
8.540) and grief (ἄχος Od.8.541) are taken by Alcinous as proof that Demodocus’
song has failed in the case of Odysseus: οὐ γάρ πως πάντεσσι χαριζόμενος τάδ’
ἀείδει (‘in singing these things [Demodocus] does not delight everyone’ Od.
8.538), and that Demodocus should cease, ἵν’ ὁμῶς τερπώμεθα πάντες (‘so that
we may all take pleasure alike’ Od.8.542).56 From such a perspective, the gods
at this (p.92) point would appear to present a model of an audience
successfully entertained by the Iliad.57
Despite the gods’ evident enjoyment, however, they do not represent a

straightforwardly positive model of ‘reception’.58 First of all, their attention
appears to be divided. When Odysseus praises Alcinous’ hospitality at Scheria,
he specifies in his vision of the τέλος χαριέστερον (‘most pleasant
consummation’ Od.9.5) that the poet’s audience sits all in order (ἀκουάζωνται
ἀοιδοῦ / ἥμενοι ἑξείης Od.9.7–8). When Penelope enjoins Phemius to sing
another song than the Achaean nostoi, she specifies that the suitors will listen
and drink σιωπῇ (‘in silence’ Od.1.340).59 The Phaeacians are so gripped by the
magic of Odysseus’ song-like story that they remain silent even after it has
abruptly stopped.60 By contrast, the gods in the Iliad are pledging each other
with their cups even as they watch: the activity of ‘reception’ occupies only part
of their minds, while they also talk and interact socially.61
Furthermore, Alcinous’ criteria for a poem’s success are not the only possible
ones. Plato’s rhapsode Ion considers tears the measure of a successful
performance. ‘If I leave [my audience] crying, I laugh’; the rhapsode is glad for
the money he will earn from his grateful listeners who have been moved to
tears.62 That text is late, and Ion’s performing role not necessarily the same as
that of a bard-like (p.93) Demodocus,63 but this is a useful reminder that from
another perspective Odysseus actually displays a more appropriate response to
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the Iliadic poetry of Demodocus than do the Phaeacians. Even if Odysseus

suffers more than one could wish from listening to an epic poem, the intensity of
his response also makes the Phaeacians seem overly casual, even shallow by
comparison. All of these complications should caution against reading the gods’
enjoyment in Book 4 of the Iliad simply as a representation of ideal audience
response.
Homer, I suggest, is not satisfied to have an audience of Phaeacians (or suitors)

who indulge in his performance as casually as they drink their wine. Rather, he
wants an audience on emotional tenterhooks.64 Through Zeus’ speech at 4.5–12
the poet suggests that the casual, complacent enjoyment depicted in lines 1–4 is
not in itself a sufficient response to what is happening at Troy—at any rate not
for anyone who, like Hera and Athena, is invested in the idea that Troy must fall.
Note that Hera and Athena are sitting and looking on (καθήμεναι εἰσορόωσαι
4.9), just like the other gods (καθήμενοι 1.1, εἰσορόωντες 4.4). But Zeus sets this
behaviour against the goddesses’ particular partisan interests: ironically calling
Hera and Athena Μενελάῳ ἀρηγόνες (‘the helpers of Menelaus’ 4.7), Zeus
contrasts their passivity with Aphrodite’s activity on behalf of her own favourite,
Paris. He notes that Hera and Athena are seated far (νόσϕι καθήμεναι 4.9) from
Menelaus, while Aphrodite ‘always goes beside’ (αἰεὶ παρμέμβλωκε 4.11) Paris.
Now terpesthai (τέρπεσθον 4.10) has a critical bite.
Zeus’ rhetoric allows the poet to engage his listeners by implicating them in the
decision making process. It should be noted that Zeus’ speech, though directed
at Hera, is not addressed to her: Hera is spoken of in the third person
throughout. Thus, when Zeus says ‘let us take thought’ (ἡμεῖς δὲ ϕραζώμεθ[α]
4.14), the ‘us’ is broadly inclusive. It includes Zeus and the gathered gods and,
potentially when voiced in performance, also the poet and his listeners. The
same is true for the ‘all’ (πᾶσι 4.17) whose pleasure is said to be important for
the story’s direction at this point. Narrative outcome is (p.94) contingent on
audience desire: if Troy is to fall, say Zeus and the poet, it will be because
‘we’ (ἡμεῖς 4.14) as a group want this.
Zeus’ speech is timed and composed so as to confront the extratextual audience

with their own unwillingness to accept the proposal that οἰκέοιτο πόλις
Πριάμοιο (‘the city of Priam could continue to be inhabited’ 4.18). One factor is
suspense: the battle scenes have been long coming, and if the performance is
going well no one would want it to end now. Compare Odysseus’ pause at a
suspenseful moment in the telling of his travels to the Phaeacians in the
Odyssey. Sensing correctly that his listeners are hooked, Odysseus cease to
narrate, and suggests that the story may end here. Odysseus seems to have had
financial benefit in mind—he passes the hat, as it were, to collect more lucre
before continuing.65 Homer in Book 4 of the Iliad, by contrast, solicits not
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material goods, but a renewed commitment from his audience: focus and
engagement with the story-telling.
A second factor is moira. Whatever one’s stand on the Homeric question(s), the
Iliad assumes some prior familiarity with elements of the story: and if anything is
necessary, it is the fall of Troy.66 The gods, too, see that eventuality as necessary,
established as moira. By suggesting, through Zeus, that events might proceed in
a way not conforming to moira, the poet challenges his audience to conceive of
the story’s events as contingent, rather than inevitable—and hence, not to feel
the complacency which Zeus described as pervading some in the divine
audience, but to sit up and pay attention.
Hera’s response to Zeus underlines her own personal investment in the

continuation of the war, while also voicing the very concern that Homer’s
audience has been set up to feel:
Ὣς ἔϕαθ’, αἳ δ’ ἐπέμυξαν Ἀθηναίη τε καὶ Ἥρη

πλησίαι αἵ γ’ ἥσθην, κακὰ δὲ Τρώεσσι μεδέσθην.
ἤτοι Ἀθηναίη ἀκέων ἦν οὐδέ τι εἶπε
σκυζομένη Διὶ πατρί, χόλος δέ μιν ἄγριος ᾕρει·
Ἥρῃ δ’ οὐκ ἔχαδε στῆθος χόλον, ἀλλὰ προσηύδα·
αἰνότατε Κρονίδη ποῖον τὸν μῦθον ἔειπες
πῶς ἐθέλεις ἅλιον θεῖναι πόνον ἠδ’ ἀτέλεστον,
ἱδρῶ θ’ ὃν ἵδρωσα μόγῳ, καμέτην δέ μοι ἵπποι
(p.95) λαὸν ἀγειρούσῃ, Πριάμῳ κακὰ τοῖό τε παισίν.
ἕρδ’· ἀτὰρ οὔ τοι πάντες ἐπαινέομεν θεοὶ ἄλλοι.
– 4.20–9
So [Zeus] spoke, but as for them – Athena and Hera – they muttered
at him.
They were sitting beside each other, those two, plotting hardship for
the Trojans.
Athena, to be sure, was silent, and said nothing
though she was angry at father Zeus, and a fierce rancour took her.
But Hera’s breast did not restrain her rancour, and she spoke:
‘Most dire son of Cronus, what sort of word have you spoken?
How are you willing to make the labour vain and unfinished? -
and the sweat that I sweated in toil! And my horses laboured for me,
as I roused the people to be an evil for Priam and his children.
Do it – but not all of us other gods will praise you.’
On the one hand, Hera’s discussion of her own role fits the expectations of the
duel paradigm: those who watch do so temporarily, and are themselves a part of
the conflict. But her response to Zeus also picks up on associations with the daïs
setting, by evoking a key role of audiences for poetry at a daïs: the giving or
withholding of praise. Hera’s verb for praise, epaineō (ἐπαινέομεν 4.29),
although regularly used in the Iliad to denote voiced approval of a leader’s
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decision or proposed course of action,67 may also resonate on a

metaperformative level. Note that Odysseus, at the Phaeacians’ daïs in the
Odyssey, uses a cognate of epaineō (ainizomai 8.847) to praise Demodocus for
putting the events of his Iliadic poetry κατὰ κόσμον (‘in order’ Od.8.489).68
Odysseus then promises to spread Demodocus’ fame far and wide if he sings
Troy’s fall κατὰ μοῖραν (‘according to moira’ Od.8.492–8), by which he
apparently means the same thing: as the account ought to go.69 As Nagy notes,
the opposite would be (p.96) for Demodocus to sing something ‘beyond’
moira.70 Thus, Hera’s words to Zeus form a kind of inversion of Odysseus’
promise of praise to Demodocus. As Demodocus is promised further praise for
getting the story right, Hera’s words to Zeus are suggestive of a listener
promising not to praise the poet in the event of an early Achaean home-coming—
an event that has already explicitly been marked as ‘beyond moira’ (hypermora)
(Ἔνθά κεν Ἀργείοισιν ὑπέρμορα νόστος ἐτύχθη 2.155). The exchange between
Hera and Zeus thus serves as a reminder that the poet is bound to get the story
right, make it convincing, or risk his song becoming the object of blame rather
than praise.
Zeus’ reply to Hera puts Homer’s audience in a potentially uncomfortable

position:
δαιμονίη τί νύ σε Πρίαμος Πριάμοιό τε παῖδες

τόσσα κακὰ ῥέζουσιν, ὅ τ’ ἀσπερχὲς μενεαίνεις
Ἰλίου ἐξαλαπάξαι ἐϋκτίμενον πτολίεθρον;
εἰ δὲ σύ γ’ εἰσελθοῦσα πύλας καὶ τείχεα μακρὰ
ὠμὸν βεβρώθοις Πρίαμον Πριάμοιό τε παῖδας
ἄλλους τε Τρῶας, τότε κεν χόλον ἐξακέσαιο.
ἕρξον ὅπως ἐθέλεις…
– 4.30–7
Incredible woman, what wrongs so great have Priam

and the children of Priam actually (νύ) done to you, that you rage
ceaselessly to demolish the well-built city of Ilium?
But if you should enter the gates and high walls
and eat Priam and the children of Priam
and the other Trojans raw – then you would purge your rage.
Do as you wish…
(p.97) Zeus’ question, ‘what wrongs so great have Priam and his children done
to you?’ (4.30–1), is never answered by Hera. Scholars have seen in this
unanswered question a suppression of Hera’s ‘real’ motivation for wanting Troy
destroyed, namely the Judgment of Paris.71 One explanation for the suppression
of the story—especially at this point in Book 4, which literally asks for it—is that
its inclusion would make Hera’s wrath seem merely petty, rather than terrible.72
I would concur with this as far as it goes. However, the important issue is not so
much why the poet has Hera leave the question unanswered, as why the poet
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creates tension by having Zeus ask the question in the first place, so that it is
then left to hang, unanswered. The present study’s approach leads to a new
interpretation of that issue.
Zeus’ question is openly voiced not only on Olympus but also in the setting of the
poem’s performance. Raised and left open at a charged moment in the text, the
question ‘what wrongs so great have the Trojans done to you?’ is also up for
consideration by the poet’s audience. Of course, for the audience Priam and his
children are in some sense story-characters, or individuals long dead: no harm
could be done to them now. But it is precisely this distinction between story-
characters and living human beings that the poet aims to blur by staging his
listeners as viewers.
The image of Hera eating Trojans raw conveys hyperbolic vengefulness.73 Hera’s
single-mindedness, which Zeus links to excessive bloodlust, suggests one model
of audience response to the poem: she is a member of the audience who, on
some level, just can’t wait to see Trojans slaughtered. This in itself may not be
surprising. The Iliad is full of carnage, and there is an artistry to the depictions
of gore that forms part of the poem’s draw,74 such as Patroclus’ killing of
Cebriones, a son of Priam:
(p.98)
οὐδ’ ἁλίωσε βέλος, βάλε δ’ Ἕκτορος ἡνιοχῆα

Κεβριόνην νόθον υἱὸν ἀγακλῆος Πριάμοιο
ἵππων ἡνί’ ἔχοντα μετώπιον ὀξέϊ λᾶϊ.
ἀμϕοτέρας δ’ ὀϕρῦς σύνελεν λίθος, οὐδέ οἱ ἔσχεν
ὀστέον, ὀϕθαλμοὶ δὲ χαμαὶ πέσον ἐν κονίῃσιν
αὐτοῦ πρόσθε ποδῶν· ὃ δ’ ἄρ’ ἀρνευτῆρι ἐοικὼς
κάππεσ’ ἀπ’ εὐεργέος δίϕρου, λίπε δ’ ὀστέα θυμός.
– 16.739–40
He did not cast the missile in vain, but struck Hector’s charioteer,
Cebriones, a bastard son of renowned Priam,
in the forehead with the jagged rock as he held the horses’ reins.
And the stone caved both his eyebrows in together, nor did the bone
withstand it, and his eyes fell on the ground in the dust
there in front of his feet. And so he plunged like a diver
from the well-built chariot, and his life left his bones.
Even Patroclus—praised by all for kindness or gentleness75—then jests at length

over the corpse:
τὸν δ’ ἐπικερτομέων προσέϕης Πατρόκλεες ἱππεῦ·

ὢ πόποι ἦ μάλ’ ἐλαϕρὸς ἀνήρ, ὡς ῥεῖα κυβιστᾷ.
εἰ δή που καὶ πόντῳ ἐν ἰχθυόεντι γένοιτο,
πολλοὺς ἂν κορέσειεν ἀνὴρ ὅδε τήθεα διϕῶν
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νηὸς ἀποθρῴσκων, εἰ καὶ δυσπέμϕελος εἴη,

ὡς νῦν ἐν πεδίῳ ἐξ ἵππων ῥεῖα κυβιστᾷ.
ἦ ῥα καὶ ἐν Τρώεσσι κυβιστητῆρες ἔασιν.
– 16.744–70
And as for him, mocking over him you spoke, Patroclus the
horseman:
Oh, no! My my! The man’s quite light, how he easily tumbles.
Why, if he’d also been born somewhere in the fishy sea,
this fellow would’ve fed many men, diving for shell-fish,
leaping from his ship, even in a stormy sea,
as now in the plain from his horses he easily tumbles.
Yes indeed! There are acrobats even among the Trojans.
This extended burst of wit appears in the episode featuring Patroclus’ own
death, whose overall tone is one of grief at that central event. If exultation in
inflicting death and misery is possible for kind (p.99) Patroclus, it is possible
vicariously for an epic audience as well, and the picture of Hera eating Trojans
in part reflects and comments on that possibility. By characterizing Hera’s blood-
lust as excessive, Zeus’ words at this point in the performance caution against
any ‘reading’ of the poem which would simply glory in slaughter and Achaean
victory. If some in the audience feel themselves anticipating a vicarious revel in
the coming brutality, they are first asked, on the eve of the grand spectacle,
what wrongs so great the Trojans have done to them.
It is not easy to dismiss Hera, for it is her desires that are carried out in what is
nominally a group decision. Other gods might disagree with her, but they are
silent. Apollo will raise the issue of pity for the Trojans in Books 7 and 24—but
here Apollo, with the others, remains unmentioned and essentially invisible,
helping to form the divine audience simply by filling out the numbers of ‘the
gods’ (4.1). Each god forms part of a collective whose pleasure notionally guides
the course that events are about to take.
Zeus offers not to oppose Troy’s destruction in return for a free hand with a city
beloved of Hera (4.39–49). Hera agrees, and the conversation then ends with
these lines from Hera:
…σὺ δὲ θᾶσσον Ἀθηναίῃ ἐπιτεῖλαι

ἐλθεῖν ἐς Τρώων καὶ Ἀχαιῶν ϕύλοπιν αἰνήν,
πειρᾶν δ’ ὥς κε Τρῶες ὑπερκύδαντας Ἀχαιοὺς
ἄρξωσι πρότεροι ὑπὲρ ὅρκια δηλήσασθαι.
– 4.64–7
…but you, quickly send Athena

to go to the terrible strife of the Trojans and Achaeans
and see to it that the Trojans first, in violation of the oaths,
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lead the way by harming the far-famed Achaeans.
The implication of Hera’s words, and Zeus’ endorsement of them, is that having
the Trojans break the truce will somehow ensure Troy’s destruction. But why
should this be so? When mortal characters think that Trojan truce-breaking will
result in Trojan destruction, it is because they expect the gods’ punishment to
come.76 However, as (p.100) many have pointed out, a central irony of the
scene is that the gods are actually agents in bringing about the truce-breaking.77
I suggest that the emphasis on the decision to make the Trojans the truce-
breakers, rather than the Achaeans, signals the poet’s own interest in making or
adhering to a good story-line. The duel in Book 3 has framed the conflict at Troy
in terms of transgression and punishment, with Paris’ egregious breach of
Menelaus’ hospitality leading inexorably toward the destruction of his city. The
narrative is invested in the idea of the Trojans as the transgressors, and it is on
the basis of this underlying thematic consistency that it is important—for the
poet, for his audience, and by extension for the gods—that the Trojans be kept in
that role.
The effect of this reflexivity in performance, I suggest, is to offer audiences a

deeper emotional experience by making them feel complicit. Lesky’s view that
Athena’s role in the arrow-shooting does not remove Pandarus’ responsibility for
the deed has been widely, though not universally, accepted.78 However, it should
be noted that by Lesky’s account Pandarus’ motivation no more diminishes
Athena’s responsibility than her motivation diminishes his. Nor, I would add,
does it let the poem’s audience off the hook: pleasing them is a third motivation,
external to the plot, but configured within the text in the figures of Zeus and
Hera.
This third level of causation, as sketched out by Zeus’ exchange with Hera,
stages an inverted causality whereby the audience is implicated in the creation
of its own villains. Zeus’ conditional sentence,79 with Hera’s reply,80 imply that
the truce will be broken not merely due to Trojan arrogance, nor solely by such
arrogance in (p.101) combination with moira and Zeus’ will, but also by
demand. Accordingly, the natural causal relationship between Trojan
transgression and audience demand for retribution has been reversed: it is not
only Trojan transgression (Paris taking Helen) which fuels (audience) demand
for retribution, but also (audience) demand for retribution that causes the Trojan
transgression (Pandarus’ bow-shot). A self-fulfilling loop of causality has been
created: we want them to pay, so we make them transgress, so they transgress,
so we want them to pay. But what comes first? Do the Trojan characters act as
they do simply to satisfy audience desire for transgressors? The question may
not be as whimsical as it sounds—Helen, for one, voices just such an opinion:
οἷσιν ἐπὶ Ζεὺς θῆκε κακὸν μόρον, ὡς καὶ ὀπίσσω

ἀνθρώποισι πελώμεθ’ ἀοίδιμοι ἐσσομένοισι.
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– 6.357–5881
Upon [Paris and me] Zeus has set an evil allotment, so that in the
future as well
we might be song-worthy for the men who are yet to be.
Even from her position within the story, Helen can assert to Hector (and to
herself, the gods, and the future generations that will hear of her) that hers and
Paris’ transgressions, and their grievous consequences, exist to satisfy the needs
of the poetic medium.82 I suggest that these words of Helen’s are a good
description of what happens in Book 4. There Zeus is in the very process of
assigning an ‘evil allotment’ to the Trojans for the very reason that they be
‘song-worthy’. The ‘evil allotment’ is that they, like Paris and Helen, become
transgressors. The song-worthiness comes out in the fact that Zeus does this at
the behest of (4.71–2 = 4.66–7), and needful of praise from (4.29), the ‘audience’
represented by Hera.
(p.102) Helen attributes what for her is a cruel and arbitrary fate to the
demands of poetic performance—song-worthiness—and makes Zeus an agent
concerned with fulfilling audience desire: this is the role which I have tried to
show that he plays in the opening of Book 4. Helen’s tone is accusatory, and
indeed, to the degree that one accepts the Iliad’s illusion that these people,
though known to be long dead, are living and striving before one’s eyes, the
issues of audience participation and complicity raised in Zeus and Hera’s
conversation create a rich tension as the war is about to be reignited.
2.2.3. Homer’s Audience as Viewers of the Warfare

The above analysis has focused on how the gods’ decision making might reflect
on and manipulate the dynamics of the poem’s performance. But the gods do not
only respond to Zeus, who runs the show at their daïs. They also respond to the
action they see happening live at Troy, which they can even take part in by
entering the ‘central space’ of the Trojan battlefield, much as do the contestants
in the duels. I would like to conclude the chapter by showing how the duel-like
quality of the spectacle at Troy, which the gods’ role makes evident, has its own
implications for the experience of Homer’s audience.
Following the bow-shot of Pandarus and Athena, the old spectacle on its own
terms has been unmade: the armies who before sat passively now ‘take up arms’
and ‘remember their fighting spirit’ (4.220–2).83 It is at the very moment when
this audience is gone, swept up in the expanding conflict, that the poet begins to
allude to another:
Ἔνθ’ οὐκ ἂν βρίζοντα ἴδοις Ἀγαμέμνονα δῖον

οὐδὲ καταπτώσσοντ’ οὐδ’ οὐκ ἐθέλοντα μάχεσθαι,
ἀλλὰ μάλα σπεύδοντα μάχην ἐς κυδιάνειραν.
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– 4.223–5
Then you would not see bright Agamemnon dozing

or cowering or avoiding the fight,
but exceedingly eager for glorious battle.
The phrase ‘then you would see…’ is an example of the device sometimes called
the hypothetical observer, or the would-be eye-witness, (p.103) widely
recognized by critics as a way for the poet to engage his audience.84 I suggest
that the placement of these would-be eye-witnesses demonstrates their
importance for defining the character of the military spectacle: the passage
under consideration is the very first occurrence of the device in the poem. Of the
remaining eight, fully half are clustered together in these first depictions of
mass combat in Books 4 and 5.85 They punctuate the structural segments of this
battle episode: (1) beginning the survey of the ranks; (2) concluding the survey
of the ranks (and hence in ring-composition with 1);86 (3) appearing as the
troops clash en masse, prior to the first sequence of individual combats;87 (4)
concluding the first sequence of individual combats (in ring-composition with
3);88 (5) appearing within Diomedes’ aristeia.89
(p.104) What are the effects of this trope? In the first place, each occurrence
will have its own point. In the passage just cited, the sudden direct address
accomplishes a shift in focus and energy. The Achaean camp in the last minutes
before battle will be joined is an exciting place to be, and the poet’s use of a
direct address here contributes to the mood of anticipation that will run
throughout Agamemnon’s survey of the ranks and that culminates in the three
consecutive similes of the armies meeting in 4.422–56.90
But the hypothetical observer technique also has a peculiar effect of its own. In
one sense, invoking a hypothetical observer invites the audience into the story-
world.91 However, as noted in Chapter 1, such ‘invitations’ are always double-
edged. The phrase οὐκ ἂν βρίζοντα ἴδοις Ἀγαμέμνονα (‘you would not see
Agamemnon dozing…’ 4.223) comes laden with the unspoken ‘if you could see
it…’ and the teasing reminder that any such vision is not based on genuine
autopsy but is mediated by the poet’s narration. Thus, the hypothetical observer
may invite listeners not so much to enter the story—they are already there at
this point of Book 4, if the bard sings as well as the text reads—but rather to
conceptualize the accomplished fact of their entry.
A particularly rich example of such conceptualization concludes Book 4:
Ἔνθά κεν οὐκέτι ἔργον ἀνὴρ ὀνόσαιτο μετελθών,

ὅς τις ἔτ’ ἄβλητος καὶ ἀνούτατος ὀξέϊ χαλκῷ
δινεύοι κατὰ μέσσον, ἄγοι δέ ἑ Παλλὰς Ἀθήνη
χειρὸς ἑλοῦσ’, αὐτὰρ βελέων ἀπερύκοι ἐρωήν·
πολλοὶ γὰρ Τρώων καὶ Ἀχαιῶν ἤματι κείνῳ
πρηνέες ἐν κονίῃσι παρ’ ἀλλήλοισι τέταντο.
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– 4.539–44
Then no longer would a man disparage the work (ergon) as he went

among [the fighters] –
[a man] who, still unharmed, unwounded by the sharp bronze,
would move about through the midst of it – and Pallas Athene would
lead him
taking him by the hand, and ward off the rush of missiles –
for many Trojans and Achaeans on that day
lay prone in the dust stretched beside each other.
(p.105)
The man being (hypothetically) led through the combat by Athena is there to
observe and also to critique—to disparage or not to disparage. In this, his role is
the audience’s role as well. By stating that a man would not disparage the
fighting, the poet seems to be asking his listeners to admire the warriors’
prowess and valour, and perhaps also the poet’s skill in describing them. Though
hypothetical, the man takes on greater reality as the poet spends more and more
time on him, becoming almost as vivid as the battle itself, and indeed almost a
part of it. The liminal position of this observer, who is simultaneously present
and absent, points to the liminal position of the audience in relation to the world
of the story. To see oneself in this viewer is to accept the illusion that the
tableaux one is beholding and the deeds of the heroes have an independent
existence. After all, in these passages it is the outside observer, not the story
characters, who is ethereal, whose presence is conditional, while the world of
the story is vivid and primary.
The present passage not only invites participation in the struggle: it offers a
representation of, and hence a reflection on, participation. Homeric battle
narrative is noted for its perspectival shifts: as we visualize what the narrator
describes, we see now from close by, now from far away. Many scholars have
shown the usefulness of describing these shifts in cinematic terms.92 However,
this description of the man led by Athena invites us to conceptualize changes in
narrative perspective in terms of (mental) movement; that is, movement through
the same space as that occupied by the story characters. The fierce mêlée
through which the observer moves is the very one that the poet has just
described at length. The poet first positions himself and his audience at a great
distance from the fighting: the armies clash like rivers, with a distant sound as
when a shepherd hears rivers roaring τηλόσε (‘far away’ 4.455) in the mountains
(4.446–56). The poet then draws in close for the deaths of Echepolos (4.457–62),
Simoeisios (4.473–89), Dioreas (4.524–6) and the latter’s killer (4.527–31). The
bridging statement ‘many others also were being killed around them’ (4.538)
then entails a shift back to a somewhat wider visual perspective. As Pseudo-
Longinus notes in On the Sublime, a hypothetical observer has the effect of ἐν
μέσοις τοῖς κινδύνοις ποιοῦσα τὸν ἀκροατὴν δοκεῖν στρέϕεσθαι (‘making the
(p.106) listener seem to go about in the middle of dangers’ 26.1). Though
Page 29 of 42

Pseudo-Longinus includes only the second person examples of hypothetical

observers in his discussion,93 his observation applies even better to this
‘observant man’ led by Athena through the fray.
This model for conceiving of the audience’s mental experience as movement in

space finds support in the following passage in Book 15:
βῆ δ’ ἐξ Ἰδαίων ὀρέων ἐς μακρὸν Ὄλυμπον.

ὡς δ’ ὅτ’ ἂν ἀΐξῃ νόος ἀνέρος, ὅς τ’ ἐπὶ πολλὴν
γαῖαν ἐληλουθὼς ϕρεσὶ πευκαλίμῃσι νοήσῃ
ἔνθ’ εἴην ἢ ἔνθα, μενοινήῃσί τε πολλά,
ὣς κραιπνῶς μεμαυῖα διέπτατο πότνια Ἥρη.
– 15.79–83
And [Hera] went from the mountains of Ida to high Olympus.

And as when flits the mind of a man who has travelled
over many lands, and conceives an intention in his teeming mind
‘Let me be there! – or there!’, and yearns for many things,
so swiftly did queenly Hera fly in her eagerness.
In this passage, the poet represents something ineffable, which his listeners
cannot experience—namely the movement of a god through space—in terms of
something familiar to them, namely the speed with which a man can travel with
his thoughts.94 When the man thinks ἔνθ’ εἴην ἢ ἔνθα (‘let me be there! – or
there!’ 15.82) he can achieve not actual but virtual presence, which is also what
the poem’s audience is invited to experience through enargeia. The most direct
points of contact between the simile and the situation in the main narrative are
these: as the man’s mind flits (ἀΐξῃ νόος ἀνέρος 15.80) and he yearns for many
things (μενοινήῃσι…πολλά 15.82), Hera flies swiftly in her eagerness (κραιπνῶς
μεμαυῖα διέπτατο 15.83). Interestingly, while this man’s desire is emphasized, it
is not clear whether his mental activity satisfies that desire or whether his
yearning is unfulfilled. On the one hand, μενοινήῃσι…πολλά could easily mean
the desire actually to be in places he can now only imagine. Yet the comparison
in itself suggests that his ‘movement’ is in some way successful, since the point
of the simile seems to be that the human imagination is comparable to the gods’
miraculous flight: by this (p.107) interpretation, μενοινήῃσι…πολλά denotes a
successful effort of the will, and suggests a celebration of mental powers. Taking
this passage and the one in Book 4 together, they seem to be advancing a
connection between the gods’ movement as described within the world of the
poem and the audience’s power to travel mentally in that same space: both
Homer’s audience and Olympian gods move freely, invisibly, and invincibly
through the Trojan plain.
At this point, we can point to another effect of the poet’s use of the duel to
introduce the warfare as spectacle. According to the paradigm of the duel, to
feel that one has entered the space in which the conflict takes place, is to feel
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that one can join battle oneself, in line with one’s own role in the conflict. What
does it mean to be on the field, hand in hand with Athena? Athena, like Hera,
fights for the Achaeans.95 Indeed, she has just been rousing the Achaeans to
greater efforts (4.514–16), and in the lines that immediately follow (5.1–8) she
will incite Diomedes to a rampage so ferocious that Hector will retreat into Troy
to pray for divine help (ironically, from Athena). To feel connected to Athena may
seem natural, given the poem’s Achaean spatial orientation and given the heavy
focus on happenings among the Achaeans so far. Yet Zeus has cast Hera’s
desires in a negative light, and Hera and Athena are of one mind.
The rich tension in the partisan view of the combat considered in this passage is
mixed with a striking aloofness, pointing to the fact that the poet’s listeners—
whatever their involvement with the story characters—can afford to step back
and appreciate the quality of the battle scene (κεν οὐκέτι ἔργον ἀνὴρ ὀνόσαιτο
5.439), for they are as little vulnerable in this conflict as the gods.96 Indeed, in a
parallel (p.108) passage it is the gods Ares and Athena who are attributed such
dispassionate evaluation of the quality of fighting; in another, the poet suggests
that they would appreciate the battle-readiness of Achaean soldiers.97 I read this
balance of aloofness and engagement as a reflection of the observer’s liminal
position in the story world, which mirrors that of the audience. After all, the
extent to which one enters the story world depends on the engagement of each
listener. It is all a question of how much each wants ‘to be there’.
Notes:
(1) ‘Gesang ist Dasein. Für den Gott ein Leichtes. / Wann aber sind wir? Und
wann wendet er an unser Sein die Erde und die Sterne?’ (Die Sonnette an
Orpheus 1, iii.7–9. The translation is mine.)
(2) δεῦρ’ ἴθι, νύμϕα ϕίλη, ἵνα θέσκελα ἔργα ἴδηαι / Τρώων θ’ ἱπποδάμων καὶ
Ἀχαιῶν χαλκοχιτώνων. 3.130–1.
(3) Parts of this chapter appeared in modified form as Myers 2014. I thank
Bloomsbury Publishing for their permission to reuse this material.
(4) Agamemnon, for example, swears by Zeus and ‘Helios who sees all’ (3.276–
7).
(5) When Zeus looks away from Troy (13.1–7), Poseidon has the opportunity to
help the Achaeans unnoticed.
(6) Apollo and Zeus do not yet read as divine viewers in Book 1. Apollo’s
intervention on behalf of Chryses is a response to prayer (1.43–4). No verb of
seeing or perceiving marks him as an observer, and there is no sign that he has
been paying special attention to Troy or to Chryses prior to the prayer; he
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‘hears’ and answers. Zeus’ conversation with Thetis (1.495–530), and quarrel
with Hera (1.536–600), do not express or imply divine viewing of Troy.
(7) Scholars have long debated whether Athena’s intervention here may
represent Achilles’ own ‘wisdom’ or thought processes (his ἀγχίνοια in the word
of Eustathius 81.27): contrast, for instance, Russo and Simon 1978: 46; Griffin
1980: 158–60; Redfield 1994: 77–8; Pucci 1997: 194–9. I would argue that there
must be more to the intervention than Achilles’ psychology—especially since it is
Hera, not Athena, who is presented as the motivated character.
(8) Compare, for instance, Hector’s taunting of Diomedes, which jibes at the
latter’s masculinity and what Hector portrays as Diomedes’ future lack of
captive women, and concludes with a threat (8.160–6). Diomedes in the Book 8
passage, like Achilles in Book 1, hears the taunting and as a result finds himself
torn between two courses of action (διάνδιχα μερμήριξεν)—in Diomedes’ case,
the choice is to fight or flee (8.167–9). The decision is made for him by Zeus’
direct intervention (8.170–1). On ‘flyting’ see Martin 1989: 68–75.
(9) Compare ἄμϕω ὁμῶς θυμῷ ϕιλέουσά τε κηδομένη τε (‘loving and caring for
both equally in her heart’, 1.196 = 1.209) with ἀμϕοτέρω γὰρ σϕῶι ϕιλεῖ
νεϕεληγερέτα Ζεύς (‘for cloud-gathering Zeus loves both of you’, 7.280).
(10) This continuity is evident despite occasional alterations in the precise

composition of the divine audience: when many gods cease to watch,
temporarily, out of anger at Zeus (Book 11); when Zeus himself stops watching
temporarily (Books 13–14); when Zeus augments the divine audience by
summoning a host of lesser deities to behold what will be the last day of fighting
(Book 19). See Chapter 4.
(11) Of course, for the gods the Trojan War is near its end, while for Homer’s
audience, the spectacle of Iliadic warfare is just beginning, in accordance with
the proem’s promise. However, the difference between these perspectives is
blurred by the manner in which Homer combines the motifs of divine and poetic
staging in Books 2–3.
(12) On the interpretation of this episode, the false dream and the testing of the
troops, see Kelly 2011.
(13) See, for example, Nagy 1979: 81; Morrison 1997: 284.
(14) See Introduction pp 22–23 for a reading of this invocation of the Muses.
(15) The scholiast’s comment (cited in Chapter 1, p. 62) suggests that many
understood the warfare to be the object of the gods’ attention: ἀπρεπές ϕασιν, εἰ
τέρπει τοὺς θεοὺς πολέμων θέα (‘they say it is not fitting if the viewing of wars
gives pleasure to the gods’—bT scholia at 4.4).
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(16) Rabel 1997: 38 distinguishes the perspective of the characters, for whom the
warfare has merely paused during the duel between Paris and Menelaus, from
that of the poet’s listeners, for whom the war’s depiction is about to begin for
the first time in this performance.
(17) οἳ δ’ ἄλλοι ϕιλότητα καὶ ὅρκια πιστὰ ταμόντες / ναίοιτε Τροίην ἐριβώλακα,
τοὶ δὲ νεέσθων / Ἄργος ἐς ἱππόβοτον καὶ Ἀχαιΐδα καλλιγύναικα. 3.73–5. Cf.
3.94, 3.283, 4.15–16.
(18) Περί + gen. is also used of prizes in games—cf. especially 23.659.
(19) Both Trojans and Achaeans hope for an outcome in which the culpable party
will be slain: ὧδε δέ τις εἴπεσκεν Ἀχαιῶν τε Τρώων τε· / Ζεῦ πάτερ Ἴδηθεν
μεδέων κύδιστε μέγιστε / ὁππότερος τάδε ἔργα μετ’ ἀμϕοτέροισιν ἔθηκε, τὸν δὸς
ἀποϕθίμενον δῦναι δόμον Ἄϊδος εἴσω 3.119–22.
(20) Fearing his brother might die, Agamemnon bemoans the prospect of the war
effort collapsing as a result (4.169–82), while other passages make it clear that it
is Paris’ determination to keep Helen at all costs that prevents the Trojans from
coming to peaceful terms with the Achaeans. The Trojan council at 7.345–78, in
which Paris refuses Antenor’s suggestion of offering Helen to the Achaeans, is a
good example. Cf. Idaius’ irrepressible condemnation of Paris as he delivers the
message later: κτήματα μὲν ὅσ’ Ἀλέξανδρος κοίλῃς ἐνὶ νηυσὶν / ἠγάγετο
Τροίηνδ’· ὡς πρὶν ὤϕελλ’ ἀπολέσθαι· /πάντ’ ἐθέλει δόμεναι 7.389–91.
(21) εἰ μέν κεν Μενέλαον Ἀλέξανδρος καταπέϕνῃ… / εἰ δέ κ’ Ἀλέξανδρον κτείνῃ

ξανθὸς Μενέλαος. 4.281, 284.
(22) Bergren 1979–80 persuasively argues that the teichoskopia and other
episodes that seem temporally displaced from a naturalistic perspective are not
illogical but should be interpreted in terms of epic’s claim to transcend linear
time: ‘by [the] transcendence of linear time, [these scenes] show simultaneously
both something that happened once and what there is in that “something” that
ever recurs’ (23). See also Whitman 1958: 269–71; Kullmann 1960: 366–7;
Dowden 1996: 55–8; Finkelberg 2002; Rengakos 2006: 20–1 n. 8.
(23) 3.68; 3.78; 3.326–7.
(24) Odyssey Book 8 features a remark by Alcinous which appears proverbial: ‘…

and the phorminx, which is the companion of the bounteous
daïs.’ (ϕόρμιγγός θ’, ἣ δαιτὶ συνήορός ἐστι θαλείῃ Od.8.98). The context makes
clear that phorminx is here being used by Alcinous as a metonym for poetic
performance—specifically, the epic poem which Demodocus has just performed,
and of which Alcinous is saying that all have had their fill (κεκορήμεθα 8.98)
since he saw Odysseus’ tears. Συνήορος is a hapax.
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(25) See also Elmer 2013: 147–8: ‘Once again, the politics of the gods shadow the
situation of their Achaean counterparts’ (148).
(26) Agamemnon adds an additional penalty (τιμήν 3.459); see Chapter 3 for a
comparison of the ‘terms’ of the duels in Books 3 and 7.
(27) The book divisions are generally agreed to be late features of the epics but it
requires vigilance to resist the temptation to see them as inherent divisions.
Such vigilance is called for here. Of course, this does not mean that the book
divisions are not worth noticing, as they are often suggestive of structure (see
especially Heiden 2008: 55–65). But the important point for my argument is that
they need not represent breaks in performance. On the possibility of the Iliad’s
self-division into three parts, see Taplin 1992 and Heiden 1996 and 2008.
(28) Seated: Paris tells Hector to seat the armies (ἄλλους μὲν κάθισον Τρῶας καὶ
πάντας Ἀχαιούς, 3.68). That kathison does mean ‘seat’ here is confirmed by
Iris’s words to Helen: ‘[the Trojans and Achaeans] now sit quietly’ (ἕαται σιγῇ
3.132–4). ‘In ranks’: ἐπὶ στίχας 3.313.
(29) On terpomai, see especially Latacz 1966: 174–219.
(30) In the Iliad, only Zeus and Achilles are said to terpomai alone. Interestingly,
these cases can all be interpreted in terms of the subject’s special capacity for
enjoying a work of art: for Achilles his own poetry (9.186–9) and the images on
the shield made by Hephaestus (18.19), and for Zeus the grand battle scene at
Troy that he has just put together (20.20–5). See further Chapter 5. (Apollo’s
pleasure in the songs sung in his honour at 1.467–74 does not really read as
solitary pleasure, since his pleasure appears to be in harmony with that of the
celebrants who are themselves engaged in a banquet, drinking, and singing.)
(31) In fact it is often used to emphasize that the party in question is

(temporarily) at rest or otherwise not involved in a given activity or labour—
especially the war. Examples include the Myrmidons enjoying games among
themselves instead of fighting Trojans (2.773–5) and Achilles enjoying his own
music while the Achaeans are embattled (9.186).
(32) Only the gods are ever said to take the pleasure of terpomai by being
witnesses to conflict. This special application of the word serves as a reminder of
the detachment that their immortality ultimately affords them. It also underlines
parallels between divine enjoyment of the Trojan spectacle and the enjoyment of
art and poetry.
(33) Demodocus’ first and third songs are of the Trojan war: Od.8.62–92; 499–
531.
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(34) Other passages that help define ships and city as the outer limits of action
include (but this is not a complete list): 5.791, 7.71–72, 8.52 (= 11.82), 11.181,
16.66–70, 18.259–65.
(35) The single consistent exception is Zeus who never descends to the field at all
and indeed is not partisan in the same way as the other major players among the
Olympians; see further Chapter 4. The typical pattern of movement between the
divine and human spheres by the gods is evident at 1.44–8; 1.194–5; 3.121; 4.73–
3; 11.3–5; 15.169 (from Ida); 15.237 (from Ida); 16.677 (from Ida); 17.544–5;
18.166–8, 202; 18.614–17; 19.350–1, 355–6; 20.32, 21.504–5, 468, 478, 22.213,
518–20; 22.186–7; 24.76–8; 24.144–5, 159,188; 24.340–8, 468–9.
(36) ἀξιόχρεων ἀρχέτυπον ἀνέπλασεν ὁ ποιητὴς τῆς ἰδίας ποιήσεως bT-Scholia at

3.126–7. Clader 1976; Bergren 1979–80.
(37) Bergren 1979–80: 23. See also the newer version of this essay, which
appears in Bergren 2008.
(38) κλέος ἄϕθιτον 9.413. For the debate on the traditionality of this phrase (and
whether or not it constitutes a phrase), see Volk 2002.
(39) As in 13.727.
(40) Theskelos appears only once otherwise, used adverbially by Achilles to

describe Patroclus’ shade: ‘it looked wondrously (theskelon) like him’ 23.107.
(41) See J. M. Foley 1997 for ‘traditional referentiality’. Some are happy to see
the Iliad making references to the Odyssey, but many are not—and such is not
necessary for my reading of theskela erga, which requires nothing beyond the
traditionality of the phrase.
(42) Odysseus goes on to wish that the artificer of the belt would never make
such a thing again: μὴ τεχνησάμενος μηδ’ ἄλλο τι τεχνήσαιτο / ὃς κεῖνον
τελαμῶνα ἑῇ ἐγκάτθετο τέχνῃ. (Od.11.613–14).
(43) Aethloi is used in the plural of Patroclus’ funeral games (23.646) and in the
singular of the individual competitions (23.707, 753, 831). In the Odyssey, the
contest of the bow is an aethlos, both athletic and deadly in the event (Od.
19.572). Recent treatments of the Iliad-poet’s interest in the line dividing
athletics from martial contests include the three papers by Letoublon, Clay, and
Maronitis respectively that appear in the 2007 collection edited by Paizi-
Apostolopoulou, Rengakos, and Tsagalis. See also Nagy 1996: 136–45 on life-
and-death aethloi in Pindar.
(44) Contrast the description of Achilles’ new shield in Book 18, which both
displays the poet’s skill at making pictures live and demonstrates his interest in
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exploring this aspect of poetry’s power. Yet Helen’s web remains a mystery if
taken on its own, all the more tantalizing for the revelation of its subject matter.
(45) Chantraine, Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue grecque (Klincksieck

2009, 1st edition 1968–80) s.v. θέσκελος (p. 415) from θεσ- + -κελος, «sens:
produit par un dieu». I owe this point to James Uden. It is perhaps worth noting
that while theskela is not related etymologically to theeomai and similar words
denoting seeing (cf. Chantraine GE 21), the ancients might easily have felt such
a connection as well.
(46) As a narrative strategy, including a truce guaranteed to end the war creates
suspense of two kinds: anticipation of the truce being broken (given audience
certainty that Troy must fall to the Achaeans), and also uncertainty as to the
manner in which it will be broken. Morrison 1992: 54–63 sees Book 3 as building
suspense; he does not consider Book 4 in this context. Cf. Rengakos 2006: 43–
45, whose conclusions on this topic are similar to Morrison’s.
(47) I use Pucci’s translation ‘obliquely’ for parablēdēn (Pucci 2002: 22). The
point of parablēdēn seems to be that Zeus has aimed his words at Hera
specifically while formally addressing the group as a whole. See Taalman Kip
2000: 6 n. 5 for other possibilities regarding parablēdēn.
(48) My reading takes Zeus’ provocation, indicated by ἐρεθιζέμεν (5) and

κερτομίοις ἐπέεσσι (6), as applicable to his whole speech (7–19), rather than
only to lines 7–12 (as Taalman Kip 2000: 38–9 would have it). This puts me in
agreement with Flaig 1994: 20 n. 27, though for different reasons.
(49) Pelliccia 1995: 172 points out that ‘Homer could, when he wished to,
observe a distinction between a speech’s addressee…and its audience’ (emphasis
in original).
(50) Bakker 2009: esp. 125–6 proposes a theoretical framework useful for
considering the effect that I am describing. Bakker distinguishes the performer’s
‘mimetic’ role, by which he takes on the part of a character in the story, such as
Zeus, and his ‘indexical’ role, by which he plays the part of the performing
‘Homer’. In these terms, what I am arguing is that in this passage in Book 4 the
poet cultivates ambiguity from moment to moment, thus blurring the boundaries
between the indexical and the mimetic to create a particularly challenging and
engaging persona. See also Bakker 1999 on the nature of mimesis for the poet
performing the part of the ‘quintessential narrator’ (Bakker 1999: 8); also Nagy
1996: 59–86.
(51) The comments of Dallenbach 1977: 29 on the slipperiness of the first person
pronoun are relevant here: ‘Since je designates the person who says je, it follows
that this pronoun, which is self-referential and therefore capable of ultimate
mobility, “can only be identified through the discourse that contains
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it” [Dallenbach is quoting Emile Benveniste’s Problèmes de linguistique générale].’

Dallenbach’s example is André Gide’s playful use of the first person pronoun in
Paludes: ‘Paludes…makes the only context in which the various “je”s could be
differentiated so ambiguous that they retain their original potentiality and can
simultaneously refer to the intermittent “je” of Tityre, the originating “je” of the
narrator and also—when the contextual meaning allows—the concealed “je” of
the author.’ In the case of the present passage in Homer, we are dealing with
what I suggest is a potentially slippery first person plural pronoun. We can only
speculate as to verbal and gestural cues that might move the audience to situate
this pronoun as referring to Zeus and the Olympians solely, or as retaining its
‘original potentiality’ and being able to refer simultaneously to the ‘we’ of poet
and audience. (In Homer, the third possibility alluded to by Dallenbach—the
distinction between the ‘originating “je” of the narrator’ and the ‘concealed “je”
of the author’—is not felt.)
(52) Zeus acquiesces to Hera’s wish that Troy be destroyed in exchange for her
agreement not to make trouble if he later wishes to destroy a city beloved to her
(4.34–49). O’Brien 1993: 82–3 sums up Hera’s hostility toward Troy as portrayed
by Zeus in this scene as ‘incessant…bestial…incurable’.
(53) See e.g. Taalman Kip 2000: 6.
(54) Doppelte Motivation is the phrase of Albin Lesky; see further n. 78, below.
(55) Halliwell 2011: Chapter 2, esp. 45–55; quotations from 53. Liebert 2017, an
important new study of the paradoxical pleasure of tragedy, sees poetry of this
sort fostering ‘a psychosomatic addiction to painful emotion states’ (120).
(56) This criterion is echoed in Odysseus’ famous praise of Alcinous’ hospitality,

which extols the excellence of Demodocus’ poetry and the ideal daïs at which
‘good spirits abound throughout the entire company’ (ἐϋϕροσύνη μὲν ἔχῃ κάτα
δῆμον ἅπαντα Od.9.5). Nevertheless, it is very difficult to determine where, to
what extent, and for whose benefit Odysseus may be adopting an ironical
attitude in this speech; does he include himself among the company in ‘good
spirits’?
(57) Cf. Pucci 2002: 22.
(58) Zervou 2007: 38, in a discussion of the Phaeacian games in the Odyssey,
uses recepteur to cover both ‘celui qui entend attentivement un chant et qui suit
consciemment un spectacle’ (see also ibid 33), i.e. the intratextual viewers of the
action and the extratextual audience of the poem. It is worth noting that the
English word ‘audience’ is similarly inclusive and therefore useful in this regard,
as it is commonly used of those who attend primarily visual spectacles as well as
(the more etymologically correct) audial forms of entertainment.
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(59) οἱ δὲ σιωπῇ / οἶνον πινόντων Od.1.339.40. This may or may not be taken to
mean that sitting in silence is the suitors’ normal practice when listening to
Phemius.
(60) οἱ δ’ ἄρα πάντες ἀκὴν ἐγένοντο σιωπῇ, / κηληθμῷ δ’ ἔσχοντο κατὰ μέγαρα
σκιόεντα. Od.11.333–4.
(61) Comparative studies of contemporary cultures often emphasize the

performer’s potential difficulty in keeping his audience focused: e.g. Lord 1960:
17; cf. Martin 1989: 6; Scodel 2002: 7.
(62) Καὶ μάλα καλῶς οἶδα· καθορῶ γὰρ ἑκάστοτε αὐτοὺς ἄνωθεν ἀπὸ τοῦ
βήματος κλάοντάς τε καὶ δεινὸν ἐμβλέποντας καὶ συνθαμβοῦντας τοῖς
λεγομένοις. δεῖ γάρ με καὶ σϕόδρ’ αὐτοῖς τὸν νοῦν προσέχειν· ὡς ἐὰν μὲν
κλάοντας αὐτοὺς καθίσω, αὐτὸς γελάσομαι ἀργύριον λαμβάνων, ἐὰν δὲ
γελῶντας, αὐτὸς κλαύσομαι ἀργύριον ἀπολλύς. Pl. Ion 535e.
(63) Nagy 1996: 59–86 argues that the metaphor of sewing implicit in the word
rhapsoidos describes Homeric composition in performance.
(64) Contrast Pucci 2002: 22: ‘[The gods] are the intra-textual readers who effect
a certain reading of the scene…by inviting us…to be detached enough from [the
poem’s action] to enjoy it.’
(65) Note the gifts that his pause elicits (Od.11.335–61). For this persuasive
interpretation of Odysseus’ strategy, see Doherty 1991: 3 and Doherty 1995: 65–
6.
(66) Kullmann 1960: 12–13 refers to the basic assumptions about audience
knowledge as the Faktenkanon.
(67) E.g. 7.344; 9.710; 18.312. Elmer 2013 builds up a sweeping interpretation of
the nature of collective decision-making in the Iliad founded on analysis of the
use of this verb.
(68) ἔξοχα δή σε βροτῶν αἰνίζομ’ ἁπάντων—‘Indeed I praise you beyond all

mortals.’ Od.8.487.
(69) Finkelberg 1998: 124–30 argues that these phrases essentially mean the
same thing and reads them in terms of the epic’s claim to telling truth. Indeed,
for a listener who accepts that the poet sings of historical events—and this
certainly includes Odysseus listening to Demodocus—to sing ‘as the story should
go’ to a large extent means ‘as these events actually happened’. But in practice,
as Scodel 2002 esp. 65–89 shows, the singer of Homeric poetry asks his
audience to accept his story not only by claiming truthfulness (guaranteed by
the Muses) but also by reminding them at every turn of the familiarity of the
events narrated and the manner of narration, and the generations of others who
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have heard these tales too: in other words, the poem’s claim to traditionality is
part of what makes it acceptable to its audiences. Walsh 1984: 8–9 suggests that
awareness of this element of audience demand is embedded in the phrase kata
kosmon itself: ‘kata kosmon, however, probably denotes more than the singer’s
accuracy: the song may be accurate and also kata kosmon, or accuracy itself
may be kata kosmon…The song that suits a social order will be “appropriate”…
because it is what the audience wants, or perhaps because it is morally proper.’
See also the discussion of Halliwell 2011: 84–87, and Chapter 1, n. 88.
(70) Nagy 1979/99: 40.
(71) Reinhardt 1960 convincingly argued that the Judgment of Paris is part of the
background knowledge assumed by the poem. Cf. Griffin 1980: 197; Taplin 1992:
132–3.
(72) Edwards 1987: 128: the judgment is omitted ‘perhaps to make her anger –
and thus the causes of man’s suffering – seem even more irrational’.
(73) The two parallel passages of raw-eating are Achilles speaking to Hector
(22.346–7) and Hecuba fantasizing about eating Achilles’ liver (24.212–13), both
likewise evoking hyperbolic bloodthirst.
(74) Chapter 3 of Vermeule 1979 beautifully brings out the self-conscious artistry
in the poem’s depictions of soldiers killing soldiers. However, in positing a single
audience response to these scenes—namely delight and aesthetic appreciation—
her approach does not consider the variety of potentially conflicting emotions
that the scenes may elicit in listeners.
(75) 17.204; 17.670, 21.91; 23.252–3; 23.281.
(76) See e.g. 3.295–301; 4.158–68. By the terms of the oath when it is actually
announced by Agamemnon (3.276–91), Paris or Menelaus would have to be
killed for the two sides to part in friendship. Be that as it may, it is clear that
Zeus and Hera understand a truce to be in effect, since they use the phrase ὑπὲρ
ὅρκια δηλήσασθαι.
(77) Thalmann 1984: 86 remarks on this passage: ‘Men may not always get what
they deserve, it seems, but they are made to deserve what they get, at least
formally.’ Cf. Taalman Kip 2000, 18: ‘And in creating this re-enactment of Paris’
transgression and of the gods’ process of decision, [Homer] drew a sharp line
between the human level and the divine, between the motives of men and those
of the gods, between human expectations concerning the gods and their actual
behaviour.’ Taalman Kip argues that the transgression(s) exist in order to justify
the Achaean aggression, which would otherwise be too ‘naked’ for audience
tastes.
Page 39 of 42

(78) Sarischoulis 2008: 151–60 sees human and divine decision as separate.
Greenberg 1993: 194 n. 5 has a salutary warning about how far the implications
of Lesky’s analysis can be taken. Cf. Cairns 2001: 13–20 (esp. 16). Pucci 1998:
194–9 sees in Athena’s intervention in Book 1 ‘the violent intrusion of textual
concerns’ (197).
(79) εἰ δ’ αὖ πως τόδε πᾶσι ϕίλον καὶ ἡδὺ γένοιτο, / ἤτοι μὲν οἰκέοιτο πόλις
Πριάμοιο ἄνακτος, / αὖτις δ’ Ἀργείην Ἑλένην Μενέλαος ἄγοιτο 4.17–19.
(80) ἕρδ’· ἀτὰρ οὔ τοι πάντες ἐπαινέομεν θεοὶ ἄλλοι. 4.29.
(81) Cf. Alcinous at Od.8.579–80.
(82) Cf. Thalmann 1984: 153: ‘the realization of the song Helen imagines is the
Iliad, which bears out the truth of her words even as it records them’;
Finkelberg 1998: 152: ‘…the song has become more privileged than the events
in which it originated…[and this] allows the work of poetry a degree of
ontological independence not envisaged in the “poetics of truth.”’ Bakker 1997:
166 finds that ‘There is an interdependence between the deed of the past and
the song of the present’. While de Jong 2006: 195–6 sees Helen thinking
specifically of future singers, essomenoisi also implies future audiences.
(83) Ὄϕρα τοὶ ἀμϕεπένοντο βοὴν ἀγαθὸν Μενέλαον / τόϕρα δ’ ἐπὶ Τρώων στίχες
ἤλυθον ἀσπιστάων· / οἳ δ’ αὖτις κατὰ τεύχε’ ἔδυν, μνήσαντο δὲ χάρμης. 4.220–2
(84) See Chapter 1, p. 37–38.
(85) Those four are 4.421; 4.429–31; 4.539–44; 5.85–6. The others are scattered
widely through later battle books (13.343–4; 15.697–8; 16.638–40; 17.366–7). I
follow Clay 2011: 23 in treating the second person potential observers together
with the third person examples: the phrase ‘you would not have seen
Agamemnon dozing’ is very similar in effect to such a phrase as ‘not even a
perceptive man would have recognized Sarpedon’ (16.638–9). They read as
variations on a single trope; neither the second nor the third person examples
are transparent direct addresses to the extratextual audience. In this, I would
suggest a refinement of de Jong’s discussion (1987: 54–60). De Jong considers
the ‘you’ in this and similar passages to be equivalent to her Primary Narratee-
Focalizee (NeFe1), but this elides an important distinction—or, if it is correct in
narratological terms, then the narratological approach is insufficient here. The
narrative voice of the Iliad (what I have been calling the ‘poet’ or the ‘narrator’,
without reference to any historical singer) is assumed to be singing to a group of
listeners, a plurality. However, the ‘you’ of ἴδοις (4.223), as in every other
example of the device, is singular. If de Jong is right to say that the second
person singular addresses are addresses to her Primary Narratee-Focalizee
(NeFe1), then the terminology ignores an even more primary, plural audience
assumed by the text, so we may as well call that the NeFe1. The point is that the
Page 40 of 42

singular ‘you’ is actually constructing and addressing a new focalizer within the
text. This resolves de Jong’s difficulty in evaluating the second person passages:
‘in fact, the focalizee here functions as a focalizer, yet, of course, as a focalizer
who is instructed by the NF1 what to see, think’ (De Jong 1987: 55). A better
approach is to group the second person examples with the third person
examples. Both offer ethereal, hypothetical focalizers to the extratextual
audience. Both types sketch a generic observer, a listener-turned-spectator onto
whom any listener may project herself.
(86) Ἦ ῥα καὶ ἐξ ὀχέων σὺν τεύχεσιν ἆλτο χαμᾶζε· / δεινὸν δ’ ἔβραχε χαλκὸς ἐπὶ
στήθεσσιν ἄνακτος / ὀρνυμένου· ὑπό κεν ταλασίϕρονά περ δέος εἷλεν. 4.419–21
(87) …οἳ δ’ ἄλλοι ἀκὴν ἴσαν, οὐδέ κε ϕαίης / τόσσον λαὸν ἕπεσθαι ἔχοντ’ ἐν
στήθεσιν αὐδήν, / σιγῇ δειδιότες σημάντορας…4.429–31
(88) 4.539–45, discussed just below.
(89) Τυδεΐδην δ’ οὐκ ἂν γνοίης ποτέροισι μετείη / ἠὲ μετὰ Τρώεσσιν ὁμιλέοι ἦ

μετ’ Ἀχαιοῖς. 5.85–6
(90) De Jong 1987: 60 notes that ‘the function’ of this and similar passages ‘is to
involve the NeFe1 [extratextual audience] more directly into the story’.
(91) Frontisi-Ducroux 1986: 27–9; Bakker 1999: 18; Clay 2011: 23.
(92) See, for example, Winkler 2007. De Jong and Nünlist 2004 distinguish
‘panoramic/bird’s-eye’, ‘scenic’, and ‘close up’ perspectives. Richardson 1990:
119–23 is a good discussion of the ‘bird’s-eye’ perspective.
(93) Pseudo-Longinus De Sublimitate 26.
(94) Janko 1994: 237 usefully assembles other comparisons of divine movement
to thought; the present instance is uniquely well developed.
(95) See Chapters 3 and 4 for the poem’s Achaean orientation, which generates
tension especially where the Trojans are portrayed sympathetically (despite the
crimes of Paris, and Pandarus).
(96) In the combat that the observer would not disparage, the poet has worked
hard to give the impression of much action and high casualties on both sides: the
final single combats have been balanced with an Epeian chief and a Thracian
chief slain, and the last word on the fight is the even-handed ‘many Trojans and
Achaeans’ lay dead (5.533–4). This observer is neither found pitying the
Achaeans nor glorying in Trojan defeats; instead, he appreciates a good fight, a
dead-lock, in which warriors on both sides are not hanging back but giving their
all, even their lives, in accordance with heroic ideals of valour. Lopsided battles
might make good comedy, but for a fight to be blameless, it has to be a close
Page 41 of 42

contest. That the viewer ‘no longer’ (οὐκέτι 4.539) disparages the ‘work’ or
ergon (4.359) has a ready explanation if the passage is read in metaperformative
terms: now that the warfare has begun in earnest it is worth seeing—but there
has been a great delay in the first three books of the epic.
(97) 13.126–8: ἀμϕὶ δ’ ἄρ’ Αἴαντας δοιοὺς ἵσταντο ϕάλαγγες / καρτεραί, ἃς οὔτ’
ἄν κεν Ἄρης ὀνόσαιτο μετελθὼν / οὔτε κ’ Ἀθηναίη λαοσσόος…; and 17. 398–9:
οὐδέ κ’ Ἄρης λαοσσόος οὐδέ κ’ Ἀθήνη / τόν γε ἰδοῦσ’ ὀνόσαιτ’, οὐδ’ εἰ μάλα μιν
χόλος ἵκοι. See further Chapter 4.
Page 42 of 42

‘Let Us Cease’: Early Reflections on the Spectacle’s End

on Mount Olympus
Tobias Myers

Print ISBN-13: 9780198842354
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198842354.001.0001
‘Let Us Cease’: Early Reflections on the

Spectacle’s End
Tobias Myers
DOI:10.1093/oso/9780198842354.003.0003

Chapter 3 focuses on the two major episodes of Book 7, both of which have often
been criticized as ill-motivated and disconnected, and both of which feature
prominent scenes of divine viewing and discussion: the formal duel between
Hector and Aias; and the truce for the burial of the dead, during which the
Achaeans build a defensive wall. The chapter shows that the two episodes can in
fact be read as both well-motivated and connected, if seen in metaperformative
terms: as an extended reflection on how the Iliad’s battlefield spectacle ends.
The second duel offers a mise en abyme, by which the poet dramatizes tension
between two types of response to the conflict at this point: desire for Achaean
victory, and pity for the doomed Trojans. The duel is normally seen as the second
of two formal duels, but is best understood as the second of three ‘spectacular
duels’, the third being between Hector and Achilles in Book 22. Then, through
the building of the Achaean wall as viewed by the gods, the poet reflects upon
tension between (a) the Iliad’s insistence that its central spectacle is playing out
in real time, before our eyes, and (b) its equally powerful investment in the idea
that its action is not ephemeral, but permanent.
Keywords: Achaean wall, Poseidon, Athena, Apollo, burial, duel, mise en abyme, polemos, warfare,
pause
Later, when the time comes, let them fight until they find the end of Ilium.
Apollo1
Page 1 of 29

It is not until Book 7 that divine viewing becomes prominent again. For some
time after the opening of Book 4, divine activity consists mostly of operations
within the theatre of war. The gods are more like human fighters on this first day
of fighting than at any other point in the poem: Aphrodite and Ares are each
wounded; Ares is depicted stripping a corpse. We must understand most of the
Olympians still to be watching with Zeus on Olympus. Nevertheless, passages
describing neither remote observation nor divine direction of the action feature
in the text: that is, whenever the gods see, they move to help;2 and Zeus’ guiding
hand is barely felt.3
In Book 7, the divine audience features twice. First, Athena and Apollo bring
about and watch a second formal duel, this one between Aias and Hector. The
duel is followed by a truce for the burial of the dead, during which the Achaeans
build a defensive wall under the Olympians’ collective gaze. Both episodes—the
duel and the (p.110) wall—have been criticized since antiquity as perplexing,
ill-motivated, and possibly interpolations.4 The poetic quality of the wall-building
episode has been defended on the grounds that it forms part of a larger
metapoetical commentary on the nature of Homer’s work. Yet the inclusion of
the second duel still proves difficult for scholars to justify. The present chapter
aims to justify the one, and recontextualize our understanding of the other, by
reading both episodes in terms of the Iliad’s self-presentation as a spectacle
involving live audiences.
The two parts of Book 7, I suggest, are best read together, as an extended
reflection on how the Iliad’s battlefield spectacle ends. Two considerations
motivate such a reading. First, a marked thread of repeated language involving
polemos (warfare) and cessation serves to introduce both episodes and to
connect them. Apollo motivates the second duel episode by suggesting to Athena
that they end the polemos (warfare), for now, with these words:
παύσωμεν πόλεμον καὶ δηϊοτῆτα
σήμερον· ὕστερον αὖτε μαχήσοντ’ εἰς ὅ κε τέκμωρ5
Ἰλίου εὕρωσιν…
– 7.29–31
Let us end (pausōmen) the warfare and fighting (polemon kai

dēiotēta) –
for today. Later, when the time comes, let them fight until they find
the end of Ilium…
Athena agrees, echoing his words in a question: ἀλλ’ ἄγε, πῶς μέμονας
πόλεμον καταπαύσεμεν ἀνδρῶν; (‘But come – how do you wish to put a stop
to the warfare (polemon katapausemen) of the men?’ 7.36).
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The gods’ chosen mechanism for ending the polemos, a second formal duel, is
suggestively presented as the continuation of that same battlefield conflict,
albeit in another form. After Hector is wounded by Aias, the herald Idaeus urges
the two combatants to cut short their duel with these words: μηκέτι, παῖδε ϕίλω,
(p.111) πολεμίζετε μηδὲ μάχεστον…νὺξ δ’ ἤδη τελέθει· ἀγαθὸν καὶ νυκτὶ
πιθέσθαι (‘No longer, dear children, make war (polemizete) nor fight (macheston
)…But night already comes round, and it is good to yield to night.’ 7.279, 282).
The connection between the spectacles of warfare and duel is made even more
clear when Hector, in agreeing that the duel should end, echoes not only Idaeus’
words, but also (unknowingly) those of Apollo:
νῦν μὲν παυσώμεσθα μάχης καὶ δηιοτῆτος

σήμερον· ὕστερον αὖτε μαχησόμεθ’, εἰς ὅ κε δαίμων
ἄμμε διακρίνῃ, δώῃ δ’ ἐτέροισί γε νίκην.
νὺξ δ’ ἤδη τελέθει· ἀγαθὸν καὶ νυκτὶ πιθέσθαι…
– 7. 290–36
For now, let us cease from fighting and struggle (pausōmestha

machēs kai dēiotētos) –
for today. Later, when the time comes, let us fight until the god
should separate us, and give the victory to one side.
But night already comes round, and it is good to yield to night…
The duel ends and night falls. But the idea that the polemos should cease
continues to propel the narrative forward into the second part of Book 7, which
features funerary ritual, the building of the wall, and (again) the watching gods.
When Priam bids Idaeus go to the Achaeans, to offer riches for peace, he
concludes with these words:
καὶ δὲ τόδ’ εἰπέμεναι πυκινὸν ἔπος, αἴ κ’ ἐθέλωσι

παύσασθαι πολέμοιο δυσηχέος, εἰς ὅ κε νεκροὺς
κήομεν· ὕστερον αὖτε μαχησόμεθ’, εἰς ὅ κε δαίμων
ἄμμε διακρίνῃ, δώῃ δ’ ἐτέροισί γε νίκην.
– 7.375–8
And speak this shrewd word as well – [ask] if they wish

to cease from grievous warfare (pausasthai polemoio dysēcheos),
until we may burn
the dead – later, when the time comes, we may fight until the god
should separate us, and give victory to one side.
(p.112) Idaeus repeats Priam’s words verbatim to the Achaeans on the

following morning,7 and so the words παύσασθαι πολέμοιο and ὕστερον αὖτε
μαχησόμεθα ring out once more in the setting of the poem’s performance.
Page 3 of 29

It would be hard to argue that polemos is a marked word in the Iliad. Rather, I
would emphasize its flexibility. Polemos means warfare generally, conceived of as
a venue of public demonstration and performance; a particular conflict, which
can be entered or exited; a phenomenon unto itself, that ‘blazes’ (like fire).8 It is
one of several terms that Homer uses to refer to the conflict on the field. Others
terms may serve to refer to that conflict as well, with a slightly different
emphasis: drawing attention, for instance, to the participants (homilos), to their
acts as achievements (erga), or to their grim striving (e.g. ainē, dēiotēs, ponos).
What does it mean, in Book 7, for polemos to end? The passages above open
windows onto a variety of answers, also seemingly connected: this spectacle
ends with nightfall; with the darkness of death; with funeral rites; with Troy’s
fall; with the end of the Iliad.
Another factor suggesting that we read Book 7 as an extended meditation on the

end of the spectacle is its special place in the architecture of the poem. The
Book 7 duel is usually read simply as the second of two formal duels in the Iliad.
But it is best understood as the second in a series of three: that is, the three
occasions on which a Trojan and Achaean champion clash before the eyes of the
gods and the assembled Trojan and Achaean armies, who have themselves
stopped fighting to watch. The third such ‘spectacular duel’ is fought by Hector
and Achilles in Book 22.9 Thus, the first day of battle begins (p.113) and ends
with the first and second spectacular duels (Books 3 and 7). Then, as in so many
aspects of Homeric poetry, this structure recurs on a larger scale, for the combat
of the Iliad as a whole begins and ends with the first and third spectacular duels,
which constitute respectively the first and final combat scenes in the poem
(Books 3 and 22):10 between them lies the entire panoply of Iliadic warfare, the
‘many contests of the horse-taming Trojans and bronze-clad Achaeans’.11
Moreover, both the second and the third spectacular duels flows seamlessly into
funerary ritual that is itself presented as a continuation of that battlefield
spectacle, resembles the combat visually, and is observed by the gods.
Christine Perkell connects the significance of endings in narrative to the value of

ceremony: ‘the end is the significant moment, from which vantage point the
narrative assumes structure and therefore meaning…In the same way, by
imposing structure – and therefore meaning – on life, ceremony gives coherence
to the experience of individual lives.’12 Homer’s assertive reintroduction of the
divine audience in Book 7, I suggest, prompts us to read this particular
meditation on endings not only in terms of narrative, but also in terms of the
Iliadic spectacle of war. Thus, by exploring the temporal limits of Iliadic polemos,
Homer explores the meaning and structure of what we are witnessing at Troy.
(p.114) 3.1. The Divine Audience and the Duel between Hector and Aias
A brief summary of the second duel episode may be helpful. The duel follows
soon after the intimacy of the domestic scenes in Book 6, which depict Hector’s
interactions within the walls of Ilium with his mother, sister-in-law and brother,
Page 4 of 29

and finally wife and child (6.237–502). When Hector and Paris return to the field,
they turn the tide in favour of the Trojans (7.1–16), despite the fact that Hector’s
mission to secure divine aid through Trojan prayers has failed (6.110–15, 311).
In fact it is Athena, the goddess whose aid he had hoped to secure, who leaps
down from Olympus to intervene on the Achaeans’ behalf when she sees the
Trojans slaying Achaeans (7.17–20). On the battlefield, Athena comes face to
face with Apollo who has just leapt down himself from the citadel of Troy (7.20–
2). After a brief discussion, the two gods agree to arrange a pause in the
warfare, in the form of a duel between Hector and an Achaean champion (7.23–
43). The clairvoyant Helenus ‘overhears’13 the gods’ conversation and passes on
their wish to Hector (7.44–53). As Hector and Agamemnon halt the fighting,
Apollo and Athena settle themselves to observe—not from the vantage of
Olympus (from which one can only assume that the other Olympians are
watching), but within the arena of war between city and ships, perched on the
oak-tree in the Trojan plain (7.54–61). After initial speeches, and difficulty in
finding an Achaean willing to accept Hector’s challenge, Aias is selected by lot
from several volunteers to fight Hector (7.62–199). The fight begins and Aias is
getting the better of it when the heralds of both sides, Idaeus and Talthybius,
urge that the duel be halted (7.200–82). Aias leaves it to Hector, as the
challenger, to call off the duel and Hector does so (7.283–302). The two
champions exchange goods in a public show of friendship, and the two armies
retire to their respective camps, with the Trojans rejoicing to have Hector back
alive and the Achaeans rejoicing in Aias’ ‘victory’ (7.303–12; νίκῃ 312).
(p.115) This episode has appeared to scholars to be weak and unmotivated.14

Coming so soon after the first, which had the outcome of the entire war riding
on it, the second duel has been seen as anticlimactic, as the combatants Hector
and Aias compete for no named stakes.15 Furthermore, by having the gods
appear ex machina to arrange this duel, the poet has given the whole episode an
arbitrary quality made all the more curious by the lack of any obvious narrative
problem needing gods to resolve it.16 The end result is that night falls, putting
an end to battle; this could have happened very well without the gods or any
other part of the scene. Why, one wonders, include the second duel?
3.1.1. Textual Cues Suggesting a Mise en Abyme

I suggest that the divine observation of this second duel, like that of the first,
offers a mise en abyme of the spectacle experience offered by (p.116) the poet
to his listeners. The many parallel features between the two duels point to a
parallel function. Once more there is a call for parley on the battlefield; once
more the armies are seated by the leaders, and two champions will fight in the
centre.17 In this much, it is true, the scenario may well have been recognized by
audiences simply as an example of a type scene familiar in epic poetry more
broadly.18 Nestor’s story of his youthful contest with Eurythalion, at any rate,
suggests that other epic poems employed the same motif.19 What marks this
Page 5 of 29

duel as special, closely tied to the previous one, is the representation of the
gods’ role:
καί ῥ ’ ἐς μέσσον ἰὼν Τρώων ἀνέεργε ϕάλαγγας,

μέσσου δουρὸς ἑλών· οἳ δ’ ἱδρύνθησαν ἅπαντες.
κὰδ δ’ Ἀγαμέμνων εἷσεν ἐϋκνήμιδας Ἀχαιούς·
κὰδ δ’ ἄρ’ Ἀθηναίη τε καὶ ἀργυρότοξος Ἀπόλλων
ἑζέσθην ὄρνισιν ἐοικότες αἰγυπιοῖσι
ϕηγῷ ἐϕ’ ὑψηλῇ πατρὸς Διὸς αἰγιόχοιο
ἀνδράσι τερπόμενοι· τῶν δὲ στίχες ἥατο πυκναὶ
ἀσπίσι καὶ κορύθεσσι καὶ ἔγχεσι πεϕρικυῖαι
οἵη δὲ Ζεϕύροιο ἐχεύατο πόντον ἔπι ϕρὶξ
ὀρνυμένοιο νέον, μελάνει δέ τε πόντος ὑπ’ αὐτῆς,
τοῖαι ἄρα στίχες ἥατ’ Ἀχαιῶν τε Τρώων τε
ἐν πεδίῳ…
– 7.55–66
(p.117) And going into their midst, [Hector] held back the ranks of
Trojans,
holding his spear by the middle, and they drew back one and all.
And down Agamemnon seated the well-greaved Achaeans,
and down Athena and golden-bowed Apollo
seated themselves, as predatory birds,
upon the high oak tree of aegis-bearing Zeus,
taking pleasure in the men, whose thick ranks were settling,
bristling with shields, helmets and spears –
and as a ruffling ripples over the sea, with Zephyr
rousing anew – and the sea goes dark beneath it –
so too did the ranks of Achaeans and Trojans settle
on the plain…
As in Book 4, the divine audience is constructed both as an extension of and in

contrast to the mortal audiences for the duel. By making the gods arrange the
duel, then sit down along with those who will watch it, the poet raises the
expectation that the gods are essentially joining the mortal audiences. That
suggestion is amplified by lexical and metrical points of correspondence in the
description of the sitting: initial κὰδ δ’ and κὰδ δ’ ἄρ’ (7.57–8); enjambed
ἑζέσθην (7.59) completing the parallel with κὰδ…εἷσεν (7.57). However, the
spectacle observed by these two gods includes the very audience they would
seem to be joining: ἀνδράσι τερπόμενοι (‘taking pleasure in the men’ 7.60). One
may recall the tiers of viewership in Book 3, where we have the armies watching
the duel, Helen and Priam watching the armies as well as the duel, and the gods
on Olympus, who see all of the above and more (Τρώων πόλιν εἰσορόωντες 4.4).
In the present passage, those tiers are condensed: the gods are now present
among the audiences on the battlefield, while still occupying a slightly higher
vantage point.
Page 6 of 29

As noted in Chapter 2, terpesthai is associated with shared pleasure, and

pleasure taken at leisure, and is the regular word to denote the desired effect of
poetry. In this case, the pleasure shared by Athena and Apollo derives from the
sight of the men settling themselves like a rippling sea: ἀνδράσι τερπόμενοι· τῶν
δὲ στίχες ἥατο πυκναὶ (‘Taking pleasure in the men, whose thick ranks were
settling…’ 7.61). The comparison of armed ranks to the sea is not uncommon in
the Iliad,20 but is special here in that the image is focalized through the
watching (p.118) gods. In other words, the gods are enjoying the same
pleasure, derived from the same image, which the poet is simultaneously
offering to his listeners by means of his song. All of these factors invite the
poet’s listeners to recognize in the watching gods a reception activity analogous
to their own.21
3.1.2. Athena and Apollo Dramatize Tensions in Audience Response

What sort of model of reception do the gods present in this scene? Two
differences from the previous divine audience scene stand out: (1) the choice of
gods, just Apollo and Athena, both of whom speak, and (2) the position from
which they view—now on the battlefield rather than at the daïs on Olympus
where the others sit with Zeus. Each of these differences reflects developments
in the spectacle presented so far.
By choosing Apollo and Athena, I suggest, the poet is able to dramatize the
tension between two types of response which audience members are set up to be
experiencing: desire for Achaean victory, and pity for the doomed Trojans. Note
that in the sequence of the narrative, this duel episode follows immediately on
the domestic scenes in Book 6, famous precisely for evoking pity for the Trojans.
Hector’s interactions with Andromache and Astyanax in particular bring out the
humanity of these characters, and Andromache’s laughter through tears elicits
pity not just from Hector (δακρυόεν γελάσασα· πόσις δ’ ἐλέησε νοήσας 6.484)
but from legions of readers and commentators. The vivid depictions of Thebe’s
fall, Andromache’s plight, and future slavery (6.405–65) lay out the
consequences of Trojan defeat in the war, from a Trojan perspective. Then, the
words exchanged by Hector and Paris as they leave the city together give a life-
like picture of affection and familiarity in the face of brotherly frustration, and a
twinkling illusion of hope for Trojan victory, reified as ‘the kratēr of
freedom’ (6.518–29):
τὸν πρότερος προσέειπεν Ἀλέξανδρος θεοειδής·

ἠθεῖ’ ἦ μάλα δή σε καὶ ἐσσύμενον κατερύκω
δηθύνων, οὐδ’ ἦλθον ἐναίσιμον ὡς ἐκέλευες;
Τὸν δ’ ἀπαμειβόμενος προσέϕη κορυθαίολος Ἕκτωρ
(p.119) δαιμόνι’ οὐκ ἄν τίς τοι ἀνὴρ ὃς ἐναίσιμος εἴη
ἔργον ἀτιμήσειε μάχης, ἐπεὶ ἄλκιμός ἐσσι·
ἀλλὰ ἑκὼν μεθιεῖς τε καὶ οὐκ ἐθέλεις· τὸ δ’ ἐμὸν κῆρ
ἄχνυται ἐν θυμῷ, ὅθ’ ὑπὲρ σέθεν αἴσχε’ ἀκούω
πρὸς Τρώων, οἳ ἔχουσι πολὺν πόνον εἵνεκα σεῖο.
Page 7 of 29

ἀλλ’ ἴομεν· τὰ δ’ ὄπισθεν ἀρεσσόμεθ’, αἴ κέ ποθι Ζεὺς

δώῃ ἐπουρανίοισι θεοῖς αἰειγενέτῃσι
κρητῆρα στήσασθαι ἐλεύθερον ἐν μεγάροισιν
ἐκ Τροίης ἐλάσαντας ἐϋκνήμιδας Ἀχαιούς.
Ὣς εἰπὼν πυλέων ἐξέσσυτο ϕαίδιμος Ἕκτωρ,
τῷ δ’ ἅμ’ Ἀλέξανδρος κί ’ ἀδελϕεός…
– 6.518–29, 7.1–2
Godlike Alexandros addressed [Hector] first:

‘Sir, have I not indeed overtaken you even as you hurried –
I, as I “tarried”?22 And have I not come at the due time as you bid?’
And bright-helmed Hector addressed him in answer:
‘[Yes], incredible man, nor would any man who gives things their due
speak ill of your deeds in battle, since you are possessed of prowess.
But of your own accord you hang back and don’t want [to fight]. And
my heart
is pained in my chest, when I hear shameful things about you
from the Trojans, who have so much hardship for your sake.
But come: these things we will reconcile in the future, if ever Zeus
grants that for the gods who live in heaven, born to exist forever,
we might set up the kratēr of freedom in our halls
after driving the well-greaved Achaeans from Troy.’
So speaking, glorious Hector rushed out from the gates
and with him went his brother Alexandros…
There is no stopping place for the singer between the final lines of Book 6 and
line 7.1: ‘so speaking, glorious Hector rushed out from the gates…’23 The
continuity between books sets up the audience to see (p.120) Trojan victory
still from a Trojan perspective: that is, as desirable—a postponement, at least, of
the coming doom.
And yet, when the fighting begins in Book 7, and it is the Achaeans who are
being cut down, Athena’s appearance also recalls the jumble of reasons why
such a sight may not please an audience:
ὡς δὲ θεὸς ναύτῃσιν ἐελδομένοισιν ἔδωκεν

οὖρον, ἐπεί κε κάμωσιν ἐϋξέστῃς ἐλάτῃσι
πόντον ἐλαύνοντες, καμάτῳ δ’ ὑπὸ γυῖα λέλυνται,
ὣς ἄρα τὼ Τρώεσσιν ἐελδομένοισι ϕανήτην.
Ἔνθ’ ἑλέτην ὃ μὲν υἱὸν Ἀρηϊθόοιο ἄνακτος
Ἄρνῃ ναιετάοντα Μενέσθιον, ὃν κορυνήτης
γείνατ’ Ἀρηΐθοος καὶ Φυλομέδουσα βοῶπις
Ἕκτωρ δ’ Ἠϊονῆα βάλ’ ἔγχεϊ ὀξυόεντι
αὐχέν’ ὑπὸ στεϕάνης εὐχάλκου, λύντο δὲ γυῖα.
Γλαῦκος δ’ Ἱππολόχοιο πάϊς Λυκίων ἀγὸς ἀνδρῶν
Ἰϕίνοον βάλε δουρὶ κατὰ κρατερὴν ὑσμίνην
Δεξιάδην ἵππων ἐπιάλμενον ὠκειάων
ὦμον· ὃ δ’ ἐξ ἵππων χαμάδις πέσε, λύντο δὲ γυῖα.
Page 8 of 29

Τοὺς δ’ ὡς οὖν ἐνόησε θεὰ γλαυκῶπις Ἀθήνη
Ἀργείους ὀλέκοντας ἐνὶ κρατερῇ ὑσμίνῃ,
βῆ ῥα κατ’ Οὐλύμποιο καρήνων ἀΐξασα
Ἴλιον εἰς ἱερήν…
– 7.4–20
And as a god brings to sailors who long for it

a breeze, when they toil with polished oars,
pushing against the sea, and their limbs give out with the toil –
so then those two [i.e. Paris and Hector] appeared to the Trojans who
longed for them.
Then each of the two killed [a man] – the one [killed] lord Arithous’
son
Menestheus who lived in Arnes, whose parents were the club-wielder
Arithous and cow-eyed Philomedusa.
And Hector struck Eioneus with his sharp spear
in the throat beneath his bronze helmet, and his limbs gave out.
And Glaucus son of Hippolochus, lord of the Lycian men
struck Iphinous with his spear in the fierce fighting
as [Iphinous] was leaping onto his swift horses –
[struck him] in the shoulder – and he fell from his horses to the
earth, and his limbs gave out.
But when she took note of them – the goddess, bright-eyed Athena –
(p.121) as they slew Argives in the thick of the fight,
she rushed and descended from the peaks of Olympus
to sacred Ilium…
For an audience considering themselves to be the Achaeans’ descendants, the

new situation on the field is likely to be a source of tension: whatever the
audience’s feelings about Hector, Achilles, and the other characters may be at
this point, they will in any case be aware of their own position as a community
descended from the Achaeans.24 Thus, when Athena sees Trojans seizing the
initiative and is moved to end her passivity and enter the arena of war, she is set
up, potentially, as a model of response.
Apollo now rises to meet Athena, creating the expectation of a new battle
sequence involving the gods on the field. But instead of fighting, the two deities
begin a conversation on the topic of viewer response:
Τοὺς δ’ ὡς οὖν ἐνόησε θεὰ γλαυκῶπις Ἀθήνη
βῆ ῥα κατ’ Οὐλύμποιο καρήνων ἀΐξασα
Ἴλιον εἰς ἱερήν · τῇ δ’ ἀντίος ὄρνυτ’ Ἀπόλλων
Περγάμου ἐκκατιδών, Τρώεσσι δὲ βούλετο νίκην·
ἀλλήλοισι δὲ τώ γε συναντέσθην παρὰ ϕηγῷ.
τὴν πρότερος προσέειπεν ἄναξ Διὸς υἱὸς Ἀπόλλων·
τίπτε σὺ δ’ αὖ μεμαυῖα Διὸς θύγατερ μεγάλοιο
ἦλθες ἀπ’ Οὐλύμποιο, μέγας δέ σε θυμὸς ἀνῆκεν;
Page 9 of 29

– 7.17–25
But when she took note of them – the goddess, bright-eyed Athena –
as they slew Argives in the thick of the fight,
she rushed and descended from the peaks of Olympus
to sacred Ilium. But Apollo rose to meet her,
having descended from Pergamum – and he plotted victory for the
Trojans.
So those two came face to face with one another by the oak tree.
He addressed her first, the lord Apollo son of Zeus:
‘And why is it that eagerly, daughter of great Zeus, again you
have come from Olympus, and your great heart stirred you up?’
It is not only Apollo who is ignorant of Athena’s precise feelings and intentions.
Apollo’s question draws attention to the fact that the (p.122) perspective of
Athena and Hera,25 which has been up to this point the most familiar and
frequently described divine perspective on the conflict, is now made to be
strange, with the poet giving no direct access to it. Athena is, of course, fighting
on the Achaean side, but the poet has already shown a great deal of nuance in
his sketches of the varieties of ‘pro-Achaean’ response through Athena and
Hera. This present intervention might be interpreted as care for Achaeans being
killed—like Hera’s care (κήδετο 1.56) at the sight of Achaeans dying of plague in
Book 1 (κήδετο γὰρ Δαναῶν, ὅτι ῥα θνήσκοντας ὁρᾶτο 1.56). Alternatively, it
might represent nemesis at Achaean disgrace, like the nemesis attributed to
Apollo in Book 4 as the Trojans are routed in their turn.26 After all, Athena’s
move to halt the Achaeans’ rush for the ships in Book 2 was motivated by what
Hera described as concern that Achaean defeat would allow Trojan gloating.27 A
third possibility is to see this intervention as an expression of desire for Troy’s
destruction, a desire superseding concern for the Argives themselves. All of
these are plausible for Athena, yet instead of describing how she feels and what
she intends—as in all similar previous passages—the poet has Apollo ask her
what she feels and intends, and then insert his own interpretation of those
issues:28
ἦ ἵνα δὴ Δαναοῖσι μάχης ἑτεραλκέα νίκην
δῷς; ἐπεὶ οὔ τι Τρῶας ἀπολλυμένους ἐλεαίρεις.
ἀλλ’ εἴ μοί τι πίθοιο τό κεν πολὺ κέρδιον εἴη·
νῦν μὲν παύσωμεν πόλεμον καὶ δηϊοτῆτα
(p.123) σήμερον· ὕστερον αὖτε μαχήσοντ’ εἰς ὅ κε τέκμωρ
Ἰλίου εὕρωσιν, ἐπεὶ ὣς ϕίλον ἔπλετο θυμῷ
ὑμῖν ἀθανάτῃσι, διαπραθέειν τόδε ἄστυ.
– 7.26–32
‘Ahh – surely it was in order to give tide-turning victory in battle to

the Danaans?
For you don’t pity the Trojans dying at all.
Page 10 of 29

But if you should somehow be persuaded by me, it would be far

better:
for now, let’s stop the warfare and fighting –
for today. Later, when the time comes, let them fight until they come
upon the end of Ilium, since that’s what pleased the heart
of you goddesses – that this city should be destroyed.’
According to Apollo, Athena has come to give victory to the Achaeans (7.26–7),
motivated ultimately by her wish to destroy Troy (7.32), which is unmitigated by
any pity for the Trojans (7.27). This last point, suitable enough coming from the
principal protector of Troy in the Iliad, positions Apollo as a voice within the text
critical of the models developed already through the Hera-Athena duo, whose
unity he emphasizes by the phrase ‘you goddesses’ (ὑμῖν ἀθανάτῃσι 7.32).29
Athena, however, gives a different account of her own intention:
Τὸν δ’ αὖτε προσέειπε θεὰ γλαυκῶπις Ἀθήνη·
ὧδ’ ἔστω ἑκάεργε· τὰ γὰρ ϕρονέουσα καὶ αὐτὴ
ἦλθον ἀπ’ Οὐλύμποιο μετὰ Τρῶας καὶ Ἀχαιούς.
ἀλλ’ ἄγε, πῶς μέμονας πόλεμον καταπαύσεμεν ἀνδρῶν;
– 7.33–6
And the bright-eyed goddess Athena spoke to him in turn:

‘Let it be so, worker-from-afar. For it was thinking these things [i.e.
arranging such a pause in the fighting] that I myself
came from Olympus among the Trojans and Achaeans.
But come – how do you wish to put a stop to the men’s warfare?
(p.124) Athena claims to have come not to give the Achaeans the ‘tide-turning
victory’ (ἑτεραλκέα νίκην 7.26) of Apollo’s accusation, but simply to arrange the
same pause in the fighting that Apollo suggests himself. While some previous
attention to this passage has involved speculation as to the ‘real’ motivations of
Athena,30 it is impossible to know what is going through her head when she sees
the Trojans cutting down the Achaeans, nor whether she comes seeking a pause
or a tide-turning victory—and trying to figure this out is not the point. Rather,
Athena’s inscrutability in this passage,31 emphasized by Apollo’s criticism, points
to the variety of conflicting desires which the poem sees itself engendering.
The present passage is the first time that the issue of pity for the Trojans has
been explicitly raised among the gods. Apollo’s criticism connects identification
with the Achaean war effort to lack of pity for the Trojans, thus voicing and
implying questions that are relevant for the extratextual listener: do you feel pity
for the Trojans—enough not to resist what you know to be Troy’s inevitable fall?
Enough not to relish Achaean victory? Not to cringe at Achaean losses?
Continuing to compare this divine audience scene with that in Book 4, we may
note another salient difference: perched on the oak tree, Apollo and Athena
Page 11 of 29

watch not from Olympus, but within the theatre of war. On the one hand, the
gods’ closer proximity to the fighting models closer engagement with the poem’s
events: Apollo and Athena are apart from the other gods because it is they whose
partisan feelings were strong enough to have brought them into the arena of
war. Nor does their partisanship vanish during the duel: Apollo helps Hector rise
after he is struck by a boulder (7.272). Yet the poet’s description of the gods in
other ways underlines their unity as an audience. They do not glower at the
sight of one army and smile benignly upon the other. Instead, the poet leaves his
listeners with (p.125) a single, memorable description of their attitude: viewing
the men—including the waves of mortal spectators—produces pleasure in both
(terpomenoi). In marked contrast to Achaeans and Trojans, they even sit
together—all the more striking here on the field of battle than it is when they are
far off on Olympus. Their proximity and shared experience of pleasure suggest
that contrasting reactions to the war are subsumed under the poem’s power to
entertain, and that conflicting feelings of partisanship and pity may be present
within a single audience or even within a single person. In this way, the poet
claims for the Iliad the ability to involve a variety of listeners in the communal
experience of pleasure in listening—and viewing.
3.1.3. A New Narrative about the Warfare

The gods’ conversation has raised issues that make the picture provided by the
first mise en abyme problematic, and the second mise en abyme now invites
comparison with the first. Is this really, after all, a story about just punishment
for Trojan transgression? About wealth and a woman? Or is the centre shifting
as the poem moves forward? What is at stake in the military spectacle at Troy—
for participants and also for viewers? Whereas the first duel presents the conflict
at Troy as a match between transgressor and aggrieved, the second is fought by
the armies’ greatest champions. Both duels look ahead to Achilles’ and Hector’s
confrontation in Book 22, for which the Book 7 duel in particular forms an
anticipatory doublet, as it is the poem’s first sketch of Hector’s death.32
Confrontations between leaders are the Iliad’s regular way of depicting combat
on a large scale. In the spectacular duels, this regular system is taken to its
limit: each combatant stands for the entirety of his side in the war. Paris and
Menelaus represent the two sides of the conflict, inasmuch as it is their quarrel
that underlies it. But Aias and Hector also represent the two sides of the conflict,
as each side’s best hope for warding off destruction. Thus, whereas the first duel
casts the conflict as a morality tale, with revenge or punishment following
transgression, the second reflects realities on the (p.126) ground. The loss of
Paris or Menelaus could end the conflict by removing the reason for fighting, but
the loss of either Hector or Aias could end it by removing the ability to resist
enemy attack. As the poet has just made clear for the first time in Book 6,
Hector’s fate and his city’s are intertwined:33 Astyanax has his name from the
Trojan people, οἶος γὰρ ἐρύετο Ἴλιον Ἕκτωρ (‘because Hector alone was the
Page 12 of 29

protector of Ilium’ 6.403). While Paris is responsible for the Trojan predicament,
Hector is responsible for Troy.
The poet’s choice of Aias to replace Menelaus is as telling as his choice of

Hector to replace Paris.34 As the gods’ conversation brings out, in the opening of
Book 7 the poet creates a dynamic tension in which Trojan destruction and
Achaean destruction are both at issue (though it is never in doubt which will
actually happen), and indeed it is at this point in the poem that the Achaeans will
begin to go on the defensive, in fulfilment of Zeus’ promise to Thetis. Though a
burning city looms beyond the poem’s horizon, it is the image of burning ships,
and Achaeans slaughtered beside them, that will be conjured insistently between
now and Patroclus’ entry into battle in Book 16.35 Aias well represents the
Achaean side in this altered situation. The offensive champion, Diomedes, has a
good claim to be Ἀχαιῶν ὅς τις ἄριστος (‘the best (aristos) of the Achaeans’
7.50) after Achilles.36 Against this claim, the poet’s actual choice of Aias here
signals a shift from the period of Achaean victory to a period of defensive
fighting in which Aias will emerge as the crucial figure: the Achaeans’ bulwark
(p.127) against destruction, who is never wounded himself,37 and stands
valiantly in a lone, vain effort to keep off the fire from the ships.38 The choice of
combatants thus helps epitomize the conflict as it will be presented for some
time to come: Achaeans and Trojans both, in their own ways, in need of succour.
The speeches that introduce the two duels offer contrasting views of what is at
stake in the conflict at Troy. In Book 3, Agamemnon begins by invoking Zeus,
Helios and other oath-guarding gods to bear witness (μάρτυροι ἔστε 3.276–80).
He then continues:
εἰ μέν κεν Μενέλαον Ἀλέξανδρος καταπέϕνῃ

αὐτὸς ἔπειθ’ Ἑλένην ἐχέτω καὶ κτήματα πάντα,
ἡμεῖς δ’ ἐν νήεσσι νεώμεθα ποντοπόροισιν·
εἰ δέ κ’ Ἀλέξανδρον κτείνῃ ξανθὸς Μενέλαος,
Τρῶας ἔπειθ’ Ἑλένην καὶ κτήματα πάντ’ ἀποδοῦναι,
τιμὴν δ’ Ἀργείοις ἀποτινέμεν ἥν τιν’ ἔοικεν,
ἥ τε καὶ ἐσσομένοισι μετ’ ἀνθρώποισι πέληται.
εἰ δ’ ἂν ἐμοὶ τιμὴν Πρίαμος Πριάμοιό τε παῖδες
τίνειν οὐκ ἐθέλωσιν Ἀλεξάνδροιο πεσόντος,
αὐτὰρ ἐγὼ καὶ ἔπειτα μαχήσομαι εἵνεκα ποινῆς
αὖθι μένων, ἧός κε τέλος πολέμοιο κιχείω.
– 3.281–91
If, on the one hand, Paris kills Menelaus,

then let him have Helen and all the wealth,
and let us go home in our sea-crossing vessels.
But if yellow-haired Menelaus kills Paris,
then must the Trojans give back Helen and all the wealth,
and pay back a penalty to the Argives, one which is fitting,
Page 13 of 29

and which will exist even among future generations.

But if Priam and the children of Priam are not willing
to pay me the penalty, with Paris having fallen,
then I will fight for the penalty,
and keep on until I come to the war’s finish.
This speech lays out the stakes for which the duel is to be fought, namely Helen
and possessions. Since the war is to end with the duel, the implication is that
these are the stakes of, and the motivation (p.128) for, the war as well. This
formulation is versatile in a sense: it encompasses both the view that Helen is at
the heart of the war (recalling the common vows taken by her suitors) on the one
hand, and an economic view of the war as an attempt to take or to recover stolen
resources on the other. Agamemnon’s conclusion is very much in character for
him, with demand and threat uttered in the same breath: there is an extra
penalty for the Trojans if Paris loses, and if they refuse to pay, he vows to go on
to sack Troy εἵνεκα ποινῆς (‘on account of the penalty’ 3.290).39 These
concluding words of Agamemnon’s also suggest an overarching narrative for the
story of Ilium: the Trojans will pay the penalty for what they have done. This
narrative meshes with the basic structure of the first duel, with Paris the
transgressor pitted against Menelaus the aggrieved.
Hector’s speech follows the same format, but specifies concerns other than
Helen, riches, and penalties:
ὧδε δὲ μυθέομαι, Ζεὺς δ’ ἄμμ’ ἐπιμάρτυρος ἔστω·

εἰ μέν κεν ἐμὲ κεῖνος ἕλῃ ταναήκεϊ χαλκῷ,
τεύχεα συλήσας ϕερέτω κοίλας ἐπὶ νῆας,
σῶμα δὲ οἴκαδ’ ἐμὸν δόμεναι πάλιν, ὄϕρα πυρός με
Τρῶες καὶ Τρώων ἄλοχοι λελάχωσι θανόντα.
εἰ δέ κ’ ἐγὼ τὸν ἕλω, δώῃ δέ μοι εὖχος Ἀπόλλων,
τεύχεα σύλησας οἴσω προτὶ Ἴλιον ἱρήν,
καὶ κρεμόω προτὶ νηὸν Ἀπόλλωνος ἑκάτοιο,
τὸν δὲ νέκυν ἐπὶ νῆας ἐϋσσέλμους ἀποδώσω,
ὄϕρά ἑ ταρχύσωσι κάρη κομόωντες Ἀχαιοί,
σῆμά τέ οἱ χεύωσιν ἐπὶ πλατεῖ Ἑλλησπόντῳ.
καί ποτέ τις εἴπῃσι καὶ ὀψιγόνων ἀνθρώπων
νηῒ πολυκλήϊδι πλέων ἐπὶ οἴνοπα πόντον·
ἀνδρὸς μὲν τόδε σῆμα πάλαι κατατεθνηῶτος,
ὅν ποτ’ ἀριστεύοντα κατέκτανε ϕαίδιμος Ἕκτωρ.
ὥς ποτέ τις ἐρέει· τὸ δ’ ἐμὸν κλέος οὔ ποτ’ ὀλεῖται.
–7.76–91
But thus do I speak, and let Zeus be the witness for us:
if on the one hand that man takes me with his sharp-edged bronze,
let him strip my arms and bear them to the hollow ships,
and let him return my body home again, so that
Page 14 of 29

(p.129) the Trojans and the Trojans’ wives may make me a pyre
when I have died.
But if I take him, and Apollo grants me the right of boasting,
I will strip his arms and bear them toward holy Ilium,
and I will hang them before the temple of Apollo far-shooter,
and as for him, I will give back his dead body, to go to the well-
benched ships,
so that the long-haired Achaeans may give him funeral rites,
and heap up a grave-mound for him on the wide Hellespont.
And someday even people born in later times will say,
as they travel in ships of many oar-locks on the wine-dark sea:
‘This is the grave-mound of a man who died long ago,
whom shining Hector once slew, even as he fought at his best.’
Thus will they say some day – and my kleos will never perish.
The structural parallels are clear. Hector’s speech begins with an invocation of
Zeus as witness of oaths. He then gives an account of what will happen in the
case of victory for either side, starting with the less favoured scenario (his own
death), just as did Agamemnon. The symmetry of these lines recalls that of
Agamemnon’s statement of terms: εἰ μέν κεν…καταπέϕνῃ (3.281) mirrored by εἰ
μέν κεν…ἕλῃ (7.76), and εἰ δέ κ’…κτείνῃ (3.284) matching εἰ δέ κ’…ἕλω (7.81).
As did Agamemnon, Hector then goes beyond the symmetry to add a personal
vision of the future in keeping with his own character: he allows his mind to
wander into an elaborate fantasy (cf. 22.98–130, his fantasy of intimacy with
Achilles) centred on his personal reputation (cf. 6.440–65, where the sad thought
of Andromache enslaved climaxes with someone musing Ἕκτορος ἧδε γυνὴ
(6.460)—‘this was the wife of Hector!’).40
In both speeches, the poet indicates awareness of all the duels’ audiences: the
Achaeans and Trojans whom Agamemnon and Hector actually address; the gods
whose presence is acknowledged through the initial invocations; and the
extratextual audience lurking behind the ὀψίγονοι ἄνθρωποι (‘people born in
later times’ 7.87) whom Hector envisions looking at his opponent’s grave-
mound, and the ἐσσόμενοισι ἄνθρωποισι (‘people of the future’ 3.287)
mentioned by (p.130) Agamemnon.41 The reference to future audiences not
only recalls the role of the extratextual audience, but locates them as part of a
community of previous and future epic audiences hearing about these same
deeds.
Hector’s speech offers no narrative of the Trojan war, but instead takes the war
as a given. This is not only a reflection of Hector’s position as brother of the
adulterer Paris, but also an important viable alternative view of the conflict: the
society depicted in the Homeric poems is based on war. Sarpedon’s speech to
Glaucus in Book 12 is often pointed to as an account of how ‘Homeric’ society is
structured:42
Γλαῦκε τί ἢ δὴ νῶϊ τετιμήμεσθα μάλιστα

Page 15 of 29

ἕδρῃ τε κρέασίν τε ἰδὲ πλείοις δεπάεσσιν

ἐν Λυκίῃ, πάντες δὲ θεοὺς ὣς εἰσορόωσι…;
τὼ νῦν χρὴ Λυκίοισι μέτα πρώτοισιν ἐόντας
ἑστάμεν ἠδὲ μάχης καυστείρης ἀντιβολῆσαι,
ὄϕρά τις ὧδ’ εἴπῃ Λυκίων πύκα θωρηκτάων·
οὐ μὰν ἀκλεέες Λυκίην κάτα κοιρανέουσιν
ἡμέτεροι βασιλῆες…
– 12.310–12, 315–19
Glaucus, why indeed are we two honoured most

in our place at table, in meats and full goblets
in Lycia, and everyone looks on us as though we were gods?…
Therefore, now we must go among the first Lycians in the ranks
and stand, and confront the blazing battle,
so that the close-armoured Lycians may speak thus:
‘No, not without kleos do our kings rule
over Lycia…’
The Homeric warrior’s willingness to risk his life in battle for his people, and
thus to receive honour (timē 12.310) and glory (kleos (p.131) 12.318), is the
basis for his position in society, and a society without warriors is not liable to
last very long. It is this view of war as a fundamental fact of life and the source
of the leaders’ social position and identity which informs Hector’s speech. The
Iliad presents the warriors at Troy as fighting not just for Helen and wealth, but
also for honour, and for the glory entailed in their inclusion in the poem’s
performance. This is what Hector’s speech invites its audiences—mortals
present, gods watching, and posterity—to witness: a struggle fought for kleos
(7.91). The second duel thus provides a necessary corrective to the overly
simplistic morality tale delineated in the first duel. Here, the war is its own
narrative.
The second duel joins the first in looking ahead to the third.43 Just as the poet
toys with Paris and Menelaus as combatants before moving on to Hector and
Aias, he also directs his listeners’ attention to Achilles in the distance: just
before the fight begins, Aias remarks to Hector that Achilles is really the
Achaeans’ greatest champion, though presently indisposed (7.228–30). Other
parallels abound, and in each case, the situation in Book 7 looks ahead to its
reversal in Book 22. In 7 Apollo raises Hector up when he is wounded; in 22 he
will suddenly leave him (22.213). The terms of the duel in 7 are to honour the
corpse of the loser, the very terms which Achilles will refuse to accept (22.254–
72). The contest in 7 presents a proper limit to strife—the night to which it is
good that combatants should yield (7.282 = 7.293)—while it is a lack of proper
limits that characterizes Achilles’ behaviour in 22.
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In fact, the second duel’s ending—it is called off by the heralds as Hector seems
in danger of losing, and then friendship between Hector and Aias is sealed by
gift exchange—can partly be explained by its function as an anticipation of the
confrontation of Hector and Achilles: it dangles a few very particular loose
threads, each of which is recalled and tied up in 22. Helenus’ remark in 7 that it
is not yet Hector’s allotment to die is recalled and reversed by the sinking of
Hector’s ‘allotted day’ (αἴσιμον ἦμαρ) on Zeus’ golden scales (22.209–13). The
friendship (ϕιλότητι 7.302) in which Hector and (p.132) Aias will part, while
Hector has been wounded and seems in danger of losing, is recalled and
reversed by Hector’s desperate, hopeless fantasy of intimacy between himself
and Achilles,44 and Achilles’ disavowal of the possibility of friendliness
(ϕιλήμεναι 22.265) between them.45
What makes the links between the duels in Books 3, 7, and 22 solid and
memorable is the reduction of the grand conflict to a single fight with the whole
world watching, like a triptych offering three views in succession on the conflict
at Troy. Apollo acknowledges the finality of the decision made in Book 4, that
Troy will indeed fall, for ‘so did it please the heart of you goddesses – that this
city should be destroyed’ (7.31–2). But now voice has been given to a part of the
divine audience which does not respond as Hera and Athena. With the combat
concluded, the gods’ reactions to the second duel are not represented. Instead,
Homer’s audience is left to ponder in the space that the gods have defined by
their questions, and their subsequent staging of the duel, and to look ahead to
the final confrontation that the duel foreshadows.
3.2. The Achaean Wall and the End of the Iliad

Following the duel between Aias and Hector, Nestor addresses Agamemnon and
the other leaders at the Achaean camp. Noting that many Achaeans have now
died and their psychai gone down to Hades (ψυχαὶ Ἀïδόσδε κατῆλθον 7.330),
Nestor proposes a truce for the gathering and burning of corpses (7.331–5). He
further suggests that the Achaeans build a funeral mound and a great wall to
protect the ships (7.336–43). The Trojans, meanwhile, devise a proposal to
exchange wealth for peace; failing that, they, too, will ask for a truce for the
burning of the dead (7.345–78). When Idaeus presents these offers at dawn, the
Achaeans reject the peace but agree to the truce (7.381–411). The day is spent
by Trojans and Achaeans in wandering about the battlefield to collect and burn
their dead (7.416–32). The Achaeans begin construction of their wall before
dawn (7.433–42), at (p.133) which point the poet reveals that the Olympian
gods are watching (7.443–4). Poseidon complains that the wall’s fame (kleos)
will surpass that of Troy itself, which he once built with Apollo. Zeus reassures
Poseidon, and announces the wall’s future (post-war) destruction. The Achaeans
finish the whole building project by sunset of the day they began (7.465). Later,
in Book 12, the future destruction of the wall will be narrated in detail, in a
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unique prolepsis involving multiple gods, diverted rivers, and nine days of
obliteration, until every trace is gone (12.2–33).
Poseidon’s comparison of the wall to the citadel of Troy is startling. After all, this
wall has just been built, by mortals, in a single day. Yet the text presses this very
comparison. The great edifice includes towers, and gates large enough for
cavalry to pass through (7.337–40, 436–9). Defended by the Achaeans over the
period stretching from Book 8 to 18 (and most of all Book 12, whose ancient title
was teichomachia, ‘battle for the wall’), this wall effectively becomes a second
Troy. It is as if these books were a magic looking glass; passing through, we find
our reflected war playing out with the Trojan and Achaean roles reversed.46
Is the poet’s hand more than usually evident in all this? Ancient commentators
felt they could catch Homer in the act of disguising something.47 Sophisticated
metapoetic readings have multiplied (see below). It is perhaps fitting that the
gods, who have themselves been so often read as poetic adornments to the real,
human story, should stand so prominently witness to the construction of an
object whose seeming unreality—even (provocatively) ‘fictionality’—has likewise
impressed many commentators.
Scholarship has illuminated various aspects of the peculiarities of this wall’s

creation (Book 7), defence (Books 8–18), and destruction (Books 7, 12).
Poseidon’s complaint may be less surprising if we recognize Poseidon as a
mythological figure who has a special concern with walls.48 The traditional
‘battle for the wall’ (teichomachia), associated with poetry about Troy’s fall, has
here been repurposed to (p.134) engage the audience’s sympathies for the
besieged.49 The wall’s destruction has roots in Greek and Near Eastern myth,
particularly the sense of a cataclysmic event (the Trojan War; the Biblical
deluge) that marks the key division in mythological ‘history’.50 But my particular
focus here is on the strangeness of the wall’s creation in Book 7 (the
teichopoiia), which has not been fully explained, but continues to read as an
‘intrusion’ or ‘insertion’ into the narrative.51 The key to the puzzle, I will try to
show, is the divine gaze.
Let us first look at the moment of transition to the gods, then study the action
that they have been viewing.
ὣς οἳ μὲν πονέοντο κάρη κομόωντες Ἀχαιοί.

οἳ δὲ θεοὶ πὰρ Ζηνὶ καθήμενοι ἀστεροπητῇ
θηεῦντο μέγα ἔργον Ἀχαιῶν χαλκοχιτώνων.
– 7.442–4
Thus, then, were the long-haired Achaeans toiling.

But as for the gods, sitting beside Zeus of the lightning,
they marvelled at the great ergon of the bronze-clad Achaeans.
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The switch to Olympus prompts listeners to recontextualize what they have just
been mentally ‘seeing’: the gods’ attention, too, has been engaged with this
scene. Of prior passages involving divine viewing, exactly one resembles this one
closely—the introduction of the gods as a viewing collective in Book 4.
Οἳ δὲ θεοὶ πὰρ Ζηνὶ καθήμενοι ἠγορόωντο…

–4.1,4
But the gods for their part, seated beside Zeus, were assembled…
they made toasts to each other, gazing upon the city of the Trojans.
Only in these two passages, so far, do we have a gaze that is collective and
attributed to ‘the gods sitting beside Zeus’. In Book 4, as the spectacle of
warfare begins, the object of their gaze is the city of Troy. In Book 7, in that
spectacle’s extended conclusion, the gods are marveling instead at Troy’s dark
reflection, the wall of the Achaeans.
(p.135) In Book 4, the statement that the gods are watching ‘the city of the
Trojans’ does not mean that their gaze or interest is limited to activities on or
within the walls—though it does include such activities. Rather, as argued in
Chapter 2, the essential thrust of 4.1–4 is to introduce the gods as a viewership
for a well-defined event that has been taking place before Troy’s walls, namely
the duel between Paris and Menelaus. Similarly, in Book 7, I suggest that while
the gods are clearly very interested in Achaean Wall, their interest has not been
limited to it. Rather, they are presented implicitly as an audience for the entirety
of the spectacle that has just now been taking place on the plain, of which the
wall’s building forms the culmination.
Let us consider the visual and spatial dynamics of the scenario in the lines just
prior to our passage, beginning with 417–32:
…τοὶ δ’ ὁπλίζοντο μάλ’ ὦκα,

ἀμϕότερον νέκυάς τ’ ἀγέμεν ἕτεροι δὲ μεθ’ ὕλην.
Ἀργεῖοι δ’ ἑτέρωθεν ἐϋσσέλμων ἀπὸ νηῶν
ὀτρύνοντο νέκυς τ’ ἀγέμεν, ἕτεροι δὲ μεθ’ ὕλην.
Ἠέλιος μὲν ἔπειτα νέον προσέβαλλεν ἀρούρας
ἐξ ἀκαλαρρείταο βαθυρρόου Ὠκεανοῖο
οὐρανὸν εἰσανιών· οἳ δ’ ἤντεον ἀλλήλοισιν.
ἔνθα διαγνῶναι χαλεπῶς ἦν ἄνδρα ἕκαστον·
ἀλλ’ ὕδατι νίζοντες ἄπο βρότον αἱματόεντα
δάκρυα θερμὰ χέοντες ἀμαξάων ἐπάειραν.
οὐδ’ εἴα κλαίειν Πρίαμος μέγας· οἳ δὲ σιωπῇ
νεκροὺς πυρκαϊῆς ἐπινήνεον ἀχνύμενοι κῆρ,
ἐν δὲ πυρὶ πρήσαντες ἔβαν προτὶ Ἴλιον ἱρήν.
ὣς δ’ αὔτως ἑτέρωθεν ἐϋκνήμιδες Ἀχαιοὶ
νεκροὺς πυρκαϊῆς ἐπινήνεον ἀχνύμενοι κῆρ,
Page 19 of 29

ἐν δὲ πυρὶ πρήσαντες ἔβαν κοίλας ἐπὶ νῆας.
– 7.417–32
[The Trojans] were equipping themselves, very quickly,

both to bring the corpses, and for others [to go] after wood;
and the Argives on the other side from their well-benched ships,
[some] roused themselves to bring the corpses, and others [to go]
after wood.
At that time Helios was striking the fields anew,
rising up to the sky from calm-flowing,
deep-running Ocean. And [the warriors] encountered one another.
Then, to recognize each man was difficult.
But, cleansing the bloody gore away with water,
weeping hot tears, they lifted [the corpses] onto the wagons.
(p.136) Nor did great Priam allow [the Trojans] to mourn; but in
silence they
were heaping bodies onto pyres, grieving in their hearts;
and after burning [the bodies] on the pyre, they went to holy Ilium.
In just the same way, on the other side, the well-greaved Achaeans
were heaping bodies onto pyres, grieving in their hearts;
And after burning [the bodies] on the pyre, they went to their hollow
ships.
As day breaks on the Trojan plain, human activity also begins. The tableau
before us visually resembles the spectacle of war in two important respects:
setting and participants. The crucial change is the activity. The verbs of
preparation recall arming: as the Trojans ὁπλίζοντο (‘were equipping’ 7.417),52
the Achaeans ἑτέρωθεν ὀτρύνοντο (‘on the other side roused themselves’ 7.419–
20)—not now war-ward, but to bring bodies and wood. Violence is now
restrained to the sun that ‘was striking’ (προσέβαλλεν 7.421) the fields. The
strangeness of encountering the enemy on the field in this way, under truce, is
palpable: οἳ δ’ ἤντεον ἀλλήλοισιν (‘and they encountered one another’ 7.423).
Though used in other ways, this verb can be used of a hostile ‘meeting’ in
battle,53 and the adverbial forms anta and anten are frequently used of enemy
combatants meeting face to face on the field. The imperfect tense suggests that
such ‘encounters’ keep happening as the morning wears on. That it was then
difficult to ‘distinguish’ (διαγνῶναι 7.424) each man might mean, with a stretch
to allow aner of a dead body, that the corpses are indistinguishable till the blood
is washed away. But it also may suggest that Trojans and Achaeans, as they work
among each other, appear more or less the same.54 In stark contrast to the
clamour of war, the gathering of bodies is silent.
The battlefield has become the site of death ritual, which in the Iliad constitutes
one of many shared features of Trojan and Achaean culture. No mourning is
allowed on the Trojan side, nor is any mentioned of the Achaeans. Nevertheless,
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the corpses are given to (p.137) the fire and a mound is built. The Achaeans’
mega ergon, their wall, emerges directly out of the funeral mound:
ἦμος δ’ οὔτ’ ἄρ πω ἠώς, ἔτι δ’ ἀμϕιλύκη νύξ,

τῆμος ἄρ’ ἀμϕὶ πυρὴν κριτὸς ἔγρετο λαὸς Ἀχαιῶν,
τύμβον δ’ ἀμϕ’ αὐτὴν ἕνα ποίεον ἐξαγαγόντες
ἄκριτον ἐκ πεδίου, ποτὶ δ’ αὐτὸν τεῖχος ἔδειμαν
πύργους θ’ ὑψηλούς, εἶλαρ νηῶν τε καὶ αὐτῶν.
ἐν δ’ αὐτοῖσι πύλας ἐνεποίεον εὖ ἀραρυίας,
ὄϕρα δι’ αὐτάων ἱππηλασίη ὁδὸς εἴη·
ἔκτοσθεν δὲ βαθεῖαν ἐπ’ αὐτῷ τάϕρον ὄρυξαν
εὐρεῖαν μεγάλην, ἐν δὲ σκόλοπας κατέπηξαν.
– 7.433–41
And at the time when it was not yet dawn – but still was half-lit night
–
at that time a picked host of Achaeans gathered round the pyre.
Around it they were making a single funeral mound, bringing [rock]
endlessly from the plain – and against it they built a wall,
and high towers – a bulwark for their ships and their selves –
and among these [towers] they were making gates, well-fitted –
so that there might be a route for driving horses through –
and without, they dug a deep ditch at [the wall] –
[a ditch] wide and great – and they fixed spikes within.
The chain of nouns—πυρήν, τύμβον, τεῖχος, πύργους, πύλας, τάϕρον, σκόλοπας

(pyre, funeral-mound, wall, towers, gates, ditch, spikes), smoothly connected by
δέ and a variety of other transitional devices, presents the whole as a single
construction project. To put all of this in terms of paradigms of spectacle: the
spectacle of war has ended in death ritual; and the spectacle of death ritual, in
this case, incorporates the building of the Achaean Wall.
What is it, then, that the gods and we have been watching? Andrew Ford,
studying the Achaean Wall’s metapoetic implications, zeroes in on the fact that
the only place in the Iliad that the poet describes the full arc of his narrative—
measures the bounds of the Iliad’s own story—is in the passage that tells of the
wall’s future destruction:
ὄϕρα μὲν Ἕκτωρ ζωὸς ἔην καὶ μήνι’ Ἀχιλλεὺς

καὶ Πριάμοιο ἄνακτος ἀπόρθητος πόλις ἔπλεν,
τόϕρα δὲ καὶ μέγα τεῖχος Ἀχαιῶν ἔμπεδον ἦεν.
– 12.10–12
(p.138) As long as Hector lived and Achilles raged

and the city of lord Priam had not been sacked –
so long too was the great wall of the Achaeans in place.
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Consequently, Ford goes on to write, ‘this wall, which is also a tomb, in many
ways corresponds to the text itself, insofar as both are immense constructs
meant to preserve through time the memory of the action before Troy.’55 One
might even join Eustathius in seeing this wall’s kleos as actually outdoing the
kleos of Troy—just as Poseidon feared, and in some way even due to Poseidon’s
complaints.56 It is clear, at any rate, as Poseidon’s concern is with kleos, that the
scene of the wall’s construction has to do in some way with the project of
memorialization.57
Let us adopt Ford’s reading for the moment, and suppose the wall to be on some
level a monumental analogue for the Iliad itself. What, then, is the status of the
Iliad’s action as an object of viewing? It seems to me that in Book 7’s meditation
on the cessation of polemos, we find highlighted a fundamental tension in the
Iliad’s conception of its action as spectacle. Before the warfare, we saw in
Chapter 2, we are treated to the idea that the ‘many contests of the Trojans and
Achaeans’ (πολέας…ἀέθλους / Τρώων θ’ ἱπποδάμων καὶ Ἀχαιῶν χαλκοχιτώνων
3.126–7) may be viewed as lasting products of artifice. In Helen’s web, the Iliad
claims for its content what Ann Bergren calls ‘metatemporal permanence’. Then
Iris calls Helen, and us, away from the web, to see an alternative paradigm for
the spectacle at Troy, by which the action is conceptualized as an event with live
audiences. Now, in Book 7, the poet returns to this tension between (a) the
Iliad’s insistence that its central spectacle is playing out in real time, before (p.
139) our eyes, and (b) its equally powerful investment in the idea that its action
is not ephemeral, but permanent. It is through the natural progression from
military into funerary spectacle that the idea of memorialization through
craftsmanship, present already in Helen’s web, returns. The Achaean Wall allows
the poet once more to represent kleos as an enduring product of human artifice
—an ergon (7.451, 7.458), like the tapestry. Now, though, there is a twist, for he
has given this ergon something that the web did not have: viewers, including an
audience of gods. (p.140)
Notes:
(1) ὕστερον αὖτε μαχήσοντ’ εἰς ὅ κε τέκμωρ / Ἰλίου εὕρωσιν. Il.7.30–1.
(2) Apollo is angered as he sees (νεμέσησε…ἐκκατιδών) Trojans on the retreat

from his perch on the Trojan citadel (Περγάμου 4.508, ἀπὸ πτολιος 514), and
immediately rouses them with a speech (4.505–8). Aphrodite notes Aeneas’
plight (ὀξὺ νόησε 5.312) and rescues him, as Hera later moves to act when she
sees (νόησε 5.711) Hector and Ares slaying Achaeans.
(3) When Sarpedon is badly wounded by Tlepolemus, the poet says πατὴρ δ’ ἔτι
λοιγὸν ἄμυνεν (‘but his father protected him from death’ 5.662). Aside from this
hemistiche, there is no mention of Zeus guiding outcomes.
Page 22 of 29

(4) Kirk 1990: 230 finds that in comparison with Books 1–6, Book 7 as a whole
‘seems to falter slightly in its monumental role, as well as in the coherence of
events generally – this is reflected in the clumsy Hellenistic title of the Book,
Ἕκτορος καὶ Αἴαντος μονομαχία. Νεκρῶν ἀναίρεσις [i.e. “The duel of Hector
and Aias. The gathering of the dead.”]’.
(5) On tekmōr, Kirk 1990 ad loc comments: ‘[Tekmōr, here] is the “end” or
“boundary” of Troy, that which determines its fate, an indirect and abstract
expression which sets the fate of Troy as somehow objectively fixed, with the
contestants struggling and suffering until they eventually discover it.’
(6) There is little doubt that machēs replaces polemos because of the metrical
change from active to middle voice in the verb—pausomen to pausomestha—
since Athena and Apollo are to put a halt to the fighting, while Hector and Aias
are to cease from fighting, themselves. So polemos and machē are used here, as
often, as synonyms.
(7) His words are nearly identical—minor changes reflect the change in speaker
and addressees, as often: καὶ δὲ τόδ’ ἠνώγεον εἰπεῖν ἔπος, αἴ κ’ ἐθέλητε /
παύσασθαι πολέμοιο δυσηχέος, εἰς ὅ κε νεκροὺς / κήομεν· ὕστερον αὖτε
μαχησόμεθ’, εἰς ὅ κε δαίμων / ἄμμε διακρίνῃ, δώῃ δ’ ἐτέροισί γε νίκην. – 7.394–7
(8) Polemos as a venue of public demonstration and performance, the

counterpart of agora: [Achilles] οὔτε ποτ’ εἰς ἀγορήν πωλέσκετο κυδιάνειραν /
οὔτε ποτ’ ἐς πόλεμον 1.490–1. Cf. 8.35–6. As a particular conflict, with strong
spatial sense: 1.226, 4.335, 5.234, 6.254, 1.491, 3.435, 5.132, 6.480, 11.524,
12.436, 13.11, 17.735, 21.610. As a phenomenon capable of blazing up like fire:
σέο δ’ ἕινεκ’ ἀυτή τε πτόλεμός τε / ἄστυ τόδ’ ἀμϕιδέδηε 6.328–9 (Hector to
Helen). Cf. νῦν ἄγχιστα μάχη δέδηε 21.18, of the nearly synonymous machē. Of
less significance for present purposes is another meaning of polemos, the art of
making war: e.g. 4.310; 9.440.
(9) Rabel 1997: 195–6 traces philotēs through the duels of Books 3, 7, and 22.
Otherwise, Duban 1981 is the only study of the three duels as a set that I have
been able to find. Duban’s article is very good on connections between any two
of the duels, but touches on their fundamentally spectacular nature only once, in
the article’s (English) preface. There, Duban writes that they might be called
‘spectator duels, as they are the only such [sic] duels to be detached from the
general battle mêlée and observed by the opposing sides. This feature gives the
duels a set-off or staged quality shared by no others.’ (97) But in the article’s
title and body ‘spectator duels’ is dropped in favour of ‘les duels majeurs’.
Duban suggests that ‘il n’est pas improbable que les duels majeurs, dès le
départ, avaient quelque autonomie par rapport à ce qui est devenu le plan
principal de l’oevre et qu’ils ont été appréciés pour eux-mêmes,
Page 23 of 29

indépendamment de l’ensemble’ (ibid 99). By contrast, I view the duels as

problematizing the role of the spectator.
(10) Cf. Bowra 1950: 16, on correspondences between what I here am referring
to as the first and third duels: ‘In the third book, Γ, we have the duel between
Paris and Menelaus and the home-life of Troy with Priam and the old men, with
Helen and Aphrodite. In the last book but two, Χ, we have the duel between
Achilles and Hector which ends not in the bridal chamber as the first duel
ended, but in death and the broken-hearted lamentations of Andromache.’
(11) On the significance of Helen weaving images of πολέας…ἀέθλους / Τρώων θ’

ἱπποδάμων καὶ Ἀχαιῶν χαλκοχιτώνων (‘many contests/toils of the horse-taming
Trojans and bronze-clad Achaeans’ 3.126–7), see Chapter 2.
(12) Perkell 2008: 97.
(13) The phrase σύνθετο θυμῷ (7.44) has been variously interpreted as mystical
understanding and audial reception of the gods’ words, or some mixture, but ὄπ’
ἄκουσα θεῶν αἰειγενετάων (7.53) strongly suggests the audial. Cf. Bassett 1927
who adduces Od.1.328, 15.27, 20.92 and Kirk 1990 at 7.44–45, 52–53, who
remarks that ‘this kind of prophetic eavesdropping on divine plans is
unparalleled in Homer’.
(14) Kirk 1978: 23: ‘As for the duel’s ultimate effects, they are non-existent apart
from the provision of a transition, convenient but not necessary, to the gathering
of the dead and the building of the wall and trench. Contextually, then, the duel
in 7 is negative in effect and weak in inception.’ While Bassett 1927 showed that
the scene is artfully crafted with attention to the psychology of each character,
he did not suggest a motivation for including the duel in the first place.
Finkelberg 2002 assesses the episode’s motifs against the surviving evidence for
traditions about the Trojan War’s earliest phases, persuasively concluding that
‘the Cypria material acts as a blueprint, as it were, for Iliad 7’ (158), and that the
self-consciousness of this process makes the Iliad ‘metaepic’ (160). I hope that
the present chapter will help to illuminate in part why the poet might have
wished to work the traditional materials into the particular shape that he has in
Iliad 7, rather than any other.
(15) Fenik 1968: 213–15 is able to account for some Iliadic scenes that are
otherwise hard to explain by identifying ‘anticipatory doublets’: the small
version anticipates the grand, thus building toward a satisfying climax. Here,
though, we have the opposite situation, as the more consequential of the two has
been placed first sequentially. Cf. the comments of Leaf 1900 ad loc (also cited
by Kirk 1978: 19): ‘It is in itself somewhat surprising that the two duels should
be fought on the same day; but when we remember the very remarkable manner
in which the first had ended, by an unpardonable violation of a truce made with
all possible solemnities, and then find that the second is entered upon by the two
Page 24 of 29

parties without apology or reproach, the difficulty is one which can hardly be
explained. Nor can it be smoothed over by the excuse of artistic propriety; for no
canon of art will justify what we have before us; a duel which is proposed as a
decisive ordeal, designed to finish the war, is succeeded at the distance of a few
hours by another which is a mere trial of prowess…This surely approaches near
to the limits of an anticlimax.’
(16) The duel, in a word, contradicts in advance of Aristotle the notion that
events in poetry ought to be ‘probable’ or ‘necessary’ (ποιητοῦ ἔργον ἐστίν, ἀλλ’
οἷα ἂν γένοιτο / καὶ τὰ δυνατὰ κατὰ τὸ εἰκὸς ἢ τὸ ἀναγκαῖον Aris.Poet.1451a).
Cf. Kirk 1990: 230: this duel is ‘curiously like that of bk 3 but without stated or
accomplished purpose’ and ‘bizarrely curtailed by the heralds’.
(17) The structural (and some lexical) parallels between the two ‘formal duels’ of
Books 3 and 7 are well-documented by Duban 1981: 99–109. Kirk 1978 is mostly
occupied with trying to work out which duel is the more likely prototype for the
other.
(18) Edwards 1992 has a useful general bibliography on ‘type’ or ‘typical’ scenes.
On the creation of song through recombination of traditional elements, see
especially Lord 1960/2000. Lord considered a ‘type scene’ and ‘theme’ to be
essentially the same thing: that is, ‘a recurrent element of narration or
description in traditional oral poetry’ (Lord 1951: 73). Attempts at more precise
definition than that are probably not helpful for the present study. Edwards
1992, for example, differentiates ‘amplified [i.e. expanded] type scenes’ from
traditional ‘themes’ in narratological terms: ‘themes’ are the building blocks that
make up the ‘story’ (the events of the plot), whereas ‘type scenes’ are not part of
the ‘story’ as such but rather part of the ‘discourse’, i.e. the narrator’s
representation of the story (Edwards 1992: 2). But it is not clear how such a
distinction could be applied for instance to the formal duels of Books 3 and 7,
which are part of the story and also of its representation.
(19) Nestor fought Eurythalion, who ‘was challenging all the aristoi’ (7.150), in
the war between the Pylians and the Arcadians (7.132–58). The fact that Nestor
uses the story as a paradigm for the situation in Book 7, when all the Achaeans
are ‘trembling and fearing greatly’ (7.151), not daring to accept Hector’s
challenge until Nestor steps in to save the day, suggests that the passage should
be read as a description of another formal duel on the battlefield, fought in prior
generations.
(20) Cf. 4.422–8.
(21) For terpesthai, see Chapter 2, pp. 79–80.
Page 25 of 29

(22) I put ‘tarried’ between inverted commas because it seems to me that Paris,
by adding the enjambed δηθύνων (519), makes a playful retort to what he knows
to be Hector’s expectation of his own behaviour after their meeting in Paris’
chamber with Helen. The point is that it is not true—Paris has not now been
loitering (as the narrator has just remarked—οὐδὲ Πάρις δήθυνεν ἐν ὑψηλοῖσι
δόμοισιν 6.503)—and that this must also now be obvious to Hector given that
Paris has overtaken him at the gate. In fact, it is Hector’s own tarrying—with
Andromache—that has made this meeting possible.
(23) On the book divisions, see Chapter 2, n. 27.
(24) On partisanship, see further Chapters 2 and 4.
(25) The poet presents the perspective of Athena and Hera on the Trojan War
itself as a single, shared perspective.
(26) …νεμέσησε δ’ Ἀπόλλων / Περγάμου ἐκκατιδών…4.507–8. On nemesis as

‘justified anger or public disapproval’ (conceived as external social pressure, as
opposed to the internal pressure of αιδώς) see Yamagata 1994: 149–56 (quote
taken from p. 149). As Yamagata notes, ‘νέμεσις is also felt…at military
shortcomings’ (ibid 152).
(27) 2.155–65, esp. 160–2: κὰδ δέ κεν εὐχωλὴν Πριάμῳ καὶ Τρωσὶ λίποιεν /
Ἀργείην Ἑλένην, ἧς εἵνεκα πολλοὶ Ἀχαιῶν / ἐν Τροίῃ ἀπόλοντο ϕίλης ἀπὸ
πατρίδος αἴης.
(28) Previous instances of Athena’s interventions have all included two things: a
statement about the emotions—hers or Hera’s—that motivate her descent from
Olympus, and the implementation of her desire. For example, as Achilles
prepares to kill Agamemnon in Book 1, Athena’s sudden appearance (…ἦλθε δ’
Ἀθήνη 1.194) is followed immediately by a flashback which specifies Hera’s
feelings that prompted the intervention (1.195–6) and a description of Athena’s
restraining action (1.197ff). Thus, in effect Apollo’s words have taken the place
in the narrative of the very information they solicit.
(29) Some manuscripts read ‘you gods’ here, with omicron for eta in the penult.
In that case, Apollo would be emphasizing the Olympians’ responsibility as a
group for the course which events ultimately take, and rhetorically setting
himself apart from the body of the ‘gods’ to sharpen his stance of opposition to
the decision, as he also does at 24.33 and 24.39.
(30) E.g., Kirk 1990: 235: ‘Athene makes a quick decision and agrees, but
disguises the real reason for her descent to Troy – which was presumably not
only to counter the threat posed by Hektor with Paris and Glaukos but also to
help the Achaeans take the offensive again.’
Page 26 of 29

(31) Athena is inscrutable also in the Odyssey, which subtly raises the question of
why she abandons Odysseus during part of his travels. Clay 1983: 44 warns
against ‘swallow[ing] the goddess’ alibi’ (that she did not want trouble with
Poseidon, Od.13.341–3) which is ‘at best partial’, and ultimately concludes that it
is ‘the pressure of events on Ithaca that compels Athena to release Odysseus and
to bring him home to set things right’ (ibid 234).
(32) See Fenik 1968: 213–15 for anticipatory doublets. However, Fenik’s
distinction between ‘genuine doublets’ on the one hand and ‘previews of scenes
to come’ on the other, a distinction he proposes to make based on ‘similarity of
detail’ (214), is hard to apply here.
(33) It is also in Book 6 that Hector is portrayed for the first time as doomed in
his defence of Troy: in 6.497–502, Andromache and her women lament the still-
living man in his own halls. Cf. Redfield 1975/1994: 109: ‘[Hector’s] story does
not properly begin until Book 7.’
(34) The motif of selection by lot emphasizes (if more emphasis were needed)
that Hector’s opponent will be chosen by the powers that be (i.e. the poet).
(35) On this inversion, which presents the experience of being in a city under
siege from an Achaean rather than Trojan viewpoint, see the persuasive
discussion of Morrison 1994: 209–27. However, whereas Morrison locates the
turning point in Achaean military fortunes in Book 8—and thus finds the building
of the Achaean wall in Book 7 ‘unmotivated at this point’ (212)—the rush of Paris
and Hector into battle in the opening of Book 7 would appear already to signal a
shift. That turning point is also reflected in the poet’s choice of Aias (defensive
champion) over Diomedes (offensive champion) in this duel against Hector.
(36) See Nagy 1979/1999: 26–41 on the claims of Diomedes and others to be
aristos. Diomedes has so dominated the Achaean offensive in Books 5–6 that
Helenus himself calls Diomedes more fearsome than Achilles (6.98–101), and
Hector’s mission to solicit divine aid is explicitly meant to protect against
Diomedes (6.275–8; 6.306–7). Diomedes will actually get the best of Aias in their
(friendly) duel in 23.798–825.
(37) Though Diomedes in the funeral games ‘keeps touching’ his neck with a
spear: Τυδεΐδης δ’ ἄρ’ ἔπειτα ὑπὲρ σάκεος μεγάλοιο / αἰὲν ἐπ’ αὐχένι κῦρε
ϕαεινοῦ δουρὸς ἀκωκῇ 23.820–1.
(38) 15. 727–46; 16.102–24. For Aias’ role as great defender, see, for example,
Trapp 1961: 275.
(39) The Trojans, for their part, had set up the duel without reference to such a
penalty (3.91–3).
Page 27 of 29

(40) For Hector’s tendency to ‘drift briefly into dreams of the kleos he will get in
the future’ see Mackie 1996: 98–9. Duban 1981 is also good on Hector’s
language here and for the duel of Book 22.
(41) τιμὴν…ἥ τε καὶ ἐσσομένοισι μετ’ ἀνθρώποισι πέληται 3.286–7. In the case
of the first duel Menelaus, too, thinks of the extratextual audience, as he prays
to Zeus to make of the conflict a morality tale for those who hear it told in the
future: Menelaus asks Zeus to allow him to punish Paris ὄϕρα τις ἐρρίγῃσι καὶ
ὀψιγόνων ἀνθρώπων / ξεινοδόκον κακὰ ῥέξαι, ὅ κεν ϕιλότητα παράσχῃ (‘in
order that people born in later times might fear / to work evil against their host,
the one who offers hospitality’ 3.353–4.)
(42) On the warrior’s role in the society depicted in the poems, see Raaflaub
1997: esp. 633–6. Pucci 1998: 49–68 draws attention to pointed ambiguities in
this speech’s construction of the role of the ‘kings’ (βασιλῆες 12.319).
(43) Duban 1981: 99: ‘…[le duel] du chant VII sert manifestement de repoussoir à
l’action du chant XXII…’ Kirk 1978: 27 notes that Hector’s ‘concern for the
treatment of the loser’s body, as well as his dismay, soon overcome, when Ajax
advances so imposingly, accord quite closely with his character and behaviour
just before his death in 22’. Cf. Bassett 1927: 153; Frontisi-Ducroux 1986: 68.
(44) 22.111–30. See further Chapter 5.
(45) For the relationship between Achilles’ mēnis (‘wrath’) and his philotēs
(‘friendship’), see Muellner 1996: esp. 172.
(46) On the Achaean Wall and the city of Troy, see Ford 1992: 147–57; Morrison
1994: 212 n. 10.
(47) For the ancient accounts, see Porter 2011. Cf. the remarks of Nagy 1979/
1999: 160: ‘It is almost as if all the “props” that mark an Achaean expedition
against Troy are to be obliterated once the expedition is over and the attention
of epic switches to other places, other stories.’
(48) Maitland 1999.
(49) Morrison 1994.
(50) Scodel 1982.
(51) Scodel 1982: 35 sees such ‘peculiarities’ as evidence of an ‘intrusion of a

kind, representing themes [silicet of the destruction of a race] otherwise
suppressed’. Maitland 1999: 10 reads the teichopoiia as an ‘insertion’ the poet
was ‘compelled’ to make.
Page 28 of 29

(52) Cf. 8.55: Τρῶες δ’ αὖθ’ ἑτέρωθεν ἀνὰ πτόλιν ὁπλίζοντο. As in the present
scenario, Trojans and Achaeans ready themselves on each side as day breaks; in
the Book 8 passage, though, they marshal for battle.
(53) Sarpedon uses this verb when he tells the Lycians that he will fight
Patroclus: ἀντήσω γὰρ ἐγὼ τοῦδ’ ἀνέρος, ὄϕρα δαείω 16.423.
(54) So Kirk 1990 ad loc.
(55) Ford 1992: 147. Ford sees Homer as pessimistic about the possibility of
fixing kleos permanently through the creation of an object (i.e., the written text
of the Iliad).
(56) This is the case (about Eustathius and about the Iliad) made by Porter 2011:
19–21. Cf. Elmer 2013:210–14, a reading of the divine discussion through the
lens of the Iliad’s panhellenic aspirations: by fixing the wall’s destruction, Elmer
argues, Zeus ‘establishes the Panhellenic validity of the Iliadic account of the
wall by (literally) undermining the foundations of that account in a putative local
tradition’ (213–14).
(57) Grethlein 2008: 33: ‘That the Achaean wall could preserve the memory of
the Trojan War is suggested by the fact that it is built on the grave of the fallen
Greeks.’ See also Porter 2011: 19: ‘What is more, and as it turns out, in narrative
terms Poseidon’s grousing unleashes the monumental destruction of the
Achaean Wall, as a kind of appeasement of his worries, however groundless they
may be. This Olympian overcompensation has the exact reverse effect of its
overt purpose…instead of minimizing the memory of the Trojan anti- or counter-
wall, the act memorializes it.’
Page 29 of 29

‘Many Contests of the Trojans and Achaeans’: The Iliad’s Battle Books

on Mount Olympus
Tobias Myers

Print ISBN-13: 9780198842354
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198842354.001.0001
‘Many Contests of the Trojans and Achaeans’:

The Iliad’s Battle Books
Tobias Myers
DOI:10.1093/oso/9780198842354.003.0004

Chapter 4 charts the continued use of the divine perspective to shape and reflect
upon the dynamics of performance between Books 8 and 22. In these books,
Homer continues to draw on the duel, daïs, and funerary paradigms to construct
the battlefield contests as a live event commanding audience participation. The
chapter’s first section examines patterns of divine and poetic ‘staging’, to
demonstrate that the next three days of battle (in Books 8, 11–18, and 19–22
respectively), like the first day’s battle, are not only viewed from Zeus’ house on
Olympus, but also closely patterned on the formal duel. The second section
considers the significance of this strategy for the listening audience whom the
poet is attempting to engage: they are invited to participate vicariously in the
fighting, and also to reflect on their responses to the figure pulling the strings.
The chapter’s third section focuses on the poet’s use of Zeus, primarily, to
develop a perspective from which the contests trigger associations with funerary
ritual. The chapter concludes with a metaperformative reading of the
theomachia (‘battle of the gods’): the theomachia draws in new ways on both the
duel and daïs paradigms, to present a provocative dramatization of poet-
audience dynamics.
Keywords: duel, daïs, funeral, staging, honour, pity, warfare, audience involvement, audience
response, battle books
Through the public arena of the exploits in which he was wholly engaged,
[the Homeric hero] continues, beyond the reach of death, to be present in
the community of the living.
Page 1 of 34

Jean-Pierre Vernant1
The present chapter charts the continued use of the divine perspective to shape
and reflect upon the dynamics of performance between Books 8 and 22. In these
books, Homer continues to draw on the duel, daïs, and funerary paradigms to
construct the battlefield contests as a live event commanding audience
participation. The chapter’s first section examines patterns of divine and poetic
‘staging’, to demonstrate that the next three days of battle (in Books 8, 11–18,
and 19–22, respectively), like the first day’s battle, are not only viewed from
Zeus’ house on Olympus (gently recalling the daïs), but also closely patterned on
the formal duel. I will then consider the significance of this strategy for the
listening audience whom the poet is attempting to engage: they are invited to
participate vicariously in the fighting, and also to reflect on their responses to
the figure pulling the strings. The chapter’s third section focuses on the poet’s
use of Zeus, primarily, to develop a perspective from which the contests trigger
associations with funerary ritual. This funerary context fundamentally shapes
audience experience of the way in which these long dead heroes continue
‘through the public arena’ of their striving ‘to be present in the community of
the living’—that is, in the community of (p.142) Homeric audiences.2 The
chapter then concludes with a metaperformative reading of the theomachia. In
brief, I argue that the theomachia draws in new ways on both the duel and daïs
paradigms, to present a provocative dramatization of poet-audience dynamics.
4.1. Staging the Iliad’s Battle Books

The divine and poetic staging of each day’s battle serves to recall that this
spectacle is being arranged with viewers in mind.3 Notably, the staging also
signals the continued importance of the duel paradigm. Just as each duel
opposes single Trojan and Achaean champions, each day of battle is set up as a
well-defined military spectacle opposing Trojan and Achaean armies. And, as we
shall see, the staging on all three days reprises particular patterns familiar from
the two duel episodes.
4.1.1. Staging Day 2: Continued Use of the Duel as a Paradigm

With dawn on Day 2 of combat (8.1), Zeus and the poet stage a spectacle clearly
marked as a continuation of the military contests from Day 1.4 The gods will
again be watching from their seats at Zeus’ house.5 Zeus first summons the gods
to gather on Olympus (8.2–3) (p.143) and forbids them from participating in
the coming battle ὄϕρα τάχιστα τελευτήσω τάδε ἔργα (‘in order that I may most
quickly accomplish these works’ 8.9). Zeus’ words highlight his own role as
director, which will be prominent throughout the day.6 In addition, by
summoning the gods to hear his speech and then forbidding them to take part,
he sets up an audience for the coming contests, one that is interested, partisan,
and now (perforce) passive—much like the viewers for the duels.7
Page 2 of 34

The beginning of the spectacle is signalled by a simple juxtaposition familiar

from the duels: combatants arming set against audience sitting down.
Descending to Ida (8.41–50), Zeus seats himself to watch: καθέζετο κύδεϊ
γαίων / εἰσορόων Τρώων τε πόλιν καὶ νῆας Ἀχαιῶν (‘he took his seat, revelling in
his glory (kudos), gazing upon the city of the Trojans and the ships of the
Achaeans’ 8.51–2). With Zeus sitting down, the poet juxtaposes the arming of the
combatants, Achaeans and Trojans (θωρήσσοντο 8.54; ἑτέρωθεν…ὁπλίζοντο
8.55). As the space for fighting was literally measured out in Book 3 prior to the
duel, here the poet effectively marks, through Zeus’ gaze, the spatial boundaries
for the action—city on one side (Τρώων τε πόλιν…), ships on the other (…καὶ
νῆας Ἀχαιῶν).
By seating himself to watch, Zeus becomes the audience for a military conflict
that he himself has staged. In this, he resembles Apollo and Athena seating
themselves on the oak tree of Zeus to watch Hector enter combat with an
Achaean champion: κὰδ…ἑζέσθην…ϕηγῷ ἐϕ’ ὑψηλῇ πατρὸς Διὸς αἰγιόχοιο
(‘seated themselves…in the high oak-tree (p.144) of Zeus…7.59–60).8 An
examination of the Iliad as a whole suggests an even closer connection between
these two passages, for it is only in these and two other places in the poem that
the poet depicts a god in the process of assuming the role of viewer. The other
two such passages are variations on the same motif, as Zeus again seats himself
to watch on the two subsequent mornings of battle (Days 3 and 4).9 This
selectivity establishes a connection between what Apollo and Athena do on the
smaller scale of the duel, and what Zeus then does in staging the warfare on
Days 2, 3, and 4.
Following the staging of the spectacle on Day 2, formulaic language describes

the clash of the armies. This language exactly matches for six verses the
description of the first such clash, in Book 4, which directly followed Athena’s
leap into the ‘middle’ and the breaking of the truce between the Trojans and
Achaeans:
Οἳ δ’ ὅτε δή ῥ’ ἐς χῶρον ἕνα ξυνιόντες ἵκοντο

σύν ῥ’ ἔβαλον ῥινούς, σὺν δ’ ἔγχεα καὶ μένε’ ἀνδρῶν
χαλκεοθωρήκων· ἀτὰρ ἀσπίδες ὀμϕαλόεσσαι
ἔπληντ’ ἀλλήλῃσι, πολὺς δ’ ὀρυμαγδὸς ὀρώρει.
ἔνθα δ’ ἅμ’ οἰμωγή τε καὶ εὐχωλὴ πέλεν ἀνδρῶν
ὀλλύντων τε καὶ ὀλλυμένων, ῥέε δ’ αἵματι γαῖα.
– 4.446–51 = 8.60–5
And when indeed they came together into one place,

they struck leather together, spears together, and the might of men
armed in bronze; and their bossed shields
met, the one against the other, and a great din arose.
Then at the same time was heard the wailing and the vaunting of
men
Page 3 of 34

as they killed and were killed, and the earth flowed with blood.
It is impossible to know how familiar these verses would be to audiences raised

on epic poetry. Once fashioned, they could be valuable for the battle scenes of
any poet who knew them; the last verse in particular is a delight of assonance,
rhythm, and imagery. Be (p.145) that as it may, in the particular case of our
Iliad the repetition lends structural coherence to the fighting, by linking the
grand spectacle of the first day to its continuation on the second.
4.1.2. Staging Day 3: A Hint of Funerary Spectacle

After dawn on Day 3 (11.1–2), as Zeus sets the battle in motion, again the
arming of the men is juxtaposed with the formation of a divine viewership.
Agamemnon bids the Argives arm (11.15–16), arms himself (11.16–45), and then
the men make ready (11.47–52). In the following lines, the poet marks Zeus on
Olympus (11.53–5), then turns his gaze to the Trojans on the other side (11.56–
66). Zeus’ activity in lines 53–5 (rousing confusion and raining blood) are
sufficient to convey the impression that he is watching, though the verbs of
viewing (11.73, 11.80–3) come only when the combatants actually meet. Once
more, Zeus’ gaze delineates the arena of war: εἰσορόων Τρώων τε πόλιν καὶ
νῆας Ἀχαιῶν (‘gazing upon the city of the Trojans and the ships of the Achaeans’
11.83 = 8.52).
Zeus’ staging is further emphasized by his act of sending Eris with a πολέμοιο
τέρας (‘portent of warfare’ 11.4) to the Achaeans. As Athena did on Day 1 of the
fighting, now Eris makes warfare sweeter for the Achaeans than nostos (11.11–
14; cf. 2.451–4). When Zeus sends droplets of blood to the earth, he opens up for
the extratextual audience a perspective from which participating as a viewer of
this spectacle constitutes a way of honouring the dead.10 This suggestion of
death ritual as an element in the Iliadic spectacle of war will continue to be
developed in the course of Day 3, as we shall see later.
4.1.3. Staging Day 4: Variations on the Duel Paradigm with Funerary Spectacle
Day 4 presents a highly fluid version of the established paradigm. The familiar
elements of staging are all present: dawn, the arming of the two sides, divine
viewing, and pleasure. Yet these elements (p.146) come together in new
combinations across Books 19 and 20, and are thoroughly interwoven with the
funerary spectacle that has already begun following the death of Patroclus.
As on previous days of battle, the poet sets the arming of Achaeans (20.1–2) and
Trojans (20.3) alongside the gathering of the divine audience on Olympus
(20.4ff). On this day, however, the Achaeans’ arming scene begins much earlier,
born out of a grieving scene already in progress. In Book 19, dawn finds Thetis
bearing the newly fashioned arms of Hephaestus to Achilles, whom she finds
weeping over Patroclus, while his companions also grieve (19.4–6). If the poet
were to follow the familiar sequence, he would now describe the pleasure of a
divine audience settling in to view the battlefield from afar. Instead, the divine
Page 4 of 34

armour is viewed, by Achilles. While the Myrmidons fear to look (19.14–15),

Achilles nurses anger till his eyes blaze, and takes pleasure in the gazing (19.15–
19; τέρπετο, τετάρπετο 19.18, 19).11 The Olympians remain invisible in this
scene and the scenes of Achaean counsel that follow, during which Achilles puts
aside his anger toward Agamemnon.
When Zeus’ viewing is finally introduced, his attention is focused on funerary

spectacle: the public performances of mourning for Patroclus (19.340). But Zeus’
gaze, and pitying response, prompts a transition back to the arming theme
(19.340–56). Formally, the lines describing Achilles’ arming (19.364–424)—which
include his brief conversation with the horse Xanthus on the matter of his
allotted death (19.399–424)—are contained within the arming of the Achaeans as
a group (19.351–424, 20.1–2).12
The staging now follows the familiar contours on an expanded scale. The poet
shows us the Achaeans (20.1–2), Trojans (20.3), and Olympians (20.4ff). On this
day Zeus has summoned not only the Olympians to his house, but also a great
host of lesser deities—all the river-gods, and all the nymphs of the glades,
springs, and meadows (20.4–12). By doing so, Zeus creates a vast body of
spectators—the largest audience for what will be the final day.
(p.147) 4.2. Audience Involvement and Response

What significance does all of this have for the poet’s audience? There is drama
of many kinds in the Iliad, some of which has close affinities to tragedy.13 Yet the
poet’s extensive use of the battlefield duel to give definition to the spectacular
element of his work suggests that if we want to understand the emotional impact
of the Iliad as a performance event we need to think beyond both reader
reception and theatrical models. To be sure, a large number of crucial scenes
elicit the kind of effusive pity associated with tragedy. Yet much of what happens
on the battlefield is geared to a different conception of spectacle than, e.g.,
theatrical spectacles later produced in the Theatre of Dionysus. As argued in
Chapter 2, the key elements emphasized in the duel episodes are these: viewers
are conceived of as part of the larger conflict, and potential participants; also, it
is by entering a delineated central space (as the gods except for Zeus do in fact,
and as the audience is encouraged to do imaginatively) that a viewer can
become an actor. Let us consider how this model, first, is exploited to engage
audiences.
4.2.1. Audience ‘Involvement’ in the Warfare Itself

I would suggest that by developing his battle scenes as military spectacles on
the model of the duel the poet encourages a particularly intense emotional
involvement in those scenes, and a personal investment in the ultimate outcome
of the contests at Troy. The Iliad’s battle books can be difficult for many (perhaps
most?) modern readers to get through; even many who appreciate the artistry
and pathos of particular vignettes often find their interest flagging as the war
Page 5 of 34

that surrounds them shows no sign of abating, and the personal dramas
surrounding Achilles, Paris, Andromache, and the rest fade so far into the
background that they seem to have vanished. For long stretches, there is only
battle; boasts, taunts, blows, and death.14 One thing that is lacking (p.148)
from the modern experience, I believe, is the sense of partisan participation that
the Iliad seeks to induce. One might compare the experience of sports fans today
who, when they identify radically with their teams, are truly elated at victories,
and weep and use the language of grief at the moment when defeat becomes
certain (this is often irrespective of their condemnation of the bad behaviour of
individuals on ‘their’ teams).15 In the context of battle, of course, the stakes are
immeasurably higher: to feel that one is on one side, in this strong sense, creates
the possibility of a tremendous emotional impact.
The analogy to sports, like any analogy, fits only partially. Much of the Iliad’s
emotional impact derives from the fact that the audience knows outcomes in
advance, particularly Troy’s fall—the great event from which all subsequent
mythic history must unfold. The ‘partisan’ position into which the poem
sometimes encourages its listeners must therefore be understood as a kind of
intense illusion. To be clear, I do not mean to say that the seduction of adopting
a ‘partisan’ perspective necessarily overrides—and it could hardly replace—the
tragic perspective on Troy’s doom that the poem also offers. However, I do think
that it offers a whole dimension of emotional experience that deserves our
attention, and that works, if anything, to intensify the poem’s pathos.
How is audience partisanship configured within the text? On a basic level, the
poet’s audience is expected to identify with, or as, the Achaeans as a group. This
is a very different matter from liking them. It is a consequence of the Iliad being
told from an Achaean perspective, in Greek, by and for those who consider
themselves the Achaeans’ heirs. The epithet system for the Trojans marks them
as the enemy, traditionally.16 The poem begins by drawing its listeners’ attention
to, and presumably expecting them to pity, Achaean tribulations (ἄλγεα 1.2).
Underlying the duel in Book 3 is an understanding of the Trojan war as a
narrative not of Achaean aggression but of Trojan transgression and ensuing
punishment. Even the poet’s spatial (p.149) orientation in describing (and,
presumably, visualizing) battle scenes in terms of left and right is consistently
taken from the Achaean side.17
To return to the duel paradigm and the conception of viewership, I take it that
enargeia, in the battle scenes, is not only an end in itself. To be sure, it is a
marvellous thing to feel that one is witnessing great feats of arms, or even
present ἐν μέσοις τοῖς κινδύνοις (‘amidst dangers’),18 as the poet shifts between
distant views of the combat and closer perspectives that effectively set his
listeners down within the mêlée. One may also admire the poet’s skill in
producing these sensations. Yet it is much more captivating to be witness on the
sidelines to a struggle fought by one’s own people; and to feel the potential for
Page 6 of 34

plunging at any minute as the gods do into that furious mêlée, to beat off the
enemy forces.
Within the text, the treatment of partisanship varies with the observer’s distance
from the action. In the heat of battle, you know which side you are on. Where
your sympathies might lie in the ‘story’ of the personalities that have launched
the war is barely relevant. Here Achaeans react to the sight of Trojans pouring
over their fortification wall:
καί σϕιν ἄχος κατὰ θυμὸν ἐγίγνετο δερκομένοισι

Τρῶας, τοὶ μέγα τεῖχος ὑπερκατέβησαν ὁμίλῳ.
τοὺς οἵ γ’ εἰσορόωντες ὑπ’ ὀϕρύσι δάκρυα λεῖβον·
οὐ γὰρ ἔϕαν ϕεύξεσθαι ὑπ’ ἐκ κακοῦ…
–13.86–89
There was pain in their hearts as they watched

the Trojans, who had crossed in a crowd over the great wall.
They shed tears beneath their brows, gazing upon them,
for they did not believe they would escape doom…
For those who might be killed at any moment, a stark division into two ‘sides’ is
the fundamental reality. Penthos (pain, grief) for one side means kudos or kleos
for the other.19 Every friendly warrior downed adds danger; every slain enemy
averts a potential death.20
(p.150) When the immediate danger has passed, there is space for reflection.
Believing the war is over, the Trojan and Achaean armies rejoice as one, and the
Trojans are happy to turn over Paris following the first duel (3.111–12; 451–4): in
what they wrongly take to be the war’s aftermath, they are, in effect, no longer
on their own side.21 In Book 9, Achilles has a clear vision of life outside the
conflict (9.392–400), after he separates himself from the fighting and has been
pushed into giving voice to the fact that he has no quarrel with the Trojans.
The invitation to adopt, periodically, the nearly total partisan perspective of

warriors on the field will be particularly seductive for listeners with first-hand
experience of combat. For an indication of some emotions that Homer sees his
fiercest battle scenes eliciting, we can return to this passage from Book 13.22 As
Idomeneus and Meriones lend their support to the beleaguered Achaeans on the
left, Trojans and Achaeans join battle like raging winds (13.326–38):
ἔϕριξεν δὲ μάχη ϕθισίμβροτος ἐγχείῃσι

μακρῇς, ἃς εἶχον ταμεσίχροας· ὄσσε δ’ ἄμερδεν
αὐγὴ χαλκείη κορύθων ἄπο λαμπομενάων
θωρήκων τε νεοσμήκτων σακέων τε ϕαεινῶν
ἐρχομένων ἄμυδις· μάλα κεν θρασυκάρδιος εἴη
ὃς τότε γηθήσειεν ἰδὼν πόνον οὐδ’ ἀκάχοιτο.
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– 13.339–44
Then battle, that wastes men, bristled with the long spears
they held, that slice flesh; and eyes were blinded
by the gleam of bronze from their beaming helmets,
and new-forged breast-plates and shields shining,
as they met. Fierce-hearted indeed would be one who
was gladdened then, looking on the struggle, and not grieved.
As noted in Chapter 1, the word ὄσσε (‘eyes’), with no qualifier, implicitly links
all those who are witness to the scene; in this way, it bridges the experience of
extratextual and intratextual viewers. Note that it is no specific event, but rather
the fighting itself, the ponos (13.344), that could elicit either response—to be
gladdened or grieved. Here Homer hints at what his poem offers in the way of
(p.151) emotions during the battle books: the exhilaration of fighting in the
front lines; pain at the sight of so much ferocity and suffering. These are
emotions that veteran soldiers in the audience could be expected to have felt
first-hand.
Of course, even during the most captivating battle scenes the illusion of
presence and participation can never be total. Furthermore, the partisan
position, while offering much in the way of increased interest in the battle books,
would seem difficult to maintain at moments that dwell on Trojan perspectives.
How then does the modulation of perspectives of varying ‘distance’ work to
generate an emotional effect? A full answer would entail a systematic study of all
the battle sequences, if not the entire poem, and this is not the place for it.23
Instead, by taking the single example of Agamemnon’s aristeia, I hope to
illustrate one strategy in particular by which the poet often seeks to engage his
audience: namely, stirring up feelings of excitement, collective pride, and
vicarious delight in Achaean victory, while testing the limit to which they may be
willing to take those feelings.
Agamemnon’s aristeia takes place in the beginning of Day 3 (Books 11–17), a day
on which the poet is at pains to provide the very best of epic bloodfests to his
listeners. Indeed, toward the day’s end, by commenting that neither Ares nor
Athena could look and find fault with such a savage struggle (μῶλος…ἄγριος) no
matter how angry they got (i.e. on account of their personal interests in the
outcome), he will effectively invite listeners to admire the degree to which he
has succeeded (17.397–9). At the day’s beginning, the poet prepares his
audience not only to feel excitement for this ferocity in the coming battle scenes,
but also to feel the additional excitement available to one who comes to those
battle scenes, initially, identifying with the Achaean side of the struggle: that is,
feeling the Achaeans’ victories and losses to be in some basic sense their own.
Eris, with her πολέμοιο τέρας (‘portent of war’ 11.3), stands in the centre of the
line on Odysseus’ ship, the very space in which Achaean councils are held,24 so
that her shout reaches equally the ships of Aias and Achilles on (p.152) either
Page 8 of 34

end (11.3–9).25 While Eris cries aloud in this central Achaean communal space,
warfare becomes ‘sweet’ for the Achaeans—even sweeter than going home
(πόλεμος γλυκίων γένετ’ ἠὲ νέεσθαι 11.13).26 With the next verse, Agamemnon’s
arming scene begins; it is the longest in the poem, and concludes with
thunderclaps not from Zeus but from Hera and Athena (11.15–46). Agamemnon,
one understands, is about to kill a great many enemies. All of this seduces
listeners toward a ‘partisan’ perspective, by promising gratification for those
who will adopt it.
In the event, the poet does not fail to follow through with his implicit promise of
gratification. Beginning in line 91, Agamemnon single-handedly launches a
bloody rout, αἰὲν ἀποκτείνων (‘slaying continually’) as the poet says of him at
line 154 and again at 178, in a sequence that repeatedly draws attention to its
prolonged duration. After Zeus twice saves Hector by removing him from
Agamemnon’s path (11.163–4, 181–209), the poet invokes the Muses, asking
who ‘first’ Agamemnon slew—as if to suggest that all of Agamemnon’s killing up
to this point had been but a prelude. Not even Agamemnon’s eventual wounding
is enough to stop him, until at last the wound begins to stiffen (11.267–79). Thus,
from the perspective of the Achaean war effort, the opening of Book 11 is a
giddy success. Homer’s audience is well rewarded for being better ‘fans’ of their
team than gods who have stopped watching in anger, perceiving that the game
today has been, as it were, rigged against the Achaeans by Zeus (11.75–9).
Yet how far can the excitement be taken? This killing pushes the bounds of the
grotesque in a way that prefigures Lucan; at one point Agamemnon gratuitously
severs the Trojan Hippolochus’ arms as well as his head, then sends his corpse
rolling into the throng (11.145–7).27 The intentional desecration of a corpse is, of
course, (p.153) a hair-raising prospect; an inversion of proper care for the
dead as exemplified in funeral rites such as those for Patroclus and Hector.
Dismemberment in particular evokes something of the horror of that ever-
present threat, becoming a meal for dogs and birds (1.4–5 et al.). Vernant has
shown that the ideals of immortal glory and the beautiful death, intertwined in
the Iliad, already imply their logical negations: the ultimate obliteration of the
enemy from memory, the utter ruination of his body.28 On the one hand, warriors
on the field can, like Agamemnon here, revel in carrying out such horrors. On
the other hand, Apollo in the opening of Book 24 will successfully marshal the
gods’ disapproval against Achilles’ abuse of Hector’s corpse. Given the
possibility of such varying responses according to context, I suggest that
Agamemnon’s abuse of enemy bodies, occurring at this high point of partisan
excitement, confronts listeners with this question: to what point are they willing
to respond to what they ‘see’ as though they, too, were really Achaean warriors
in the thick of the fight?
Page 9 of 34

A few lines later, comparing the heads of slain Trojans to trees torn away ‘roots
and all’ (a grisly addition to an already arresting image), the poet declares:
ὣς ἄρ’ ὑπ’ Ἀτρεΐδῃ Ἀγαμέμνονι πῖπτε κάρηνα

Τρώων ϕευγόντων, πολλοὶ δ’ ἐριαύχενες ἵπποι
κείν’ ὄχεα κροτάλιζον ἀνὰ πτολέμοιο γεϕύρας
ἡνιόχους ποθέοντες ἀμύμονας· οἳ δ’ ἐπὶ γαίῃ
κείατο, γύπεσσιν πολὺ ϕίλτεροι ἢ ἀλόχοισιν.
– 11.158–62
So at Agamemnon Atreides’ hands fell the heads

of the fleeing Trojans, and many strong-necked horses
rattled empty chariots over the bridges of war,
feeling the loss of their noble drivers – who lay
on the earth, much dearer to vultures than to their wives.
(p.154)
On the one hand, there is a clear potential for pathos in the image of the empty
chariots, in the horses longing for their drivers, and in the recollection of wives
newly widowed. Yet that final phrase—‘dearer to the vultures than to their
wives’—is too witty to be read simply as a way of creating pathos. Taken in the
context of this aristeia, it has the potential to ring with the flyting, mocking tone
of a combatant. Warriors often exult in the future suffering of their enemies’
families; Nestor, notoriously, reminds Diomedes of the plight of his slain
enemies’ widows as a way of cheering him up.29 With those final two lines
(11.161–2), Homer appears to cross over into a register hinting at the fully
partisan perspective of the Homeric warrior during battle. The benefits of doing
so are easy to see: first of all, he can in this way offer to indulge the desires of
any in his audience who might wish to feel they are experiencing their ancestors’
trials and victories blow by blow. At the same time, he can test the limits to
which the partisan perspective can be maintained by any listener.
The poet walks a razor’s edge, here and elsewhere in the battle books, for the
simple reason that the content of his words resonates differently in different
contexts, projecting either pathos, or joy in violent domination. Ambiguous cases
are inevitable; their interpretation will depend on unknowable factors such as
tone of voice, and on each individual’s predisposition. Some listeners may be
willing to accept, at least for a time, intimations of the Trojans’ profound
suffering in partisan terms: we are all Achaeans, reliving our forebears’
victories; this is ‘why we have come again’ to Troy,30 this is what our singer is
allowing us to share, and this is the way we participate. Others may not. As a
third possibility, the poet’s tone may function for some as a signal to step back,
appreciate the ‘wit and skill’31 in a virtuoso performance by a bard in full
command of his craft. Probably the most powerful effects are available for those
who feel everything at once: admiration, triumph, titillation, and grief. And, in
Page 10 of 34

the end, pity felt for the Trojans’ doom will be all the more wrenching for one
who feels that he has shared in the Achaeans’ efforts to subdue and destroy the
enemy.32
(p.155) 4.2.2. Audience Response to the Staging and Direction of the Warfare
In addition to feeling that the fighting is happening before their eyes, Homer’s
audience is frequently prompted to perceive it as something staged and
directed. This perception is one they share with the Olympians. In the Iliad’s
‘battle books’, the poet uses the gods to suggest some of the ways in which an
invested viewership might be responding.
Depictions of the gods on Day 2 of the fighting (Book 8) overwhelming bring out
pity for the Achaeans as an appropriate response. This kind of manipulation is
evident, for instance, when the gods watch but are forbidden to help. Although
many Trojans are slain on that day, and there is no lack of Trojan supporters
among the gods, the only emotion that the poet chooses to describe explicitly is
pity for the Achaeans. Athena sets the tone at dawn by responding to Zeus’
insistence that no god intervene on the battlefield:
ὦ πάτερ ἡμέτερε Κρονίδη ὕπατε κρειόντων

εὖ νυ καὶ ἡμεῖς ἴδμεν ὅ τοι σθένος οὐκ ἐπιεικτόν·
ἀλλ’ ἔμπης Δαναῶν ὀλοϕυρόμεθ’ αἰχμητάων,
οἵ κεν δὴ κακὸν οἶτον ἀναπλήσαντες ὄλωνται.
ἀλλ’ ἤτοι πολέμου μὲν ἀϕεξόμεθ’ ὡς σὺ κελεύεις
βουλὴν δ’ Ἀργείοις ὑποθησόμεθ’ ἥ τις ὀνήσει,
ὡς μὴ πάντες ὄλωνται ὀδυσσαμένοιο τεοῖο.
– 8.31–7
Father of ours, Cronus’ son, highest of rulers –

we know well that your strength is irresistible –
and yet we pity the Danaan spear-men,
who perish and fill their evil doom.
Indeed, we will keep away from the warfare as you bid –
but let us offer counsel to the Argives, whatever may help,
lest they all perish through your anger.
Athena has taken it upon herself to speak for the group; ‘we pity the Danaan
spear-men’ (Δαναῶν ὀλοϕυρόμεθ’ αἰχμητάων 8.33) and ‘we will give counsel to
the Argives’ (βουλὴν δ’ Ἀργείοις ὑποθησόμεθ[α] 8.36). Her words present a
picture not of divided partisanship on Olympus, but rather of the gods united in
support of the Achaeans against Zeus’ plan. This impression is enhanced by the
way her ‘we’ (p.156) begins as a response to Zeus’ claim to be able to out-pull
all of the gods (θεοὶ…πάντες 8.18) in a tug-of-war: ‘we know’ (ἡμεῖς ἴδμεν 8.32),
Athena says, that Zeus’ power is irresistible. There is no question that some of
Page 11 of 34

the gods, such as Apollo, would rather support the Trojans than give the
Achaeans advice, but Athena’s rhetoric stands unchallenged in this scene.
The theme of pitying the Achaeans is picked up again when Hera accuses the
pro-Achaean Poseidon of not feeling sufficient pity for the Danaans that are
being cut down: οὐδέ νυ σοί περ / ὀλλυμένων Δαναῶν ὀλοϕύρεται ἐν ϕρεσὶ
θυμός (‘not even your heart / pities in your breast the Danaans as they perish’
8.201–2). Soon after this speech Zeus himself, though supporting the Trojans at
this point, pities (ὀλοϕύρατο 8.245) Aias’ tears. Finally, Hera sees and pities
(ἰδοῦσ’ ἐλέησε 8.350) the Achaeans being pressed by Hector. When Zeus blocks
her attempt with Athena to come to the Achaeans’ aid, she protests to Zeus that
Δαναῶν ὀλοϕυρόμεθ’ αἰχμητάων (‘we pity the Danaan spearmen’ 8.464), an
echo of Athena’s words that morning.
This exclusive attention to divine pity for Achaeans on the second day serves a
double function. On the one hand, it sets up a significant contrast with what is
coming in Book 9, when Achilles’ failure sufficiently to pity the Achaeans will be
all the more striking. On the other hand, it alters the character of the military
spectacle and subtly but insistently suggests a model of response to it: the
audience cannot, ultimately, help the warriors on the field, any more than the
gods can resist Zeus’ plans at this point. By presenting the gods’ pity and
powerlessness, the poet underlines the inevitability of Achaean losses here and
to come.
On Day 3, the character of the spectacle shifts somewhat. Now the focus is on
challenging precisely this sense of inevitability, as pro-Achaean gods strive to
push back against the pre-set course of the battle. Zeus himself spells out one
idea of how a pro-Achaean outside observer can expect to experience the
fighting on Day 3: as Day 2 ends, Zeus tells Hera that in the morning she will be
able, if she likes, to see him killing many Achaeans (ὄψεαι…ὀλλύντ’ Ἀργείων
πουλὺν στρατὸν αἰχμητάων 8.471–2). It is no wonder that ‘the gods’—still
presented as a pro-Achaean collective angry at Zeus for giving the Trojans glory
—have decided to stay at home (11.75–9). The only two who watch are Eris,
looking on with delight (Ἔρις δ’ ἄρ’ ἔχαιρε πολύστονος εἰσορόωσα 11.73), and
Zeus, revelling in his (p.157) own kudos.33 To keep watching now, the poet
seems to imply, will require one to be especially thrasykardios34—and to delight
as Eris delights, in strife, or as Zeus, in appreciation of what he has wrought.
At first, in line with Zeus’ prediction, his role as director continues to be as

pervasive as it had been on Day 2.35 The theme of divine pity for the Achaeans
continues too, despite the gods’ stated refusal to watch: as the Argives defend
the ships, ‘the gods’ are grieved at heart (θεοὶ δ’ ἀκαχήατο θυμὸν 12.177)—‘all’,
the poet adds as a qualification this time, ‘who were helpers for the Danaans in
battle’ (πάντες ὅσοι Δαναοῖσι μάχης ἐπιτάρροθοι ἦσαν 12.178).
Page 12 of 34

All of this changes, however, when Zeus turns his shining eyes away from Troy
(13.1–9). Soon after, Hera seduces him and he falls asleep. Now, the gods are
able to change the progress of the fighting for a time. As Rachel Friedmann has
pointed out, the distance between Zeus and the poet has reached a relative
maximum.36 Zeus no longer directs events; instead, he has become a character
in the story of his own seduction. Continuing to think about the nature of the
contests as spectacle, this episode can be usefully read in terms of the emphasis
it places on the efficacy of viewing, and the risks of failing to pay attention.
(p.158) The Dios apatē begins with a passage that strongly recalls the tier
motif first developed in the formal duel of Books 3 and 4. Zeus has been sitting
on Mount Ida since morning, εἰσορόων Τρώων τε πόλιν καὶ νῆας Ἀχαιῶν
(‘gazing upon the Trojans’ city and the ships of the Achaeans’ 11.82).37
Subsequently, whenever the poet has drawn his audience’s attention to Zeus, he
has effectively been sharing with them a view that includes both the Trojan plain
—the nucleus of this spectacle—and Mount Ida. Now, in Book 13, the poet backs
up still further, to reveal Poseidon watching as well:
καὶ γὰρ ὃ θαυμάζων ἧστο πτόλεμόν τε μάχην τε

ὑψοῦ ἐπ’ ἀκροτάτης κορυϕῆς Σάμου ὑληέσσης
Θρηϊκίης· ἔνθεν γὰρ ἐϕαίνετο πᾶσα μὲν Ἴδη,
ϕαίνετο δὲ Πριάμοιο πόλις καὶ νῆες Ἀχαιῶν.
– 13.11–14
For he too sat marvelling at the warfare and fighting,

from above on the highest peak of wooded Samos
in Thrace. For from there all of Ida was visible (ephaineto) –
and the city of Priam was visible (phaineto), and the ships of the
Achaeans.
Poseidon’s amazement (θαυμάζων 13.11) initially aligns him with any listeners
who have been impressed by the great day of battle up to this point. We have
seen that the nucleus of the spectacle at Troy can be referred to,
interchangeably, in terms of (1) place or (2) conflict. Thus, for example, Athena
jumps down to ‘the terrible strife’ (meaning the Trojan plain, as no fighting is
happening at that moment); or Zeus turns his eyes away from ‘Troy’ (meaning
the combat).38 Action, and the space in which it occurs, form a single idea. The
present passage makes a nice statement of this equivalency. It juxtaposes two
ways of naming what Poseidon sees: in terms of the action, the ‘warfare and
fighting’ (πτόλεμόν τε μάχην τε); and in terms of spatial contours, ‘Ida’, and ‘city
and ships’ (πᾶσα Ἴδη, πόλις καὶ νῆες).
Notably, Zeus on Ida has been included in Poseidon’s view of the ‘warfare and
fighting’. Yet he is not spatially within the nucleus. What (p.159) we have, I
suggest, is an unusually clear demonstration of the principle emphasized in the
episode of the first formal duel—that viewers are themselves a part of the
Page 13 of 34

spectacle. In this case, Zeus is so much involved that his agency jumbles
perceptions of how the ‘nucleus’ is constituted. He has not entered the marked
off space—the field between ships and city—but is nevertheless perceived as a
part of the fighting that takes place there.
Seeing Zeus distracted, Poseidon pities (ἐλέαιρε 13.15) the Achaeans being
slain, feels nemesis (κρατερῶς ἐνεμέσσα 13.16) toward Zeus, and descends to
the battlefield to aid the Achaeans (13.17–38). The pattern then repeats in Book
14, as the poet offers a view that includes Hera on Olympus, who is herself
watching both Poseidon’s progress on the field and Zeus on Ida: the former with
delight, the latter with strong resentment (14.153–8). Hera’s seduction of Zeus
and his subsequent sleep (14.292–353) give plenty of scope to Poseidon for
continuing to help the Achaean forces (14.384–7), now incited by the disguised
Hypnos as well (14.363–77).
Watching pays off for Poseidon and Hera—despite Zeus’ authoritative

pronouncements that only one course would be possible for the battle. Like
sports fans convinced that if they miss a second of play their team will lose, the
poet’s audience is prodded to stay alert by the negative example of Zeus whose
team indeed starts losing when he turns his eyes away from Troy, or when he
makes love and sleeps afterward—or of Ares, whose own son Askalaphus dies
when he is not watching (13.521–5), much to his later sorrow (15.114).
The Dios apatē marks a kind of turning point: afterward, the conflict continues,
but its character as a spectacle changes. Passages of divine viewing and control
through books 8, 11, and 12 had repeatedly emphasized pain at Achaean losses.
Zeus’ narrative account of this spectacle’s future course had concluded with the
end of those losses—the end of Hector’s onslaught (8.473–7). With Zeus’
awakening in Book 15, however, a different ending is brought into view: Hector’s
death, and Achaean victory. Looking to Troy, Zeus sees the Trojans in full rout,
Achaeans and Poseidon pursuing them. When he sees Hector laid out, breathing
with difficulty, vomiting blood (15.6–11), Zeus feels pity (τὸν δὲ ἰδὼν ἐλέησε
πατὴρ ἀνδρῶν τε θεῶν 15.12). This is the first time in the poem that the poet has
described a god in the act of gazing with pity on a Trojan or Trojans. The image
set before us, and Zeus, is a foretaste of the denouement in Book 22. Zeus goes
on to speak of what will come, and extends his (p.160) account of the future
course of battle: now, it ends in Troy’s destruction.39
The tension between Zeus and ‘the gods’ more or less disappears after this
point. Zeus’ grandiose verbal assertions of his own dominance no longer feature
in the text. Instead, the gods appear to be working in concert. On the one hand,
Zeus’ direct control of the action continues to form a constant refrain—just as in
Day 2 and the first part of Day 3, when the other Olympians were blocked from
intervening.40 On the other hand, several Olympians now participate actively—as
they did on Day 1 after Athena’s leap, a time period in which Zeus’ direction was
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almost never mentioned.41 The god who plays by far the largest role is Apollo,42
helping the Trojans. Athena is (p.161) also mentioned acting on behalf of the
Achaeans; and at one point Zeus sends her explicitly to help them, because his
‘mind had turned’ (δὴ γὰρ νόος ἐτράπετ’ αὐτοῦ 17.545).43 Despite Hera’s cold
fury when Zeus regains control (15.92–103), and the gods’ anger at Hera’s
report of his words (15.101), Hera and Poseidon (as well as Iris) carry out their
orders from Zeus.44 Homer asks how many Patroclus killed when ‘the gods’ were
sending him to his death (16.693). Prior to Book 15, this question would have
sounded at odds with the poet’s portrayal of ‘the gods’; now, it fits the unity of
purpose which Homer represents them having.45
How to respond to the spectacle at this point? Hera suggests that with Zeus now
asserting his will, ‘not all alike will be pleased, neither gods nor mortals—if
indeed anyone is now still daïs-ing (‘partaking’, perhaps)46 in good spirits (οὐδέ
τί ϕημι / πᾶσιν ὁμῶς θυμὸν κεχαρησέμεν, οὔτε βροτοῖσιν / οὔτε θεοῖς, εἴ πέρ τις
ἔτι νῦν δαίνυται εὔϕρων. 15.97–9). Her comment points to the possibility of
divergent responses to what Zeus is up to, while emphasizing the likelihood of
negative responses. Her inclusion of ‘mortals’ before ‘gods’ may well ‘allude to
the real audience’, as Richard Janko has suggested.47 In any case, the passage
invites us to consider whether this does, any longer, fit the expectations of the
daïs with which the warfare had been introduced on the first day. The implicit
question is timely, since it is in Book 16 that Zeus’ perspective will begin
repeatedly to invoke a different set of associations, a wholy different purpose,
for participation as an audience in this event. That other paradigm, funerary
ritual, is the topic of the next section.
(p.162) 4.3. Zeus’ Gaze and the Contests as Funeral Rites

Iliadic warfare has much in common with funeral games of the sort depicted in
Book 23. Warriors fight for status, reputation, and tangible symbols of success.
These ideas share a common vocabulary—geras, timē—whether it is athletic or
military contests that are being described.48 The use of aethloi in Book 3 to
denote the ‘contests’ of the Trojans and Achaeans is one of the early clues that
the resemblance between military contests and contests at games will be
important for the poem.49 The first duel, moreover, presents warfare as
something that, like athletic contests, may be fought for a prize: in Book 3 Paris
and Menelaus compete for Helen (περὶ σεῖο 3.123). So too, in the final duel of
Book 22, in an explicit comparison with the kind of contests that are staged
‘when a man has died’ (i.e. at a funeral), Achilles and Hector will compete for
Hector’s life (περὶ ψυχῆς θέον Ἕκτορος ἱπποδάμοιο 22.161). Both passages use
the construction peri + genitive by which prizes in athletic competitions are
designated.50
The later books of the Iliad make extensive use of funerary ritual.51 I suggest
that it is through funeral imagery during battle scenes, as well as the depiction
of actual funeral rites beginning in Book 18, that the athletic context first hinted
Page 15 of 34

at in Book 3 is developed toward a point. Just as the games in Book 23 resemble

a controlled, sanitized version of war,52 so conversely the warfare resembles a
vicious, lethal version of such games.53
(p.163) By sending cues suggestive of a funerary context, the poet can

manipulate his audience’s sense of what it means to be witnesses of these
contests. A great crowd can heighten the excitement of lethal combat, or it can
lend weight to a commemoration. The Iliad offers both. While vividly displaying
the warfare, it commemorates the warrior race, especially the warriors whose
deaths loom largest in the poem—Sarpedon, Patroclus, Hector, Achilles—and the
city of Troy itself. Much as the Iliad’s first conception of spectacle created
tension by drawing on the conflicting expectations of the duel and the daïs, so
too in later books, even as the daïs setting is downplayed and terpesthai fades
out of use, a new tension emerges between the duel and funeral paradigms.
After all, while contests staged in a funeral context can bear a close resemblance
to a formal duel, they carry quite different assumptions about the relationship
between the actors, the role of the viewers, and the nature of the event for
which all have gathered. Viewers of a battlefield duel fall into two partisan
groups, but viewers of funeral games form a single community. Moreover, by
combining cues to contextualize what we see in terms of ‘war’ and ‘funeral’, the
poet weaves together types that stand opposed on a very basic level: war inflicts
the ruptures that the funeral seeks to heal.54
Following the Dios apatē, the poet incorporates funeral into his spectacle
primarily through the perspective of Zeus. Sarpedon and Patroclus approach
each other on the field:
τοὺς δὲ ἰδὼν ἐλέησε Κρόνου πάϊς ἀγκυλομήτεω,

Ἥρην δὲ προσέειπε κασιγνήτην ἄλοχόν τε·
ὤ μοι ἐγών, ὅ τέ μοι Σαρπηδόνα ϕίλτατον ἀνδρῶν
μοῖρ’ ὑπὸ Πατρόκλοιο Μενοιτιάδαο δαμῆναι.
διχθὰ δέ μοι κραδίη μέμονε ϕρεσὶν ὁρμαίνοντι,
ἤ μιν ζωὸν ἐόντα μάχης ἄπο δακρυοέσσης
θείω ἀναρπάξας Λυκίης ἐν πίονι δήμῳ,
ἦ ἤδη ὑπὸ χερσὶ Μενοιτιάδαο δαμάσσω.
Τὸν δ’ ἠμείβετ’ ἔπειτα βοῶπις πότνια Ἥρη·
αἰνότατε Κρονίδη ποῖον τὸν μῦθον ἔειπες.
ἄνδρα θνητὸν ἐόντα πάλαι πεπρωμένον αἴσῃ
ἂψ ἐθέλεις θανάτοιο δυσηχέος ἐξαναλῦσαι;
ἔρδ’· ἀτὰρ οὔ τοι πάντες ἐπαινέομεν θεοὶ ἄλλοι.
ἄλλο δέ τοι ἐρέω, σὺ δ’ ἐνὶ ϕρεσὶ βάλλεο σῇσιν·
(p.164) αἴ κε ζὼν πέμψῃς Σαρπηδόνα ὃν δὲ δόμον δέ,
ϕράζεο μή τις ἔπειτα θεῶν ἐθέλῃσι καὶ ἄλλος
πέμπειν ὃν ϕίλον υἱὸν ἀπὸ κρατερῆς ὑσμίνης·
πολλοὶ γὰρ περὶ ἄστυ μέγα Πριάμοιο μάχονται
υἱέες ἀθανάτων, τοῖσιν κότον αἰνὸν ἐνήσεις.
ἀλλ’ εἴ τοι ϕίλος ἐστί, τεὸν δ’ ὀλοϕύρεται ἦτορ,
Page 16 of 34

ἤτοι μέν μιν ἔασον ἐνὶ κρατερῇ ὑσμίνῃ

χέρσ’ ὕπο Πατρόκλοιο Μενοιτιάδαο δαμῆναι·
αὐτὰρ ἐπὴν δὴ τόν γε λίπῃ ψυχή τε καὶ αἰών,
πέμπειν μιν θάνατόν τε ϕέρειν καὶ νήδυμον ὕπνον
εἰς ὅ κε δὴ Λυκίης εὐρείης δῆμον ἵκωνται,
ἔνθά ἑ ταρχύσουσι κασίγνητοί τε ἔται τε
τύμβῳ τε στήλῃ τε· τὸ γὰρ γέρας ἐστὶ θανόντων.
– 16.431–57
He saw and pitied them, the son of scheming Cronus,

and spoke to Hera his sister and wife:
Alas!, for Sarpedon, dearest of men to me –
his allotment is to be killed by Patroclus son of Menoetius.
My heart urges two ways as I ponder in my breast –
either that I snatch him still living from the tearful
battle and place him in the rich land of Lycia,
or that I kill him now at the hands of the son of Menoetius.
Then the cow-eyed queenly Hera answered him:
Most shameful son of Cronus, what kind of speech have you made?
A man, mortal, long ago assigned his allotment –
you wish to extricate him from grievous death?
Do it – but not all of us other gods will praise you.
And another thing I will tell you; put it in your thoughts.
If you send Sarpedon to his home alive,
be careful lest some other god too should wish
to send his own dear son away from the fierce fighting –
for around Priam’s great city fight many
sons of the immortals on whom you have sent your terrible anger.
But if he is dear to you, and your heart grieves,
indeed, on the one hand, let him in the fierce fighting
die at the hands of Patroclus son of Menoetius;
but when spirit and youth leave him,
send Death and sweet Sleep to bear him
till they come to the people of broad Lycia,
where his kinsmen will give him his due of funeral honours
with a mound and marker – for this is the honour due to the dead.
(p.165)
The passage in some ways closely resembles its cousins in Books 4 and 22. In all
three, Zeus wonders aloud whether a moira should be upheld, thereby
prompting Hera (Books 4 and 16) or Athena (Book 22) to voice resistance. The
present passage is more personal in tone. In the passages of Books 4 and 22, all
other fighting has stopped; all eyes have been centred on a single confrontation.
Here, by contrast, mass combat continues. In Book 4, Zeus seeks the opinion of
‘all’ (πᾶσι 4.17), referring to Hera only in the third person; in Book 22 he
likewise addresses the gods as a body.55 Here, though, Zeus speaks to Hera
alone (Ἥρην δὲ προσέειπε κασιγνήτην ἄλοχόν τε 16.432), with no indication
Page 17 of 34

given of the other gods’ location or activity. Instead of asking whether ‘we’
should save or kill (σαώσομεν 22.175, δαμάσσομεν 22.176), Zeus asks whether
‘I’ should place (θείω 16.437) Sarpedon in Lycia or slay him (δαμάσσω 16.438).
Hera’s speech points to funeral ritual as a geras for those who have died. Yet
Zeus begins to honour the dead, including Sarpedon, long before their burials.
Indeed, he does so with the military spectacle still underway. Sarpedon is still
alive when Zeus sends a rain of blood to the earth, τιμῶν τόν οἱ Πάτροκλος
ἔμελλε ϕθίσειν (‘to honour [his son] whom Patroclus was about to kill’ 16.460–
1). After Patroclus kills Sarpedon, and with Sarpedon’s corpse still on the field,
Zeus stretches the darkness of night over the fighting ὄϕρα ϕίλῳ περὶ παιδὶ
μάχης ὀλοὸς πόνος εἴη (‘so that the ponos of battle about his dear son would be
[i.e. especially] lethal’ 16.567). One might contrast Ares’ reaction to learning
that his son has been killed: Ares’ desire is to exact revenge (τείσασθαι 15.116).
Not so Zeus. He will later postpone the death of Patroclus, and here also he
directs the action in a way not specifically aimed at destroying his son’s killer, or
enemies. This is not because he is unmoved: ϕίλῳ περὶ παιδὶ (‘about his dear
son’ 15.657) suggests that Zeus’ act does flow from his emotional state. The
implication seems to be that the greater the contests fought for Sarpedon’s arms
and his body, the more honour and recognition will accrue to him—at least in
Zeus’ eyes. The object is to make a maximally impressive spectacle about (peri)
the dead man.
Further evidence to support this interpretation is found in the remarkable

passage in which Zeus gazes on Sarpedon’s corpse and considers how the
warfare would now best proceed:
(p.166)

ἀλλὰ κατ’ αὐτοὺς αἰὲν ὅρα καὶ ϕράζετο θυμῷ,
πολλὰ μάλ’ ἀμϕὶ ϕόνῳ Πατρόκλου μερμηρίζων,
ἢ ἤδη καὶ κεῖνον ἐνὶ κρατερῇ ὑσμίνῃ
αὐτοῦ ἐπ’ ἀντιθέῳ Σαρπηδόνι ϕαίδιμος Ἕκτωρ
χαλκῷ δῃώσῃ, ἀπό τ’ ὤμων τεύχε’ ἕληται,
ἦ ἔτι καὶ πλεόνεσσιν ὀϕέλλειεν πόνον αἰπύν.
ὧδε δέ οἱ ϕρονέοντι δοάσσατο κέρδιον εἶναι
ὄϕρ’ ἠῢς θεράπων Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος
ἐξαῦτις Τρῶάς τε καὶ Ἕκτορα χαλκοκορυστὴν
ὤσαιτο προτὶ ἄστυ, πολέων δ’ ἀπὸ θυμὸν ἕλοιτο.
– 16.644–55
So they crowded round the corpse, nor ever did Zeus

turn his shining eyes away from the fierce fighting.
But he kept on gazing upon them and planning in his heart,
Page 18 of 34

contemplating over and over the slaughter of Patroclus:

whether right away that man too should be slain in the fierce fighting
–
on the spot – epi godlike Sarpedon – whether bright Hector
should slay him with bronze, and strip the armour from his shoulders
–
or whether for yet more men he should keep increasing the awful toil
(ponos).
And thus it seemed to him in his thoughts to be more advantageous
(kerdion):
that the noble servant of Achilles son of Peleus
yet again should drive the Trojans and bronze-helmed
Hector toward the city, and take the lives of many.
In what way could it be ‘more advantageous’ (kerdion 16.652) that Patroclus live
long enough to kill many more men, rather than die right away epi Sarpedon (ἐπί
16.649)? The preposition ἐπί may simply convey a sense of sequence (the one
death will follow the other). But it is also regularly used, in both literature and
inscriptions, of funeral games ‘in honour of’ the dead man, who appears in the
dative.56 Similarly, when Patroclus himself has died:
(p.167)
…περὶ δ’ αὐτοῦ μῶλος ὀρώρει

ἄγριος· οὐδέ κ’ Ἄρης λαοσσόος οὐδέ κ’ Ἀθήνη
τόν γε ἰδοῦσ’ ὀνόσαιτ’, οὐδ’ εἰ μάλα μιν χόλος ἵκοι·
τοῖον Ζεὺς ἐπὶ Πατρόκλῳ ἀνδρῶν τε καὶ ἵππων
ἤματι τῷ ἐτάνυσσε κακὸν πόνον.
– 17.397–401
…But around [Patroclus] the struggle rose

savage. Neither host-saving Ares nor Athena could
look upon and disparage it – not even if anger should come greatly
upon them –
such was the wicked ponos of men and horses that Zeus
stretched epi Patroclus on that day.
As in the passage concerning Sarpedon, again we find men struggling epi the
dead man. Again, Zeus is directing. Again, the poet employs a technique that
draws attention to his audience’s role as ‘viewers’ of the action—in this case, an
invitation to appraise the quality of the scene and render a judgment.57 I suggest
that at this point in the text, under Zeus’ pitying eye, the subtle intimation of
funeral games may lead audiences to feel keenly their sense of participating in a
live event. But of what sort? ‘At the funeral of an important individual, contests
might provide a controlled outlet for aggressive anger at his death.’58 From
Zeus’ perspective, these contests, and his own anger, are indeed under control.
Page 19 of 34

Yet this ‘funeral’ is still very much a war, and fuelled by rage that will continue
to rupture, rather than mend, the fabric of communities.
Part of what lends this spectacle coherence is the way that Zeus’ intentions as a
director of those contests appear to overlap with those of the performing bard.
In the passage that ends Book 4, the poet comes very near to stating outright
that his audience should judge the quality of the battle scene by the number of
bodies stretched in the dust:
Ἔνθά κεν οὐκέτι ἔργον ἀνὴρ ὀνόσαιτο μετελθών…

πολλοὶ γὰρ Τρώων καὶ Ἀχαιῶν ἤματι κείνῳ
πρηνέες ἐν κονίῃσι παρ’ ἀλλήλοισι τέταντο.
– 4.539, 43–4
(p.168) Then no longer would a man disparage the work (ergon) as

he went among [the fighters]…
…for many Trojans and Achaeans, on that day,
lay prone in the dust stretched beside each other.
Similarly, in Book 16 Zeus’ primary goal has become to achieve a fiercer battle
that claims more lives. His concerns, to this extent, are the poet’s concerns.
As this ponos continues, the poet fixes his gaze on the horses of Achilles,
standing as motionless as a grave-marker, now somewhat outside of the warfare
(πόλεμον 16.433). The horses grieve for Patroclus, dead at the centre:
τὼ δ’ οὔτ’ ἂψ ἐπὶ νῆας ἐπὶ πλατὺν Ἑλλήσποντον

ἠθελέτην ἰέναι οὔτ’ ἐς πόλεμον μετ’ Ἀχαιούς,
ἀλλ’ ὥς τε στήλη μένει ἔμπεδον, ἥ τ’ ἐπὶ τύμβῳ
ἀνέρος ἑστήκῃ τεθνηότος ἠὲ γυναικός,
ὣς μένον ἀσϕαλέως περικαλλέα δίϕρον ἔχοντες
οὔδει ἐνισκίμψαντε καρήατα· δάκρυα δέ σϕι
θερμὰ κατὰ βλεϕάρων χαμάδις ῥέε μυρομένοισιν
ἡνιόχοιο πόθῳ· θαλερὴ δ’ ἐμιαίνετο χαίτη
ζεύγλης ἐξεριποῦσα παρὰ ζυγὸν ἀμϕοτέρωθεν.
Μυρομένω δ’ ἄρα τώ γε ἰδὼν ἐλέησε Κρονίων,
κινήσας δὲ κάρη προτὶ ὃν μυθήσατο θυμόν·
ἆ δειλώ, τί σϕῶϊ δόμεν Πηλῆϊ ἄνακτι
θνητῷ, ὑμεῖς δ’ ἐστὸν ἀγήρω τ’ ἀθανάτω τε;
ἦ ἵνα δυστήνοισι μετ’ ἀνδράσιν ἄλγε’ ἔχητον;
οὐ μὲν γάρ τί πού ἐστιν ὀϊζυρώτερον ἀνδρὸς
πάντων, ὅσσά τε γαῖαν ἔπι πνείει τε καὶ ἕρπει.
– 17.432–47
Those two wished neither to return to the ships on the broad

Hellespont nor among the Achaeans to the warfare –
but just as a grave-marker (stēlē) stays in place, set on the
Page 20 of 34

burial mound (tumbos) of a dead man or woman,

so they remained unmoving, holding the beautiful car,
with their heads resting on the ground, and their tears
flowed warm from their eye-lids to the ground as they wept
in longing for the holder of their reins. Their thick manes were
sullied
as they streamed down from the cushion by the yoke on either side.
And the son of Cronus saw them weeping and pitied them,
(p.169) and moving his head he spoke to his thymos:
‘Ah!, why did we give you to lord Peleus –
he, a mortal – but you are ageless and undying?
So that you would have suffering, among unhappy men?
For there is nothing more wretched than a man,
of all the things that breathe and crawl on the earth.’
Through the simile of the grave-marker, the poet has buried Patroclus. In the
weeping horses, he provides him with mourners (17.434–40). Zeus’ view
incorporates this effusion of funerary imagery on the battlefield. Indeed, the line
in which he sees and pities the horses appears again in identical form when he
sees and pities those participating in the early stages of the ritual mourning for
Patroclus.59
Zeus’ remarks about the unhappy human condition are of a kind with those
pronounced in tragedies, after the denouement, when, with the action completed
and the chorus having learned at last what the theatre audience has long known,
the whole community both on and off stage can engage in a ‘concrete public
sharing of grief through the collective response of the chorus, and more broadly
through the community of spectators in the theatre’.60 Collective response is
important for epic as well as tragedy. In Book 17 of the Iliad, however, the
denouement is still far off. The last day of fighting has not yet been staged.
Meanwhile, Zeus and the poet will continue to escalate the fighting around
Patroclus’ body. The long, violent funeral at Troy is just beginning.
Up to this point, I have focused on the use of funerary imagery and language to
colour the audience’s perception of the contests at Troy. As Day 3 comes to an
end, the poet begins to portray actual funerary ritual.61 From the close of Day 3
to the opening of Day 4 on the next morning, the poet stages both funeral and
fighting without drawing (p.170) clear boundaries between them. With the
gods looking on, the two spectacles are situated so as to appear, more and more,
to be different aspects of a single, momentous event.
Patroclus’ funeral begins as soon as his body reaches the camp. The temporal
boundaries of this event therefore overlap slightly with the temporal boundaries
of the military spectacle of Day 3. As the Achaeans bring the dead Patroclus out
from under the missiles of the Trojans, who are still in pursuit (18.231–2), they
immediately place him on a bier (18.233). Friends stand round, sorrowing
Page 21 of 34

(μυρόμενοι 18.233–4). Achilles gazes on the body, and sheds tears (18.234–6).
Only now does the sun goes down, hastened by Hera, thereby marking an end to
the military spectacle that day (παύσαντο…Ἀχαιοὶ…πολέμοιο; Τρῶες…ἀπὸ
κρατερῆς ὑσμίνης χωρήσαντες 18.241–4) in accordance with the pattern
established on Days 1 and 2.62
The Achaeans moan and wail all night long (παννύχιοι…ἀνεστενάχοντο γοῶντες
18.314–15). Achilles leads them in formal lament (τοῖσι δὲ Πηλείδης ἁδινοῦ
ἐξῆρχε γόοιο 18.316), his hands on the corpse’s breast.63 The body is washed
and anointed (18.343–51), set back on the bier (ἐν λεχέεσσι 18.352), and
covered in cloth (18.352–3), while the Myrmidons continue to lament
(παννύχιοι…ἀνεστενάχοντο γοῶντες 18.343–55).64 At this point, somewhat
startlingly, the poet reports a short conversation between Zeus and Hera
(18.356–67): no verb of seeing is used, but the impression one has is that they,
like the mourners and like Homer’s audience, are watching these performances
of grief.
As on Day 1, so too on Day 4 divine viewing provides a smooth transition from

small spectacle to large, thereby relating the two. On Day 1, the move to the
warfare is from a formal duel; on Day 4 it is from a funeral in progress. Briseis
laments (19.282–300), followed by captive women lamenting in response (ἐπὶ δὲ
στενάχοντο γυναῖκες 19.301), then Achilles himself (19.314–37). As the old men
grieve in (p.171) formal responsion (ἐπὶ δὲ στενάχοντο γέροντες 19.338–9),
Zeus looks on and feels pity:
μυρομένους δ’ ἄρα τούς γε ἰδὼν ἐλέησε Κρονίων,

αἶψα δ’ Ἀθηναίην ἔπεα πτερόεντα προσηύδα
ἀλλ’ ἴθι οἱ νέκτάρ τε καὶ ἀμβροσίην ἐρατεινὴν
στάξον ἐνὶ στήθεσσ’, ἵνα μή μιν λιμὸς ἵκηται.
Ὣς εἰπὼν ὄτρυνε πάρος μεμαυῖαν Ἀθήνην·
ἣ δ’ ἅρπῃ ἐϊκυῖα τανυπτέρυγι λιγυϕώνῳ
οὐρανοῦ ἐκκατεπᾶλτο δι’ αἰθέρος. αὐτὰρ Ἀχαιοὶ
αὐτίκα θωρήσσοντο κατὰ στρατόν· ἣ δ’ Ἀχιλῆϊ
νέκταρ ἐνὶ στήθεσσι καὶ ἀμβροσίην ἐρατεινὴν
στάξ’, ἵνα μή μιν λιμὸς ἀτερπὴς γούναθ’ ἵκοιτο·
αὐτὴ δὲ πρὸς πατρὸς ἐρισθενέος πυκινὸν δῶ
ᾤχετο, τοὶ δ’ ἀπάνευθε νεῶν ἐχέοντο θοάων.
– 19.340–1, 347–55
And the son of Cronus, seeing them weeping, felt pity,

and right away spoke winged words to Athena.
‘But go, drip nectar and lovely ambrosia
in his breast, so that hunger may not come to him.’
So speaking, he roused up Athena, who was already eager –
and she, making herself like a shrill-voiced spread-winged bird of
prey
Page 22 of 34

leapt down through the bright sky. But the Achaeans

immediately put on their weapons throughout the camp. And she
dripped nectar and lovely ambrosia in the breast of Achilles,
so that joyless hunger might not come to his knees.
And she returned to the well-fitted house of her strong father;
as for [the Achaeans], they were pouring away from the swift ships.
As on Day 1, Athena’s leap (ἐκκατεπᾶλτο 19.351) from Olympus will now again
provide the transition from divine viewing to the arming of the troops. With the
blazing of Achilles’ eyes (τὼ δέ οἱ ὄσσε / λαμπέσθην ὡς εἴ τε πυρὸς σέλας
19.365–6), the poet picks up once more the arming scene that he had set aside,
temporarily, at the point of Thetis’ arrival (ἐν δέ οἱ ὄσσε / δεινὸν ὑπὸ βλεϕάρων
ὡς εἰ σέλας ἐξεϕάανθεν 19.16–17).
The battle begins while the funeral waits. Achilles has declared that Patroclus’
cremation and burial will be postponed until Hector’s head and armour can be
brought for it. At that point, twelve Trojans will be rounded up and slaughtered
on the funeral pyre (18.334–7). But until that time, Achilles goes on to say, the
Dardanian women whom he (p.172) and Patroclus have captured will weep
around Patroclus’ corpse (18.338–42). Part of the rites have thus been postponed
until Trojans can be captured. Achilles’ command to the women to keep on
lamenting throughout serves to underline the simultaneity of funeral and
military spectacles (note τόϕρα, ‘meanwhile’ 18.338). His determination to bring
dead Trojans back to the camp opens up a perspective according to which the
coming warfare is part of the necessary preparations for the funeral—like the
collection of wood for the pyre.65
4.4. A Metaperformative Reading of the Theomachia

The divine counsel scene that opens the fighting on Day 4, like that on Day 1,
has Zeus provocatively suggesting that moira could be subverted.
ἔγνως ἐννοσίγαιε ἐμὴν ἐν στήθεσι βουλὴν

ὧν ἕνεκα ξυνάγειρα· μέλουσί μοι ὀλλύμενοί περ.
ἀλλ’ ἤτοι μὲν ἐγὼ μενέω πτυχὶ Οὐλύμποιο
ἥμενος, ἔνθ’ ὁρόων ϕρένα τέρψομαι· οἳ δὲ δὴ ἄλλοι
ἔρχεσθ’ ὄϕρ’ ἂν ἵκησθε μετὰ Τρῶας καὶ Ἀχαιούς,
ἀμϕοτέροισι δ’ ἀρήγεθ’ ὅπῃ νόος ἐστὶν ἑκάστου.
εἰ γὰρ Ἀχιλλεὺς οἶος ἐπὶ Τρώεσσι μαχεῖται
οὐδὲ μίνυνθ’ ἕξουσι ποδώκεα Πηλεΐωνα.
καὶ δέ τέ μιν καὶ πρόσθεν ὑποτρομέεσκον ὁρῶντες·
νῦν δ’ ὅτε δὴ καὶ θυμὸν ἑταίρου χώεται αἰνῶς
δείδω μὴ καὶ τεῖχος ὑπέρμορον ἐξαλαπάξῃ.
Ὣς ἔϕατο Κρονίδης, πόλεμον δ’ ἀλίαστον ἔγειρε.
βὰν δ’ ἴμεναι πόλεμον δὲ θεοὶ δίχα θυμὸν ἔχοντες…
Page 23 of 34

– 20.20–32
Earthshaker, you’ve understood my plan (boulē) in my breast – those

on whose account I’ve gathered [you] together: they
[i.e. the Trojans and Achaeans] are a concern to me in their dying.
(p.173) But come now – I for my part will stay on a fold of Olympus,
seated, from where I will gaze and pleasure my heart. As for you
others –
go, till you arrive amongst the Trojans and Achaeans,
and give aid to both sides, in whatever way stands the mind of each.
For if Achilles fights alone against the Trojans
not even for a short time will they resist the swift-footed son of
Peleus.
For even before they used to look upon him with fear,
but now that he is terribly angered in his heart for his friend
I fear least he tear down the wall hypermoron.
So spoke the son of Cronus, and he stirred up ceaseless warfare.
And the gods went war-ward, their hearts split…
How to reconcile Zeus’ two statements, made with one breath, that the
Achaeans and Trojans concern him as they perish (μέλουσί μοι ὀλλύμενοί περ
20.21),66 and that he will delight (τέρψομαι 20.23) in watching the conflict in
which they will continue to perish in ever greater numbers? Mark Edwards
suggests that there is no contradiction, because it is the gods’ brawling amongst
themselves that will provide Zeus’ enjoyment, a spectacle which should be
distinguished from the life and death struggles to which Zeus is referring in line
21.67 But this distinction is difficult to maintain, since Zeus specifies that the
gods should ‘give aid’ (ἀρήγετε 20.25) in the battle and ultimately stop Achilles.
I would begin by pointing out that both the concern and the delight are
consistent with Zeus’ character throughout. Among the Olympians, Zeus’ gaze is
the most humane: his pity is remarked far more often than that of any other god,
and of individual gods, only Zeus is said to pity both Achaeans and Trojans.68 At
the same time, the ‘plan’ is his, and he takes evident pleasure in advancing it,
enacting it, and (p.174) watching it unfold: terpsomai is consistent with the
openings of the two preceding days of battle, laid out and guided by Zeus, in
which he looks down κύδεϊ γαίων (‘revelling in his glory’ 8.51, 11.82).
Here, uniquely, Zeus presents the possibility of an occurrence outside of moira

as a threat which he fears, and for which he requires assistance. It is evident
that Zeus’ words cannot be taken at face value: he says he is concerned that
Achilles will take Troy, but sending the gods to join the struggle on whichever
side they prefer makes little sense as a tactic for stopping Achilles’ onslaught.
Since the gods for the Achaean side are stronger, divine participation of the kind
encouraged by Zeus should, if anything, help Achilles and the Achaeans win
Troy. In any case, the gods after arriving on the field give the lie to Zeus’
urgency with their quick agreement to simply sit down and watch for a while. It
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may be the case that this level of logical coherence is simply not the poet’s aim—
but he is attempting something, and in this case, the problems are at the heart
rather than the fringes of the passage. In Books 1 and 24, Achilles is successfully
warned off by a god sent to keep him in line. Why not here?
The theomachia asks to be interpreted in metapoetic terms.69 But what is the

purpose? How might it be received by a live audience? Here, as elsewhere, I
would note that Zeus’ role as director, including his attitude toward the combat
that he is staging, appears to overlap with that of the performing poet. In asking
the Muse for a song focused on dying (1.1–5), the poet has from the earliest
stage of the performance implicitly aligned his own intentions with those he
later ascribes to Zeus. The Iliad is a poem of dying,70 and so it is in their
perishing (ὀλλύμενοί περ) that the Trojans and Achaeans are a concern to
Homer, as well as to Zeus. Their deadly struggles, and the (p.175)
consequences of those struggles, are central to his work, as the image of Helen’s
weaving suggests.
A story-teller may well and truly pity his characters. Yet this pity will hardly
move him to end the story in the middle: on the contrary, the expression of pity,
if made convincingly, signals that the performance is going well, and is
something that a bard may delight in. As the gods’ descent to Troy can model
audience ‘entry’ into the story, Zeus’ physical remoteness suggests a parallel
with the breadth of perspective a performer maintains on his work. The poet
delights when his audience is engaged.
Earlier in this chapter, I argued that the narrator persona adopted by the
performer, at any rate during certain sections of the performance, is one who
provokes his audience to become ever more invested in the progress of battle
from a partisan standpoint, while testing the extent of their willingness to adopt
such a perspective. If this reading is correct, then that persona is mirrored, or
echoed, to some extent in Zeus in the present scene. The theomachia does serve
Zeus’ purpose. But it does so only to the extent that Zeus shares Homer’s flair
for the dramatic, and also Homer’s quintessentially Iliadic vision of this day, the
day of Hector’s death, as the crucial day of the war. Zeus’ role and that of the
poet have, for a moment, become difficult to distinguish. By suggesting that
Achilles might sack Troy right now, ‘beyond moira’, the poet offers a focal point
for vicarious participation. The invitation to the gods to participate ὅπῃ νόος
ἐστὶν ἑκάστου (20.25) encourages listeners to evaluate how each stands in their
own mind as well. How might listeners react? From the ‘partisan’ perspective,
and also for any who enjoy sensational battle scenes, the idea that Achilles
himself could win through to sack Troy is a glorious and thrilling prospect. Yet
this non-traditional eventuality cannot be allowed to occur if the performance is
to retain its all-important ambience of authenticity.
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Like the passages of divine viewing and response associated with the duels in
Books 4 and 7, this one too points to a potential conflict of desires. In this case,
the introduction to the theomachia sets desire for the narrative to follow its
necessary course against the alluring fantasy of a total and immediate Achaean
victory. The gods’ descent on both sides speaks to the divergent urges with
which the poet understands himself to be hooking his listeners. Likewise, Zeus’
confidence that the gods’ participation will ensure Achilles’ failure to take Troy
is in harmony with the poet’s confidence that his (p.176) audience will
ultimately be pleased only by an Iliad that saves Troy’s fall for other hands than
those of Achilles.71
Looking at Day 4 as a whole, we find a breath-taking shift in the spatial

boundaries of the spectacle, and in the total composition of viewers and actors.
At first the combatants are found on the edges of the ‘arena’: the Achaeans παρὰ
νηυσὶ (‘beside the ships’ 20.1) and the Trojans ἑτέρωθεν ἐπὶ θρωσμῷ πεδίοιο
(‘on the other side, on the plain’s rise’ 20.3). Yet when the gods go ‘war-
ward’ (βὰν δ’ ἴμεναι πόλεμον 20.32) from Olympus, the battle takes on a much
greater scope. As the gods clash (20.54–74) they shake not only the mortals’
arena of war—denoted by the usual phrase Τρώων τε πόλιν καὶ νῆας Ἀχαιῶν
(‘the city of the Trojans and the ships of the Achaeans’ 20.60)—but also earth
and mountains (20.57–8); even the underworld is threatened with turmoil
(20.61–6). Following this dramatic fluctuation the poet quickly re-establishes the
sense of a delimited arena, with an even sharper sense of focus: he has the gods
sit on either side to watch (20.144–52)72 while ἅπαν πεδίον (‘the whole plain’
20.156) fills with men and horses, and glows with their bronze (20.156–7). The
recollection of the duel motif is unmistakable: now the gods are not sitting
together on Olympus, but grouped on opposite sides according to their partisan
positions, just like the armies that temporarily cease fighting during the formal
duels.
When Zeus sends the ‘divine audience’ to Troy, he and the poet magnify the
conflict. As the day proceeds, however, those gods will return to Olympus, the
Trojans will retreat into the city, and even the Achaeans recede into the
background, until only Hector and Achilles are left to occupy the spotlight. By
Book 22, nearly every combatant has become a viewer. Two lone figures now are
visible, showing up (p.177) small on the long empty wagon-track around Troy.
The minutes yawn, as their distant footsteps pound the dust. And suddenly, just
as the morning sequence of events had portended, we find that this struggle is
not just a war: it is a funeral. The next chapter reads the duel between Hector
and Achilles, and most of all their circling round Troy, as climactic: not in terms
of plot, but in terms of audience involvement. (p.178)
Notes:
(1) From ‘La belle mort et le cadavre outragé’ (English translation from Vernant
2001: 320).
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(2) See previous note. Where Vernant elucidated the nature of the immortality
sought by Homeric heroes, which is realized by Homeric song, I am interested in
how this song invites audiences to experience those warriors’ immortality—or,
put another way, their ‘presence’ in what indeed becomes a trans-temporal
‘public arena’.
(3) See Chapter 1, p. 29 for ‘staging’ as a shorthand for these ideas: arranging
that an event will occur; that it occur before the eyes of a viewership; and that
the staging operations be made evident to that viewership.
(4) Though two days of burial and building (in the second half of Book 7) are
interposed between the first day of combat and the next three, I will refer to the
four days on which fighting occurs as days one, two, three, and four (sc. ‘of
combat’) for convenience. Kelly 2011: 41–3 observes that ‘the poem is actually
structured around the four battle days’ (41), and provides tables making evident
the parallel structures of Days 2 and 3, and of Days 1 and 4.
(5) The specific location is confirmed by scattered reminders: e.g., the gods sit
on golden chairs: 8.432–33, 442. Zeus himself temporarily descends to Ida,
leaving the rest of the gods at his house, in a move evidently calculated to make
his viewing and control all the more prominent (8.41–50; he rejoins the others at
8.438–9).
(6) Zeus directs the action throughout Day 2: he weighs the two sides’ ‘dooms’ in
his golden scales, thunders and flashes from Ida, terrifying the Achaeans (8.64–
77). Soon after, he hurls a thunderbolt before Diomedes’ horses (8.130–6);
thunders thrice more from Mount Ida (when Diomedes shows signs of
persevering), sending a sēma (‘sign’) of Trojan victory (8.170–1). In this way,
Zeus is handing kudos to Hector (8.216). When Agamemnon’s speech of
exhortation includes a prayer to Zeus, Zeus takes pity and grants a brief
reprieve to the Achaeans (8.245). But he rouses the Trojans’ menos (‘fighting
spirit’) again soon after (8.335), and blocks the attempted intervention of Hera
and Athena, sending them back to Olympus in anger (8.397–437). The day closes
as it began, with Zeus reiterating his superior power, and Hera (rather than
Athena) voicing pity for the Achaeans (8.461–8). Only one divine intervention on
Day 2 does not originate with Zeus: Hera puts it in Agamemnon’s thoughts to
rouse the Achaeans (8.217).
(7) Though only Zeus is explicitly said to begin watching (εἰσορόων 8.52),
Athena’s request that the gods be allowed to provide counsel (8.35–7), to which
Zeus appears to agree (8.38–40), implies that the others, too, will be watching.
This is confirmed by what follows (e.g. 8.350).
(8) Like Apollo and Athena perched on the oak, Zeus on Ida is notably quite close
to the action, but still just outside the area in which the contest will occur.
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(9) It is also interesting that these four passages, taken together with the
opening of Book 4 (which appears in the context of the first duel), are the only
five in the poem to emphasize a connection between divine enjoyment and divine
viewing of mortal affairs: εἰσορόωντες…εἰσορόωσαι / τέρπεσθον 4.4, 9–10;
τερπόμενοι plus visual simile (7.61ff); κύδεϊ γαίων εἰσορόων (8.51–2); ἔχαιρε…
εἰσορόωσα (11.73) and κύδεϊ γαίων εἰσορόων (11.81–2); ϕρένα τέρψομαι
(20.23).
(10) I discuss this rain of blood in Chapter 1, pp. 30-31. Note that at Il.23.34
blood from cups is poured all over ‘around the corpse’ of Patroclus (πάντῃ δ᾽
ἀμϕὶ νέκυν κοτυλήρυτον ἔρρεεν αἷμα).
(11) Scully 2003 draws an interesting link from the Myrmidon’s fear to Hector’s
on facing Achilles in Book 22.
(12) Note that 19.424 is the final line of Book 19, so that 20.1 is the line that
follows it. A pause in performance between books here, whatever its merits,
would break up the arming scene.
(13) See, for example, Rutherford 2001: 275–293, and Introduction n. 3 for more
bibliography.
(14) Cf. Murnaghan 1997: 23: ‘The poem escapes the limits of that plot [i.e. “the
Achilles plot”] in another sense as well, in that it contains long stretches of
narrative, principally battle narrative, that have little to do with the Achilles plot,
in which Achilles is not so much significantly absent as completely out of the
picture. As the expected boundaries of its action are repeatedly dissolved, the
Iliad explores the forces that keep its narrative going. It reaches its own
conclusion only after showing how, in a world characterized by heroic anger and
the plotting of Zeus, closure is systematically deferred.’ I would add, though,
that there is an important sense in which the battle narratives are primary in
what the proem anticipates—see Chapter 1.
(15) ‘The crucial feature of sport is, then, not simply the contest, but the way it
enables those outside the arena to feel linked with those within, and in so doing
to feel (at least briefly) empowered by what they do.’ Potter 2011: xxvii.
(16) Sale 1987 demonstrates that the epithet system for the Trojans suggests
that they are traditionally regarded as the enemy rather than sympathetically as
in the Iliad. Cf. Taplin 1980: 11–18.
(17) See n. 25.
(18) Ps.-Longinus De Sublimitate 26.1.
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(19) See, for example, Agamemnon’s gloomy words to Talthybius on the subject
of his own brother’s wounding: τῷ μὲν κλέος, ἄμμι δὲ πένθος (‘to [Pandarus] the
glory, to us the pain’ 4.197).
(20) Redfield 1994: 99: ‘combat generates a tight-knit community’ that ‘consists,
in effect, of those who are ready to die for one another; the perimeter of each
community is a potential battlefield.’
(21) To look at it in another way, the first duel has temporarily redrawn the lines
of the communities described by Redfield (cited in the previous note): the
distinction of spectator vs. actor overcomes the distinction of Trojan vs.
Achaean.
(22) On this passage and enargeia, see also Chapter 1.
(23) Such a study would likely turn up interesting results. One way to begin
would be to use the kind of analysis applied to sections of 13.545–655 by Lovatt
2013: 293–6, an acute reading of changes of perspective in several action
sequences ‘sharpening and dulling the pain and pity of the reader/
audience’ (296). Hesk 2013 also provides an attractive model of analysis that
could have broader application.
(24) Clay 2011: 43.
(25) Clay 2011: 38–55 demonstrates that by setting Eris here the poet provides
the left and right ‘coordinates’ by which he in fact orients himself and his
listeners in visualizing and describing the Trojan theatre of war.
(26) Athena likewise made warfare sweet for the Achaeans in Book 2 (2.452–4 =
11.12–14), another time of building excitement, on the part of the audience as
well as the warriors, for coming battle.
(27) Vermeule 1979: 97–9 collects this together with many passages that she sees
showcasing Homer’s ‘wit and skill’ in keeping battle scenes lively. That collection
should serve as a reminder that what some scholars have seen as decadence in
later poets of war is in fact colourfully prefigured in Homer. Cf. also Lovatt 2013:
293.
(28) Vernant 2001: ‘A beautiful death is also a glorious death’ (312); ‘…does not
the hero’s beautiful death, which grants him eternal glory, have as its necessary
corollary, its sinister obverse, the disfigurement and debasement of the dead
opponent’s body, so as to deny him access to the memory of men to come?’ (332;
on the present passage concerning Agamemnon, see ibid 337). Cf. Redfield
1994: 169 on ‘the ugly destruction of the opponent’s dead body’ as ‘the
perfection of victory’, and on ‘the anti-funeral’ 183–6. On corpse mutilation, see
also Segal 1971.
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(29) 8.151–6.
(30) Apollo’s query of Athena at 7.24–5 τίπτε σὺ δ’ αὖ μεμαυῖα / ἦλθες…is

discussed in Chapter 3.
(31) Vermeule 1979: 97.
(32) Cf. Porter 2011: 34: ‘Homer was both traumatic and pleasurable. He might
even be both of these at once.’
(33) τῶν μὲν ἄρ’ οὐκ ἀλέγιζε πατήρ· ὃ δὲ νόσϕι λιασθεὶς / τῶν ἄλλων ἀπάνευθε
καθέζετο κύδεϊ γαίων / εἰσορόων Τρώων τε πόλιν καὶ νῆας Ἀχαιῶν / χαλκοῦ τε
στεροπήν, ὀλλύντάς τ’ ὀλλυμένους τε. 11.80–3.
(34) …μάλα κεν θρασυκάρδιος εἴη / ὃς τότε γηθήσειεν ἰδὼν πόνον οὐδ’ ἀκάχοιτο.
13.344. Only a thrasykardios (bold-hearted) man would gēthēseien (be
gladdened) and not akachoito (be grieved): i.e., be Eris or Zeus, rather than the
gods who ἀκαχήατο θυμὸν (were grieved at heart) at 12.177.
(35) Books 11 and 12: Zeus leads Hector away from Agamemnon (11.163);
descends to Mount Ida (closer to the battlefield than Olympus) and sends Iris to
warn Hector to stay away (11.181–210); grants kudos to Hector (11.300);
‘stretches the battle out equally’ between the two sides (κατὰ ἶσα μάχην
ἐτάνυσσε 11.336); rouses fear in Aias (11.544); blows winds from Ida to send
dust at the Achaeans’ ships, while ensorcelling them (θέλγε νόον), and giving
glory to Hector and the Trojans (12.252–5); rouses and soon after resuces
Sarpedon (12.290, 12.402); and lightens a boulder for Hector (12.250). Other
reminders of Zeus’ ongoing direct control include the comment that Hector kills
Achaeans ‘while Zeus gave him glory’ (11.300), that the Achaeans are being
‘tamed’ or ‘killed’ by Zeus’ ‘whip’ (Διὸς μάστιγι δαμέντες 12.37), and that Zeus’
refusal of a prayer is because he is now involved in glorifying Hector (12.173). In
all of this time, the other gods do nothing except thunder in anticipation of
Agamemnon’s aristeia (Athena and Hera, 11.45) and prevent Odysseus’
wounding from proving fatal (Athena 11.437).
(36) Friedman 2001.
(37) Zeus spends most of Days 2 and 3 on Ida, closer to Troy than Olympus, but
still invisible from the ground. Day 2: Zeus travels to Ida at 8.41–52, returns
8.438–9. Day 3: he goes again to Ida at 11.182–4, and returns at an unspecified
point, prior to the beginning of Day 4.
(38) Τρώων καὶ Ἀχαιῶν ϕύλοπιν αἰνήν 4.65; [Zeus no longer looks] ἐς Τροίην
13.7.
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(39) Redfield writes: ‘Zeus’s knowledge of the future seems to become fuller as
the situation unfolds; correlatively, he seems less in control of events’ (1975/94:
141). All of this seems to me to correspond to the demands on the story-teller,
who is held to his word about what will happen only to the extent that an
audience internalizes and later recalls the details of what he said. If the poet is
convincing, he need not be perfectly precise. In the present case, the poet is
either striving to be convincing while letting precision slide (and either
succeeding or failing, depending on the listener), or he is self-consciously
presenting a Zeus whose very inaccuracy, or rather flexibility, parallels the
exigencies of on-the-spot performance decisions. The flexibility available to the
poet to work within the tradition becomes more limited, of course, as the
performance moves forward.
(40) General reminders of Zeus’ mind (νόος) guiding events include: 15.592–614,
15.637, 16.103, 16.686–91; also, connected loosely with Athena’s agency:
15.613–14, of the future; 15.668. Zeus is even said to push Hector with his giant
hand, though this should not presumably be taken literally (15.694–5).
Additionally, Zeus: thunders for Nestor, though the Trojans think the omen is
theirs (15.377); saves Hector (15.461–2); rouses the Trojans (15.567); directs
Patroclus’ aristeia (16.644); sends Apollo for Sarpedon’s corpse (16.676); grants
that Hector wear Patroclus’ helmet (16.799–800); resolves to grant Hector glory
in compensation for his coming death (17.198–208); pours down a mist (17.268);
sends menos into Achilles’ immortal horses (17.441); sends Athena to rouse the
Danaans (17.545); thunders and shakes his aegis, helping Trojans and routing
Achaeans (17.593–6); disperses the mist (17.648).
(41) For the many interventions by a variety of deities on Day 1, see Chapter 3.
Zeus’ role in Day 1’s fighting is correspondingly downplayed: he is vaguely said
to have rescued Sarpedon (5.662), and (in what is likely a figure of speech) to
have taken Glaucus’ wits away (6.234).
(42) Apollo heals Hector (15.236–62); shakes his aegis (15.318, 326); bridges the
Achaeans’ protective ditch and destroys their wall like a child destroying a sand-
castle (15.355–66); saves Poulydamas (15.521–2); heals Glaucus; removes
Sarpedon’s body at Zeus’ bidding (16.676–83); stops Patroclus (16.698–712);
encourages Hector (16.715–26); strikes Patroclus (16.787, 804); rouses Hector
by telling of Euphorbus’ death at the hands of Menelaus (17.70–81); throws fear
upon the Achaeans (17.118); rouses Aeneas (17.319–32); and rouses Hector by
telling him of Podes’ death at the hands of Menelaus (17.582–90).
(43) Athena pushes mist away (15.668). At Zeus’ orders, she rouses Menelaus
and the Achaeans (15.544–52).
(44) Hera relays orders to Apollo and Iris; Iris tells Poseidon to leave the field,
and he does so (15.143–219).
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(45) A second example might be noted: at a moment of high suspense, the poet
declares that a daimon is bringing the Trojans closer to the ships (15.418). There
is no need to name the divinity, for he wishes to convey that the divine world is
acting in concert to make this happen.
(46) No obvious translation for dainutai—the verb form of daïs—presents itself.

One might say ‘feast’, but the gods do not eat.
(47) Janko 1994 ad loc. It is impossible to know how overt or suppressed such an
allusion might be in the performance assumed by the text. Certainly, the lines
present a nice opportunity for a performer to include his audience if desired.
(48) For the importance of funerary ritual in the social economy, see Seaford
1994: 120–23, Brown 2003.
(49) Later poetry likewise reflects this resemblance, which is already a theme in
Homer. ‘In Pindaric usage aethlos applies equally to the contests of athletes and
to the life-and-death ordeals of heroes’ Nagy 1990: 137. Gardiner 2002: 1 notes
that aethlios (wretched) derives from aethlos, and that alegeinos is used of
boxing, wrestling, and war.
(50) See e.g. the boxing match in the games for Patroclus. Achilles asks two men
to come forward: ἄνδρε δύω περὶ τῶνδε κελεύομεν, ὥ περ ἀρίστω, / πὺξ μάλ’
ἀνασχομένω πεπληγέμεν (‘we bid two men—two who are aristos—to square up
and fight for (peri) these [i.e. prizes, a cup and a mule]’ 23.659–60).
(51) In the vast literature on this topic, I have found Nagy 1979: 94–117, Vernant
2001: 311–41, and Seaford 1994: 144–90 particularly thought-provoking. See
further Chapter 5.
(52) For the contest between Aias and Diomedes in Book 23, see Chapter 5, p.
183.
(53) A scholiast of Pindar declared that funeral games were originally the only
setting for athletic competition (Schol. Pind. Hypoth. Isth. a, Drachmann iii, 192;
also cited in Brown, B. 2003.)
(54) Redfield 1994: 182–3. For the ‘integrative’ effect of funerary ritual, see
further Seaford 1994: Chapter 4.
(55) ἀλλ’ ἄγετε ϕράζεσθε θεοὶ καὶ μητιάασθε (‘but come, you gods, think and
consider’ 22.174).
(56) On ἐπί + dat. see Roller 1981a: 2–3 (examples collected from inscriptions);
Brown 2003: 136, 155–6 n. 47; Nagy 1990: 120–1. Brown argues that even in the
context of funeral contests, ἐπί retains its literal force, indicating the location of
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the event ‘upon’ (rather than ‘in honour of’) the dead person, i.e. upon the
grave.
(57) 17.398–9 invites appreciative appraisal, similar to 4.539–44 discussed in

Chapter 2. See Chapter 1, p. 49-51 for the build-up to the Sarpedon passage in
Book 16 through the use of similes and a hypothetical observer.
(58) Seaford 1994: 122, with bibliography in n. 98.
(59) 17.441=19.340, except for a plural instead of the dual μυρομένω.
(60) Segal 1996:149. That Zeus’ pity has in this case been aroused by the grief of
Achilles’ immortal horses—rather than of a mortal human—in no way undercuts
the power of his statement about humanity. Those horses are grieving for an
irrevocable loss, the life of Patroclus.
(61) Patroclus’ funeral, famously, is closely associated through language and

imagery with that of Achilles. When Achilles first learns of Patroclus’ death, his
divine mother Thetis comes with a retinue of nymphs to weep over Achilles and
cradle his head. The scene strongly evokes a funeral for the (still-living) Achilles
(18.22–71). Neoanalysts have argued that the passage is modelled on a passage
from another, earlier poem that depicted Achilles’ funeral: see Edwards 1991:
145–46, with bibliography.
(62) Days 1 and 2: 7.282, 283, 319; 8.484–8.
(63) Mirto 2012: 74 calls 23.17–23 ‘the only formal goos sung by a man in
Homeric poetry’. But the present passage is at least as much a formal lament, as
Mirto recognizes elsewhere in the same discussion. Note the technical
expression ἐξῆρχε γόοιο appearing in both passages (18.316 = 23.17). Patroclus’
funeral has begun.
(64) This is the prothesis of the body; for its place in the funeral rites as a whole,
see Mirto 2012: 66–7, and 69–70 on the present passage.
(65) Cf. Redfield 1994: 107: after the death of Patroclus, ‘there remains one more
task: to bury Patroclus, and, as part of that burial, to kill Hector’.
(66) I follow Edwards 1991 ad loc and others in reading περ as intensive. That is,
the Trojans and Achaeans are a concern to him as they are being slain on the
field (not in spite of the shortness of their lives).
(67) Edwards 1991.
(68) Cf. Kim 2000. This is especially striking when one considers that as the most
powerful god Zeus would seem a priori to be furthest removed from the need to
endure, and hence the ability to understand, human hardships. Most often, Zeus
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pities Hector (15.4, 17.198, 22.167), but he also sheds tears for Agamemnon
(8.245), and Aias and the Achaeans (17.648). He pities Achilles’ horses (17.441),
the aged Achaeans (19.340), and both his son Sarpedon and the one who will kill
his son, Patroclus, as they are about to clash and lose their lives, one after the
other (16.431). In line with his statement that the mortals concern him as they
perish, he ponders with evident sympathy the wretched state of humanity
(17.445–7). He criticizes Hera for excessive vengefulness (4.30–8), and
repeatedly suggests that the whole disastrous plan need not go forward (4, 16,
22). In none of this does he resemble the other gods, who each feel pity along
partisan lines.
(69) Cf. Graziosi 2016: 49: ‘It seems that, right from the outset, we are invited to
view this conflict as art, or at least entertainment – not just for Zeus, but also for
us, who share the elevated perspective of the poet and the Muses.’ For a
metapoetic reading of the theomachia with a different focus, see Elmer 2013:
163–4.
(70) Cf. Vermeule 1979: 94 and 97.
(71) Shortly afterward, the poet reinforces the idea that no gods, not even pro-
Achaean partisans among the gods who have descended to Troy to fight, will
ultimately tolerate Achaean successes beyond what has been allotted. Apollo has
put Aeneas in the path of Achilles, and the poet chooses Poseidon, a pro-Achaean
partisan, to save Aeneas from death at Achilles’ hands. The motivation is, in
part, refusal to accept the death of one who must survive Troy’s fall: μόριμον δέ
οἵ ἐστ’ ἀλέασθαι (20.302); νῦν δὲ δὴ Αἰνείαο βίη Τρώεσσιν ἀνάξει / καὶ παίδων
παῖδες, τοί κεν μετόπισθε γένωνται (20.307–8).
(72) The gods sit down upon the τεῖχος Ἡρακλῆος (‘wall of Heracles’ 20.145), a
defense against sea-monsters, and ἐπ’ ὀϕρύσι Καλλικολώνης (‘on the brow of
Kallikolone’ 20.151), apparently a hill. This arrangement increases the sense of
compression (like ἐπὶ θρωσμῷ πεδίοιο, 20.3), for Kallikolone is evidently to be
imagined as somewhat closer to the ships than is the city.
Page 34 of 34

‘A Man Having Died’: Watching Achilles and Hector

on Mount Olympus
Tobias Myers

Print ISBN-13: 9780198842354
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198842354.001.0001
‘A Man Having Died’: Watching Achilles and

Hector
Tobias Myers
DOI:10.1093/oso/9780198842354.003.0005

Chapter 5 focuses on the poem’s two final prominent scenes of divine viewing:
when Achilles pursues Hector around Troy, and when he drags Hector’s corpse
around Patroclus’ burial marker. The first sections argues that the confrontation
between Hector and Achilles is presented so as to make audiences feel that they
are attending an event that resembles both a formal duel and an athletic
competition (aethlos). The second section shows how the gods’ viewing can be
read as a mise en abyme that brings to the surface the tensions latent in this
hybrid spectacle. The third and final section argues that the funerary imagery in
the Iliad’s final representations of the contests of the Trojans and Achaeans
suggests ‘suspension of temporal verisimilitude’. Ann Bergren has used this
phrase to describe moments when the Iliad not only depicts multiple moments of
mythic history at once, in defiance of temporal naturalism, but draws attention
to the fact that it is doing so. Given the prominence of the divine gaze in these
final scenes, the point of the reflexivity is not so much to emphasize the poem’s
human artistry, but rather to seduce audiences with the sense that what they are
seeing is something like what the gods must see: a spectacle at once ephemeral
and eternal, the most absorbing moments of which are inextricably linked to
each other through time.
Keywords: aethlos, athletic, contest, funeral games, funeral, duel, permanence, Ann Bergren, eternal,
commemoration
However, our fall is certain. Above,
Page 1 of 27

on the walls, the lament has already begun.
K. P. Kavafis1
Two prominent moments of divine viewing mark and define the end of the Iliadic
‘contests of the Trojans and Achaeans’. The gods are watching in Book 22, as
Achilles pursues Hector round the walls of Troy (θεοὶ δ’ ἐς πάντες ὁρῶντο ‘and
all the gods were watching’ 22.166). Later, they keep watching with pity in Book
24, as Achilles drags Hector’s corpse repeatedly round the sēma (burial marker)
of Patroclus (τὸν δ’ ἐλεαίρεσκον μάκαρες θεοὶ εἰσορόωντες ‘and the blessed
gods kept pitying him as they looked on’ 24.23). Both passages convey a certain
feeling of endlessness. In the Book 22 passage, the scene of divine viewing and
response on Olympus is embedded within a long string of descriptive ideas that
seem to extend the moment indefinitely, while highlighting the power of epic to
make this extraordinary moment real for audiences separated from it in time:
the simile of the hawk, the ‘swiftest of birds’, pursuing the dove ‘easily’ (22.139–
42); the measured, hypnotic description of the washing tubs’ clear waters, and
the Trojan women washing in another time-frame altogether, in times of peace
(22.145–56); the imagery of a foot-race and simile of a chariot-race ‘with a man
having died’ (22.158–66), leading into the divine gaze and the gods’ conversation
(22.166–87); the simile of the dog pursuing the fawn (22.189–93); (p.180) then,
‘as in a dream [one man] cannot follow someone fleeing; nor can [the fleeing
man] escape the one following’, so the two runners are in ceaseless motion,
continually striving, yet making no progress.2 Interspersing this dazzling
succession of motifs is the constant jolting reality of the chase itself: Achilles’
swift feet (22.138); Hector’s knees in rapid motion (22.143–4); the two running
by, flight and pursuit, flight and pursuit (22.157–8); the one rushing after the
other (22.188); Hector forced ever inward along the wall (22.194–8). The vision
of Achilles running evokes powerfully his traditional epithet, ‘swift-footed’. It is
as though Homer were now, before our eyes, effectively ensconcing this moment
at the centre of Achilles’ own unperishing kleos.3
That climactic chase is then clearly recollected in the Book 24 scene: as Achilles
and Hector circled Priam’s city thrice in Book 22 (τρὶς Πριάμοιο πόλιν πέρι
22.165), so now Achilles pulls Hector thrice round Patroclus’ sēma (τρὶς δ’
ἐρύσας περὶ σῆμα Μενοιτιάδαο 24.16), every morning, in view of the gods, for
an extended period of time (twelve days, as we learn afterward at 24.31). Even
the verb δινεύεσκε (‘he was moving about’ 24.12), used of Achilles’ restless
wandering each morning on the shore before he ties Hector’s corpse to his
chariot, recalls δινηθήτην (22.165), of Hector and Achilles circling the city. In
this way, one picture of endless striving without resolution prompts us to relive
another.
Page 2 of 27

In some ways, we have come full circle. The Iliad’s spectacle of warfare began,
we may recall, with another representation of what Ann Bergren has called
‘struggle in stasis’: Helen’s weaving πολέας ἀέθλους (‘many contests’) of the
Trojans and Achaeans.4 Aethloi, the regular word for athletic contests,
emphasizes the spectacular quality of the struggle, while the weaving suggests
the Iliad’s artistry and its power to preserve the contests through time. Helen is
then called away from this weaving, by Iris, to see the θέσκελα ἔργα (‘wondrous
works/deeds’) of the Trojans and Achaeans: that is, to become an eye-witness for
the first ‘contest’ in the poem, the duel between Paris and Menelaus. Iris’ phrase
theskela erga conveys associations of visually (p.181) compelling artistry, and
lasting achievement. As I argued in Chapter 2, the two paradigms of tapestry
and spectacle work well together. After all, in order to make the ephemeral
eternal—i.e. through repeated performances—the Iliad must also succeed in
making the eternal immediate. Each performance must be convincing: it must
make us feel that we are eye-witnesses.
In Books 22 and 24, Homer’s use of the divine gaze recalls these early,
programmatic reflections on the nature of the spectacle, giving them additional
point. The final confrontation between Hector and Achilles, as I argue in the first
section of this chapter, is presented so as to make audiences feel that they are
attending an event that resembles both a formal duel and an athletic competition
—aethlos. The gods’ viewing, as the second section shows, can be read as a mise
en abyme that brings to the surface the tensions latent in this hybrid spectacle.
In the third and final section, I argue that the funerary imagery in the Iliad’s
final representations of the contests of the Trojans and Achaeans suggests a
‘suspension of temporal verisimilitude’.5 Like Bergren, I see the technique as
reflexive: the Iliad is not only depicting multiple moments of mythic history at
once, in defiance of temporal naturalism, but drawing attention to the fact that it
is doing so. However, given the prominence of the divine gaze, I argue that in
these final scenes the point of the reflexivity is not so much to emphasize the
poem’s human artistry (as the ‘tapestry model’ might suggest), but rather to
seduce audiences with the sense that what they are seeing is something like
what the gods must see: a spectacle at once ephemeral and eternal, the most
absorbing moments of which are inextricably linked to each other through time.
5.1. A Hybrid Spectacle

The poet combines material from three kinds of type scene to construct the final
contest between a Trojan and Achaean: the confrontation between warriors in
the front ranks (promachoi combat); the formal duel; and the athletic
competition. By bringing these three (p.182) kinds of type scene together in
this way, with their shared and contrasting associations, the poet exploits the
resources of the traditional language to problematize the act of viewing.
Page 3 of 27

The contest of Achilles and Hector is, on the one hand, the climax in the series of
deaths that began with Sarpedon and Patroclus, who fall in the front lines of
combat in extended versions of the promachoi combat scene.6 Confrontations
between warriors in the front ranks (promachoi) form part of the regular
depiction of mass combat in the Iliad, and have been analysed in depth under the
somewhat misleading rubric ‘duel’.7 And yet Hector and Achilles fight under
bizarre circumstances which defy the conventions of promachoi combat: while
the warfare has not been formally stopped, the armies nevertheless cease to
fight, and instead watch the expression of the war in more focused form as a
contest between two lone figures. These circumstances recall a second type
scene, the formal duel, which would not only be familiar to audiences but would
be quite fitting here as a satisfaction of expectations set up by the duel between
Hector and Aias in Book 7.8
The athletic contest is clearly traditional epic material as well,9 and bears a
natural relation to both the fight between promachoi and the (p.183) formal
duel: in a public display of martial prowess, contestants vie in strength, speed,
horsemanship, skill with the javelin and bow, and outright fighting with fists or
with weapons.10 Consider the contest between Aias and Diomedes during the
games for Patroclus. The two Achaean warriors arm and face each other, to fight
until the first drawing of blood from the ‘innards’ (23.798–825).11 Then:
οἳ δ’ ἐπεὶ οὖν ἑκάτερθεν ὁμίλου θωρήχθησαν,

ἐς μέσον ἀμϕοτέρω συνίτην μεμαῶτε μάχεσθαι
δεινὸν δερκομένω·12 θάμβος δ’ ἔχε πάντας Ἀχαιούς.
– 23.813–15
And when they had then armed on either side of the crowd
they both went together into the middle, eager to fight,
glancing fiercely – and wonder held all the Achaeans.
The corresponding moment in the duel between Paris and Menelaus features
nearly equivalent lines:
Οἳ δ’ ἐπεὶ οὖν ἑκάτερθεν ὁμίλου θωρήχθησαν,

– 3.340–3
But when they had then armed on either side of the crowd,
they marched into the middle of the Trojans and Achaeans
glancing fiercely – and wonder held them looking on,
the horse-taming Trojans and well-greaved Achaeans.
Page 4 of 27

Both events are presented as spectacles, with wonder (θάμβος 3.343, 23.815)
holding the onlookers. However, the formal duel is contested (p.184) between
enemies, with the two mutually hostile bodies of Achaeans and Trojans watching
(ἐς μέσσον Τρώων καὶ Ἀχαιῶν 3.341, Τρῶάς…καὶ…Ἀχαιούς 3.343), while the
athletic games are contested between and witnessed by allies (πάντας Ἀχαιούς,
23.815).13 Thus, whereas viewers of a duel are divided according to their
partisan positions in the war, the audience for an athletic competition is part of a
united body (whatever their various interpersonal relationships) that also
includes the contestants. This common identity and common sense of purpose is
particularly true for funeral games, in which spectators and contestants are
joined in honouring the dead.14 As no truce or terms are declared in the contest
between Hector and Achilles, and the formal duel remains latent, Homer’s
audience is left all the more free to respond to visual and other cues suggesting
athletic competition.
The building of the scene begins with the first lines of Book 22. At this point in
the narrative Achilles is far from Troy and moving still further off, on the banks
of the Scamander: Apollo has lured him away, disguised as Agenor (21.606–
11).15 Now the Trojans rush into the city, wipe off their sweat, and quench their
thirst, leaning on the breastworks:
Ὣς οἳ μὲν κατὰ ἄστυ πεϕυζότες ἠΰτε νεβροὶ

ἱδρῶ ἀπεψύχοντο πίον τ’ ἀκέοντό τε δίψαν
κεκλιμένοι καλῇσιν ἐπάλξεσιν· αὐτὰρ Ἀχαιοὶ
τείχεος ἆσσον ἴσαν σάκε’ ὤμοισι κλίναντες.
Ἕκτορα δ’ αὐτοῦ μεῖναι ὀλοιὴ μοῖρα πέδησεν
Ἰλίου προπάροιθε πυλάων τε Σκαιάων.
αὐτὰρ Πηλείωνα προσηύδα Φοῖβος Ἀπόλλων…
– 22.1–7
Thus they [i.e. the Trojans], for their part, having fled like fawns
through the city,
were drying off their sweat and drinking and healing their thirst,
leaning on the lovely breastworks – but the Achaeans
moved in toward the wall leaning their shields on their shoulders.
As for Hector, [a/his] deadly moira16 bound him to wait there
before Ilium and the Scaean gates.
But the son of Peleus – Phoebus Apollo addressed him…
(p.185)
On the one hand, this tableau suggests a variation on a scenario familiar from
promachoi combat, particularly in the first six lines, which describe Hector and
the two armies. While the Trojans have fled, the Achaeans are approaching the
wall, apparently with the intention to press the attack: ἆσσον ἴσαν (22.4) in a
military context conveys aggression. Hector, meanwhile, positions himself in
front of the gate. It happens several times in the Iliad during scenes of mass
Page 5 of 27

combat that all the troops of one side turn to flight, except for one hero who
stands alone against the advancing enemies.17 One recurring lesson of these
scenes is that this is a hopeless proposition—no warrior, however great, can
fight an entire army. Odysseus requires rescue in such a situation (11.401–63),
and even Achilles himself proclaims that it would be argaleon—which in parallel
passages18 means essentially impossible—for him to fight all the Trojans alone
(20.353–63). Here, that common motif is brilliantly joined to a set of associations
particular to Hector—for Hector has elsewhere been cast symbolically as the
lone figure standing between all the Achaeans and his people and city. That
symbolic role now finds momentary visual expression on the battlefield, as the
Achaeans’ threatening advance is juxtaposed in sequential verses with Hector’s
stand before the gates.19 In this much, the tableau depicted in lines 1–6 still
represents promachoi combat, and the war being fought on the large scale.
With line 7, the situation changes. The poet suddenly shifts his audience’s ‘eyes’
away from the city to the plain, far out by the river (p.186) Scamander, where
Achilles is still chasing the will-o-the-wisp he thinks is Agenor. With the move
from Hector to Achilles in line 7, the opening lines take on a new significance,
silently signalling the spectacular character of the coming scene by completing
the regular pattern for the introduction of formal duels. According to this
pattern, the poet first directs his listeners’ attention to the armies taking the
places from which they will view the duel, and then immediately to the two
combatants-to-be. Compare the first formal duel, which Iris announces to Helen
in these words:
δεῦρ’ ἴθι νύμϕα ϕίλη, ἵνα θέσκελα ἔργα ἴδηαι

Τρώων θ’ ἱπποδάμων καὶ Ἀχαιῶν χαλκοχιτώνων
οἳ πρὶν ἐπ’ ἀλλήλοισι ϕέρον πολύδακρυν Ἄρηα
ἐν πεδίῳ ὀλοοῖο λιλαιόμενοι πολέμοιο·
οἳ δὴ νῦν ἕαται σιγῇ, πόλεμος δὲ πέπαυται,
ἀσπίσι κεκλιμένοι, παρὰ δ’ ἔγχεα μακρὰ πέπηγεν.
αὐτὰρ Ἀλέξανδρος καὶ ἀρηΐϕιλος Μενέλαος
μακρῇς ἐγχείῃσι μαχήσονται περὶ σεῖο·
τῷ δέ κε νικήσαντι ϕίλη κεκλήσῃ ἄκοιτις.
– 3.132–8
Come here, dear girl, so that you may see wondrous deeds (theskela
erga)
of the horse-taming Trojans and bronze-clad Achaeans
who earlier were bringing tearful battle against each other,
on the plain, eager for baneful warfare:
Those very ones now sit quietly - and the warfare has stopped –
[they] leaning on their shields, and their long spears are fixed
beside [them].
But Paris and war-loving Menelaus
with their long spears will fight over you:
Page 6 of 27

and you will be called the dear wife of whoever is victorious.
Lines 132–5 set the armies in their places and emphasize their transition to a
passive state;20 line 136 then identifies the combatants Paris and Menelaus.21
That same juxtaposition appears in Book 7 when Helenus speaks to Hector:
(p.187)
ἄλλους μὲν κάθισον Τρῶας καὶ πάντας Ἀχαιούς,

αὐτὸς δὲ προκάλεσσαι Ἀχαιῶν ὅς τις ἄριστος
ἀντίβιον μαχέσασθαι ἐν αἰνῇ δηϊοτῆτι…
– 7.49–51
The other Trojans and all the Achaeans, seat them down –
but you, challenge whichever of the Achaeans is best (aristos)
to fight face to face in fierce battle.
Again, the settling of the armies in their places is set against the image of the
combatants assuming their roles. In this case, the identity of one combatant is
unknown.
Lines 1–7 of Books 22 employ the same juxtaposition though in rougher fashion,
with no formal announcement and with loose ends left hanging. As Iris helps
signal the start of the formal duel in Book 3 by telling Helen that the warfare has
stopped and the Trojans and Achaeans are ‘leaning on their shields’ (ἀσπίσι
κεκλιμένοι 3.135), so now the Trojans are ‘leaning on the
breastworks’ (κεκλιμένοι…ἐπάλξεσιν 22.3) in an attitude of resting.22 At this
point, the Trojan armies have already become passive and occupied the place
from which they will view the duel.23 The eyes of Trojan warriors are felt
strongly by Hector throughout the scene,24 and their presence as a viewership is
recalled again after he is dead: when Andromache mounts to the tower she is
said thereby to be joining ‘the crowd of men’ (ἀνδρῶν…ὅμιλον 22.462) who can
be on the wall for no other purpose than her own—to look.25
(p.188) As for the Achaeans: they seem menacing in lines 3–4, but the sudden
switch to Achilles in line 7 effectively cuts them out of the realm of activity, by
leaving them hanging indefinitely. They are not mentioned again until their
passivity is emphasized—and belatedly accounted for—when Achilles nods them
away as he pursues Hector around the walls: ‘but godlike Achilles nodded
refusal to the people with his head, and did not allow them to hurl bitter missiles
at Hector, lest someone strike and win glory, and he come in second’ (λαοῖσιν δ’
ἀνένευε καρήατι δῖος Ἀχιλλεύς / οὐδ’ ἔα ἱέμεναι ἐπὶ Ἕκτορι πικρὰ βέλεμνα, / μή
τις κῦδος ἄροιτο βαλών, ὃ δὲ δεύτερος ἔλθοι 22.205–7). Interestingly, this nod to
the conventions of the formal duel, whereby a leader’s authority renders the
people passive, is couched in terms that also recall athletics, the alternative
paradigm: the idea that one might ‘come in second’ (δεύτερος ἔλθοι 22.207)
Page 7 of 27

evokes the games’ prizes that are awarded to first (πρώτῳ), second (δευτέρῳ)
and so on (see e.g. the prizes for the chariot race at 23.262–70).
Thus, though rarely mentioned,26 the Achaeans, like the Trojans, are a
viewership whose silent presence adds to the intensity of the scene’s focus. By
line 7 all fighting has stopped, the armies are in their places, and Hector and
Achilles have been identified as the focus of attention. Though no oaths are
sworn, the formal duel is present, woven into the fabric of the scene.
The poet loses little time in building on and complicating these first hints of
coming spectacle, by subtly evoking an alternative form of public contest,
athletic games. Having learned of Apollo’s deception, Achilles races back toward
Troy from his position far off on the Scamander’s banks, whereupon the poet
compares Achilles to a ‘prize-winning horse with chariot’ (22.22):
Ὣς εἰπὼν προτὶ ἄστυ μέγα ϕρονέων ἐβεβήκει,

σευάμενος ὥς θ’ ἵππος ἀεθλοϕόρος σὺν ὄχεσϕιν,
ὅς ῥά τε ῥεῖα θέῃσι τιταινόμενος πεδίοιο·
ὣς Ἀχιλεὺς λαιψηρὰ πόδας καὶ γούνατ’ ἐνώμα.
Τὸν δ’ ὃ γέρων Πρίαμος πρῶτος ἴδεν ὀϕθαλμοῖσι…
– 22.21–5
(p.189) So speaking he made for the citadel, full of confidence,

rushing as a prize-winning horse with a chariot,
that runs easily, galloping, over the plain –
so Achilles speedily put his feet and his knees in motion.
And the old man Priam was first to see him with his eyes…
The comparison with the racehorse primarily emphasizes Achilles’ speed, but
also comes with a strong traditional resonance: racehorses run for display,
before crowds.27 By evoking the environment of a race, the poet subtly suggests
the breathless expectancy of viewers all around, without ever diverting his own
‘gaze’ from the centre of everyone’s attention: the two runners.28
The simile meshes with the visual elements already in place in the main
narrative in such a way as to give it special vividness and power: bringing about,
in effect, a conflation of duel and race. To begin with the setting: most Iliadic
similes evoke places and situations far removed from the battlefield at Troy—
scenes of hunting, farming, and animals meeting in remote forests. Yet the plain
over which the horse runs in the simile (ἵππος…τιταινόμενος πεδίοιο 22.23)
might as well be the plain over which Achilles is in fact running at the moment of
the comparison ([Ἀχιλλῆα] ἐπεσσύμενον πεδίοιο 22.26). Indeed, the scene
evoked by the simile will soon transpire on this very field, in the games for
Patroclus ([ἵπποι] ὦκα διέπρησσον πεδίοιο 23.364).29 The point is that this is no
reference to a ‘world of similes’, populated by lions, herdsmen, and inclement
Page 8 of 27

weather,30 but the (p.190) incursion of one major Iliadic stage of human
competition, athletic games, into another, warfare.
Moreover, the race framework maps in an almost surreal manner onto the visual
topography of the situation in the main narrative.31 Whereas formal duels are
fought ‘in the middle space’ between two armies who watch from either side,
chariot-races are run over a wide expanse of plain, viewed by a single group
gathered in one spot.32 At this moment, the ‘racehorse’ from far off by the river
Scamander33 surges toward Ilium (22.21), on or around which all the others are
gathered (Trojans and Achaeans). When the poet notes that Priam, from his
perch on the wall, is the first to discern Achilles’ approach he evokes the
moment at which the lead horse is discerned by the waiting spectators during a
race. The importance of such a moment is clear from the description of the
chariot race in Book 23:
Ἀργεῖοι δ’ ἐν ἀγῶνι καθήμενοι εἰσορόωντο

ἵππους· τοὶ δὲ πέτοντο κονίοντες πεδίοιο.
πρῶτος δ’ Ἰδομενεὺς Κρητῶν ἀγὸς ἐϕράσαθ’ ἵππους·
ἧστο γὰρ ἐκτὸς ἀγῶνος ὑπέρτατος ἐν περιωπῇ
– 23.448–51
And the Argives sitting in their gathering gazed upon

[Diomedes’] horses – which flew, raising dust, over the plain.
But the first to recognize the horses was Idomeneus lord of the
Cretans,
for he sat outside of the gathering, very high up on a lookout…
The actual chariot race scene gives an idea of the traditional material on which
the scene with Priam is playing: race-goers are eager to find out which horses
lead as they return into view, and someone on a raised vantage point (περιωπῇ
23.451) with particular interest in the event will logically be the first to see. Just
as Idomeneus spots the horses of Diomedes, Priam is first to see the ‘racehorse’
Achilles from his vantage on the wall. Thus, for an audience familiar with
chariot-race scenes in epic Priam’s glimpse of Achilles eerily locates him within
the situation of the simile—as the first to spot a racehorse approaching the
crowd.
(p.191) The result is a split perspective, as the emotional distance required to

see Priam and the other mortals on the walls of Troy as race-goers telescopes
suddenly and smoothly into Priam’s own deep distress: from Priam’s point of
view, Achilles is no horse but a supernatural harbinger of death.34 The emphasis
on the importance of spectators remains; the nature of the spectacle shifts.
Priam’s appearance on the walls (22.25–32) not only suggests a key moment in a
chariot-race but also unmistakably recalls Book 3, and thus the paradigm of the
formal duel. In Book 3, Priam gazes down onto the plain with Helen in the
teichoskopia, but ultimately chooses not to be a spectator for Paris’ match with
Page 9 of 27

Menelaus, recoiling from the possibility of seeing his son slain before his eyes
(3.303–9). Now, it becomes clear that Priam will attend his son Hector’s death in
single combat along with all the other onlookers. In Priam and Hecuba’s
impassioned speeches that now follow, the consequences of Hector’s loss for
themselves and for the Trojans are spelled out graphically, including Troy’s fall,
and Priam’s death and mutilation by the dogs of his table (22.33–89). The feeling
of watching a staged event builds, while the nature of the spectacle keeps
shifting.
5.2. Textual Cues Pointing to a Mise en Abyme

We are now ready to assess the key passage, in which divine viewing is
introduced. The dissonance between the two ways of seeing becomes greatly
pronounced as Hector, having failed to stand by his resolution to face Achilles
outside the gate, is pursued around the city walls:
τῇ ῥα παραδραμέτην ϕεύγων ὃ δ’ ὄπισθε διώκων·

πρόσθε μὲν ἐσθλὸς ἔϕευγε, δίωκε δέ μιν μέγ’ ἀμείνων
καρπαλίμως, ἐπεὶ οὐχ ἱερήϊον οὐδὲ βοείην
ἀρνύσθην, ἅ τε ποσσὶν ἀέθλια γίγνεται ἀνδρῶν,
ἀλλὰ περὶ ψυχῆς θέον Ἕκτορος ἱπποδάμοιο.
ὡς δ’ ὅτ’ ἀεθλοϕόροι περὶ τέρματα μώνυχες ἵπποι
ῥίμϕα μάλα τρωχῶσι· τὸ δὲ μέγα κεῖται ἄεθλον
(p.192) ἢ τρίπος ἠὲ γυνὴ ἀνδρὸς κατατεθνηῶτος·
ὣς τὼ τρὶς Πριάμοιο πόλιν πέρι δινηθήτην
καρπαλίμοισι πόδεσσι· θεοὶ δ’ ἐς πάντες ὁρῶντο.
– 22.157–66
There, then, they ran on by – [the one] fleeing and the other pursuing
behind.
In front a noble man was fleeing, but pursuing him was one much
greater,
– quickly!, for no sacrificial beast nor bull’s hide
were they striving after – which are the prizes in foot-races of men –
but they ran for the life of Hector tamer of horses.
But as when around goal-posts prize-winning solid-hoofed horses
swiftly race – and a great prize is offered,
a tripod or a woman, with a man having died [i.e. at funeral games]35
–
so then three times they circled the city of Priam
with swift feet – and all the gods looked on.
Lines 158–61 constitute a kind of reverse simile: instead of identifying a

correspondence between two images, as is done with a simile, the poet here
points to a particular lack of correspondence. Achilles and Hector are not
running to win beasts or hides, the prizes in men’s foot-races, but rather are
running for Hector’s life. However, the device has an effect similar to that of a
simile: it superimposes one image or idea—men running in a foot-race—over
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another—Hector fleeing Achilles. The implication is that there are

correspondences between the two situations, which the audience is expected to
notice; otherwise they could hardly recognize the incongruity pointed out by the
poet between the prizes in each. These implicit correspondences are not limited
to the action of running (θέον 22.61) along a pre-made course (κατ’ ἀμαξιτὸν
22.146) with the aim of outperforming one’s opponent (ἀρνύσθην 22.60; περὶ +
gen 22.61), but also include the presence of many onlookers.36 Thus, by
conjuring the image of the race, the poet brings to the foreground the issue of
what correspondence or lack thereof there might be between the role of
spectators at a race and all those who gaze upon Hector and Achilles—including
the extratextual listeners. The poet then proceeds to articulate a simile after all,
not of a (p.193) foot-race but a chariot-race (22.162–6), in which he lays heavy
emphasis on the prize (ἀεθλοϕόροι…τὸ δὲ μέγα κεῖται ἄεθλον / ἢ τρίπος ἠὲ
γυνὴ…22.162–4)—the very factor that is supposed to make a race comparison
unworkable. Why suddenly embrace athletics as a point of comparison
immediately after rejecting it? And why the switch from foot to chariot? One
could read this apparent contradiction as evidence of the narrator’s shifting
thoughts,37 but I think it is best understood as a deliberate act of communication
with the audience.38
In broad strokes, the narrative movement works like this: in lines 158–66, the
poet first points to the possibility that some in his audience may be enjoying the
scene as one might a chariot race, and then provokes them to reconsider such a
perspective by pointing out that Hector’s life is at stake. In lines 166–76, the
poet first raises the possibility that the gods have the perspective of race-goers,
and then has Zeus provoke them—while pointing out that Hector’s life is at
stake. Thus, through Zeus, the poet dramatizes within the text an image or
version of the provocation he has just made to his readers.
Let us now examine the passage in finer strokes. In lines 158–66, the switch
from foot-race to chariot-race offers a tempting path of interpretation which it
simultaneously undermines. The ‘since’ (ἐπεὶ 22.159) clause naturally follows on
the adverb ‘quickly’ (καρπαλίμως 22.159), indicating that Hector and Achilles
are running even faster than would be the case in a footrace, because they are
pursuing no ordinary prize (καρπαλίμως, ἐπεὶ οὐχ ἱερήϊον οὐδὲ βοείην /
ἀρνύσθην…ἀλλὰ περὶ ψυχῆς θέον Ἕκτορος…22.159–61). This discrepancy then
appears to motivate the switch from foot-race imagery to chariot-race imagery:
horses are much faster.39 Chariot races are also more prestigious, the prizes
more valuable than in foot-races—hence the emphasis on the prize (μέγα…
ἄεθλον). The implication is that while the sight of (p.194) two men running
evokes a foot race, a chariot race better conveys the spectacle’s magnificence,
which is heightened after all not only by the speed of the runners and the
importance of the prize, but also by the gods’ attendance as spectators (22.166).
With this sequence of thought, the poet draws attention to the excitement of the
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scene, and constructs within the text a perspective from which the Iliad is quite
as diverting as a particularly impressive chariot race.
However, in constructing this perspective, the poet also critiques it. The
fundamental problem with comparing Hector’s life to the prizes in foot-races is
that they are different not so much in magnitude as in kind. Not only has
Hector’s life just been explicitly connected to the disaster of Troy’s fall (in
Priam’s speech), but the idea is thematic to the Iliad that no matter how valuable
a given object, nor how much prestige (timē) attaches to it, a man’s life (psychē)
is of a different order of importance altogether. This at any rate is what Achilles
avows to the embassy, and to himself, in Book 9:
ληϊστοὶ μὲν γάρ τε βόες καὶ ἴϕια μῆλα,

κτητοὶ δὲ τρίποδές τε καὶ ἵππων ξανθὰ κάρηνα,
ἀνδρὸς δὲ ψυχὴ πάλιν ἐλθεῖν οὔτε λεϊστὴ
οὔθ’ ἑλετή, ἐπεὶ ἄρ κεν ἀμείψεται ἕρκος ὀδόντων.
– 9.401–9
For while cattle and fat sheep can be seized,

and tripods and tawny-headed horses can be acquired,
a man’s life cannot be seized so that it comes back again,
nor snatched up after it has crossed the gate of his teeth.
Tripods can be lifted too: the tripod of the chariot-race simile (22.164) is no
more comparable to a man’s life than the sacrificial beasts of the foot-race
(22.159). By suggesting that comparison with a grander spectacle is the way to
capture the importance of the contest between Achilles and Hector (22.162–6),
the passage thus elaborates a seductive misreading of its own first lines,
provoking listeners to assent or object based on their own ethical judgment.
At this moment, the poet’s listeners might be experiencing a whole range of

responses and levels of engagement: pleasure, eagerness, pity. They may be
vicariously experiencing Hector’s impossible wish to escape, or anticipating the
thrill of his slaughter: indeed, all of these responses might be present
simultaneously within a single listener. It is at this moment of heightened
tension that the poet confronts his audience with the watching gods and a
conversation on Olympus:
(p.195)
…θεοὶ δ’ ἐς πάντες ὁρῶντο.

τοῖσι δὲ μύθων ἦρχε πατὴρ ἀνδρῶν τε θεῶν τε·
ὢ πόποι ἦ ϕίλον ἄνδρα διωκόμενον περὶ τεῖχος
ὀϕθαλμοῖσιν ὁρῶμαι· ἐμὸν δ’ ὀλοϕύρεται ἦτορ
Ἕκτορος, ὅς μοι πολλὰ βοῶν ἐπὶ μηρί’ ἔκηεν
Ἴδης ἐν κορυϕῇσι πολυπτύχου, ἄλλοτε δ’ αὖτε
ἐν πόλει ἀκροτάτῃ· νῦν αὖτέ ἑ δῖος Ἀχιλλεὺς
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ἄστυ πέρι Πριάμοιο ποσὶν ταχέεσσι διώκει.

ἀλλ’ ἄγετε ϕράζεσθε θεοὶ καὶ μητιάασθε
ἠέ μιν ἐκ θανάτοιο σαώσομεν, ἦέ μιν ἤδη
Πηλεΐδῃ Ἀχιλῆϊ δαμάσσομεν ἐσθλὸν ἐόντα.
Τὸν δ’ αὖτε προσέειπε θεὰ γλαυκῶπις Ἀθήνη·
ὦ πάτερ ἀργικέραυνε κελαινεϕὲς οἷον ἔειπες·
ἄνδρα θνητὸν ἐόντα πάλαι πεπρωμένον αἴσῃ
ἂψ ἐθέλεις θανάτοιο δυσηχέος ἐξαναλῦσαι;
ἔρδ’· ἀτὰρ οὔ τοι πάντες ἐπαινέομεν θεοὶ ἄλλοι.
– 22.166–81
…and all the gods looked on.

And the father of gods and men began with these words to them:
‘Alas! that I see with my eyes a man dear to me
pursued around the wall – my heart aches
for Hector, who burned many thighs of bulls for me
on the crests of ridged Ida, and other times too
on the summit of the citadel. But now godlike Achilles
pursues him with his swift feet around the city of Priam.
But come, gods, let us consider and take thought
whether we should save him from death, or whether right now
we should slay him through Achilles son of Peleus, noble though he
is.’
Then she answered him in turn, the grey-eyed goddess Athena:
‘Loud-thundering dark-clouded father, what word have you spoken?
A man – a mortal – who long ago received his allotment –
you wish to lift him up out of death that brings agonies?
Do it – but not all of us other gods will praise you.’
I suggest that this exchange is crafted to prompt the listeners to feel

simultaneously compassion for Hector, and complicity, as an audience that has
gathered to join in a spectacle that they, like the gods, know full well must end in
his slaughter. Notice the attribution of agency in the exchange between Zeus
and Athena. Zeus’ initial 1st-person plural (‘shall we slay him?’), includes the
group in both the decision and the act. Athena’s response, however, while
underlining the importance of (p.196) audience desire in the poet’s decision-
making, attributes the actual action of saving or slaying to Zeus alone: ἐθέλεις…
ἐξαναλῦσαι (‘do you wish to save…?’ 22.180), and ἔρδε (‘do it!’ 22.181). By the
disarming mildness of his reply, Zeus neatly transfers agency in carrying out the
decision to Athena: ἔρξον ὅπῃ δή τοι νόος ἔπλετο, μὴ δ’ ἔτ’ ἐρώει (‘do as you
wish, and hold back no longer’ 22.185). I suggest that these words—voiced aloud
by the poet in the setting of performance—also invite vicarious participation on
the part of the audience. Most of the scene’s internal viewers are powerless: the
Trojans are held back by fear of Achilles;40 the Achaeans by his authority.41 All
they can do is watch. Not so Athena. Her descent from Olympus to Troy now
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offers the audience a way into the central space to act—and a provocation to join
in the terrible, and necessary, slaughter of Hector.
When Athena resists Zeus’ suggestion that Hector might not die, her response is
not framed in terms of hostility to Troy—a model that might have limited appeal
for the poet’s audience at this point in the Iliad, particularly after Priam’s and
Hecuba’s piteous entreaties. Instead, she insists on the necessity of Hector’s
death; something of which the poet’s audience is also very much aware. By
framing her response in terms of unwillingness to see the story depart from its
necessary course, rather than the hostility toward Troy which she so often
displays, Athena becomes uncomfortably persuasive in her ability to represent a
wider group, including many who might pity Hector.
Support for the metaperformative interpretation is found in the way it gives a

point to behaviour that is perplexing if the passage is read simply as a
representation of divine decision-making. In the latter case, Zeus’ motivation in
inviting the gods to reconsider the necessity of Hector’s death is obscure, and
his statement afterward that he was not in full earnest in the first place when he
spoke (οὔ νύ τι θυμῷ / πρόϕρονι μυθέομαι) is dramatically unsatisfying.42 But
while (p.197) Zeus the divine ruler generates puzzlement at this point, as an
intratextual stand-in for the poet Zeus’ attitude is convincing. Here is a model of
performance dynamics whereby a poet-figure suggests that he, for one, pities
Hector and would like to save him. In doing so, and through the exchange that
follows, he successfully moves the responsibility for killing Hector off of his own
shoulders and onto an audience-figure, Athena, with the silent complicity of the
group as a whole. As an internal representation of the poet, this Zeus’ satisfied
air is justified, for by first pointing out that Hector should be pitied and then
implicating his audience in Hector’s killing he has offered his listeners a more
powerful emotional experience, as well as satisfaction in the completion of a
necessary part of the plot.
5.3. The Divine Gaze and the Imperfect Moment

The Iliad has prepared us for funerary ritual as the conclusion to the military
spectacle at Troy. To put a stop to the polemos of the first day of fighting, as we
saw in Book 7, was to bring about a spectacular duel, followed by burial of the
dead (see Chapter 3). The same pattern now plays out on a larger scale: the
many contests of the Trojans and Achaeans, which occupy Books 3 to 22, flow
directly into death ritual, including funeral games. This ending resonates with
the whole, in part, because of the added meaning it reveals in aethloi (‘contests’)
—the word for the struggle Helen weaves. It satisfies, too, by returning to the
idea of the contests as a spectacle that transcends normal temporal limitations.
In particular, as I will now argue, the Iliad invites us to feel the immediacy of a
composite ‘now’ that incorporates, potentially, the lethal struggle on the
battlefield, Patroclus’ funeral, and even Troy’s fall.
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Ann Bergren has argued that the Iliad’s frequent employment of the ‘suspension
of temporal verisimilitude’ is explicable by the model provided by Helen’s
weaving in Book 3.43 ‘The Iliad’s art,’ she argues, ‘is the art of the tableau.’
Through the disruption of ‘realistic’ temporality, the Iliad portrays ‘not only the
historical, but also the (p.198) enduring nature of its subject’. The test case
with which she begins and ends her discussion is the teichoskopia (‘viewing from
the wall’) in Book 3. There, as Helen identifies Achaean leaders for Priam, we
sense that what we are seeing is, in part, a representation of a conversation
happening not in the tenth year of the war—as we would have to believe if we
insisted on reading the Iliad’s temporality as purely naturalistic—but at the
war’s beginning. The Iliad incorporates this teichoskopia because a teichoskopia
is an ‘attribute’ of sieges in epic—like the generic Homeric epithet, it can be
used in a way that is ‘realistic except from the point of view of time’. The effect
of such ahistorical use, Bergren concludes, is to draw attention to the formulaic
process of composition. The poem depicts not only that which has (notionally)
occurred in the past, but also that about the event ‘that ever recurs’, i.e., in the
poetic tradition. Since epic makes the ephemeral lasting, by perpetuating kleos,
the Iliad itself resembles the web into which Helen weaves πολέας ἀέθλους
Τρώων θ’ ἱπποδάμων καὶ Ἀχαιῶν χαλκοχιτώνων (‘the many contests/toils
(aethlous) of the horse-taming Trojans and bronze-greaved Achaeans’ 3.126–7).
I argued in Chapter 2 that the Iliad then introduces its warfare as a live
spectacle in pointed contrast to the tapestry model. But I also noted that the two
models are complementary, the one emphasizing composition, the other
emphasizing audience experience. Here, I would like to suggest an even closer
complementarity, by pointing to one way in which Bergren’s ideas can help us
understand the Iliad’s self-presentation as a live event. If we think of the poem
as woven text, we recognize the poet’s facility with traditional forms, and the
tradition’s power to preserve. But if we think of the poem as a live event, then
the habitual, paradoxical combination of events from distinct ‘historical’
moments into the visual field of the audience can reinforce, viscerally, the
impression that those moments are in some way eternal.
To Bergren’s list of instances of the ‘suspension of temporal verisimilitude’, I

would add scenes from the later books of the Iliad that evoke specific deaths and
funerals from ‘later’ points in the cycle of stories about Troy. For example, when
we see Achilles mourning Patroclus in Book 18, famously, we are also seeing
Achilles’ own funeral. As Achilles lies stretched megas megalosti (‘hugely’) in the
dust (18.26), his immortal mother arrives from the sea with a host of nymphs.
She laments his death (18.54–60), and takes his head in her (p.199) hand
(18.70–1) in a gesture used elsewhere of a mourner holding the deceased.44 In
the immediate context of this scene, of course, Achilles is not dead, but has flung
himself down in grief. Yet there is no need for us to forget that context—forget
what is ‘really’ happening—to appreciate that we are also being shown Achilles’
death. Achilles’ death happened in the audience’s past, and will ever recur,
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notionally, in the song tradition. It is available, and the poet plucks it, and offers
it to us with the rest. The suspension of temporal verisimilitude in this case
involves the superimposition of a ‘future’ vision on the narrative’s ‘present’.
If this scene were a painting, we might call its strokes ‘painterly’. We are likely
meant to appreciate, as I think an analysis using the ‘tapestry’ model of Iliadic
poetics would encourage us to do, the achievement of human artistry that allows
us a magnificent view of two mourning scenes at once.45 However, the Iliad
claims to be more than just the product of human design. Its temporal poetics
are rooted in the Muses’ power to see, and be, everywhere.46 In a performance
context, then, it is possible that an audience made aware of their experience of
witnessing multiple scenes at once—scenes understood to be separated in time,
logically—could understand that experience not just in terms of the poetic
composition that makes this experience possible (as Bergren’s model would
suggest), but also as the inkling of a divine perspective on reality.
This sense of seeing multiple present moments at once is, I believe, a part of
what the Book 22 chase, and its echo in Book 24, can deliver for an audience.
Let us begin by recalling that on the morning of this day of battle (described in
Books 19–20), the poet offered a perspective from which the killing of Hector
would be a necessary part of the (p.200) funeral rites for Patroclus.47 The
‘race’ around Troy, by this reading, becomes the first contest in the funeral
games for Patroclus—Hector’s life is the prize, and goes to Achilles. The Iliad’s
narrative, famously, is woven in such a way as to make the fall of Troy appear to
be a consequence of Achilles’ wrath. So too then, perhaps, not only Hector’s
death but, even Troy’s fall can be envisioned as part of the holocaust in
Patroclus’ honour. Now the Trojans soon to be slaughtered correspond to the
Trojan youths slaughtered on Patroclus’ actual funeral pyre (23.176).
Yet the poem also invites a second way to read this ‘funeral’, one that focuses on
the Trojans themselves. Let us consider the language and imagery that invite us
to situate the intimations of athletics, which have been developed since the
beginning of Book 22, in a funeral context:
ὡς δ’ ὅτ’ ἀεθλοϕόροι περὶ τέρματα μώνυχες ἵπποι

ῥίμϕα μάλα τρωχῶσι· τὸ δὲ μέγα κεῖται ἄεθλον
ἢ τρίπος ἠὲ γυνὴ ἀνδρὸς κατατεθνηῶτος·
ὣς τὼ τρὶς Πριάμοιο πόλιν πέρι δινηθήτην
καρπαλίμοισι πόδεσσι· θεοὶ δ’ ἐς πάντες ὁρῶντο.
– 22.162–66
But as when around goal-posts prize-winning solid-hoofed horses

swiftly race – and a great prize is offered,
a tripod or a woman, with a man having died,
[OR: a tripod or the wife of a man who has died]
so then three times they circled the city of Priam 165
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with swift feet – and all the gods looked on.
By including the phrase ἀνδρὸς κατατεθνηῶτος in the simile, the poet deepens
its import, implying that to see these runners as horses and chariots is to
imagine them as participants in an agonistic, ritual spectacle that honours the
dead and strengthens the community.48 But the poet also points to an inherent
irony in the communal healing associated with funeral games by positioning
ἀνδρὸς κατατεθνηῶτος (p.201) directly after γυνὴ. This encourages the ear to
associate the three words, with the undertone ‘wife of a man who has died’;49 a
reminder that prizes at funeral games are often the spoils of war.50 Indeed, two
other factors encourage the listener to associate Andromache, the paradigmatic
widow of war, with the ‘woman’ (γυνή), and the dead man with Hector himself.
First, by saying they ran περὶ ψυχῆς (‘for the life of Hector’ 22.161), the poet
uses ψυχή plus the genitive of Hector’s name, a combination used elsewhere in
Homer only to refer to the shade of one who is already dead.51 Also, both
Hector’s name (Ἕκτορος ἱπποδάμοιο 22.161) and ἀνδρὸς κατατεθνηῶτος (‘a
man having died’ 22.164) appear in the genitive at the end of their respective
hexameter lines, so that they resonate together. To be sure, Hector lives and
Troy stands, for ‘now’. But from the perspective of the poem’s audience, their
downfall is not only certain, but already a part of the distant heroic past.
A second feature of the passage subtly reinforces the suggestion of a funeral

context: the application of the chariot and horse imagery to Achilles and Hector.
The two men likened to horses in a chariot race52 circle Troy three times (ὣς τὼ
τρὶς Πριάμοιο πόλιν πέρι δινηθήτην 22.165)—and circling a corpse three times
with chariots is a traditional way to honour the dead.53 Evidence for this practice
is found in Book 23, prior to the games for Patroclus, when the other Achaeans
have scattered to their shelters. Achilles leads the Myrmidons in lamentation
(23.4–23), and as he begins, the Myrmidons approach with horses and chariots
(αὐτοῖς ἵπποισι καὶ ἅρμασιν 23.8):
οἳ δὲ τρὶς περὶ νεκρὸν ἐΰτριχας ἤλασαν ἵππους

μυρόμενοι…
– 23.13–14
(p.202) And [the Myrmidons] thrice around the corpse drove their
well-maned horses
grieving…
That this ritual circling is traditional in epic is evident in that Achilles refers to
it, together with the lamentation, as γέρας θανόντων (‘the honour due to the
dead’ 23.9).54 Thus, even as the poet’s rhetoric emphasizes the value of Hector’s
life, he simultaneously creates imagery suggestive of death ritual. Notably, it is
the city of Troy that is in the position of the dead hero.
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In this way, we are invited to entertain a perspective from which Troy and the
Trojans themselves, lost already to death, are now being honoured by the
‘chariots:’ with bitter irony, as their destruction becomes their memorialization.
The paradox is terrible, the vision riveting. Performing the Iliad is a
commemoration of Ilium: yet it also entails reliving, recreating, the brutality and
tragedy of it. The Iliad is a ritual that simultaneously honours Troy in the distant
past and wipes it out in the performative moment.
The irony is worked out at each step of the commemoration. Following the
circling of the corpse, the dead man is immolated and a sēma (barrow or grave-
marker) heaped up over him (Πάτροκλον θέμεναι πυρὶ σῆμά τε χεῦαι 23.45).55
After the ‘horses’ Achilles and Hector circle it thrice (22.165–6), Troy too is
‘immolated’, or rather its future immolation evoked, in a simile describing the
Trojans’ grief at Hector’s death:
τῷ δὲ μάλιστ’ ἄρ’ ἔην ἐναλίγκιον ὡς εἰ ἅπασα

Ἴλιος ὀϕρυόεσσα πυρὶ σμύχοιτο κατ’ ἄκρης.
– 22.410–11
Then it was very much as if all

lofty Ilium were consumed entirely by fire.
(p.203)
For a corpse, the burning is done as the honour due to the dead. But the Trojans
within the city are trapped on their own ‘pyre’.
In this split temporal perspective, with Hector’s death being mourned while his
life is still on the line—and indeed being mourned by means of the public event
that will kill him—the sense of common purpose associated with funeral games
and evoked through the simile becomes terrible rather than healing. Through it,
the Trojans and Hector are reimagined not just as enemies deserving of pity, but
as part of a larger community that includes all those who watch these ‘funeral
rites’: Achaeans, gods, and the audience attending the performance. The
paradigm of commonality offered in the simile thus places Hector, who has
joined in enacting the ritual, and also Priam and the other Trojans who are
watching, as participants in a public event honouring and enacting the doom
that for them is not part of the mythic past—as it is for the historical audiences—
but a horror of the imminent present.56
Thus, as the repeat listener becomes intimately familiar with the Iliad, a new
kind of ethical interpretive choice emerges from this scene. If the Iliad is a
communal event, one that honours the dead heroes, does the audience join in
honouring the dead at Troy? Does it witness Troy’s destruction as a legitimate
part of the honour for Patroclus? Either path involves elements of the terrible.
And in each performance, the chariot simile and circling of Troy are followed
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immediately by the poet’s reminder, spoken through Zeus, to consider Hector: ὢ

πόποι ἦ ϕίλον ἄνδρα διωκόμενον περὶ τεῖχος / ὀϕθαλμοῖσιν ὁρῶμαι· ἐμὸν δ’
ὀλοϕύρεται ἦτορ / Ἕκτορος…(‘Alas! that I see with my eyes a man dear /
pursued around the wall—my heart aches / for Hector…’ 22.168–70).
The end of the spectacle, as we learned in Book 7, contains both its continuation
and its preservation. In Book 7, the burial of the dead culminates in the building
of the Achaeans’ great wall, a mirror image of Troy whose destruction (in time)
ensures its immortality (in poetry). That monumental ergon, like Helen’s
weaving, points to the Iliad’s power to make the ephemeral eternal. So too in
Book 24, (p.204) between the rites for Patroclus and those for Hector, we see
another intimation of the endlessness of the conflict:
ἄλλοτ’ ἐπὶ πλευρὰς κατακείμενος, ἄλλοτε δ’ αὖτε

ὕπτιος, ἄλλοτε δὲ πρηνής· τοτὲ δ’ ὀρθὸς ἀναστὰς
δινεύεσκ’ ἀλύων παρὰ θῖν’ ἁλός· οὐδέ μιν ἠὼς
ϕαινομένη λήθεσκεν ὑπεὶρ ἅλα τ’ ἠϊόνας τε.
ἀλλ’ ὅ γ’ ἐπεὶ ζεύξειεν ὑϕ’ ἅρμασιν ὠκέας ἵππους,
Ἕκτορα δ’ ἕλκεσθαι δησάσκετο δίϕρου ὄπισθεν,
τρὶς δ’ ἐρύσας περὶ σῆμα Μενοιτιάδαο θανόντος
αὖτις ἐνὶ κλισίῃ παυέσκετο, τὸν δέ τ’ ἔασκεν
ἐν κόνι ἐκτανύσας προπρηνέα· τοῖο δ’ Ἀπόλλων
πᾶσαν ἀεικείην ἄπεχε χροῒ ϕῶτ’ ἐλεαίρων
καὶ τεθνηότα περ· περὶ δ’ αἰγίδι πάντα κάλυπτε
χρυσείῃ, ἵνα μή μιν ἀποδρύϕοι ἑλκυστάζων.
Ὣς ὃ μὲν Ἕκτορα δῖον ἀείκιζεν μενεαίνων·
τὸν δ’ ἐλεαίρεσκον μάκαρες θεοὶ εἰσορόωντες,
κλέψαι δ’ ὀτρύνεσκον ἐΰσκοπον Ἀργειϕόντην.
– 24.10–24
…[Achilles] lying at times on his side – at times supine –

at time prone – and then standing up –
he would move about (dineueske), distraught, on the beach – nor did
dawn
fail to see him as it shone over sea and shores.
And after yoking his swift horses to his chariot,
he would tie Hector behind the chariot – to be dragged –
and after pulling him thrice round the sēma of the dead Patroclus,
he would come to a stop in his tent – and [Hector] he would leave
stretched out face down in the dust – but Apollo, pitying the man,
was keeping all the defilement away from his flesh,
dead though he was – and he was covering him entirely with his
golden
aegis, so that [Achilles] did not scrape him by dragging.
In this way [Achilles] in his fury abused godlike Hector –
and the blessed gods kept pitying him as they looked on,
and kept urging the sharp-sighted slayer of Argus to steal [the body].
Page 19 of 27

For the duration of this passage, it is as though the chase in Book 22—a
rendition of runners ‘stuck in time’57—may not ever really come to (p.205) an
end, for Achilles or for those who continue to watch him.58 And in both the Book
22 and Book 24 passages, the divine gaze marks the circling, drawing an implicit
connection between the seeming endlessness of that central action and the gods’
own endless existence (ἀιὲν ἐόντες).
Yet in both passages, it is also that same divine gaze that makes an end to the
temporal loop at last, nudging the narrative forward by means of the familiar
progression: from divine viewing, to the gods’ conversation, to their
intervention. In the case of Book 22, following a stream of primarily imperfective
verbs, it is Apollo’s sudden abandonment of Hector, and Athena’s appearance
before Achilles, both in the aorist tense, that allow the chase to end and the
clock to start ticking (22.213–14). So too in Book 24, it is the gods’ viewing—and
pitying response—that keeps the story moving forward.
Indeed, the gods’ pity here, and ultimate determination to take action,
underscores the need for resolution, in the story and in the spectacle, by means
of appropriate funeral rites (24.33–115). But the sort of resolution one finds in
the performance of rites for Hector may depend on how far one is caught up in
the Iliad’s fractured temporal perspective. Troy’s fall, as we have seen, is not
only in the future of the Trojans and Achaeans, and the past of Homer and his
audience, but also figured in the ‘now’ of the spectacle that involves both of
those time-frames. When Achilles kills Hector, the Trojans lament as though Troy
were burning (22.410–11). The funeral rites of Book 24, then, come partly as a
sequel to this extraordinary moment. Troy’s fall is receding into the past, a
perspective that of course suits well the audience assumed by the text.
The last explicit mention of divine viewing comes as Priam sets out with one
companion on his journey to the tent of Achilles, ransom in tow:
…ϕίλοι δ’ ἅμα πάντες ἕποντο

πόλλ’ ὀλοϕυρόμενοι ὡς εἰ θάνατόνδε κιόντα.
οἳ δ’ ἐπεὶ οὖν πόλιος κατέβαν, πεδίον δ’ ἀϕίκοντο,
οἳ μὲν ἄρ’ ἄψορροι προτὶ Ἴλιον ἀπονέοντο
(p.206) παῖδες καὶ γαμβροί, τὼ δ’ οὐ λάθον εὐρύοπα Ζῆν
ἐς πεδίον προϕανέντε· ἰδὼν δ’ ἐλέησε γέροντα…
– 24.327–32
…And all his dear ones together followed

[Priam], grieving heavily, as if he went to his death.
But when they had gone through the city, and come to the plain,
[the others] returned back again to Ilium,
his children and sons-in-law. And the two men did not escape Zeus’
notice
emerging clearly onto the plain – but he saw and pitied the old man…
Page 20 of 27

The moment chosen by the poet to note Zeus’ gaze is true to his practice thus
far. Priam’s emergence onto the plain begins an episode noted for its affinities to
a katabasis (the journey of the soul to the underworld).59 His people grieve as
though he goes θάνατόνδε (‘death-ward’ 24.328), a word recalling the deaths of
Patroclus and Hector on the battlefield.60 Similarly, ἰδὼν δ’ ἐλέησε (24.332)
echoes Zeus’ pity for Hector lying as though dead on the field, and for Sarpedon
about to die in battle (15.1, 16.394). Yet this last mention of Zeus’ viewing is
understated. The divine gaze quietly disappears from the poem thereafter.
By ending the Iliad with Hector’s burial, ‘the poem neatly enacts what it
describes, burying Hector and perpetuating his kleos.’61 These events are real;
they are occurring before our eyes. In the ‘now’ of the spectacle at Troy, we may
feel ourselves participating vicariously in the effusions of grief. In the ‘now’ of
the performance setting, we have joined a much greater audience, in attending
the grand battles that culminate in this ritual. From where we stand in this
single, inescapably vivid present, Troy’s fall lies in the near future and the
distant past. Homer is not only giving us access to this extraordinary moment,
but also showing us what there is in it that holds both his gaze and that of the
gods.
Notes:
(1) ‘Ομως η πτώσις μας είναι βεβαία. Επάνω, / στα τείχη, άρχισεν ήδη ο θρήνος.
—Τρώες, Κ. Π. Καβάϕης, 1905. The translation is mine.
(2) ὡς δ’ ἐν ὀνείρῳ οὐ δύναται ϕεύγοντα διώκειν· / οὔτ’ ἄρ’ ὃ τὸν δύναται

ὑποϕεύγειν οὔθ’ ὃ διώκειν· / ὣς ὃ τὸν οὐ δύνατο μάρψαι ποσίν, οὐδ’ ὃς ἀλύξαι.
22.199–201.
(3) For the ‘swift-footed’ epithet and the stories of Achilles on foot running down
the mounted Troilus, see Burgess 2009.
(4) Bergren 2008: 46.
(5) Bergren 2008: 43.
(6) Zeus describes the deaths of Sarpedon, Patroclus, and Hector as a series at
15.65–8. For the motifs connecting their death scenes, see Segal 1971.
Thalmann 1984: 45–7 suggests that Ares’s son Askalaphus should be counted as
first in that series of connected deaths.
(7) I follow Van Wees in referring to instances of this motif as encounters

between promachoi rather than as ‘duels’. As Van Wees 1997: 688 notes, it is
often the case for these encounters that ‘“hit-and-run attack” is a more
appropriate label than “duel”’. See also Latacz 1977 esp. 77–8, Thornton 1984:
93–100, Van Wees 1997: 676–80, 687–9 with further bibliography. M. Edwards
1992 esp. 17 also has extensive bibliography. Fenik’s 1968 classic analyses in
Page 21 of 27

depth the components of combat descriptions in general, looking at the use of

formulaic language and common sequences of action. It does not consider the
books containing the three spectacular duels (but analyses only Books 5, 11, 13,
17, 16, and 8).
(8) For the three ‘spectacular duels’, see Chapter 3, pp. 112–13.
(9) Richardson 1993: at 23.262–897 conveniently gathers the Homeric evidence.

In the Iliad these are: the games for Patroclus in Book 23; the (non-funeral)
games contested by Tydeus (4.385–90); two contests of the past discussed by
characters in Book 23 (23.629–45, 23.678–80). In the Odyssey: the Phaeacians’
games in Book 8; two other instances of games mentioned at Od.8.100–3 and Od.
24.85–92 (the latter are funeral games for Achilles). Richardson also mentions
the Myrmidons in Iliad 2. But it may be worth distinguishing these from the rest,
as the Myrmidons seem to be simply entertaining themselves by practising
informally: λαοὶ δὲ παρὰ ῥηγμῖνι θαλάσσης / δίσκοισιν τέρποντο καὶ αἰγανέῃσιν
ἱέντες / τόξοισίν θ’ 2.773–5. (The verb terpesthai (τέρποντο 2.774), is not
elsewhere used of athletic competitors in Homer.) To Richardson’s list could be
added the ‘reverse simile’ and simile at Il.22.21–4 and 22.157–66.
(10) These are featured at the funeral games for Patroclus (23.262–897); most
appear elsewhere in Homer as well. See further Richardson 1993: ad loc.
(11) The victor will be the one who ψαύσῃ δ’ ἐνδίνων διά τ’ ἔντεα καὶ μέλαν
αἷμα (‘reaches the innards, through the armour and the black blood’ (23.806).
(12) The dual δερκομένω (23.815) is used rather than the plural δερκόμενοι
(3.342). The choice (whether of the composer or of early copiers, for whom the
visual difference between omega and omicron iota is not likely to have been
great) appears to be based simply on the inclination to follow the example set by
the preceding grammatical construction in each case: the dual form in 23
(23.815) follows the dual ἀμϕοτέρω (23.814) (itself apparently a modification of
the formulaic ἐς μέσον ἀμϕοτέρων (6.120) in the meeting of Diomedes and
Glaucus on the battlefield) while the plural form in 3 (3.342) follows the
formulaic θωρήχθησαν (3.340 = 23.813).
(13) Cf. the comments of Kirk 1978: 36.
(14) A-scholia ad Il. 22.164 comments: οὐκ οἶδεν ἄλλους ἢ τοὺς ἐπιταϕίους
ἀγῶνας (‘[Homer] knows no athletic contests other than for funerals’).
(15) 21.602–4. See Clay 2011: 103 for the course of the Scamander in the Iliad’s
imagined geography.
(16) It is also possible to take this as Moira the death goddess, as Dietrich 1967:
78 n. 7.
Page 22 of 27

(17) E.g. 11.401–63 (Odysseus); 8.76–91 (Nestor, who remains not out of
courage, but because he is wounded). A closely related motif is the warrior
approached by a (single) stronger enemy in the front ranks; Fenik 1978b treats
the two together and indeed they sometimes are mixed. In Agenor’s lone stand
(21.544–98), which anticipates Hector’s own stand (Fenik 1968: 214), Agenor is
placed by Apollo to stop single-handedly the oncoming Achaeans from sacking
Troy (21.544), but all of his thought concerns Achilles alone.
(18) Hephaestus for instance says it would be argaleon to battle Zeus (1.589).
(19) Astyanax is so named because Hector ‘alone protects’ the city (οἶος γὰρ
ἐρύετο Ἴλιον Ἕκτωρ 6.403; οἶος γάρ σϕιν ἔρυσο πύλας καὶ τείχεα μακρά
22.507). In her pleas, Andromache conjures the image of ‘the Achaeans, all of
them’ (Ἀχαιοὶ / πάντες 6.409–10) killing Hector in a great onrush (τάχα γάρ σε
κατακτανέουσιν Ἀχαιοὶ / πάντες ἐϕορμηθέντες…6.409–10. The enjambment of
πάντες gives it weight: ‘for soon they will kill you, the Achaeans: all of them,
rushing [upon you]…’). When Hector is lamented, still living, by Andromache and
her servants, they do not expect him to return unharmed from ‘the hands of the
Achaeans’ (6.502). Achilles is not yet a part of the image at that point. Of course,
Andromache’s fearful vision is ultimately fulfilled in gruesome form when the
Achaean soldiers all stick their swords into Hector’s body (22.369–75).
(20) It is a common feature of these scenes that the armies’ transition to a

passive state is emphasized at first, rather than their role as viewers. The
viewing role is implicit, however, and eventually made plain: θάμβος δ’ ἔχεν
εἰσορόωντας / Τρῶάς θ’ ἱπποδάμους καὶ ἐϋκνήμιδας Ἀχαιούς 3.342–3.
(21) See Chapter 2 for the poet’s use of this same juxtaposition elsewhere in the
first duel as well, and Chapter 4 for the similar setting-up of each day of battle.
(22) The word breastworks (epalksis) otherwise appears only in Book 12, of the
Achaean wall. There, it is clear from its many uses that the epalksis could be a
platform for fighting off attackers—and hence, certainly, for viewing as well.
(23) For walls as places of viewing, see also 8.518–22 and cf. Taplin 1980: 6–7.
(24) Waiting for Achilles, Hector imagines the Trojans’ censure should he too
retreat inside the walls (22.98–107)—particularly that of Polydamas, a warrior
who had been out on the field with him (18.249ff). Later, mistakenly believing
that his brother Deiphobus—actually the disguised Athena—has come to stand
with him against Achilles, Hector envisions Deiphobus as part of a group looking
on: ‘you dared to come out from the city-wall on my account when you saw with
your eyes—but the others remain inside’ (…ἔτλης ἐμεῦ εἵνεκ’, ἐπεὶ ἴδες
ὀϕθαλμοῖσι, / τείχεος ἐξελθεῖν, ἄλλοι δ’ ἔντοσθε μένουσι 22.236–7). The
commendation for Deiphobus’ bravery implicit in the contrast with the ‘others’
behaviour requires that those others, like Deiphobus, be warriors. Thus, it is
Page 23 of 27

apparent that Hector feels that the Trojan warriors who reached the
breastworks in the opening of Book 22 are now viewing from within.
(25) αὐτὰρ ἐπεὶ πύργόν τε καὶ ἀνδρῶν ἷξεν ὅμιλον / ἔστη παπτήνασ’ ἐπὶ τείχεϊ,
τὸν δὲ νόησεν…22.462–3.
(26) Their other turn as viewers comes at the end of the duel when they
approach Hector and ‘marvel at his form and wondrous appearance’ (…
θηήσαντο ϕυὴν καὶ εἶδος ἀγητὸν 22.370), before stabbing him in an almost
ritualistic act. For the beauty of the dead man see Vernant 2001 (1982): 59–60,
who compares Priam’s words at 22.71–76, which contrast the beauty of a
slaughtered young man to the envisioned mutilation of his own aged body.
(27) Maronitis 2007: 59–60 observes that the image of the chariot race that will
soon appear in the famous simile seems already to be in the poet’s mind at this
early point.
(28) Bassett 1930: 132 suggests that the simile may reflect Achilles’ spirited
mental state (μέγα ϕρονέων 22.21).
(29) Thus begins the opening description of the race, and that description ends
on a similar note, in ring composition: ἵπποις, οἳ δ’ ἐπέτοντο κονίοντες πεδίοιο
23.372. The equivalence of the space on which the war is fought and in which
this race is run comes out strongly with the specification ‘Trojan plain’ for the
race at 23.463–4:…πάντῃ δέ μοι ὄσσε / Τρωϊκὸν ἂμ πεδίον παπταίνετον
εἰσορόωντι.
(30) On the ‘world of the similes’, see, for example, Buxton 2004, who comments
that ‘the cumulative effect of these comparisons…is to build up a picture of a
world outside, a world alongside, a world which will exist when all the bloodied
dust has settled, all the lamentations have ceased, and all the booty has been
distributed’ (152). For the weather in the Iliad’s similes and its curious absence
for the most part in the main narrative, see Fränkel 1921: 121 and the
interesting treatment of Purves 2010b: 324–34. Scott 2009: 221 n. 94 notes that
the two Iliadic race similes are unusual (‘there are not enough parallel horse
similes to derive a simileme’) and that they look ahead to funeral games in Book
23.
(31) The comment of Buxton 2004: 153 could be applied here: ‘the more closely a
simile approximates the main action…the more the world of the simile and that
of the action threaten to collapse into one another.’
(32) Called an agōn—e.g. ἐν ἀγῶνι 23.448. On this term, see Zervou 2007: 42–3.
(33) Achilles’ pursuit of the disguised Apollo had taken him to the Scamander
and along its banks (21.600–5).
Page 24 of 27

(34) Bremer 1985 persuasively reads the simile of the dog-star as ‘focalized’
through Priam. However, I disagree with Bremer’s view that the second chariot
simile is ‘focalized’ through the gods, for reasons discussed in section 5.2.
(35) It is also possible to read γυνὴ ἀνδρὸς κατατεθνηῶτος with no comma: ‘a

tripod or the wife of a man who has died.’ p.200.
(36) Cf. Bremer 1985.
(37) So N. Richardson 1993: ad loc.
(38) De Jong 1987: 130–1 reads the contrast between the two passages in terms
of a straightforward division between human and divine perspectives. This is
problematic, however, in that Zeus takes on some of the ‘human’ perspective in
the lines that immediately follow. Griffin 1978:14–16 interprets the foot-race and
chariot-race passages as a single idea: the spectacle resembles a regular race,
but deadlier and more magnificent.
(39) Achilles was famous for being as fast as a horse—for chasing down on foot
the mounted Troilus. The poet makes clear that Hector could never keep ahead
of him without Apollo’s help (22.202–4).
(40) 22.236–7.
(41) 22.205–7.
(42) N. Richardson 1993 ad loc: ‘To us it seems as if Zeus gives way all too easily,
and οὔ νύ τι / θυμῷ πρόϕρονι μυθέομαι sounds very casual. It is as if he knew all
along that nothing could be done to save Hektor. But this debate, and Zeus’s
consent, serve the dramatic function of re-enacting for us the process of divine
decision which seals Hektor’s doom…’ It should be noted that there is internal
consistency in the representation of Athena as Zeus’ normal favourite: his wish
to be mild to her appears elsewhere as well (following Athena’s protest at his
prohibition of divine interference at the beginning of Book 8: 8.39–40 = 22.183–
4). However, this parallel does not solve the problems presented by the present
passage.
(43) Bergren 2008 is the source of the quotations in this paragraph.
(44) M. Edwards 1991 ad loc.
(45) Bergren’s idea of the Iliad as tapestry entails a focus on human

craftsmanship: ‘…even the κλέος “fame” in epic of Achilles is a song, the plot
finally not of Zeus or Poseidon or Hera, but of bards. Its factuality, its
transcendent meaning, is the work of bardic will’ (Bergren 2008: 54). The essay
ends thus: ‘By these various violations of historical time the epic is given the
Page 25 of 27

properties of a woven tapestry—a string of words about heroism is woven into a

tableau of permanent, if only poetic significance’ (55, emphasis added).
(46) Purves 2010a: 35 is eloquent on this point: ‘The poet states that the Muses
can “see” the work of the poem with perfect clarity across all space and time, at
the same time as he regrets his own inability to tell us what that vision would
look like (Il.2.485–93).’
(47) Chapter 4, p. 169–72.
(48) Redfield 1994: 210: ‘Funeral games thus function as a kind of monument, an
event by which the property of the dead man and his mourners is converted into
memorials of his death, and as a social occasion through which the community,
wounded and disordered by the loss of one of its heroes, reasserts its structure
and vitality.’ Though the purpose of honouring the dead is never explicitly stated
during the games for Patroclus, it seems to be a likely enough additional
purpose. Nestor tells Achilles at 23.646: ἀλλ’ ἴθι καὶ σὸν ἑταῖρον ἀέθλοισι
κτερέϊζε.
(49) This interpretation also goes back to the scholia: (164a.) ὅτι ἀμϕίβολον,
πότερον ἀνδρὸς τεθνεῶτος γυνὴ ἢ ἐπὶ τεθνεῶτι ἀνδρί, ὃ καὶ ὑγιές· οὐκ οἶδεν γὰρ
ἄλλους ἢ τοὺς ἐπιταϕίους ἀγῶνας Ὅμηρος. As so often, the performer’s tone,
pacing, and body language could easily prefer one or the other ‘reading’ almost,
but not quite, to the point of excluding the other—or could cultivate the
ambiguity.
(50) In the chariot race in the games for Patroclus, the first prize is an enslaved
woman and a tripod (23.263–4).
(51) ψυχὴ Πατροκλῆος δειλοῖο 23.65; 23.106, 23.221 (also Patroclus); Od.10.492,
565 (Teiresias); Od.11.52 (Elpenor); also Achilles to the embassy: ἀνδρὸς δὲ
ψυχὴ πάλιν ἐλθεῖν οὔτε λεϊστή 9.408.
(52) ἀεθλοϕόροι…ἵπποι 22.162.
(53) By ‘traditional’, I mean traditional in Homeric epic, without reference to

historical practices.
(54) The Myrmidons carry it out without specific direction from Achilles—he tells
them simply to approach in their chariots, and both he and the Myrmidons
apparently understand what this implies: μὴ δή πω ὑπ’ ὄχεσϕι λυώμεθα μώνυχας
ἵππους, / ἀλλ’ αὐτοῖς ἵπποισι καὶ ἅρμασιν ἆσσον ἰόντες / Πάτροκλον κλαίωμεν·
ὃ γὰρ γέρας ἐστὶ θανόντων. (‘Do not yet loose the single-hoofed horses from
their chariots, / but come close, with horses, chariots and all, / and let us weep
for Patroclus—for that is the rightful prize of the deceased’ 23.7–9).
Page 26 of 27

(55) οὐ θέμις ἐστὶ λοετρὰ καρήατος ἆσσον ἱκέσθαι / πρίν γ’ ἐνὶ Πάτροκλον
θέμεναι πυρὶ σῆμά τε χεῦαι / κείρασθαί τε κόμην 23.44–6.
(56) Seaford 1994: 177 argues that the power of the scene in which Priam and
Achilles meet in Iliad 24 derives in part from ‘the concrete role of death ritual in
social practice, in creating solidarity between potential enemies’. Here, the
implied aspiration to solidarity through ritual is mired inextricably in the
absolute enmity being enacted in the chase.
(57) Purves 2010a: 57 on the circling in Book 22: ‘The runners, like the scene,
are stuck in time…The synoptic view of the two warriors circling the walls of
Troy, especially when it is telescoped out into the vision of figures whirling
around in a circle, is marked by the idea of stillness and the deferment of an
endpoint.’
(58) Vergil’s success in convincing posterity that Achilles dragged Hector three
times around Troy (by means of Aen.1.483) is a testament to how easily the
scenes in Book 22 and 24 merge in the memory.
(59) On Priam’s journey as katabasis, see recently De Jáuregui 2011, with

bibliography.
(60) 16.693, 22.297. N. J. Richardson 1993 ad loc.
(61) Lovatt 2013: 361.
Page 27 of 27

Conclusion: The Iliad and the Odyssey

on Mount Olympus
Tobias Myers

Print ISBN-13: 9780198842354
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198842354.001.0001

Tobias Myers
DOI:10.1093/oso/9780198842354.003.0006

The Conclusion contrasts the Odyssey’s treatment of performance dynamics,
which has been well studied, with that of the Iliad, the focus of the book. In
doing so, it also sums up key phenomena that make the Iliad’s gods seem the
‘audience’ for a live event. They mostly view a limited geographical area, from
the city to the ships. Divine viewing is only actually mentioned in the context of
military or funerary spectacle, or both. This specificity is in line with the initial
vision of the song of Achilles’ wrath as articulated in the proem: a song of death
and corpses, as the realization of poetic and divine intentions. Divine viewing
and divine decision-making come in the same passages, so that Zeus’ control of
the ‘plot’, as it is often called, can be usefully described in terms of his staging
and direction of the warfare. At the same time, the poet situates his gods in a
setting, the daïs at Zeus’ house on Olympus, which he associates with the
performance and enjoyment of poetry. In this way, the gods’ viewing develops a
perspective from which the Iliad’s core subject matter is a live spectacle
involving and joining actors and audiences from across time.
Keywords: Odyssey, Demodocus, viewing, performance, plot
This project in one sense began with the Odyssey. Sorting through ideas for a
doctoral dissertation, I had decided to attempt a new interpretation of
Demodocus’ first song. My adviser responded to this idea with the admonition
that if I intended to write a dissertation involving Homeric poetry, the first thing
I needed to do was reread the whole corpus, starting with the Iliad. Within a few
days, I had arrived at Book 4, the daïs scene on Olympus, with visions of
Demodocus still burning in my head. The Iliad’s gods, in this passage at any rate,
Page 1 of 4

were pulling me into the text in such a knowing way, in a context so similar to
the one in Odyssey 8, that I felt there had to be a metapoetics at work here—and
one that was not abstract, but purposive. But in order to explore such a
metapoetics in anything but the most superficial manner, I thought that it would
be necessary to come up with a good way of describing the relationship between
the gods’ activity and that of the audience assumed by the text. Why even use
the word ‘audience’ of the Iliad’s gods? This latter question became my guide. It
also kept the Odyssey at a firm distance because, as it turned out, everything
that made the Iliad’s gods seem an audience was missing from the Odyssey.
From the time that I first began to receive feedback on the work that would one
day lead to this book, I have been asked by friendly and sceptical readers: why
not expand the project to include the Odyssey? The gods are viewers in that
work too; and besides, the metapoetics are easier to spot. Some suggested
including Hesiod and Gilgamesh as well. I wondered myself. Yet the more I
looked, the more the phenomena I sought to explain seemed to be uniquely
Iliadic. To articulate why, I was forced to understand and describe those
phenomena better, again and again, through many stages of the project’s
development. Now, having finished, I would like to (p.208) conclude this book
by addressing one last time the question ‘why not include the Odyssey?’—and
thereby in some sense to allow for its inclusion.
Homer makes his gods an ‘audience’, I hope to have shown, through a

combination of strategies. The gods mostly view a limited geographical area: the
Trojan plain, from city to ships. Yet the poet imposes an even stronger limitation:
divine viewing is only actually mentioned in the context of military or funerary
spectacle, or both.1 This specificity is in line with the initial vision of the song of
Achilles’ wrath as articulated in the proem: a song of death and corpses, as the
realization of poetic and divine intentions. Then too, since divine viewing and
divine decision-making come in the same passages in the Iliad, Zeus’ control of
the ‘plot’, as it is often called, can be usefully described in terms of his staging
and direction of the warfare. At the same time, the poet situates his gods in a
setting, the daïs at Zeus’ house on Olympus, which he associates with the
performance and enjoyment of poetry. In this way, the gods’ viewing develops a
perspective from which the Iliad’s core subject matter is indeed the ‘many
contests’ of the Trojans and Achaeans—conceived not only as human artifice, the
poets’ craft, but also as a live spectacle involving and joining actors and
audiences from across time.
In stark contrast to all this, the Odyssey offers not a central arena, but an
itinerary with far-flung and exotic locales.2 Zeus’ control of the action is much
less pronounced, and never marked by viewing.3 In fact, the motif of divine
viewing is nearly absent from the Odyssey. Within Demodocus’ poetry, Ares
‘keeps no blind watch’ (Od.8.285), and Helios ‘kept watch’ (Od.8.302). There is
not much else in the way of explicit reference to a divine gaze. This is not to say
Page 2 of 4

that other passages do not imply divine viewing. They do. But if we consider the
Iliad’s repeated positive emphasis of the motif, even to the point of structuring a
spectacle by its use, it seems almost to be suppressed, in the Odyssey, by
comparison. The formula for a divine descent from Olympus is used (e.g. βῆ δὲ
κατ’ Οὐλύμποιο καρήνων ἀΐξασα (p.209) Od.1.102), as in the Iliad, but viewing
is not specified as a prompt to intervention. Just one Odyssean passage clearly
evokes the Iliadic divine audience motif: when Athena sits as a bird on a rafter
overseeing the battle with the suitors, whose progress she also controls. Even
here, though, the poet eschews the chance to use a verb of seeing (Od.22.239–
40).4
To the eyes of one who studies Homer for a long time, there is something
suspicious about cases in which the Odyssey omits what the Iliad covers—
especially when the reverse is true as well, as I think it is here. ‘Monro’s Law’
was originally articulated as a description of the remarkably consistent lack of
overlap in the narrative content covered by the two poems: for instance, the
Odyssey depicts Achilles’ funeral, which the Iliad omits. Perhaps we can discern
a similar dynamic at work between the two epics if we consider how they seem
to complement each other, without encroaching on each other’s territory, in the
realm of metapoetics.
The following two omissions in the two Homeric epics seem to me to be related:
on the one hand, the Iliad never depicts daïs scenes of poetic performance of the
sort found in the Odyssey (as is commonly noted). On the other, the Odyssey
nowhere depicts the daïs on Olympus that is a constant backdrop for the gods in
the Iliad.5 I suggest that these omissions are reciprocal, in the sense that the
daïs on Olympus and those at Phaeacia and Ithaca occupy parallel, though not
identical, functions in the Iliad and Odyssey. This then provides an answer to the
old question, voiced recently by Murray 2008: 61: ‘Why this difference between
the Iliad and the Odyssey? Is it pure chance that the content of the Iliad is silent
about the role of the poet…?’
In fact, the self-reflexive possibilities of the banquet scene are explored in both
poems. The Odyssey depicts the social function of bards at the court of kings:
they are dependents, sometimes deserving (p.210) of honour and praise, but
helpless in the face of superior force, as the comical scene of Phemius begging
Odysseus for his life brings out (23.330–53).6 The attitude of the performer
toward his own work is not treated. The Iliad gives a very different picture of the
epic poet: within the story-world of which he sings, he is like Zeus whose will
and authority are absolute; he abides by his audience’s wishes not out of
servility,7 but with an attitude of combined magnanimity and cunning (in the
second, he is most like Odysseus narrating his travels), and ultimately from a
position of unassailable power. He does not only sing to make his living, the
picture one derives from the Odyssey, but also delights in his work. He glories at
his success in bringing to life great and portentous battles, and takes pride in his
Page 3 of 4

ability to make his audience see what he sees. Through his performance, he
connects them, as though directly, to a reality whose intensity derives from the
fact that it includes more than one ‘present’. Finally, he aims to confront them
with a recurring question: ‘with what eyes’, and what emotions, they are—or
should be—gazing on the spectacle at Troy.
Notes:
(1) Exceptions are only apparent, as I have argued. See Introduction, p. 19 and
Appendix.
(2) For the Iliad’s ‘eusynoptic’ character as opposed to the Odyssey, see Purves
2010a: Chapter 1.
(3) The key scenes of decision-making on Olympus—in Book 1 (Od.1.26–96) and

Book 5 (Od.5.3–43)—do not feature divine viewing. On the metapoetics of Zeus’
decision-making in the Odyssey, see Marks 2008.
(4) αὐτὴ δ᾽ αἰθαλόεντος ἀνὰ μεγάροιο μέλαθρον / ἕζετ᾽ ἀναΐξασα, χελιδόνι

εἰκέλη ἄντην.—Od.22.239–40.
(5) The closest it comes is the description of the paradisiacal existence of the
gods at Od.6.41–6 (note the verb τέρπονται 6.46). But the focus here is on the
weather; there is no daïs. When the Odyssey opens, Poseidon is away enjoying a
daïs (τέρπετο δαιτί Od.1.26) among the Ethiopians. There is nothing to prompt
us to imagine that the other gods back on Olympus are doing the same; they are
simply described as sitting all together in Zeus’ halls (οἱ δὲ δὴ ἄλλοι / Ζηνὸς ἐνὶ
μεγάροισιν Ὀλυμπίου ἁθρόοι ἦσαν Od.1.26–7).
(6) The comedy derives in large part from the Odyssey-poet’s implicit
professional connection to the character Phemius; the external epic performer is
having fun with his intratextual colleague.
(7) Cf. Phemius and the suitors: Od. 1.154; 22.331, 350–3.
Page 4 of 4

Introduction: ‘With What Eyes…?’

on Mount Olympus
Tobias Myers

Print ISBN-13: 9780198842354
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198842354.001.0001

Tobias Myers
DOI:10.1093/oso/9780198842354.003.0007

The Introduction considers the key concepts ‘divine perspective’, ‘divine
audience’ and ‘Homer’s audience’. It discusses parallels and differences
between the divine perspectives that Homer depicts (i.e. of the Olympians), and
the divine perspective he adopts (as narrator). It asks what it is in the text of the
Iliad that has moved so many critics to liken the gods to the ‘audience’ for an
arranged, public event of one sort or another. It shows Jasper Griffin’s widely
accepted answer—that the gods sometimes watch passively, with pity or
pleasure—to be insufficient. It then proposes that a comprehensive study is
needed, which will assess how divine viewing relates to divine control, and
analyse the way that Homer builds his ‘divine audience’ in association with three
culturally specific contexts: the formal duel, the daïs (banquet), and funeral rites.
The chapter concludes with a discussion of ‘Homer’s audience’, laying out the
study’s basic assumptions about the audience and performer implied by the text.
Keywords: Divine perspective, Divine viewing, Divine audience, Homer’s audience, Jasper Griffin,
Mark Stansbury-O’Donnell, nucleus
With what eyes do you think Homer made his gods look down upon the
destinies of men? What was at bottom the ultimate meaning of Trojan Wars
and other such tragic terrors? There can be no doubt whatever: they were
intended as festival plays for the gods; and, insofar as the poet is in these
matters of a more ‘godlike’ disposition than other men, no doubt also as
festival plays for the poets.
– Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals1
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The singer of the Iliad offers the story of Achilles’ wrath as tragedy and bloody
entertainment, bringing the past to life before his audience’s eyes with a
powerful, vivid immediacy. In so doing, he represents the Olympian gods as a
group engaged, quite frequently, in observing and discussing the very events
that make up the core of his poem. This distinctive vision of divine pastimes
stands alone against all later literature in its peculiar force and eeriness. Critics
have often described the gods’ activities in terms of attendance at a ‘show’—or
‘festival play’ (Festspiel), in Nietzsche’s striking formulation2—and (p.2) have
suggested analogies to theatre and sports,3 but have done little to investigate
the particular strategies by which the poet conveys the impression of gods
attending a live, staged event. My analysis of those strategies points to a
‘metaperformative’ significance to the motif of divine viewing: the poet is using
the gods, in part, to model and thereby manipulate the ongoing dynamics of
performance and live reception.
The Iliadic gods can model audience response in two ways that are interwoven
in practice, though I will sometimes discuss them separately for the sake of
clarity. First, as viewers they respond to the world that the poet also reveals to
his listeners. This means that reactions such as pity, grief, pleasure, and
aloofness may potentially anticipate and comment on a range of possible
responses on the part of the listening audience. As I hope to show, the spectacle
motif within the text, developed primarily through the gods, shadows the
audience’s perception of their own relationship to what the poet moves them to
‘see’. This can serve to foster the vicarious ‘recreational’ emotions described by
film critics, while also blurring the distinction between the enjoyment of art and
the witnessing of true events—the better to elicit the tears that Plato’s rhapsode
Ion calls the measure of a successful performance.4
Second, by depicting Zeus and the other gods deliberating on the course events
will take, the poet presents complex models of response to an internal narrator
persona, Zeus. While many scholars have drawn connections between Zeus and
the poet, few have asked how and to what purpose Zeus is constructed as a poet
figure within the text. I argue that by performing Zeus’ provocative speeches,
the poet both challenges his listeners to take a stake in the continuation of the
(p.3) performance and presents a sophisticated critique of possible responses
to his poem. The result is a conception of epic not only as song that will
transcend time through re-performance—as famously evinced in the Iliad’s
meditations on kleos—but also as raw spectacle, in which audience
‘participation’, and complicity, magnifies and complicates the emotional impact
of the devastation at Troy.
0.1. Divine Perspective

Scholars have studied divine perspective in the Iliad in two senses primarily,
looking at (1) the divine perspectives the poet depicts (those of the Olympians),
and (2) the divine perspective he adopts (as narrator). These two conversations
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could benefit from synthesis. How has scholarship of the first sort described the
Olympians’ perspective? The prevailing tendency has been to take as a starting
point the Iliad’s interest in defining the human condition in contradistinction to
the divine. All is easy for the gods; they are immortal and ageless. Humans, by
contrast, toil through a life of uncertainty toward death. Turning to scenes of
divine viewing with these considerations in mind, scholars have emphasized
these gods’ inability truly to understand human fear and suffering. Thus, the
divine perspective is characterized by a lack of seriousness which Reinhardt
memorably called ‘sublime frivolity’.5 By this reading, it is humans’ very
mortality that affords them dignity. That human life and death provide the gods
with entertainment then adds to the poem’s pathos. This approach has many
advantages, among them broad applicability. Whatever the differences between
a twenty-first-century critic and a Greek of the Archaic Period, both will
recognize something of themselves in the poem’s ‘mortals who toil’. For all the
differences in the ways they may experience an encounter with the Iliad, they
each will come away with a vision of a world—perhaps their own—in which they,
or mortals like them, are a potential object of viewing by invisible deities. The
Iliad’s lessons as elucidated by this scholarship concern how one understands
one’s place in the world qua mortal.
(p.4) The approach just outlined, while vital, is not in itself a sufficient account
of how divine viewing functions in the Iliad. Continuing to think about audiences,
one may note that awareness of common mortality is not likely to be the only
salient factor in one’s experience of a given passage. After all Homer, while often
emphasizing the line dividing gods from mortals, in others ways seems intent on
obscuring it. The Olympians’ grief and pity are described in the same language
as that used of human emotions, however unattainable the estate of the gods
who ‘live easily’ may be for mortals. When the watching Zeus is moved by pity to
declare οὐ…τί πού ἐστιν ὀϊζυρώτερον ἀνδρὸς / πάντων, ὅσσά τε γαῖαν ἔπι
πνείει τε καὶ ἕρπει (‘there is nothing anywhere more wretched than a man, of all
the things that breathe and creep upon the earth’ 17.445–6), he sounds
remarkably like the chorus of a tragedy, giving voice to the poem’s tragic vision
as mediated by his own relationship to the story of which he is also a part.6
Achilles calls the gods akēdees (‘without cares’), and his words ring true; yet
Hera still kēdeto (‘felt care for’, or ‘pitied’)7 the Achaeans dying of the plague.8
The divine perspective cannot, in any case, be totally inaccessible: the very fact
that the poet purports to present it to his audience brings all parties closer
together.9 The gods’ appreciative appraisal of ferocious, lethal contests on the
battlefield would be shared, the poet implies, by a human observer.10 Perhaps
that is (p.5) why Nietzsche, for his part, detected not sublime frivolity but
human cruelty behind the gods’ watching eyes.11
Why make humanlike gods?12 The question is vexed, and, of course, it is

ultimately impossible to know. What I hope to show is that the decision to mingle
the familiar with the ineffable in this way has an important consequence, which
Page 3 of 24

the poet indeed exploits in our text: it allows the poet to draw and play upon
correspondences between the perspectives of the divine audience he constructs
and the human audience attending his performance.
Part of the poem’s power to captivate derives from its claim to take audiences
beyond the limitations that obtain in their day-to-day existence. Even as Homer
makes clear that to be mortal is to be ignorant and watched by unseen gods, he
seduces with the sense that to be his audience is to transcend one’s ignorance,
to know the gods’ workings—and indeed to be become, oneself, an unseen
observer. Homer executes this shift with great self-consciousness, as the second
body of scholarship alluded to above brings out so well. With regard to the epic
events at Troy, the poet shares with his audience a perspective that is avowedly
divine, relying as it does on the Muses’ own vision.13
(p.6) Homer’s constant reminders of our mortality do not undermine, but

rather accentuate the value of all that is extra-human in the experience epic
offers. Outside of epic, Homer’s audience may still know nothing of moirai
(‘allotments’) or the gods’ doings.14 Yet the more they can lose themselves in the
poetry’s thelxis15 and leave behind their own immediate concerns, the more they
can imagine what knowing as a god knows, and seeing as a god sees, might feel
like. With respect to the Iliad, at least, both Olympians and listeners share a
privileged yet incomplete knowledge of the future as well as the present—the
gods through their awareness of cosmic moirai, the listening audience through
familiarity with the story tradition. Then too, the listening and the divine
audience are capable of a detached appreciation that is unavailable to mortal
characters.16 At the end of the show, the poet’s listeners can set aside the
pleasure and pathos of the story of Achilles’ wrath and go home to bed—much as
the gods do at the end of Book 1. Thus, some of the very factors that distinguish
gods from mortals generally also serve to align the Olympians’ perspective with
that of an audience for the epic.
In broad strokes, one might say that through the alchemy of his performance,
Homer goes some way toward making his audience gods, and his gods an
audience. Each of these moves is a striking and characteristic feature of the
Iliad. This book’s title, ‘Homer’s Divine Audience’, is intended to refer to both
groups, and the way that the poem draws their perspectives into partial
alignment. (p.7) Studying the two features side by side can show how they
jointly underpin an idea of the Iliad as a momentous event that seeks to involve
ever greater numbers of participants.
When I began work on this project, it soon became clear that a necessary first
step would be to ask what it is that sets the gods apart as witnesses for the
poem’s action; that is, to trace through the poem the process by which Homer
constructs, not just examples of divine viewing, but a recognizable ‘divine
audience’. Taking this first step led me down unexpected avenues. As a result, a
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good portion of this book is occupied with presenting, in what might be

considered one layer of argumentation, a detailed description of the Iliad’s
conception of spectacle as it emerges through the perspective of ‘Zeus and the
gods’. I hope that this analysis will be of use to all readers of Homer—even those
disinclined to read the Iliad as a text reflective of performance dynamics.
Going on to address the question of how this gradually unfolding conception of

spectacle functions within the dynamics of performance, I adopt a set of working
assumptions about the Iliad as a performance text. These assumptions are not
intended to be revolutionary: on the contrary, I have tried to distil what seems
least contested and best documented. In many cases, I have been able to work
with the sparse evidence within the text itself, and studies based upon it; in
others, the vast and growing body of comparative research has been helpful.
Nonetheless, in the field of Homeric studies all working assumptions will be to
some degree controversial. Ultimately, therefore, this second layer of my
analysis will be most persuasive to readers who share some of the assumptions I
adopt, and, one hopes, of interest to all those who share my sense that simply
ignoring the performance dimension is no good solution.17
This introductory chapter will lay out my approach to each of these questions,
exploring the constructs ‘divine audience’ and ‘Homer’s audience’. The
remainder of the book reads the Iliad more or less (p.8) sequentially. As will
become clear, my approach draws on and connects diverse areas of scholarship,
particularly narratology, oral theory, structuralism, discourse analysis, and the
study of visualization and enargeia (vivid immediacy) in Homeric poetics.
However, it was not conceived or undertaken as a reading of the Iliad through a
particular combination of theoretical lenses. The focus is and always has been on
the exploration of a simple question: to what extent might Homer be using the
gods’ role as observers to reflect on his own audience’s experience? Therefore,
while I have found it useful to adapt, for example, some narratological tools to
oral theory in order to describe the phenomena under investigation, I do not
develop a new theoretical model per se. The scope of the book is everywhere
determined by the pertinence of a given line of questioning for the explication of
the Iliad.
0.2. The ‘Divine Audience’

What is it in the text of the Iliad that has moved so many critics to liken the gods
to theatre-goers, or sports-fans, or viewers at a Festspiel ‘intended’ (gemeint) for
their pleasure? Behind the variety of comparanda, one detects a shared
perception: each of the comparanda just listed evokes the sense of a staged
event, an attraction arranged for a community of viewers that includes—or
consists of—gods. It is in this sense, therefore, that I will use the words
‘spectacle’ and ‘spectator’ unless otherwise noted (though the words could of
course have other and broader meanings), with the goal of achieving ever
greater specificity as the investigation proceeds. Scholarly discussions of the
Page 5 of 24

gods as ‘spectators’ tend to focus on a few prominent passages in which a god or

gods feels either enjoyment or pity while watching something happening at Troy.
A major objective of the present book is to show that these marked passages are
part of a complex, sophisticated conception of spectacle that evolves over the
course of the poem and functions as a complement to the story-telling.
Seeing has many functions in the Iliad, and is in no way limited to gods. For
warriors on the field, as often for the gods, to see a comrade pressed or killed is
impetus to action. More broadly, the depiction of characters in the act of seeing,
and their emotional responses to what they see, is one tool by which the poet
explores the significance of the (p.9) events his song preserves.18 To describe
the Iliad’s divine audience, then, it will be necessary to identify what sets them
apart as viewers, and how these differences matter for the poet’s representation
of his poem’s action as spectacle.
Let us begin by comparing two passages. Late in Book 5, Hector and Ares have
turned the tide in favour of the Trojans. As they slaughter Achaeans—so many
that the poet prefaces his list of the slain by re-invoking the Muses19—Hera
takes note:
Τοὺς δ’ ὡς οὖν ἐνόησε θεὰ λευκώλενος Ἥρη

αὐτίκ’ Ἀθηναίην ἔπεα πτερόεντα προσηύδα·
ὢ πόποι αἰγιόχοιο Διὸς τέκος Ἀτρυτώνη,
ἦ ῥ’ ἅλιον τὸν μῦθον ὑπέστημεν Μενελάῳ
Ἴλιον ἐκπέρσαντ’ εὐτείχεον ἀπονέεσθαι,
εἰ οὕτω μαίνεσθαι ἐάσομεν οὖλον Ἄρηα.
ἀλλ’ ἄγε δὴ καὶ νῶϊ μεδώμεθα θούριδος ἀλκῆς.
Ὣς ἔϕατ’, οὐδ’ ἀπίθησε θεὰ γλαυκῶπις Ἀθήνη…
– 5.711–19
But when the white-armed goddess Hera saw them

slaying Argives in the fierce fighting,
right away she spoke winged words to Athena:
‘Alas, Atrytone, daughter of aegis-bearing Zeus,
it was in vain then that speech we made to Menelaus –
that he would sack strong-walled Ilium and depart –
if we allow baneful Ares to rage like this.
But come! – let us, too, think of our fighting prowess!’
So she spoke, nor failed to convince the grey-eyed goddess, Athena…
‘Right away’ (αὐτίκα) the viewer enlists an ally, Athena, by exhorting her and
reminding her of past speeches. Both of the goddesses will now arm and
descend to the battlefield to assist the Argives. The passage closely resembles
those in which a mortal combatant based (p.10) on what he sees rouses
comrades on the field, or enters the mêlée, or both.20 In this passage Hera,
Page 6 of 24

though introduced as a goddess in the act of looking, would seem to read less as
a ‘divine audience’ than a divine ally within the conflict.21 If passages like 5.711–
19 were all we had, there would be no talk of gods watching as though at a
‘show’, and indeed I have not seen this passage discussed in such a context.
Now let us consider a slightly earlier passage, the opening of Book 4, which
presents one of the poem’s most iconic scenes of divine viewing:
Οἳ δὲ θεοὶ πὰρ Ζηνὶ καθήμενοι ἠγορόωντο

χρυσέῳ ἐν δαπέδῳ, μετὰ δέ σϕισι πότνια Ἥβη
νέκταρ ἐοινοχόει· τοὶ δὲ χρυσέοις δεπάεσσι
– 4.1–4
But the gods for their part, seated beside Zeus, were assembled
on the golden floor, and among them lady Hebe
was the ‘wine’-pourer of their nectar. And they with golden goblets
made toasts to each other, gazing upon the city of the Trojans.
At this moment, following the aborted duel between Paris and Menelaus, the
gods’ casual pleasure contrasts with the mortals’ anxious search for the missing
Paris, as hopes for a peaceful end to the deadly and interminable conflict begin
to vanish.22 One may point to several factors, not present in the Book 5 passage,
that contribute to a certain atmosphere of spectacle: the gods as a group (rather
than one god) are the subject of the verb of seeing; the imperfect verbs and
present participle convey activity extended over time (contrast aorist ἐνόησε
5.711); watching a battlefield duel is presented as an accompaniment to
drinking and the making of toasts. This last point can be expanded by noting
that the poet’s description not only sets a tone of light-hearted enjoyment, but
also locates the gods in a particular setting, (p.11) the daïs (banquet), where
conviviants are often treated to entertainment arranged for their pleasure. In
this passage, if anywhere, is discernible the inspiration for Nietzsche’s Festspiel:
the idea of the Trojan War as a festival play put on for gods and poets.
While these differences are immediately apparent, upon examining these two
scenes in their broader context one finds that they are variations on a type—and,
moreover, two parts of a larger episode of divine action. The scene in Book 4
introduces a discussion in which Zeus and Hera agree that the truce must not
hold. So, Zeus sends Athena down to enforce the gods’ will. Comparing these
events to Hera’s activity in the passage from Book 5, one sees that the two
scenes share a formal structure: (1) divine observation of Troy from Olympus;
(2) one god verbally challenges another; (3) the challenge provokes divine
intervention. Furthermore, the work of Hera and Athena on behalf of the
Achaean war effort in Book 5 is a direct continuation of the flurry of divine
involvement set in motion by the gods in the scene introduced by the opening
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lines of Book 4. These underlying similarities and connections between the two
passages, as well a certain basic similarity with scenes in which mortals are
spurred by viewing to act, highlight the need for a systematic approach to the
motif of divine observation in the poem.
The most often-cited paper on divine viewing and ‘spectacle’ in recent decades,
Jasper Griffin’s ‘The Divine Audience and the Religion of the Iliad’, while not
very systematic does aim to capture the big picture. As all Homeric scholars and
many other readers will have encountered this paper, it is worth pausing to
consider here. Griffin begins by noting that a conception of a divine gaze
‘looking after’ mortals, present in many other cultures, is discernible in the Iliad
too.23 ‘Looking after’ is associated especially with Zeus in his function as ‘a
moral, punishing god’, a ‘patron and avenger’, ‘observing human action with a
view to defense of his own and punishment of wrong-doers’. Yet in the Iliad,
Griffin writes, the gods are also sometimes shown merely ‘looking on, without
the necessary implication of action’.24 Instances of ‘looking on’ are marked by
the gods’ passivity, (p.12) and also an emotional response, either pleasure or
pity, on the basis of which Griffin suggests that the gods watch ‘human affairs’
as a ‘show’ or as a ‘tragedy’, respectively.25
Griffin is surely right to see the Iliad (or the tradition behind it) innovating
against the background of an earlier conception which linked divine viewing
closely with divine judgment. Yet the rough taxonomy he proposes, which locates
a conception of ‘spectacle’ in the distinction between ‘looking after’ and ‘looking
on’, does not do justice to the phenomena.
Let us look at Griffin’s examples.26 In 8.350, Hera sees and pities (ἰδοῦσ’ ἐλέησε)
Achaean fighters getting the worst of it. Griffin cites this line, without further
comment, as an example of gods looking on as though at a tragedy. Yet Hera
moves to act ‘immediately’ (αἶψα 8.351; cf. 5.713 αὐτίκα in the passage above).
Her passivity, if that is what it is, in this case lasts for only one hexameter line.
In a passage at the beginning of Book 8, Zeus seats himself on Ida to watch the
coming battle below.27 One does indeed have the impression that a show is
about to begin; yet it can hardly be accounted for by reference to passive
‘looking on’. One could even argue that the opposite is true: Zeus’ proximity (Ida
is closer than Olympus to Troy) serves in fact to signal the increased direct
control that he will now exercise over the battle, and Book 8 has the highest
concentration in the Iliad of references to Zeus’ control.28 Similarly, when Apollo
and Athena watch the duel between Aias and Hector in Book 7, the atmosphere
of spectacle is undeniable. Yet it is not clear that this atmosphere can be
explained by the gods’ passivity. Indeed, Apollo raises Hector back up after Aias
knocks him down (7.272). Apollo’s gaze from the nearby tree, like Zeus’ gaze
from Ida, seems connected to his function as a helper. The basic questions
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remain: what is it in these passages that communicates our sense that the gods
are watching a spectacle, and how is that spectacle defined?
When Zeus finds himself witness to the impending death of Hector, he laments:
ὢ πόποι ἦ ϕίλον ἄνδρα διωκόμενον περὶ τεῖχος / (p.13) ὀϕθαλμοῖσιν ὁρῶμαι·
ἐμὸν δ’ ὀλοϕύρεται ἦτορ / Ἕκτορος (‘Alas! that I see with my eyes a man dear to
me / pursued around the wall—my heart grieves / for Hector…’ 22.168–70).
Here, Griffin compares Zeus to the audience of a tragedy. But this reading does
not recognize the extent to which viewership and control are intertwined in this
passage.29 Zeus concludes by asking the assembled gods: μιν ἤδη / Πηλεΐδῃ
Ἀχιλῆϊ δαμάσσομεν (‘…should we now slay [Hector] through Achilles son of
Peleus?’…22.175–6)? Though Zeus takes no active hand in the slaying, nor does
any other god except Athena, he makes himself and the Olympians the subject of
the verb of killing. The implication that the divine audience could decide even at
this moment of ‘performance’ to call off the slaughter communicates complicity
beyond that shared by viewers of a staged theatrical performance. If
comparisons are worth making simply for the sake of illustration, I would
suggest that in terms of complicity the divine audience is rather like the crowd
gathered at a stoning. Not everyone watching may throw a rock, and not
everyone may be happy. But when it is all over, the chosen person is dead at the
hands of the crowd.
It is worth noting, finally, that ‘looking after’ no more precludes spectacle than
‘looking on’ accounts for it. In the opening of Book 24, Apollo’s case that the
gods should prevent Achilles from continuing to defile Hector’s corpse is based
first on Hector’s piety, which Zeus also cites when upholding Apollo’s side
against Hera. Apollo speaks further of a proper limit to rage, which Achilles has
exceeded. It would seem, then, that in preserving Hector’s body and then
agreeing it should be ransomed, the watching gods are fulfilling something close
to their traditional function, both in rewarding piety and policing the basic
mores that hold society together. Yet the verses leading up to their discussion
and decision convey an undeniable, riveting sense of spectacle: Achilles is
dragging Hector exactly three times around Patroclus’ funeral mound, every day
for nine days, before the eyes of the gods: ὣς ὃ μὲν Ἕκτορα δῖον ἀείκιζεν
μενεαίνων / τὸν δ᾿ ἐλεαίρεσκον μάκαρες θεοὶ εἰσορόωντες (‘in this way Achilles
in his rage was mistreating brilliant Hector; as for Hector, the blessed gods kept
looking (p.14) upon him with pity’ 24.22–3). The ritualistic elements could
hardly be more pronounced. Moreover, this scene, too, has a fair amount in
common with the opening of Book 4. As Book 4 begins with the aftermath of a
duel between Paris and Menelaus, witnessed by gods and men, for which
resolution is required, so the watching gods in 24 must bring resolution at last to
the aftermath of an equally spectacular duel between Hector and Achilles. In
both cases, the poet’s narrative shift to the watching gods constitutes a prelude
to their decisive intervention in a tense and uncertain situation. In one case the
intervention flies in the face of cultural expectations (the gods break the truce),
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while in the other the gods act to restore order (they end the defilement of
Hector’s body)—yet both scenes function through the careful cultivation of
paradigms of spectacle.
Any account of the gods as audience needs to confront directly the complex,
multiple ways in which they are implicated in what they see. Nearly every
depiction of divine viewing in the poem, even those in which gods appear
(temporarily) not to ‘act’, leads directly to divine intervention, or to divine
decision-making which can be considered final, or both.30 Further, one must pay
close attention in each passage to how the poet delineates the object of their
gaze. Divine viewing rarely if ever makes a spectacle; rather, it augments,
shapes, defines, alters an existing one. Finally, a holistic approach is needed,
which studies how the many instances of spectacular viewing fit into and help
shape the artistic effect of the poem as a whole.
Mark Stansbury-O’Donnell’s work on spectators in vase paintings provides a

useful way of thinking about these issues. Adapting the work of Roland Barthes,
Stansbury-O’Donnell defines ‘spectator’ or ‘observer’ figures in relation to a
painting’s ‘nucleus’, which is in turn defined in narrative terms as ‘the essential
action and its participants on which a narrative hinges’.31 Figure 0.1, a sixth-
century Attic black-figure amphora,32 shows Heracles wrestling a lion—the
struggle is the nucleus.
To the right, Athena and

Hermes are facing and
observing that nucleus. (The
identity of the two figures on
the left, who are positioned (p.
15) symmetrically with the
divine figures on the right, and
also observing, is uncertain.)
These images of the gods fit
Stansbury-O’Donnell’s ‘primary
criterion’ for defining the
spectator: ‘there needs to be
some kind of boundary, whether
temporal, spatial, or conceptual,
(p.16) between them and the
nucleus.’33 O’Donnell cites the
Iliad in his account of why
Athena in this vase represents a
spectator:
Figure 0.1. Sixth-century Attic black-

figure amphora depicting Heracles
Page 10 of 24

While she frequently appears wrestling a lion. Attributed to the Painter

in images of the deeds of of Berlin or the Painter of Tarquinia. The
Heracles, she is generally Art Institute of Chicago; Katherine K.
understood to be there as a Adler Memorial Fund, 1978.114.
protector and background Photo: The Art Institute of Chicago/Art
guide, but does not Resource, NY.
physically intervene in the
struggle. Indeed, if we think
of the appearances of the gods in the Iliad, it is often in disguise and their
presence is only realized after their departure. Their role is to instill
resolve for carrying out an action, rather than acting themselves.34
I would add that the spatial arrangement of the four observers, a pattern
familiar from countless other vases, contributes to making intelligible the
nucleus—it is literally as well as figuratively central, within concentric rings of
onlookers. Thus, by representing Athena, and doing so in this way, the artist
effectively communicates a fundamental separation between her role and that of
Heracles, which guides the viewer of the vase in constructing the narrative.
This vase and others like it provide another angle from which to think about
Greek artistic sensibilities of a time close to when the Iliad was composed. As in
the vase, the Iliad’s gods are separated both spatially (often) and conceptually
from what might be called the poem’s ‘essential action’—though the situation is
more complex than Stansbury-O’Donnell’s brief description of Iliadic practice
allows. Stansbury-O’Donnell’s analysis thus provides a useful conceptual
apparatus, despite and because of the difference in media. Most interesting for
my purposes is that it points to a new way of looking at a much-studied feature
of the text, an apparent paradox regarding the importance of the gods’ activities
in the Iliad. This is the often-remarked fact that however ubiquitous and
controlling the gods may seem to be, the Iliad’s central plot could be
summarized without much mention of the gods at all: as a result, the gods’
involvement reads simultaneously as both crucial and superfluous.35 This feature
(p.17) of the Iliad has been debated and used to defend all sorts of propositions
about Homeric (proto)theology, causation, metapoetics, and more.36 Yet looking
at vases may suggest another layer of significance to the paradox, encouraging
us to think about how narrative coherence interacts with spatial relationships, as
part of the artistic representation of spectacle.
Like the vase painter, Homer sometimes develops the spectacular quality of the
action by adding expanding circles, or perhaps better, tiers of onlookers: Trojans
up on their wall, just beyond the fighting; Olympians yet higher and further
away. In the case of the gods, distances vary, and indeed Homer sometimes
erases the spatial separation between a god and the essential action to great
effect—one might think of Athena’s position, practically on top of Heracles and
the lion. Even as distance varies, and gods’ involvement typically increases with
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proximity (though this too is an oversimplification, as we shall see), a certain

‘conceptual boundary’ is generally maintained. It is not that the gods are passive
—far from it. Rather, by telling an internally coherent story, one that can stand
(almost entirely) free without the gods, Homer in effect has fashioned a ‘nucleus’
of action with the Olympians located outside it. However deep the gods’
involvement, however fascinating they may be in their own right, to the extent
that we perceive the coherence of the poet’s central narrative, the gods will
seem to circle that nucleus, much as the vase painters have rendered them.
The Iliad is so successful in suggesting that the gods are on some level extra,
despite their own and mortal characters’ avowals to the contrary, that some
critics have gone so far as to relegate the entire divine apparatus to the role of
‘poetic ornamentation’ adorning a more fundamentally ‘real’ human story.37 This
is not my position. In (p.18) studying the artistry with which the gods are
rendered, it is not my intention to argue that they are somehow less ‘real’ than
Achilles or Hector—whom Homer also renders with great artistry. My aim is
rather, to recognize and try to understand the craftsmanship that makes the
poem. Denis Feeney’s words are worth quoting here:
One often hears professional classicists describing the gods in epic as a

literary device: and this is usually meant as a criticism. But criticizing the
gods in epic as a literary device is like criticizing the carburettors or
pistons in a car as an engineering device. ‘Of course they are’, and ‘What
else can they be?’ are the only replies possible.38
The gods speak in hexameter, not because Delphic oracles were delivered in
hexameter, but for the same reason that everyone else, from Thersites to
Xanthus the horse, speaks in hexameter—as a function of genre. As a critic, one
must bear in mind the possibility that any of the gods’ ‘marked’ qualities may
best be explained in terms of the constraints imposed by the poetic medium and
genre—or, depending on the critic’s evaluation of Homer’s success, by the
wonderful opportunities for creativity which medium and genre supply.
As the analysis in subsequent chapters will show, both spatial and conceptual
boundaries do much to define the Iliad’s central action as spectacle. The gods’
perspective plays a crucial role in making apparent both types of boundary: by
their unique and shifting levels of involvement, and by their bird’s-eye
perspective, that spatially defines an arena reaching from the Achaean ships to
the walls of Troy. Equally important however, are the poet’s many individual
choices as to when and how to direct attention to watching gods in any given
scene. The gods are not mentioned as viewers (and barely mentioned at all) in
Book 6, which depicts the farewell between Andromache and Hector, nor in Book
9, containing Achilles’ exploration of his own soul before the embassy. These
scenes are as visually compelling as any in the poem; a scholiast singles out for
praise, for instance, the enargeia of Astyanax drawing back from Hector’s
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shining helm.39 The gods may well be watching them too—but the poet does not
mention their activity one way or the other. It seems that in such cases (p.19)
the poet may want these scenes to be vivid, but does not want them to feel
staged or spectacular.40
Within the text of the Iliad itself, two culturally specific types of mass spectacle
are developed at great length and in depth: the formal battlefield duel, in Books
3 and 7, and funeral rites, in Book 23. As I will show, scenes involving divine
attention to the poem’s central action are typically constructed in such a way as
to evoke at least one of those two major paradigms of spectacle—for example
through the use of imagery, marked language, temporal sequencing, spatial
relationships, and direct reference. This book’s Appendix contains a list of Iliadic
passages in which a verb of seeing is predicated of one or more of the Olympian
gods; for each, I note the verb of seeing, its subject, and its stated or implied
object.41 Every one of these passages evoke specifically military or funeral
spectacle (as the final columns in the table shows), and nearly all of them come
in the context of a specific military or funeral spectacle that has been staged
within the text. Thus, the object of the gods’ gaze, when a gaze is explicitly
mentioned, is always struggle, burial, or mourning.42
Like the daïs itself, each of these two paradigms—formal duel and funeral rites—
carries its own suggestions as to purpose, stakes, and the viewers’ and actors’
proper roles. Powerful tensions are generated between the expectations
inherent in these paradigms on the one hand, and the gods’ behaviour and the
actual situation at Troy on the other. Coming back to the question with which
this section began: a good part of the reason that these gods have seemed to so
many critics to resemble the audience for an arranged event, I argue, is that
particular types of arranged event—daïs, formal duel, funeral rites—are indeed
among the strands of traditional poetic material out of which the divine audience
motif is woven.
(p.20) 0.3. ‘Homer’s Audience’

Every interpretation of the Iliad works from assumptions, whether explicit or
implicit, about its intended audience. I will try to make my main assumptions
explicit. The model I adopt, described here, is based on textual and comparative
evidence.
Our Iliad, regardless of the historical circumstances of its production, assumes a

live audience.43 I am not here concerned with describing an ‘original’ audience
for (or performance of) the Iliad, which is not only futile in practice, but
problematic in its very conception. From the perspective of an ‘evolutionary’
model of the poem’s development, the poem is a multiform with no original.44 On
the other hand, if one believes that the poem was composed and written down
by a literate poet well-versed in the oral tradition, or dictated to an
amanuensis,45 the ‘original’ audience turns out to be a figment of the poet’s
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imagination: he is not then performing in the traditional context from which his
poetic idiom derives, but only composing as though he were, using the same
traditional language and tropes.
While the Iliad does not necessarily have an original audience, it does imply an
audience.46 If it is notoriously difficult to say anything definite about the
circumstances of performance, it is both possible and necessary to ask what the
poem seems to expect from its audience, and what kind of experience it offers
them. The (p.21) Iliad’s own language occasionally provides insight into the
poet’s ongoing mediation between hoi nun (‘the men of today’) and the world of
their imagined past. Comparative studies of oral cultures provide another kind of
evidence; this is for the most part merely suggestive, but where phenomena
appear to be universal, they deserve careful consideration. Finally, the Odyssey’s
depictions of epic performances on Scheria and Ithaca, while not helpful for
establishing the circumstances of historical performances, can suggest
something about how the Iliad’s audience could be expected to imagine earlier
versions of themselves. After all, Homeric poetry’s claim to traditionality
encourages its audience to see itself as part of a continuum reaching all the way
into the mythical past, when Demodocus sang to the Phaeacians, and all the way
into the future, since Achilles’ kleos is undying.47
I will be using each of these types of evidence, with caution, throughout the
book, when discussing the audience assumed by the text, to whom the narrative
voice sings. The terms ‘(poet’s) audience’, ‘listening audience’ (or ‘listeners’),
‘extratextual audience’, and the ‘epic audience’ are all used to denote this same
construct; unless so stated, they never refer to any more particular or historical
audience. To refer to the corresponding performer assumed by the text, who we
must imagine as a physically present person singing to a live audience, I use
‘singer’, ‘poet’, ‘performer’, ‘bard’, and ‘narrator’ equivalently (varying between
them to emphasize different aspects of that figure’s role).
Today and in all times, to attend a live story-telling, theatrical, or musical

performance is not merely to appreciate artistry, but to feel that one is
participating in an event.48 Such participation is public; among the audience,
one is visible, potentially, to others in the (p.22) vicinity—and, in some cases, to
the performer as well.49 This is particularly important for the genre of epic,
since the poet purports to connect his audiences with their own past, in this way
generating and shaping a sense of shared cultural identity.50 In both Homeric
epics, the bard sometimes emphasizes shared experience in a way that links
audience and performer. Thus, the poet of the Odyssey urges the Muse to tell
Odysseus’ story ‘to us as well’ (καὶ ἡμῖν Od.1.10), thereby aligning himself with
his listeners.51 Similarly, when the Iliad poet appeals to the Muses prior to the
Catalogue of Ships, he effectively unites all those present in the setting of
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performance, human poet together with human audience, by setting their

uncertainty against the Muses’ knowledge by autopsy:
ὑμεῖς γὰρ θεαί ἐστε πάρεστέ τε ἴστέ τε πάντα

ἡμεῖς δὲ κλέος οἶον ἀκούομεν οὐδέ τι ἴδμεν.
– 2.485–6
For you are goddesses, and present, and know/have seen everything,
but we hear only the kleos and know/have seen nothing.
The two verses are structured around a contrast between ὑμεῖς (‘you’), the
Muses, and ἡμεῖς (‘we’), with the salient difference being access to the heroic
past. The present tense πάρεστε (‘you are present’), speaks in part to the Muses’
numinous ‘presence’ in the performance setting, inviting the audience to feel the
divine at work. Yet it also works within the ὑμεῖς/ἡμεῖς contrast: the grouping of
elements (p.23) encourages listeners to associate divinity (θεαί), presence
(πάρεστε), and knowledge/vision (ἴστε), and set them as a group against
mortality, distance, and ignorance/hearsay. Thus, listeners are encouraged to
conceive of mortals’ inability to connect directly with mythic Troy in terms of an
inability to see.52
This is most cleverly done, for in practice vision is part of the audience’s
experience of the story.53 A scholiast remarks of the funeral games for Patroclus
that ‘[the poet] has set forth the whole imaginative representation so vividly
(enargōs) as to render his listeners nothing less than spectators (theatai)’.54 In
fact, this observation applies not only to the funeral games, but to the epic as a
whole, which renders listeners spectators whenever ‘confrontations with things
seen place the unfolding of the poem before the audience’s eyes’.55 By
associating the ability to see Troy with the Muses’ divinity and live presence, the
poet imbues this visual experience with authenticity.
Further authenticity derives from the poet’s rhetoric throughout: when he

adopts the stance of an eye-witness, he regularly speaks as though he is
referring to something that both he and his listeners can plainly see before
them.56 In point of fact, of course, the mental (p.24) images viewed by the poet
will never be exactly the same as those of any given member of an audience, nor
any audience member’s just like another’s. Nevertheless, the poet’s rhetoric
fosters the impression that all parties are seeing the same thing. Through these
strategies, the poet encourages audiences to feel that they are all engaged in a
single collective experience—both as recipients of the Muses’ words, and as
virtual eye-witnesses of the action. In effect, he becomes a guide for them in
experiencing the past to which they, with and through him, are being given
privileged access.
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In other ways, of course, the poet’s role is quite distinct from that of his
listeners. If a performer is good, today as in the past, all eyes will be on him or
her. English-speakers today often speak of ‘seeing’ musical and other ostensibly
aural performances, implicitly acknowledging the important element of
spectacle in the setting of performance: e.g., ‘did you ever see the Beatles in
concert?’ Similarly, though we tend to think of Homeric epic as verbal art, the
rhapsodes’ audiences are called theatai (‘spectators’).57 After the bard-like
Odysseus has fallen silent, Alcinoos indicates that the Phaeacians’ gaze has been
fixed upon him (εἰσορόωντες Od.11.363); no doubt he held their gaze while
speaking, too. Gregory Nagy has suggested that ‘the “I” of the Iliad proem’s “Tell
me, Muse” is perhaps the most dramatic of all the characters in heroic song—
once we see this song on the level of performance as well as composition’.58
While the ‘level of performance’ is in most ways forever inaccessible to us, it
nevertheless seems clear that while Homer as a narrator has often been judged
unobtrusive, as a performer he will never be invisible.
Given the poem’s interest in providing and shaping a shared viewing experience
for a participatory audience, it is possible at least in principle that the gods, as
actual viewers of the action, may be serving in part to model and manipulate
that experience. Similarly, since each member of the audience will be aware at
all times of the poet and performance underway, it is possible at least in
principle that the gods are dramatizing potential responses to the poet’s
intimations about what is coming next.
(p.25) ‘The Iliad is not a self-reflective poem: nowhere do we find a poet

performing an epic or even a fragment of an epic for the kings in private or in
public.’59 With these words from a paper on ‘The Odyssey as Performance
Poetry’, Oswyn Murray articulates a widely shared perception about the Iliad. In
his paper, Murray advances the project taken up by many scholars, of showing
how the Odyssey’s internal performances of epic—and Odysseus’ own bard-like
storytelling—serve to explore the purpose and nature of its medium.60 By
contrast, the only Iliadic representation of epic performance is an enigmatic, six-
line description of Achilles singing while Patroclus waits.61 Yet the lack of a
Demodocus or Phemius need not rule out the Iliad’s interest in performance
dynamics. In fact, given that both poems emerge at (roughly) the same time and
from the same tradition, and given all that they share artistically, finding such
preoccupations in the Odyssey makes it relatively more likely, a priori, that one
may find them expressed in some form in the Iliad too. At any rate, the fact of
the Odyssey should make it impossible to claim that the Iliad is incapable of
sophisticated self-reflection of this kind.
In the next chapter I will begin to make the case that the gods play a crucial role
in helping the poet not only to manage, but also to advertise, the process by
which his performance is supposed to connect audiences to the world of their
own people’s past. This role emerges already in the poem’s opening lines. It is
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accomplished through a delightful Homeric ambiguity, one which Nietzsche

preserves by asserting that in Homer, ‘Trojan Wars and other tragic terrors’
were ‘intended’ as festival plays. Nietzsche does not specify who has ‘intended’
them. His words could be understood to point to Homer, or the gods, or both as
the designers of the tragic terrors in question—and indeed, in the Iliad, the
guiding hands of both Homer and Zeus can be felt from the very beginning. It is
sometimes difficult to distinguish these layers of ‘staging’ in the poem’s action.
Yet the question of their relationship is crucial to this study, for it is in no small
part through the staging, and the display of staging operations, that the
spectacle at Troy is defined. (p.26)
Notes:
(1) ‘Mit welchen Augen glaubt ihr denn, dass Homer seine Götter auf die
Schicksale der Menschen niederblicken liess? Welchen letzten Sinn hatten im
Grunde trojanische Kriege und ähnliche tragische Furchtbarkeiten? Man kann
gar nicht daran zweifeln: sie waren als Festspiele für die Götter gemeint: und,
insofern der Dichter darin mehr als die übrigen Menschen “göttlich” geartet ist,
wohl auch als Festspiele für die Dichter’ (Nietzsche 1991: 299). (The English
translation used here and elsewhere is that of Kaufmann and Hollingdale 1967:
69.)
(2) Along with Festspiel Nietzsche uses Schauspiel (‘show’) in the essay from
which the quotation that heads this chapter is taken. Examples from other
writers abound: e.g. Fränkel 1921: 32 n. 1 (Schauspiel); Kullmann 1956: 84;
Griffin 1978: 1 ‘a show put on for the divine diversion’.
(3) Comparisons to theatre go back at least as far as Plato and Aristotle.

Herington 1985 and Rutherford 2001 (originally 1982) are among the most
influential recent treatments of the diachronic relationship between Homeric
epic and Athenian drama. See also the interesting reflections of Lynn-George
1988 in his chapter on ‘The Epic Theatre’. Redfield 1994 reads the Iliad in part
through an Aristotelian lens, as a work containing within it the tragedy of
Hector. Clay 2011 uses the theatre metaphor to connect her book’s themes of
viewing (dramatic theatre), memory (the Renaissance ‘theater of memory’) and
space (‘theater of war’) in the Iliad. For the importance of athletics as an
intratextual paradigm of spectacle used by the Iliad to construct the divine
audience, see Chapter 5.
(4) Pl. Ion 535e. On ‘prurient thrills’ and terror as ‘recreational emotions’ in
Homer, see Hesk 2013, which explores the interplay between the ‘cinematics’ of
Iliad 10 and the emotions provoked throughout the episode.
(5) ‘Erhabener Unernst’ Reinhardt 1960: 25; the English translation ‘sublime
frivolity’ is that of Griffin 1980: 199.
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(6) For the text of Homer throughout this book I have used the Oxford Classical
Text by Monro and Allen, except for Il.1.5 where I prefer δαῖτα to πᾶσι. All
translations of Greek are my own except where noted. On the Iliad’s gods and
tragic choruses, cf. Bremer 1987: 42. For a different use of the idea expressed by
Zeus in Il.17.445–46, see Od.18.129–31. On 17.445–46, see further Chapter 4, p.
168-69.
(7) Achilles: αὐτοὶ δέ τ’ ἀκηδέες εἰσί Il.24.526. Hera: κήδετο γὰρ Δαναῶν, ὅτι ῥα
θνήσκοντας ὁρᾶτο. 1.56. Kim 2000: 53–8 shows that the word in cases like 1.56
(discussed specifically on pp. 55–6) is essentially synonymous with the verb
eleairein ‘to pity’.
(8) Konstan 2001: 107–12 outlines the movement from Homer, where the ‘gods
know what it is to lose a dear one’, to tragedy, ‘by its nature…the wrong genre in
which to look for divine compassion’.
(9) For breaking down the complexities of (partially) shared ‘perspective’

between audience/readers and characters, I have found Rabel 1997 and Gervais
2013 particularly helpful—see Chapter 1.
(10) Ἔνθά κεν οὐκέτι ἔργον ἀνὴρ ὀνόσαιτο μετελθών, of a hypothetical human
observer (5.439), closely resembles οὐδέ κ’ Ἄρης λαοσσόος οὐδέ κ’ Ἀθήνη / τόν
[i.e. the ἄγριος μῶλος] γε ἰδοῦσ’ ὀνόσαιτο, of Ares and Athena (17. 398–9; cf.
also 13.126–8), as Griffin notes (1978: 15). See further Chapter 2.
(11) Nietzsche’s emphasis on the gods’ cruelty suits the broader thesis of his
essay (number two in On the Genealogy of Morals), which characterizes pre-
modern peoples in general as ‘cheerfully’ unconcerned with and unashamed of
cruel impulses. Even in its narrow application to the Iliad, Nietzsche’s thesis is
too one-sided: divine pleasure is far less frequently depicted than divine anger,
pity, and grief, to say nothing of the importance of pity for the poem as a whole.
Nevertheless, Nietzsche is wonderfully attentive to the important audience
sense of a shared, public experience, in addressing aesthetic and ethical
questions. ‘The entire mankind of antiquity is full of tender regard for “the
spectator,” as an essentially public, essentially visible world which cannot
imagine happiness apart from spectacles and festivals.—And, as aforesaid, even
in great punishment there is so much that is festive!’ (Nietzsche 1991: 299;
trans. Kaufmann and Hollingdale 1967: 69.)
(12) Ps.-Longinus in De Sublimitate 9.7 is undoubtedly right to point to the

feelings of astonishment or wonder (ταῦτα ϕοβερά) Homer can produce by
bringing gods and humans closer together: Ὅμηρος γάρ μοι δοκεῖ…τοὺς μὲν ἐπὶ
τῶν Ἰλιακῶν ἀνθρώπους ὅσον ἐπὶ τῇ δυνάμει θεοὺς πεποιηκέναι, τοὺς θεοὺς
δὲ ἀνθρώπους (‘Homer seems to me…in the Iliad, as much as he was able, to
have made men gods and the gods [or perhaps “his gods”] men’). Lovatt 2013:
31 suggests that ‘by making the gods comprehensible in human terms’, Homer
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creates a ‘fantasy’ that ‘contains the seeds of its own dissolution’—that is, it
contains reminders that it is impossible fully to represent the divine.
(13) Cf. Ford 1992: 54–5; Ledbetter 2003: Chapter 1 (on the ‘quasi-perceptual
knowledge’ offered by poet to audience); Graziosi and Haubold 2010: 1–8; Clay
2011: Chapter 1 on ‘The Sighted Muse’.
(14) Moira and the related terms aisa and moros have a range of meanings
related to allotment or apportioning. However, I am interested specifically in
their use to convey the idea that a series of events has an allotted and therefore
necessary outcome; in such cases, the terms appear to be used interchangeably.
For the terms and their histories see Dietrich 1967: esp. 249–83; Yamagata 1994
Chapter 7; Sarischoulis 2008: esp. 27–99. Sarischoulis 2008 persuasively argues
on the basis of an exhaustive analysis of the relevant terms in both Homeric
texts that no concept ‘fate’ can be abstracted from them: ‘Meine Untersuchung
zeigt also, dass die “traditionelle” Interpretation der sogenannten
Schicksalsbegriffe als umfassend das “Schicksal” bezeichnende Ausdrücke nicht
zutreffend ist’ (127). Accepting this conclusion, and recognizing that ‘fate’ is an
incurably loaded word in any case, I avoid the term here. Though this practice
sometimes necessitates unwieldly language, it seems worth avoiding the
potentially pernicious baggage that ‘fate’ may bring to the discussion.
(15) For the spell-binding power of Homeric poetry, especially as represented by

the verb θέλγειν, see Halliwell 2011: 36–55, esp. 47–51. Thelxis, the noun form
of the verb, though post-Homeric is often used in Homeric criticism.
(16) Cf. Elmer 2013: 151.
(17) Most, though not all, commentators today would agree that the poem’s
relationship to oral culture is important to the extent that it can be described.
Even those who imagine a literate Homer (following West 2011, for instance)
might be expected to agree with that claim—as long as this literate Homer was
himself a practitioner of traditional oral poetry. The alternative would be to
suppose that this literate Homer had generations of readers in mind while
composing, rather than the audiences whose presence helped define the medium
in which he was trained.
(18) Slatkin 2007 is invaluable on this point. As Slatkin notes: ‘Seeing [i.e. in the
Iliad] comes to mean many things: to see is to take aim, know, wonder, desire,
fear, be summoned to action, record in memory; it comes to mean, one might
say, what stands forth as the substance of the poem…“Seeing” encodes what has
been able to be seen: to have been cited, selected, arranged, sung, resung, as
worthy of notice’ (28). For the semantics of Greek words of seeing, see Prier
1989.
Page 19 of 24

(19) ἔνθα τίνα πρῶτον τίνα δ᾽ ὕστατον ἐξενάριξαν / Ἕκτωρ τε Πριάμοιο πάϊς
καὶ χάλκεος Ἄρης; ‘Then whom first and whom last did they kill—Hector son of
Priam and brazen Ares?’ 5.703–4.
(20) For the close connection in the Iliad between pitying one’s friends and
taking action accordingly, see Kim 2000: 26, with bibliography.
(21) Just over 100 lines earlier, the same formula is used of a combined
intervention by mortals and gods: Hector spurred to action when he sees (ἐνόησε
5.590) Antilochus and Menelaus slaying Trojans—and Ares and Enyo join him in
his onrush (5.592–5). Clearly, there is not necessarily any firm line between
mortal and divine ‘intervention’ in such cases.
(22) See Lovatt 2013: 39–43 for the importance of the divine gaze in effecting
transitions between scenes.
(23) Griffin 1978: 1–2. In particular, the idea of gods ‘looking after’ informs the
speech and thoughts of several mortal characters. Whether and how the Iliad’s
gods themselves are concerned with mortal justice is another matter, on which
Allan 2006 is lucid and engaging.
(24) Griffin 1978: 1–2, 5.
(25) Griffin 1978.
(26) The following passages, together with 4.1–4 (discussed earlier) constitute
five of the six examples cited by Griffin to illustrate his idea of gods ‘looking on’.
The sixth is Zeus’ pitying look at Sarpedon, with many similarities to his pity for
Hector.
(27) 8.51–2: καθέζετο κύδεϊ γαίων / εἰσορόων Τρώων τε πόλιν καὶ νῆας Ἀχαιῶν
(‘he took his seat, revelling in his glory (kudos), gazing upon the city of the
Trojans and the ships of the Achaeans’).
(28) Therefore Griffin’s disclaimer on p. 5 is not adequate.
(29) The relationship between observation and control has been generally
neglected in discussions which treat either one or the other or, sometimes, treat
both but separately. In the late twentieth century, it became a commonplace to
note that the gods are both observers and actors in the Iliad’s drama, but
without much attempt to consider the relationship between those two roles.
Recent years have seen a welcome shift: note Lovatt 2013, Elmer 2013.
(30) See the Appendix for all instances of divine viewing that feature of a verb of
seeing. A truly exceptional case is Zeus and Hera’s gently barbed, personal
conversation during mourning rites for Patroclus in Book 19, which strongly
Page 20 of 24

suggests that they are observing the rites as they talk together, despite the lack
of a verb of seeing, and with no intervention or decision following.
(31) Stansbury-O’Donnell 2006: 236; cf. ibid 12.
(32) From Stansbury-O’Donnell 2006: 14. RC 3984. Art Institute of Chicago.
(33) Stansbury-O’Donnell has here adapted some of Barthes’ work on literature

to the medium of paintings. It may seem odd that I, treating poetry, use the
adaptation for painting rather than the original—yet it is the visual and the
spatial that are important here.
(34) Stansbury-O’Donnell 2006: 15.
(35) E.g. Lloyd-Jones 1971: 10: ‘…the part played by the god can always be
subtracted without making nonsense of the action.’ Cf. Janko 1994: 4: ‘It is a
remarkable paradox that nearly every important event in the Iliad is the doing of
a god, and that one can give a clear account of the poem’s entire action with no
reference to the gods at all.’ These (representative) remarks may overstate the
case, since some events, such as Paris’ removal to Troy in Book 3, are hard to
account for without reference to the gods.
(36) See, for instance, Dodds 1951: 7, 16 for ‘over-determination’ in Homeric

causality, and Lesky 2001: 201 for ‘the Homeric conception of collaborating
divine and human forces’. Erbse 1986: 299 sees the gods’ agency as a creation
of Homer, that serves as a substitute for free agency on the part of the mortal
characters.
(37) Bremer 1987: 32 cites several prominent scholars’ avowals of the

extraneousness of ‘the so-called Gӧtterapparat’. Kirk 1974: 292 calls ‘certain
divine actions (for example Athena tugging Achilles’ hair in the first book of the
Iliad to stop him losing his temper with Agamemnon)…little more than façons de
parler’, and is taken to task for it by Griffin 1980: 147.
(38) Feeney 1991: 2, introducing a book-length study on the generic features of

gods in epic from Homer to ‘silver’ Latin, and their reception by scholiasts.
(39) ΣbT at 6.467.
(40) In playing down the ‘staged’ character, the poet may also be emphasizing
the autonomy of the mortals’ decisions: cf. Lesky 2001: 173 on the embassy
scene.
(41) As Lovatt 2013: 23 points out, a verb of seeing is not needed to convey that a
god is looking. However, the use of a verb of seeing does give emphasis to that
aspect of the gods’ activity.
Page 21 of 24

(42) A possible exception comes in Book 24—the last explicit statement of divine
viewing in the poem. When Zeus looks down and pities Priam on his journey to
Achilles’ tent, it is true that no funeral or military struggle is underway.
Nevertheless, the scene has affinities with a descent to the underworld (the
continuation, in a sense, of funerary spectacle that has been a focus since Book
18); see further Chapter 5, p. 206.
(43) For ‘oral-derived texts’, see Foley 1997: 159–65, with a discussion of the
difficulties in trying to assess the importance of the poems’ oral roots against
their undeniable textuality.
(44) Nagy 2003: 1–19 is a succinct formulation of his influential, if controversial,

evolutionary model. Seaford 1994: 144–54 sees the late sixth century as the
likeliest time for a relative ‘fixation’ of the text.
(45) Martin West for instance was of the opinion that ‘our Iliad took on its
definitive form as it was written down’ (West 2001: 3; cf. the introduction to
West 2011). Janko 1998: 1–13 differs from West on many points but not on this
main one. Towards the end of the twentieth century, the majority of scholars
seems to have preferred a late eighth-century dating of the Iliad, but that may be
changing in the twenty-first century (cf. Jensen 2011: 295–6 n. 48, with
bibliography). Richard Janko’s statistical study of linguistic forms (Janko 1982)
remains the strongest evidence in support of an earlier dating. Ready 2015
interestingly argues that, if dictated, the Homeric epics ‘should be understood as
co-creations of the poet, scribe, and collector’ (2).
(46) For a look at Iser’s construct the ‘implied reader’ in the context of oral
culture, see Foley 1991: 38–60, esp. 38–45. Bakker 2009 issues an important
reminder that performance, which is assumed by the text, requires a living,
physically present performer—as opposed to the fictive ‘implied author’ of
narratology—and corresponding live audience. See further Chapter 1.
(47) Murray 1991: 95 is interesting here: ‘…it may indeed be that our problem in
envisaging a physical context for the performance of the Homeric poems relates
to the fact that the Homeric descriptions are themselves attempts to
accommodate the role of the poet to a changing environment.’ Dalby 1995
argues for a difference in economic and social classes between the audiences of
the aoidoi (‘singers’) depicted in the texts, and those of historical singers. For
Achilles’ undying kleos (‘glory’) see Il.9.413.
(48) This is also true of the lecture hall. Why do students attend lectures they
could watch on YouTube? Physical presence adds an edge to the experience.
Awareness of the others physically present in attendance raises the stakes,
thereby increasing interest and pleasure in the case of a good performance—or,
in a poor performance, making the agony unbearable.
Page 22 of 24

(49) Plato’s rhapsode Ion describes his view of the audience: καθορῶ γὰρ
ἑκάστοτε αὐτοὺς ἄνωθεν ἀπὸ τοῦ βήματος κλάοντάς τε καὶ δεινὸν ἐμβλέποντας
καὶ συνθαμβοῦντας τοῖς λεγομένοις. Pl.Ion.535e1.
(50) Given that Homeric epic does seem to have developed in conjunction with
and as part of a panhellenizing movement (on which v. e.g. Osborne 1996
Chapters 4 and 5, esp. 157–8), it seems likely to me that the idea of the Achaean
laos (folk, people) as a ‘founding people’ is embedded in the text. ‘Founding
people’ is the phrase of Haubold 2000, who analyses the laos both within the
Homeric texts and from the perspective of historical Athenian audiences. See
also Jensen’s survey of the issues involved in defining epic, including the
importance of truth about ‘deeds significant to the community’ (Jensen 2011: 23–
7). Havelock 1963 sees enormous significance in the role of poetry, especially
Homeric epic, for shaping the world-view and collective psyche of the Greeks of
Plato’s day. Of course, a rhetoric of traditionality and claims to truth do not in
itself guarantee, from an historical perspective, the antiquity of what is being
presented as traditional; for the rhetoric of traditionality in Homer, see Scodel
2002: 65–89.
(51) Bakker 2009: 134 has a novel interpretation of this ‘too’ (καὶ) as indicating
‘an inclusion in what Odysseus already knew: “to us, too”—in addition to
Odysseus’.
(52) On this passage, see also Purves 2010a: 32–8; Clay 2011: 16.
(53) See for example Pseudo-Longinus 15.26 and 26.1. As Ford 1992: 54 notes,
Longinus and the other ancient critics appear to be theorizing ‘what was
apparently a real psychological effect of performance’. On the viewing
experience of the audience see Ford 1992: 49–56, Bakker 1993, 13–14; Bakker
1999: 18; Bakker 2001; Slatkin 2007; and Clay 2011: 14–37 with further
bibliography. Odyssean accounts of epic likewise suggest the importance of the
visual element. As Macleod 2001: 300 comments on Od.8.487–91, ‘what makes
Demodocus’ poem good is not only its truth but its authenticity: it is as if it were
an eyewitness account because it makes the events come alive in the hearer’s
imagination.’
(54) bT Scholia at 23. 362: πᾶσαν ϕαντασίαν ἐναργῶς προβέβληται ὡς μηδὲν

ἧττον τῶν θεατῶν ἐσχηκέναι τοὺς ἀκροατάς. Translation is that of Clay 2011: 6.
(55) Slatkin 2007: 19. Alcinous praises Odysseus’ bard-like qualities in part by
saying that his narrative is not one ὅθεν κέ τις οὐδὲ ἴδοιτο (Od.11.366), which
might be translated either ‘from which no one could learn anything’ (Lattimore)
or ‘from which one does not see’ (Graziosi and Haubold 2010: 4).
Page 23 of 24

(56) The work of Egbert Bakker has been particularly important in this area.
Bakker 2005: 114–35 argues for a deictic significance to the Homeric verbal
augment. Bakker 1993 analyses the narrator’s use of ‘evidentials’, ‘typically used
in conversation when a speaker wants to convey that he or she thinks that what
he or she says is obvious, not only to himself or herself, but to the addressee as
well, or better: visible (δῆλον), present already in the mental or physical context
shared between speaker and addressee’ (13). Visualization will indeed have been
an important part of the poet’s experience and practice of his art: for
bibliography and discussion of scholarship emphasizing the importance of
visualization for practising performers of traditional story-telling, see Clay 2011:
28–9. Further discussion in Chapter 1.
(57) E.g. Pl.Ion.535d8: Οἶσθα οὖν ὅτι καὶ τῶν θεατῶν τοὺς πολλοὺς ταὐτὰ ταῦτα
ὑμεῖς ἐργάζεσθε; Of course, this text is relatively late.
(58) Nagy 1996: 80.
(59) Murray 2008: 164.
(60) A few recent examples include: Walsh 1984; Pucci 1987; Segal 1992, 1994;
Doherty 1995; Zervou 2007; Murray 2008.
(61) 9.186–91. Frontisi-Ducroux 1986 uses this image as the starting point for a
study of Iliadic self-reflexivity.
Page 24 of 24

Appendix Instances of Divine Viewing in the Iliad

on Mount Olympus
Tobias Myers

Print ISBN-13: 9780198842354
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198842354.001.0001
(p.211) Appendix Instances of Divine Viewing

in the Iliad
Tobias Myers
This table includes each instance in which the narrator makes explicit reference
to a god’s gaze.
The object of viewing is specified wherever possible.
I have omitted cases of one god looking at another during face-to-face

conversation.1
For simplicity’s sake, I have also omitted most cases in which characters (divine
or otherwise) refer to (real or hypothetical) divine viewing. (p.214)
Page 1 of 6

Viewer Object
(p.212) 1.56 Hera ὁρᾶτο Achaeans dying of plague2 [Ἀχαιοὺς] θνήσκοντας
3.374 Aphrodite ὀξὺ νόησε [Menelaus about to kill –

Paris]
4.4 the Olympians εἰσορόωντες Troy (gods here cast as Τρώων πόλιν
audience for duel; see
Chapter 2)
5.711 Hera ἐνόησε Achaeans dying in battle τούς…Ἀργείους

ὀλέκοντας ἐνὶ κρατερῇ
ὑσμίνῃ
5.846 Ares ἴδε Diomedes nearby (on the Διομήδεα δῖον

battlefield)
7.17–18 Athena ἐνόησε Achaeans dying in battle τούς…Ἀργείους

ὀλέκοντας ἐνὶ κρατερῇ
ὑσμίνῃ
7.444 the Olympians θηεῦντο Achaean wall and/or its μέγα ἔργον Ἀχαιῶν
3 χαλκοχιτώνων
construction
8.52 Zeus εἰσορόων Troy and the Achaean Τρώων τε πόλιν καὶ νῆας
ships (Z. cast as viewer/ Ἀχαιῶν
director of battle)
8.132 Zeus ὀξὺ νόησε [Diomedes pressing the –

Trojans]
Page 2 of 6
Viewer Object
8.350 Hera ἰδοῦσα the Achaeans [being τούς

pressed to the ships]
8.397 Zeus ἴδε [Hera and Athena leaving –

Olympus, to join in the
battle]
10.516 Apollo ἴδε Athena attending Ἀθηναίην μετὰ Τυδέος

Diomedes υἱὸν ἕπουσαν4
11.73 Eris εἰσορόωσα [fierce battle joined] –
11.82–3 Zeus εἰσορόων Troy and the Achaean Τρώων τε πόλιν καὶ νῆας
ships; bronze flashing; Ἀχαιῶν / χαλκοῦ τε
men killing and dying στεροπήν, ὀλλύντάς τ’
ὀλλυμένους τε
11.336–7 Zeus καθορῶν [the fighting] –
13.3–6… Zeus τρέπεν ὄσσε ϕαεινώ… the lands of the ἐϕ’ ἱπποπόλων Θρῃκῶν…
καθορώμενος Thracians, Mysians, and αἶαν / Μυσῶν τ’
Abians (see Chapter 4) ἀγχεμάχων καὶ ἀγαυῶν
ἱππημολγῶν /
γλακτοϕάγων Ἀβίων τε
δικαιοτάτων ἀνθρώπων
13.10–11 Poseidon οὐδ’ ἀλαοσκοπιὴν εἶχε… the warfare and fighting πτόλεμόν τε μάχην τε
θαυμάζων
Page 3 of 6
Viewer Object
13.13–14 Poseidon ἐϕαίνετο μέν…ϕαίνετο δέ Troy and the Achaean πᾶσα μὲν Ἴδη, / ϕαίνετο
ships and Ida δὲ Πριάμοιο πόλις καὶ
νῆες Ἀχαιῶν
14.155, 157–8 Hera εἰσεῖδε…ἔγνω…εἰσεῖδε Poseidon busy on the [sc. Ποσειδάωνα]

battlefield; Zeus sitting ποιπνύοντα μάχην ἀνὰ
on Ida’s peak κυδιάνειραν; Ζῆνα δ’ ἐπ’
ἀκροτάτης κορυϕῆς
πολυπίδακος Ἴδης /
ἥμενον
(p.213) 15.6–8 Zeus ἴδε the Trojans roused up; Τρῶας καὶ Ἀχαιοὺς / τοὺς
the Achaeans in rout; μὲν ὀρινομένους, τοὺς δὲ
Poseidon among them κλονέοντας ὄπισθεν/
Ἀργείους, μετὰ δέ σϕι
Ποσειδάωνα ἄνακτα
15.9 Zeus ἴδε Hector lying on the plain, Ἕκτορα δ’ ἐν πεδίωι…

struggling to breathe, κείμενον5
vomiting blood; Trojans
around him
[15.44 – reported by Hera Poseidon ἰδών Achaeans pressed to the τειρομένους δ’ ἐπὶ
ships νηυσὶν…Ἀχαιούς. ]
15.599–600 Zeus μένε…ὀϕθαλμοῖσιν battle (he is waiting to νηὸς καιομένης σέλας

ἰδέσθαι see the ships ablaze)
Page 4 of 6
Viewer Object
16.431 Zeus ἰδών Patroclus and Sarpedon τούς

(attacking each other)
16.644–5 Zeus οὐδέ ποτε…τρέψεν…ὄσσε the battle over ἀπὸ κρατερῆς ὑσμίνης
ϕαεινώ Sarpedon’s corpse
17.441 Zeus ἰδών immortal horses weeping μυρομένω…τώ

for Patroclus
19.340 Zeus ἰδών old men weeping μυρομένους…τούς
[20.23 – announces he Zeus ὁρόων battle (Z. cast as viewer –]

will watch of coming battle with
gods and mortals)
20.288 Poseidon ὀξὺ νόησε [Aeneas attacking –

Achilles]
21.390 Zeus ὁρᾶτο the gods fighting θεοὺς ἔριδι ξυνιόντας
22.166 the Olympians ὁρῶντο Achilles pursuing Hector –

round Troy
24.23 the Olympians εἰσορόωντες Hector dragged round by τόν

Achilles
24.332 Zeus ἰδών Priam on his way to γέροντα

Achilles’ tent
Page 5 of 6
Notes:
(1) For example, not on the chart is Zeus’ dark look at Ares on Olympus (τὸν δ’
ἄρ’ ὑπόδρα ἰδὼν προσέϕη νεϕεληγερέτα Ζεύς 5.888), nor his lustful look at Hera
on Ida (Ἥρη δὲ κραιπνῶς προσεβήσετο Γάργαρον ἄκρον / Ἴδης ὑψηλῆς. ἴδε δὲ
νεϕεληγερέτα Ζεύς. ὡς δ’ ἴδεν, / ὥς μιν ἔρως πυκινὰς ϕρένας ἀμϕεκάλυψεν, /
οἷον ὅτε πρῶτόν περ ἐμισγέσθην ϕιλότητι / εἰς εὐνὴν ϕοιτῶντε, ϕίλους λήθοντε
τοκῆας. 14.292–6).
(2) This passage comes in the context of funeral fires, and the poet’s use of battle
imagery to describe the plague; see Chapter 2.
(3) This passage comes in the context of burial rites: see Chapter 3.
(4) I am not much concerned here with the question of the authenticity of Book
10, as the contents of Book 10 turn out to have little bearing on the study.
(5) Full quote: πεδίῳ ἴδε κείμενον, ἀμϕὶ δ᾽ ἑταῖροι / εἵαθ᾽, ὃ δ᾽ ἀργαλέῳ ἔχετ᾽
ἄσθματι κῆρ ἀπινύσσων / αἷμ᾽ ἐμέων, ἐπεὶ οὔ μιν ἀϕαυρότατος βάλ᾽ Ἀχαιῶν.
Page 6 of 6

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Index of Homeric Passages

on Mount Olympus
Tobias Myers

Print ISBN-13: 9780198842354
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198842354.001.0001
(p.225) Index of Homeric Passages

Iliad
1.1–5 34–36, 43–46, 54–55, 148–149, 152–153, 174–175
1.5 40
1.1–9 27–29
1.11–20 35–36
1.49–56 68–69
1.56 4n.7
1.188–96 69–70
1.423–24 67–68
1.494–95 67–68
1.601–4 36
1.533–2.2 67–68
1.601–4 76–77
2.1–2.15 71
2.39–40 71
2.155–56 71–72, 95–96
2.446–54 72
2.455–93 72
2.486–86 21–23
2.773–75 79n.31
3.1–14 73
3.11–12 150
3.29–46 75–76
3.73–75 74n.17
3.76–85 74
3.123 162, 180–181
3.126–27 197–198
3.126–38 83–87, 138–139, 180–181
3.132–38 186–187
3.154–224 75
3.276–80 67n.4, 127
Page 1 of 6

3.281–91 127–129
3.303–9 191
3.315 75
3.340–43 183–184
3.341–49 80–81
3.451–54 150
3.357–58 100–102
3.374 73
3.451–4.14 78
4.1–4 10–11, 61–62, 72–73, 76–80, 91–93, 134–135
4.5–19 79–82, 85–94, 100–101
4.17 165
4.20–29 94–96, 100–101
4.30–37 96–99
4.39–49 99
4.64–72 99–102
4.75–86 80–81
4.119–21 103n.86
4.220–25 102–104
4.429–31 103n.86
4.446–51 144–145
4.470–72 85
4.455–538 105–106
4.539–45 103n.86, 104–108, 167–168
5.1–8 107
5.85–86 103n.86
5.439 4n.10, 107–108
5.590–95 10n.21
5.711–19 9–11, 109n.2
6.403 125–126, 185n.19
6.409–10 185n.19
6.467 18–19
6.497–502 31n.11, 126n.33
6.502 185n.19
6.518–7.2 118–120
7.4–20 120–121
7.17–36 110, 121–124, 132
7.44–54 114n.13
7.49–51 186–187
7.50 126–127
7.55–66 115
7.59–60 143–144
7.76–91 128–131
7.228–30 131
7.272 12, 124–125, 131
7.279–82 110–111, 131
7.290–93 110–111, 131
7.302 131–132
7.375–78 111
Page 2 of 6

7.330–465 132
7.394–97 112
8.1–9 142–143
8.18 155–156
8.31–37 155–156
8.39–40 196n.42
(p.226) 8.41–55 143–144
8.51–52 12, 173–174
8.60–65 144–145
8.130–6 143n.6
8.167–71 70n.8
8.201–2 156
8.245 156
8.350–31 12, 156
8.397–437 143n.6
8.464 156
8.471–72 156–157
8.473–77 159–160
9.186–91 25, 79n.30, 79n.31
9.392–400 150
9.401–9 194
11.3–55 30–31, 145, 151–152
11.73 145, 156–157
11.75–79 156–157
11.80–83 156–157
11.82 81, 145, 158, 173–174
11.91–279 152
11.145–62 152–154
11.336–37 157n.35
11.401–63 185
12.10–12 137–139
12.177–78 157, 157n.34
12.310–19 130–131
13.1–9 48, 157
13.11–14 158–159
13.15–38 159
13.81–90 149
13.126–28 4n.10, 108n.97
13.339–45 38–39, 150–151, 156–157, 157n.34
13.521–25 159
14.153–58 159
14.292–353 159
14.363–77 159
14.384–87 159
15.1 206
15.6–12 159–160
15.53–76 60
15.65–68 182n.6
15.79–83 106–107
Page 3 of 6

15.84–99 82
15.92–103 160–161
15.114–16 159, 165
16.394 206
16.431–57 48–49, 163–165
16.459–61 30–31, 165
16.486–68 49n.68
16.567 165
16.633–56 46
16.644–55 165–166
16.692–93 56n.81, 160–161
16.737–50 97–99
17.397–99 4n.10, 108n.97, 151–152
17.397–401 166–168
17.432–47 168–169
17.445–6 4–5
17.545 160–161
18.26–71 198–199
18.231–44 170
18.314–16 170
18.334–37 171–172
18.338–42 171–172
18.343–67 170
19.4–19 146
19.16–17 171
19.282–301 170–171
19.314–39 170–171
19.340–56 171
19.340–20.1–2 146
20.1–3 176
20.1–12 145
20.19–155 81–82
20.20–32 172–176
20.54–74 176
20.353–63 185
21.328–520 81–82
21.606–11 184
22.1–7 184–188
22.21–26 188–191
22.25–32 191
22.111–30 131–132
22.139–98 179–180
22.157–66 191, 199–200
22.161 162
22.165 180
22.166 179–180
22.166–76 12–13, 193–197, 200–205
22.174–76 165
22.177–81 195–197
Page 4 of 6

22.183–84 196n.42
22.205–7 188
22.209–213 131–132
22.213–14 205
22.254–72 131–132
22.369–75 185n.19
(p.227) 22.410–11 202–203, 205
22.462 187
22.507 185n.19
23.4–23 201–202
23.45 202
23.176 199–200
23.263–64 201n.50
23.448–51 190
23.646 200n.48
23.813–15 182–184
24.10–24 203–205
24.12 180
24.16 180
24.23 179–180
24.28–30 81–82
24.33–115 205
24.98–102 82
24.327–32 205–206
24.525–29 56–57
24.526 4n.7
Odyssey
1.10 21–22
1.26 209n.5
1.26–96 208n.3
1.339–340 92
5.3–43 208n.3
6.41–46 209n.5
8.91 79–80
8.285 208–209
8.302 208–209
8.487–98 95–96
8.538–42 91–92
9.5–8 92
9.7–8 79–80
11.294–97 41
11.333–34 92n.60
11.335–61 94n.65
11.363 24
11.368–74 85
11.610–12 85–86
18.129–31 4n.6
22.239–40 208–209
23.330–53 209–210
Page 5 of 6

23.348 36
24.22–23 13–14 (p.228)
Page 6 of 6

Index

on Mount Olympus
Tobias Myers

Print ISBN-13: 9780198842354
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198842354.001.0001
(p.229) Index
Achaeans see Trojans and Achaeans
Achaean wall, the 126n.35, 132
Achilles 13–14, 18–21, 25, 27–28, 34–35, 44–46, 56–57, 67–70, 79n.30, 112–113, 131–
132, 146, 150, 152–153, 162, 170–177, 179–186, 188–196, 198–202, 204–205
aethlos/aethloi 83–84, 86, 162, 180–181, 197–198
Agamemnon 69–72, 78, 102–104, 116–117, 127–130
aristeia of 151–154
Aias 182–183 see also duel between Hector and Aias
Alcinous 85, 91–93
Auerbach, Erich 34–35, 38–40
Andromache 18–19, 118, 185n.19, 187, 200–201
anticipatory doublet 115n.15, 125
aoidē 42–43
aoidos, aeidō, aoidimoi 28, 32–33, 42–43, 46, 85
Aphrodite 69–70, 73, 81–82, 88, 93
Apollo 12–14, 67–69, 77, 99, 109–110, 114–118, 131–133, 143–144, 155–156, 160–161,
184, 188, 204–205
aristeia 54, 102–103
of Agamemnon 151–154
Athena 9–11, 14–17, 69–70, 72, 80, 82, 88, 90–91, 93–95, 99–100, 104–110, 114, 116–
118, 132, 143–144, 151–152, 155–156, 160–161, 167, 171, 195–196, 205, 208–209
athletic contest 86, 162, 180–184, 188 see also similes of chariot–races
Bergren, Ann 83–84, 138–139, 197–199
Catalogue of Ships 21–22, 72, 74–75
daïs 10–11, 19, 61–62, 66–68, 76–80, 82–83, 91–92, 95–96, 102, 118, 141–142, 161, 163
death ritual see funeral rites
Demodocus 20–21, 25, 42–43, 61–62, 91–93, 95–96, 207–209
Dios apatē 158–160
Dios boulē 27–30, 34–35, 40, 71
craftsmanship see ergon/erga
divine viewing and response, sites of
Page 1 of 4

Index
Olympus 11–12, 67–68, 76, 78–82, 82n.35, 109, 114, 117–118, 121, 123–125, 134,
141–143, 145–146, 155–156, 159, 172, 179–180, 194
Ida 12, 81, 82n.35, 142n.5, 143–144, 143n.6, 158
oak tree 114, 116–117, 121, 124–125, 143–144
Kallikone Hill and the Wall of Heracles see theomachia
Thracian Samos 158
duel 18–19, 66
between Paris and Menelaus 10–11, 13–14, 59, 61, 69–70, 73–76, 83–88, 93, 95–96,
100, 102, 107, 125–128, 130–131, 135, 150, 162, 180–181, 183, 186, 191
between Hector and Aias 12, 69–70, 109–111, 114–125, 182
between Achilles and Hector 12–14, 125, 131–132, 181–197
‘spectacular’ 112–113, 132
enargeia 7–8, 18–19, 23, 33–35, 39–40, 106–107, 149
entertainment see daïs, terpein 3, 10–11, 66, 77–78, 82
epaineō 95–96
ergon/erga 84–87, 112, 134–139, 180–181, 203–204
extra– and intradiegetic 32, 64
fated see moira/moirai
focalization 61–63, 117–118
funeral rites, funerary rites, death ritual 18–19, 30–31, 47–49, 65–66, 69–71, 111–113,
128, 132–133, 136–137, 141–142, 145–146, 162, 183–184, 197
(p.230) grief 2, 4–5, 91–92, 98–99, 147–148, 169–170, 198–199, 202, 206
gods(s) see Aphrodite; Apollo; Athena; divine viewing and response, sites of; Hera;
perspective of the gods; Zeus and the gods
Griffin, Jasper 11–14
Hector 12–14, 18–19, 45–46, 69–70, 109–111, 114, 116–121, 124–132, 143–144, 152–
153, 156, 159–160, 162–163, 166, 171–172, 175–177, 179–188, 191, 199–206 see also
duel between Hector and Aias
Helen 56–57, 74–75, 83–87, 100–102, 127–128, 130–131, 138–139, 162, 180–181, 197–
198, 203–204
Hera 9–14, 48–49, 68–70, 72, 81–82, 88, 90–91, 93–102, 106–107, 121–123, 132, 151–
152, 156–157, 159–161, 163–165
Homer’s audience, definition of 6–7, 20 see also poet, role of
honour 27, 30–31, 130–131, 145, 163–166, 183–184, 200–203
hypothetical observer 50–51, 102–106
kleos 20–22
memorialization 65–66, 138–139, 202
Menelaus see duel between Paris and Menelaus
metaperformative 1–2, 55, 66, 83, 172, 191
metapoetics 42–43, 55, 109–110, 133, 137, 174–176, 207–210 see also
metaperformative; mise en abyme
mise en abyme 63–64, 66, 83, 115, 125, 180–181, 195–197
moira/moirai 6, 6n.14, 56–59, 72, 87–88, 94–96, 165, 172, 174–175, 184
Muse(s) 5, 21–24, 28, 32–38, 72, 199
nemesis 121–122, 159
Odyssey 20–22, 25, 37, 41–44, 55–56, 63, 91, 207–210 see also Alcinous; Demodocus;
Phaeacians; Phemius
Pandarus 81, 90–91, 100–102
paradox, temporal 39, 72, 83–87, 197
Page 2 of 4

Index
Paris see also duel between Paris and Menelaus

and Hector 114, 118, 120, 130
and the causes of the war 97, 100–101
pathos 3, 6, 148, 154
Patroclus 53–54, 59, 97–99, 145–146, 157, 163–172, 179–180, 182–183, 198–201, 203–
204
performer see poet, role of
perspective
of the gods 3–7, 18–19, 70–71, 141–142 see also Apollo; Athena; Eris; Hera;
Poseidon; Zeus; theomachia
of Homer’s audience 5–7, 18–19, 22–24, 31–33, 50–51, 70–71, 80, 105–106, 141–
142, 145, 147 see also distance and proximity; enargeia; focalisation; metapoetics;
pathos; pity; pleasure; role of poet
partisan 66, 79–80, 93, 107–108, 124–125, 142–143, 147, 155–156, 163, 175–176,
183–184
Phaeacians 94 see also Alcinous; Demodocus
Phemius 25, 36, 42–43, 61, 63, 92, 209–210
pity 4–5, 4n.7, 5n.11, 8, 10n.20, 11–14, 59, 61, 99, 118, 122–125, 147, 154–157, 159–
160, 163–164, 168–171, 173–175, 179–180, 194, 196–197, 204–206
pleasure (enjoyment) see also terpein
and audience response 2–3, 6, 8, 58–59, 61–62, 91–94, 116–118, 124–125, 175–176
and divine viewing 2, 6, 8, 10–12, 36, 59, 61–62, 66, 79–80, 91–94, 99, 116–118,
124–125, 146, 173, 175–176
plot 16–17, 29–30, 33–34, 38–39, 42–45, 59–60, 63, 147n.14
poet (i.e. of the Iliad), role of 20–25, 27–28, 31–33, 43 see also Muse(s); Homer’s
audience; Zeus and the poet
polemos 110–113, 138–139, 197
ponos 53, 112, 150–151, 165, 167–168
Priam 48, 56–57, 74–75, 111, 188–191, 205–206
promachos /promachoi 181–183, 185
proximity and distance 12, 16–17, 22–23, 38–39, 50–51, 105–106, 124–125, 149–151
psychē/psychai 27–28, 132–133, 162–164, 191, 193–194, 200–201
(p.231) reflexivity see ‘metapoetics’
Sarpedon 12n.26, 30–32, 46, 59, 130, 163–167, 182, 206
simile(s) 72, 104
of swarming flies 46–47, 49–51, 54
of mental travel 106–107
of a grave–marker 168–169
of a hawk and dove 179–180
of chariot–races 179–180, 188–194, 200–203
singer see aoidos; poet, role of
spectacle
definition and characteristics of 8, 11–19, 25, 27, 29–30, 33, 51–53, 63–66, 208
direction of 29–30, 46, 58–60, 65–66, 82–83, 109, 142–143, 155, 157, 160–161, 165,
167, 174–175
narrative of see plot; moira/moirai
nucleus of 14–17, 29–30, 48, 48n.66, 51–53, 64–66, 81, 158–159
spatial dimensions of
Page 3 of 4

Index
middle space, central space, arena 75–76, 80–82, 114, 121, 124–125, 144–
145, 176, 183, 190, see also spectacle, nucleus of
spatial separation of viewer from action see distance and proximity
tiers 17, 78–79, 117, 158
staging of 8, 25, 29–32, 60, 64–67, 71–73, 87, 141–145, 155, 169–170, 174–175
stakes of 19, 115, 127–128, 147–148, 191–194
temporal dimensions of 49 see also paradox, temporal
beginning of see spectacle, staging of
end of 110–113, 126–127, 132, 159–160, 197, 206
Stansbury–O’Donnell, Mark 14–17, 51–53
teichoskopia 74–75, 90–91, 191, 197–198
terpein, terpomai, terpeshai, terpsis 37n.33, 59, 66, 79–80, 88, 93, 116–118, 124–125,
144n.9, 146, 163, 172–174, 182n.9
theomachia 59, 81–82, 172–177
Trojan plain
as the site of military and funerary spectacle 60, 67–68, 81–82, 114, 136, 142–145,
158–160, 162, 176–177, 189–190
Trojans and Achaeans, the
as viewers 75–76, 78–81, 183, 185–188, 190
as combatants 71, 81, 104, 123, 133, 144, 150, 172–175
as gatherers of corpses 132–133, 136
‘contests of’, ‘strife of’, ‘work of’ (to denote Iliadic warfare) 83–88, 99–100, 138–
139, 162, 180–181
vividness see enargeia
Zeus see also Dios boulē; spectacle, direction of; spectacle, staging of
and the gods 7, 10–14, 56–58, 65–68, 76–77, 82, 87–91, 93–102, 134, 146, 155–157,
160–161
and moira 56–59, 94–96, 100–102, 163–165, 172, 174–175
and the poet 2–3, 25, 27–33, 40–44, 47, 51, 53–55, 58–60, 63–65, 71–72, 81, 87–90,
93–97, 100–102, 142–143, 167–169, 174–177, 193, 196–197, 203, 208–210
and viewing 4–5, 7, 11–13, 46, 60, 65–66, 69–70, 81–82, 132–134, 143–146, 156–
160, 163–176, 195–197, 205–206
Page 4 of 4

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Title Pages

Homer's Divine Audience: The Iliad's Reception

Print publication date: 2019

(p.i) Homer’s Divine Audience (p.ii)

(p.iii) Homer’s Divine Audience

(p.iv) Copyright Page

Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP,

Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford.

Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries

© Tobias Myers 2019

The moral rights of the author have been asserted

First Edition published in 2019

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,

You must not circulate this work in any other form

Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018967556

Printed and bound by

Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith

Homer's Divine Audience: The Iliad's Reception

Print publication date: 2019

for Nina (p.vi)

Homer's Divine Audience: The Iliad's Reception

Print publication date: 2019

Several classicists offered encouragement, comments, and advice, mostly from

I thank my parents for always encouraging honest exploration, and my siblings

Homer's Divine Audience: The Iliad's Reception

Print publication date: 2019

(p.xiii) List of Figures

0.1. Sixth-century Attic black-figure amphora depicting Heracles

Homer's Divine Audience: The Iliad's Reception

Print publication date: 2019

Zeus, the Poet, and Vision

Abstract and Keywords

A god can do it. But tell me, how

might a man follow through the narrow lyre?

Rainer Marie Rilke1

It is right for me to sing to you as to a god.

μῆνιν ἄειδε θεὰ Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος

(p.28) Sing, goddess, the wrath of the son of Peleus, Achilles –

Jenny Strauss Clay, in a study illuminating the remarkable consistency of the

1.1. The Proem’s Promise

ἔϕριξεν δὲ μάχη ϕθισίμβροτος ἐγχείῃσι

in a language of harm—amerdo, to ruin or damage. It is as though, in this one

Reflection on this paradox is evident in the succeeding statement: only someone

1.1.2. Dios d’eteleieto boulē

ἀλλ’ ὅτε δὴ μῆνές τε καὶ ἡμέραι ἐξετελεῦντο

A nearly equivalent formula is used in Hesiod’s Theogony to conclude a story of

Contemporary criticism loves to find reflexivity in art. It has become common

One could—joining many critics—detect in this Dios boulē a reference to Zeus’

The Iliad’s proem poses particularly stiff resistance to being read as an

James Morrison has argued that the proem’s carrion-eaters constitute an

It is perfectly possible that an aoidos at the beginning of his performance might

1.2. Realizing the Proem’s Promise: An Illustrative Example from Book 16

ὣς ἄρα τοὶ περὶ νεκρὸν ὁμίλεον, οὐδέ ποτε Ζεὺς

It often happens in the Iliad that an extended description of fighting concludes

τῶν δ᾽ ὥς τε δρυτόμων ἀνδρῶν ὀρυμαγδὸς ὀρώρει

And from [the combatants] a din arose – as of tree-cutters,

At the moment that Zeus is introduced, it becomes possible to understand in

ἀλλὰ κατ᾽ αὐτοὺς αἰὲν ὅρα καὶ ϕράζετο θυμῷ,

But continually he was looking at them and pondering in his thymos,

1.3. The Gods and Metapoetics

The Odyssey shows a great degree of self-consciousness in its representations of

One way to discuss the metapoetics of Zeus’ decision-making is to say that he is

Homer's Divine Audience

Homer's Divine Audience