Supplemental Essay: The Iliad as
Great Father Fight

Introduction and background

In this essay I intend to summarize Homer's epic poem The Iliad as a Great Father fight. Viewed in this manner, the poem depicts the hero's personal development and serves as "Cultural canon" for audiences in Homer's time. I expect that most readers won't be familiar with the plot of the epic poem, so I'll walk the reader through the main events of the story at the risk of running the essay a bit long. 

 

The Iliad is an epic poem about the Trojan war written by Homer around 700 BC. (The name of the poem comes from the Greek name for the city of Troy--Ilium.) It describes events passed down by oral tradition from 500 years prior, that is, events that occurred in 1200 BC at the time of the original Trojan War. The action of The Iliad precedes and leads up to the story of The Odyssey.

 

At the start of the poem, the Trojan War is in its tenth year; the story describes events that take place in the last couple months of the war. However, I'll start with some background information about the beginning of the war that is considered canon mythology on the Trojan War and would have been familiar to Homer's audience.

 

Prior to the war, three goddesses declare a competition to see which of them is the most beautiful. They appoint a mortal--a prince from Troy named Paris--to decide the contest. Paris chooses the goddess Aphrodite as the winner, and as a gift Aphrodite causes the most beautiful woman in the world--a Greek queen named Helen--to fall in love with him. Paris and Helen steal off to Troy.

 

The Greeks demand revenge for the abduction of Helen. The Greeks raise a fighting force under the leadership of King Agamemnon to sail to Troy and besiege the city. The Greek force (called the "Achaeans" in The Iliad) is made up of commanders and troops from various kingdoms around Greece who have volunteered to accompany Agamemnon and sail to Troy in order to earn glory and collect plunder in battle. 

 

Troy is a powerful and wealthy city on the coast of Turkey. There are hints that Troy follows Eastern traditions; for example King Priam of Troy has 50 sons, suggesting that he enjoys the benefits of a harem. The Trojans are depicted as cultured, liberal, pampered, and not as warlike as the barbarous Achaeans. In any event, Troy is rich and luxurious and represents a desirable target for plunder. The Achaeans expect the expedition to Troy to meet with success: Agamemnon's assembled army is much larger than the Trojan army, and Agamemnon has received prophecies and portents signaling that his Achaean force will be victorious. The Achaean armada sailing to Troy comprises 1,000 ships, each carrying 50-120 combat troops.

 

The most famous of the Achaean commanders accompanying Agamemnon is Achilles, a renowned fighter who brings with him a fleet of 50 ships carrying an army of 2,500 Myrmidon troops. Like many of the great heroes of his generation Achilles is semi-divine, the product of a time when gods and mortals interacted and interbred freely. His father is a mortal named Peleus (Homer sometimes refers to Achilles by the patronymic "Pelides"); his mother is a minor goddess named Thetis. Additionally, Achilles' birth was attended by a prophecy: Achilles will either gain great glory in battle but die an early death fighting, or he will stay out of battle and live a long peaceful life but earn no glory.

 

Well aware of the prophecy, Achilles chooses to join the expedition to Troy. His mother Thetis warns him that if he joins in the battle he won't return from Troy or even see Troy vanquished; he will die in battle just before Troy falls. But Achilles accepts that fate: He values honor and glory over a long life.

 

Achilles and Agamemnon argue

As I said above, all of the information presented so far represents background for The Iliad, canon mythology on the Trojan War that would have been familiar to Homer's audience. When the actual action of the poem begins, the war is in its tenth year. The walls of Troy were built by gods and are unassailable, and the fighting over the first nine years has been confined to the plains and towns surrounding Troy. But Zeus has given signs indicating that the Achaeans will be victorious in the tenth year, and the Achaeans are anticipating some kind of break in their favor.

 

The Achaeans have just raided and plundered a nearby town allied with Troy. Agamemnon and his chief commanders have each taken concubines as their portion of the plunder. However, Agamemnon's concubine is a daughter of a priest of Apollo, and to recover his daughter the priest prays to Apollo to afflict the Achaean forces with a plague. The god Apollo, who favors Troy in the war, complies.

 

To end the plague, a gathering of the Achaean troops is called and Agamemnon is advised to return the priest's daughter. However that leaves Agamemnon without plunder from the raid, which he considers an affront, and he insists that his commanders surrender one of their concubines to him to make up the difference. Achilles opposes this idea, suggesting that Agamemnon's deficit can be made up from plunder to be gathered once Troy falls; but Agamemnon deems Achilles' response insubordination and he claims Achilles' concubine as his own to teach him a lesson:

 

"[S]o you can learn just how much greater I am than you 

and the next man up may shrink from matching words with me, 

from hoping to rival Agamemnon strength for strength!”[1]

 

Achilles is so outraged by this public humiliation that he pulls his sword to kill Agamemnon on the spot, but the goddess Hera sends Athena down from Olympus to stop the fight. So instead, Achilles refuses to participate in the war any further. The entire reason Achilles joined the Achaean force was to fulfill his birth prophecy and earn glory at the expense of a short life. If he is unable to earn glory in war due to the humiliations and dishonor heaped upon him by the arrogant Agamemnon, then he might as well stay out of combat and enjoy a long, if undistinguished, life. 

 

So he pulls his army of Myrmidons out of battle and returns to his ships moored at the beaches of Troy. He watches the battle from there.

 

Achilles even begs his goddess mother to bring defeat upon the Achaean forces. He asks Thetis to entreat Zeus to aid the Trojans so that Agamemnon will "see how mad he was to disgrace Achilles, the best of the Achaeans!”[2]

 

Thetis returns to Olympus and requests that Zeus honor her by granting Achilles' wish:

 

"Come, grant the Trojans victory after victory 

till the Achaean armies pay my dear son back, 

building higher the honor he deserves!"[3]

 

Zeus fights the request and grumbles that it represents a "disaster" for him, but Thetis presses him and Zeus agrees to do as Thetis requests; he is indebted to Thetis for her aid during an uprising of the gods in the past.[4] But the request puts Zeus in a bind. Zeus has already fated the Achaeans to win in the tenth year; in order to grant Thetis' request and still allow the Achaeans to win, Zeus decides that Achilles will remain out of the battle and the Trojan troops will be favored in battle until the Achaeans are pushed back to their ships and the ships set aflame. At that point Achilles can join the battle and push the Trojans back; he will get the glory of saving the Achaeans from defeat, and from there the Achaeans can win the war.

 

But that plan leads to discord among the gods. Half of the gods on Olympus favor Troy for various reasons while the other half favor the Achaeans. Under pressure from Zeus the gods had all previously assented to an Achaean victory. But when they see Zeus aiding the Trojan forces, it stirs up passion and chaos on Olympus. And Zeus can't reveal why he is aiding the Trojans: If his wife Hera hears that he has granted favors to Thetis, he'll never hear the end of it.

 

So Zeus assists the Trojans without explanation, and the other gods and goddesses take this unexpected turn of events as an opportunity to meddle in the war for purposes of their own, such as favoring a semi-divine child or taking pity on a favorite hero. And the military campaign, which started out as a rather desultory and slow-moving siege of a city, suddenly turns into a fast-moving meat-grinder with war raging all around the plains lying between the walled city of Troy and the Achaean ships at the beach. 

 

Gods and goddesses favor one army for a time and then suddenly switch sides and favor the other army. The combat goes on at breakneck pace wiping out whole generations of Achaean and Trojan heroes, many of them semi-divine like Achilles. The gods even come down from Olympus and join in the battle themselves; at times semi-divine heroes aided by gods succeed in vanquishing other gods and driving them from the field of battle. The gods and goddesses challenge and pummel each other on the battlefield.

 

With Achilles' departure from the field of battle, the war begins to go against the Achaeans. Agamemnon soon realizes the folly of humiliating and alienating his best fighter. He sends a delegation to persuade Achilles to rejoin the fighting with promises of riches and titles, with only one reservation: That Achilles must submit to Agamemnon as the leader of the Achaean force:

 

"Let him bow down to me! I am the greater king, 

I am the elder-born, I claim--the greater man."[5]

 

Odysseus, Phoenix, and Ajax the Greater bring Agamemnon's message to Achilles. But Achilles reveals his birth prophecy to them. He insists that fighting for Agamemnon will rob him of honor and glory, in which case there is nothing to be gained from participating and dying in combat; he might as well return home and live a long and peaceful life even if it means being forgotten.

 

Achilles as Si Redeemer: The sacralization of glory

To explain Achilles' attitude, I will argue that Achilles appears to be an Si Redeemer who finds himself entangled in a Great Father fight; the story of Achilles is very much associated with masculine themes. The antecedent of the Si Redeemer is the Ni Struggler. The Ni Struggler fights to "distance" from the Great Mother; similarly, the mythical Si Redeemer sets himself apart the collective and embodies masculine roles of individuality and autonomy.

 

As I said in the main essay (the section entitled "The Si Redeemer"), sacralization is the process of assigning a sacred character or quality to things. The Redeemer's focus on sacralization causes him to stand for ritual, hierarchy, and rules in their most idealized forms; and if the collective and their current leadership can't measure up to his ideals, he is likely to separate himself from them and set the example himself.

 

Respect for honor and glory are traditionally healthy masculine values. But after Agamemnon's insult and humiliation, Achilles sacralizes the concept of glory to the point of extreme one-sidedness, where he gets caught in parental castration. The Achaean and Trojan forces are decimated while everyone waits to see if Achilles will yield and rejoin the battle. Even the gods in Olympus are trapped by the dilemma, and they drive the mortals to slaughter each other in ever-fiercer combat. Achilles' own comrades accuse him of pride and council him to practice moderation and cooperation; they tell stories of past combat where heroes worked together in order to prosecute successful campaigns for the good of their kingdoms, or where heroes refused to cooperate, leading to loss.

 

But Achilles refuses to yield. Achilles' fight with Agamemnon becomes a Great Father fight. In his loyalty to an idealized concept of glory (representing the Good Father), Achilles finds himself at odds with the earthly male authority directly in front of him (representing the Terrible Father): He comes to see Agamemnon as a corrupt tyrant.

 

The reader can understand Achilles' sacralization of the concept of honor and glory, given his birth prophecy. But glory increasingly becomes the central focus of Achilles' life, to the point where he flies into a rage when he can't have it on his own terms. 

 

Thus, Achilles' rage and his refusal to fight are the central theme of The Iliad. The first chapter is entitled "The Rage of Achilles," and The Iliad begins with the lines:

 

"Rage---Goddess, sing the rage of Peleus' son Achilles, 

murderous, doomed, that cost the Achaeans countless losses, 

hurling down to the House of Death so many sturdy souls, 

great fighters' souls, but made their bodies carrion, 

feasts for the dogs and birds, 

and the will of Zeus was moving toward its end. 

Begin, Muse, when the two first broke and clashed, 

Agamemnon lord of men and brilliant Achilles."[6]

 

Achilles declares that the only way he will fight is if the Achaeans are driven back by the Trojans and beaten so badly that their ships are set aflame on the beaches of Troy. When that happens he will join the fight and all glory will go to him as the savior of the Achaean force and the vanquisher of Troy. He feels that this is the only way he can salvage honor from the humiliation of Agamemnon's insult.

 

Achilles even confides to Patroclus, his best friend and aide-de-camp, that he would be perfectly happy to see the Achaean and Trojan soldiers kill each other off to the last man and leave Achilles and Patroclus to claim victory over Troy by themselves.[7]

 

In a commentary on The Iliad, Bernard Knox describes the narcissism & solipsism of Achilles' extreme one-sidedness: "The Iliad shows us the origin, course and consequences of his rage, his imprisonment in a godlike, lonely, heroic fury from which all the rest of the world is excluded..."[8]

 

To sum up: In The Iliad the hero Achilles represents an Si Redeemer who sacralizes glory to the point that he falls into extreme one-sidedness and Great Father fights. His focus on honor and glory is understandable and even healthy in moderation. But as he falls into extreme one-sidedness Achilles increasingly spurns collective values such as empathy, teamwork, and compromise; he sacralizes honor and glory to the point of narcissism and inhumanity. 

 

As I'll show below, he eventually resolves his problems and achieves balance by leaning in on the daemonic mother and learning Se reciprocal altruism.

 

Achilles joins the battle

The Trojans are led by Hector, their commander and best fighter. The Trojans beat back the Achaeans from the walls of the city and fight their way across the plain separating Troy from the Achaean ships. King Priam of Troy is too old to join the battle himself, but he has 50 sons; many participate in the battle, and Hector as his eldest son has been appointed supreme commander of the Trojan forces.

 

The Trojan forces reach the beach where the Achaean ships are moored, and the battle rages around the ships; Hector sets one ship alight. Patroclus, Achilles' aide-de-camp, runs to Achilles to inform him of the danger. But Achilles still isn't mollified: He sees this as partial recompense for the humiliation done to him by Agamemnon. Achilles chides Patroclus over his alarm and says that the Achaeans are being "repaid for their offenses." He puts the blame on Agamemnon: 

 

"The whole city of Troy comes trampling down on us, 

daring, wild--why? They cannot see the brow of my helmet 

flash before their eyes--Oh they'd soon run for their lives 

and choke the torrent-beds of the field with all their corpses 

if only the mighty Agamemnon met me with respect: 

now, as it is, they're fighting round our camp!"[9]

 

Patroclus suggests that if Achilles won't aid the Achaeans, then Patroclus himself could put on Achilles' armor and lead the Myrmidon army into battle. The Trojans would think that Achilles had finally joined the fray and would retreat in fear; that should at least buy the beleaguered Achaeans some breathing room.

 

Achilles relents enough to agree to this plan. He decides that the plan can bring him some glory while still upholding his resolve to stay out of the fight. But he warns Patroclus that he is to break off the fight and turn back as soon as the Trojans retreat from the vicinity of the ships. Under no circumstances should Patroclus chase after Hector and the fleeing Trojans and drive them back to Troy. If that were to happen, Patroclus would then steal glory from Achilles; also, Patroclus might meet a hostile god or goddess on the open plain between Troy and the Achaean ships, an encounter that would likely end with Patroclus' death.

 

In the heat of the battle, however, Patroclus forgets Achilles' instructions and chases the Trojans all the way back to the walls of Troy. But he isn't fated to vanquish Troy. The god Apollo meets Patroclus in battle and strikes and stuns him; Hector finishes off Patroclus and claims Achilles' armor as plunder. A tremendous fight breaks out over Patroclus' corpse, but eventually the Achaeans manage to bear Patroclus' body back to Achilles at the ships with the Trojans in hot pursuit.

 

Achilles is overwhelmed by the death of his aide-de-camp. Though born of mortal parents, Patroclus ended up in Achilles' home as a child and the two of them grew up together. With his own death prophesied and fast approaching, Achilles knows that he himself will never return home to see his family again; he had been counting on Patroclus to return home in his stead at the end of the war to care for Achilles' family--his elderly father Peleus and his young son. As a result, Achilles doesn't just mourn Patroclus; he also mourns for the grief of his father who will be abandoned in old age and for his son, to be left an orphan.

 

Hearing Achilles' weeping, his mother--the goddess Thetis--approaches. Achilles declares that he must meet Hector in combat and kill him: That will give him the glory he craves while also avenging Patroclus' death. Thetis reminds him of his birth prophecy and warns Achilles that his own death will follow soon after Hector's death. But Achilles is adamant, so Thetis tells Achilles to call a general assembly of the troops and "renounce your rage at the proud commander Agamemnon."[10] Achilles follows her instruction, and in front of Agamemnon and the troops he declares,

 

"Enough. Let bygones be bygones. Done is done. 

Despite my anguish I will beat it down, 

the fury mounting inside me, down by force. 

Now, by god, I call a halt to all my anger--

it's wrong to keep on raging, heart inflamed forever."[11]

 

Agamemnon is delighted; he promises to grant Achilles all the riches and titles he had previously offered and calls for a feast to feed the troops before battle. But Achilles doesn't care about gifts or food; he just wants revenge. Patroclus' body is washed and prepared for burial. Achilles instructs the troops not to bury Patroclus until he can bring Hector's head and armor to the bier and slaughter a dozen Trojan prisoners in front of the bier as part of the burial ceremony.

 

Achilles is true to his word and no longer harbors anger toward Agamemnon. The two work together effectively thereafter. But Achilles' rage hasn't disappeared. "Beaten down inside him," his fury is merely displaced onto Hector and the Trojans. When he launches into battle with his troops, he becomes a juggernaut cutting through the Trojan troops. He is a mad dog foaming at the mouth and slashing at anyone he sees. Homer describes Achilles battling in his chariot drawn by two immortal horses, gifts from the gods to his family: 

 

"Achilles now 

like inhuman fire raging on through the mountain gorges [...] 

storming on with brandished spear 

like a frenzied god of battle trampling all he killed 

and the earth ran black with blood. [...] 

so as the great Achilles rampaged on, his sharp-hoofed stallions 

trampled shields and corpses, axle under his chariot splashed 

with blood, blood on the handrails sweeping round the car, 

sprays of blood shooting up from the stallions' hoofs 

and churning, whirling rims--and the son of Peleus 

charioteering on to seize his glory, bloody filth 

splattering both strong arms, Achilles' invincible arms"[12]

 

The daemonic mother

I said above that Achilles sacralizes honor and glory to such an extent that he becomes extremely one-sided: Honor and glory become associated in his mind with narcissism, solipsism, rage, and cruelty, and they lead him into Great Father fights. And if the masculine virtues of sacralization, honor, and glory represent extreme one-sidedness, then their dichotomous opposite becomes the "daemonic mother." In other words, feminine values such as collectivism, empathy, and reciprocal altruism are to be shunned as abhorrent. Achilles is so consumed by rage that his fury crowds out any other way of thinking. (For more on the daemonic mother, see the supplemental essay entitled "The Great Father Fight.")

 

As I said above, Troy is a rich city and the Trojans are depicted as cultured, liberal, pampered. The Trojans prefer to fight according to rules and etiquette; for example the nobility of Troy will frequently offer promises of family riches to ransom themselves out of captivity. And in the early years of the war, Achaeans realized a profit by ransoming Trojan prisoners or by selling them off to slavers for later sale or ransom. Achilles himself admits to partaking in such trade with prisoners that he has captured in the past.

 

But after the death of Patroclus, Achilles simply wants to murder as many Trojans as he can. Trojan soldiers repeatedly beg Achilles to spare their lives, but he slaughters them on the spot. In one episode he encounters one of Trojan King Priam's 50 sons named Lycaon out on the plains on the banks of the river Scamander. Achilles had previously captured Lycaon in an earlier battle and had sold him to slavers. Lycaon has only just made his way back to Troy and rejoined the battle. But now, with revenge on his mind, Achilles has no patience for Lycaon's plea for clemency a second time. Thus he replies to Lycaon,

 

"Fool, 

don't talk to me of ransom. No more speeches. 

Before Patroclus met his day of destiny, true, 

it warmed my heart a bit to spare some Trojans: 

droves I took alive and auctioned off as slaves. 

But now not a single Trojan flees his death, 

not one the gods hand over to me before your gates, 

none of all the Trojans, sons of Priam least of all!"[13]

 

To sum up: In an age where enemies largely fought hand-to-hand there were ample opportunities for mercy and reciprocal altruism even between enemies. But to Achilles in his extreme one-sidedness and patriarchal castration, masculine glory is measured in slaughter and the accumulation of corpses; feminine values such as empathy or pity are now the daemonic mother, to be rejected and spurned.

 

Achilles leads the charge

Achilles and his Myrmidon troops rout the Trojan troops from their camps around the Achaean ships and chase them back across the plains toward Troy. His advance is so swift and so brutal that Zeus fears Achilles will prematurely vanquish and sack Troy in violation of established prophecies; Zeus calls upon the gods of Olympus to join the battle in order to slow down the advance of the Achaeans and gum things up. They can choose for themselves which side they want to take. 

 

In one memorable scene, Achilles traps a large contingent of Trojan troops crossing the river Scamander to return to Troy. He drives them into the river, drowning many; and then he dives into the river to spear those still alive. The river is on Trojan territory, and the river deity grows increasingly angry at Achilles' slaughter of Trojan troops there. The river god rears up and complains:

 

"Stop, Achilles! Greater than any man on earth, 

greater in outrage too-- 

for the gods themselves are always at your side! 

But if Zeus allows you to kill off all the Trojans, 

drive them out of my depths at least, I ask you, 

out on the plain and do your butchery there. 

All my lovely rapids are crammed with corpses now, 

no channel in sight to sweep my currents out to sacred sea--

I'm choked with corpses and still you slaughter more, 

you blot out more! Leave me alone, have done--

captain of armies, I am filled with horror!"[14]

 

Achilles initially relents and heads away from the river. But the deity continues to complain and calls upon Apollo to punish Achilles. Achilles becomes so infuriated that he dives into the river and begins to fight the deity. But although Achilles is semi-divine himself, he is no match for an actual god. Very quickly he finds himself outmatched and about to be drowned by the river. He prays to the gods for assistance, and Hephaestus, the god of fire, comes down from Olympus to fight the river while Achilles makes his escape.

 

In another episode, Achilles and his troops are approaching the city of Troy. The gates of the city are open to admit the Trojan troops fleeing Achilles; but Achilles is advancing so quickly there is a fear that he might reach the gates before they shut and in that manner breach the city's defenses. That would violate the fate ordained for Achilles: he is to die before the city falls. So the god Apollo appears as a Trojan soldier, challenges Achilles, and then turns and runs when Achilles approaches. Apollo draws Achilles off and away from the gates; when they are at a safe distance Apollo reveals himself as a god and warns Achilles to back off. Achilles curses the fact that Apollo has diverted him from the glory of sacking Troy; he races back to the city but the gates are securely closed by then.

 

The death of Hector

After the gates of Troy are closed, only Hector remains outside on the plain with Achilles. As Troy's best fighter, Hector feels that honor compels him to face Achilles rather than retreat into the city and fight from the top of its impregnable walls. When Achilles and Hector confront one another, Hector suggests a gentleman's agreement upon the death of either one:

 

"Come, we'll swear to the gods, the highest witnesses--

the gods will oversee our binding pacts. I swear 

I will never mutilate you--merciless as you are--

if Zeus allows me to last it out and tear your life away. 

But once I've stripped your glorious armor, Achilles, 

I will give your body back to your loyal comrades. 

Swear you'll do the same."[15]

 

But Achilles has no interest in pacts. He sees no commonality between himself and Hector, no reason to engage in reciprocal altruism in the form of deals and pacts:

​

"There are no binding oaths between men and lions--

wolves and lambs can enjoy no meeting of the minds--

they are all bent on hating each other to the death. 

So with you and me. No love between us."[16]

 

Hector is Troy's best fighter, but he is mortal while Achilles is semi-divine. With the aid of the goddess Athena, Achilles makes short work of Hector. As Hector lies dying, Achilles mocks him for killing Patroclus and stealing and wearing Achilles' own armor. He tells Hector of his intent to dishonor Hector's corpse by feeding it to the dogs:

 

"And you--

the dogs and birds will maul you, shame your corpse 

while Achaeans bury my dear friend in glory!”

 

As Hector fades away, he makes one more appeal to Achilles for honorable treatment upon his death:

 

"I beg you, beg you by your life, your parents--

don't let the dogs devour me by the [Achaean] ships!  

Wait, take princely ransom of bronze and gold,

the gifts my father and noble mother will give you-- 

but give my body to friends to carry home again,

so Trojan men and Trojan women can do me honor

with fitting rites of fire once I am dead."

 

But Achilles responds:

 

"Beg no more, you fawning dog--begging me by my parents! 

Would to god my rage, my fury would drive me now 

to hack your flesh away and eat you raw--

such agonies you have caused me! Ransom? 

No man alive could keep the dog-packs off you, [...]

The dogs and birds will rend you--blood and bone!”[17]

 

As Achilles sees it, the concept of glory demands that he not only kill Hector but also dishonor his corpse to avenge Patroclus' death. Achilles ties Hector's corpse behind his chariot and rides in the direction of the Achaean ships with Hector's body dragging in the dirt behind. Hector's royal family, watching from the top of the Trojan walls, can only cry out in horror as they see their eldest son's body dishonored in this fashion. They know that they can only expect the worst from the barbarous Achaeans:

 

"{I]t was you, Hector, you and you alone

who shielded the gates and the long walls of Troy.

But now by the beaked ships, far from your parents,

glistening worms will wriggle through your flesh,

once the dogs have had their fill of your naked corpse--"[18]

 

Resolution of the Great Father fight

Achilles returns to the Achaean camps and to Patroclus' funeral bier. He announces, 

 

"'Farewell, Patroclus, even there in the House of Death! 

Look--all that I promised once I am performing now: 

I've dragged Hector here for the dogs to rip him raw--

and here in front of your flaming pyre I'll cut the throats 

of a dozen sons of Troy in all their shining glory, 

venting my rage on them for your destruction!' So he triumphed 

and again he was bent on outrage, on shaming noble Hector--

he flung him facedown in the dust beside Patroclus' bier."[19]

 

The Achaean forces devote 12 days to the mourning and burial rites for Patroclus. Patroclus' flesh is consumed in a funeral pyre, and then his bones are placed in an urn which is then buried in a tomb. There are feasts; games are put on for the troops with rich prizes for the winners: Chariot races, boxing, wrestling, foot races, archery, shot put, etc.

 

Achilles oversees the burial rites and games, and his comportment throughout is fair-minded, magnanimous, and noble. But his rage hasn't left him. For the entire 12 days Achilles leaves Hector's corpse exposed to the elements on the ground for the dogs to eat, and each day Achilles ties the corpse to his chariot and drags it in the dirt three times around Patroclus' tomb. Achilles is still focused on glory, and glory requires revenge. Revenge is accomplished by dishonoring the corpse of Hector.

 

But in the meantime the gods in Olympus argue about Achilles' treatment of Hector's corpse. Hector has always shown appropriate respect for the gods and honored them properly with tributes and sacrifices. Some of them take it upon themselves to surreptitiously keep the dogs away from the corpse, preserve the flesh of the corpse from sun and corruption, and protect the skin from physical damage. Some even suggest that the god Hermes go down to earth and steal the body from Achilles. The god Apollo, who favors Troy over the Achaeans, makes the case against Achilles:

 

"That man without a shred of decency in his heart [...]

Achilles has lost all pity! No shame in the man [...] 

this Achilles--first he slaughters Hector, 

he rips away the noble prince's life 

then lashes him to his chariot, drags him round 

his beloved comrade's tomb. But why, I ask you? 

What good will it do him? What honor will he gain? 

Let that man beware, or great and glorious as he is, 

we mighty gods will wheel on him in anger--look, 

he outrages the senseless clay in all his fury!"[20]

 

But the goddess Hera, wife of Zeus, favors the Achaeans. She responds that the semi-divine Achilles has more claim on their sympathies than a mere mortal such as Hector. She points out that the god Apollo himself attended the marriage of Achille's parents, the goddess Thetis and the mortal Peleus. Hera accuses Apollo of being "faithless" by consorting with "wretched Trojans."

 

Zeus is finally forced to step in and resolve the argument. He agrees with his wife that Achilles has first claim on the sympathies of the gods, but then he adds:

 

"Still, the immortals loved Prince Hector dearly, 

best of all the mortals born in Troy...

so I loved him, at least:

he never stinted with gifts to please my heart. 

Never once did my altar lack its share of victims, 

winecups tipped and the deep smoky savor. These, 

these are the gifts we claim--they are our rights."[21]

 

Zeus summons the goddess Thetis and tells her to bring a message to her son Achilles: His treatment of Hector's body is angering the gods, and Achilles is to accept a ransom from King Priam of Troy in exchange for Hector's body. Zeus reassures Thetis that this is the proper path to glory for Achilles, and furthermore it represents repayment of Zeus' own debt to Thetis:

 

"I will grant Achilles glory and so safeguard 

your awe and love of me for all the years to come."[22]

 

Thetis brings the message to Achilles and reminds him that his own death is approaching quickly now that Hector is dead; it's not a good time to be angering the ruler of the heavens. Achilles quickly agrees to the terms.

 

I will pause here and suggest that this scene--the argument of the gods and Zeus' mediation--represents the resolution of Achilles' Great Father fight. As I described above, Achilles has understandably sacralized honor and glory; but he has fixated on them to the point of taking them to extreme one-sidedness, resulting in patriarchal castration and the commission of increasingly cruel and dishonorable acts.

 

So the god Apollo says, "But why, I ask you? What good will it do him? What honor will he gain?" And in asking that question, Apollo severs the link between sacralization and honor. Zeus then redefines honor and glory by linking them to a form of reciprocal altruism: A transaction is to be carried out between Achilles and King Priam to the benefit of both. 

 

This re-definition of glory links masculine virtues (honor and glory) with feminine actions (reciprocal altruism), thereby resolving the dramatic impasse as well as Achilles' Great Father fight: Achilles can achieve the glory that he craves without sacralizing to the point of extreme one-sidedness and inhuman cruelty. He is free to rediscover the feminine traits of compromise and empathy.

 

Note that this pivotal scene occurs in the heavens, in the home of the gods on Mount Olympus. As I suggested in my descriptions of the Great Parent fights in the main essay:

• Great Mother fights are resolved by a night sea journey or a trip to Hades: The Hero (conscious ego) journeys into the depths (the unconscious) to accomplish an errand (bring back a treasure/princess). 

• In a Great Father fight the anxious ego often confronts the Great Father in deserts, elevated places, an idyllic "city on a hill," etc., in other words in locations representing the Great Father's association with the spiritual side of life or civilization.

 

As I said above, Achilles' favors an idealized concept of glory (representing the Good Father), over with the earthly male authority directly in front of him (representing the Terrible Father): He comes to see Agamemnon as a corrupt tyrant. But Zeus is a higher spiritual authority than Achilles or Agamemnon. As a Great Father figure, Zeus alone has the ability to redefine honor and glory in a way that resolves the Great Father fight, and Achilles has no recourse but to obey.

 

Achilles leans in on the daemonic mother

But resolution of the Great Father fight entails leaning in on values that represent the "daemonic mother" to Achilles. That occurs when the Trojan King Priam meets with Achilles for the trade.

 

Priam is given instructions by a goddess to pack a cart with a rich ransom and then take only a driver for the cart and head to the Achaean camp. The goddess assures him that Zeus has made the appropriate arrangements and adds,

 

"Achilles will not kill you--he'll hold back all the rest: 

Achilles is no madman, no reckless fool, not the one 

to defy the gods' commands. Whoever begs his mercy

he will spare with all the kindness in his heart."[23]

 

Priam's wife, Queen Hecuba, senses a trap and begs Priam not to go. She says,

 

"Come, all we can do now

is sit in the halls, far from our son, and wail for Hector...

So this, this is the doom that strong Fate spun out, 

our son's life line drawn with his first breath--

the moment I gave him birth--

to glut the wild dogs, cut off from his parents, 

crushed by the stronger man. Oh would to god 

that I could sink my teeth in his liver, eat him raw! 

That would avenge what he has done to Hector."[24]

 

But Priam says that he can't disobey a goddess, and he departs with the ransom. The god Hermes meets him along the way and escorts him unseen through the camp up to Achilles lodgings. He reassures Priam that Hector's corpse is intact, kept uncorrupted by the gods. Before disappearing, Hermes instructs Priam:

 

"You go in yourself and clasp Achilles' knees,

implore him by his father, his mother with lovely hair,

by his own son--so you can stir his heart!"[25]

 

Priam enters and finds Achilles just finishing a meal with his men:

 

"The majestic king of Troy slipped past the rest 

and kneeling down beside Achilles, clasped his knees 

and kissed his hands, those terrible, man-killing hands 

that had slaughtered Priam's many sons in battle."[26]

 

Priam says he envies Achilles father: Though Achilles and his father are apart, at least Achilles' father still hears that Achilles is alive. But Priam had 50 sons, and most of them are dead now--the latest one killed by Achilles 12 days ago. Priam asks that Achilles accept the ransom and finishes,

 

"Revere the gods, Achilles! Pity me in my own right, 

remember your own father! I deserve more pity... 

I have endured what no one on earth has ever done before--

I put to my lips the hands of the man who killed my son.”[27]

 

Achilles is reminded of his own father, who will soon be informed of his son's death, and both men begin weeping:

 

"Priam wept freely

for man-killing Hector, throbbing, crouching

before Achilles' feet as Achilles wept himself,

now for his father, now for Patroclus once again..."[28]

 

Up to now grief is the only emotion that Achilles has allowed himself besides rage since the death of Patroclus. But the grief he shares with King Priam leads him to empathy and thence to pity, which represents a leaning-in on the daemonic mother: He is able to find common ground with his sworn enemy. He says to Priam,

 

“Poor man, how much you've borne--pain to break the spirit! 

What daring brought you down to the ships, all alone, 

to face the glance of the man who killed your sons, 

so many fine brave boys? You have a heart of iron."[29]

 

Speaking of his own father, Achilles says,

 

"Only a single son he fathered, doomed at birth, 

cut off in the spring of life--

and I, I give the man no care as he grows old 

since here I sit in Troy, far from my fatherland, 

a grief to you, a grief to all your children ...

And you too, old man, we hear you prospered once [...] 

you excelled all men, old king, in sons and wealth. 

But then the gods of heaven brought this agony on you--

ceaseless battles round your walls, your armies slaughtered."[30]

 

Achilles accepts the ransom from Priam. He orders servants to clean and wrap Hector's body; he has noticed that the gods have been preserving the corpse from damage. He clears the wagon of the ransom and lifts Hector's body himself and places it on a bier in the cart. Before Priam's departure, Achilles asks him how long the Trojans need for Hector's burial rites, and he promises to hold off attacking Troy for that period of time.

 

The remainder of the poem concerns Priam's homecoming with Hector's body, and the funeral and burial rites for Hector. The Iliad ends with the line, "And so the Trojans buried Hector breaker of horses."[31]

 

Homer's audience would know how the Trojan War ultimately comes to an end--it was a staple of their mythological canon. Achilles is killed in the next battle by an arrow from Paris, which strikes the only vulnerable part of Achilles' body--his heel. The impregnable walls of Troy are breached with the aid of a ploy devised by the commander Odysseus: The Trojan Horse. Then, during the subsequent pillaging of Troy, a priestess is raped by an Achaean commander in a temple dedicated to goddess Athena. As the Achaeans set sail for home with their plunder the enraged Athena causes a great storm to arise, which scatters the Achaean fleet and sets the stage for The Odyssey, Homer's other great epic poem. (See my supplemental essay on The Odyssey for more.)

 

But The Iliad itself doesn't include the end of the war or even Achilles' death; it ends with the burial of Hector because The Iliad is primarily about Achilles and his Great Father fight. The Iliad depicts Achilles' personal development and serves as "Cultural canon" for audiences in Homer's time. Achilles' rapprochement with Priam pierces Achille's bubble of rage and vengeance and causes him to put the concept of honor and glory in proper context. The honorable burial of Hector is the culmination of a lesson: Achilles learns to balance honor and glory against more collectivist values like empathy and family. Si sacralization is brought into balance by a greater appreciation for Se reciprocal altruism. 

 

To sum up: Achilles represents an Si Redeemer who practices Si sacralization. Sacralization is healthy in moderation: It results in a desire for autonomy and personal honor. But Achilles sacralizes honor and glory to the point of extreme one-sidedness and patriarchal castration, and it turns into stubbornness, obsession with glory to the detriment of others, and cruelty. Achilles ultimately resolves his Great Father fight and achieves balance by leaning in on the daemonic mother and practicing Se reciprocal altruism.

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Link: Return to Sensing (S)

 

~Posted May 2, 2026

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