The Iliad

The Greek army is camped outside Troy and a plague is tearing through it. The cause is Agamemnon, who has refused to return a captive girl named Chryseis to her father, a priest of Apollo. Apollo is angry and sending arrows of disease into the camp. Achilles calls an assembly and demands Agamemnon give the girl back. Agamemnon agrees but retaliates by taking Briseis, Achilles’ own war prize, which is a direct and public humiliation. Achilles is furious. He withdraws himself and his soldiers, the Myrmidons, from the war entirely and asks his goddess mother Thetis to go to Zeus and make the Greeks suffer without him. Zeus agrees. The war has barely resumed and its greatest warrior has already walked away from it.

Zeus sends a deceptive dream to Agamemnon telling him that now is the moment to attack Troy and that he will win. Agamemnon believes it and calls the army together, but first tests their morale by telling them to go home. The soldiers immediately rush to the ships. Odysseus, guided by Athena, runs through the crowd and pulls them back, physically beating the troublemakers into line. The army is reassembled and the attack is prepared. Homer then pauses the entire narrative to list every Greek ship, every commander, and every contingent in the army, a section known as the Catalogue of Ships. It is long, detailed, and reads like a military census, but it establishes the full scale of the Greek force before the real fighting begins.

The two armies face each other on the battlefield and Paris, the Trojan prince who started the whole war by taking Helen, steps forward and challenges any Greek to single combat. Menelaus, Helen’s husband, accepts immediately and Paris suddenly loses his nerve. Hector shames him back into it. The duel begins and Menelaus is winning easily, dragging Paris by his helmet across the ground. Aphrodite intervenes and whisks Paris away in a cloud, depositing him safely back in his bedroom in Troy. The duel ends without a result. Menelaus has technically won but Paris is alive and the war continues. Helen is furious with Paris and disgusted by his cowardice but Aphrodite forces her back to his side.

Both sides have agreed to let the duel between Paris and Menelaus decide the war, but the gods have other plans. Hera, who wants Troy destroyed, convinces Zeus to break the truce. Athena descends to the battlefield disguised as a Trojan soldier and persuades a Trojan archer named Pandarus to shoot Menelaus. The arrow wounds Menelaus and the truce is broken. Full battle resumes. Agamemnon moves through the Greek ranks rallying his commanders, and the fighting begins in earnest. The brief hope of a clean resolution vanishes and both sides settle back into the war that neither of them can seem to end.

This book belongs entirely to Diomedes, the young Greek warrior who becomes the most terrifying force on the battlefield in Achilles’ absence. Athena grants him extraordinary power and the ability to distinguish gods from men. He tears through the Trojan lines with unstoppable violence, wounding the goddess Aphrodite when she tries to protect her son Aeneas, and then wounding Ares, the god of war himself. Both gods flee the battlefield in pain. Even the Trojans’ divine protectors cannot stop him. It is the most exhilarating extended battle sequence in the poem and establishes Diomedes as the closest thing the Greeks have to Achilles while Achilles refuses to fight.

The battle pauses and Hector returns to Troy to ask the Trojan women to pray to Athena for help. Inside the city he finds Paris lounging at home, polishing his armour with no urgency whatsoever, and shames him back toward the battlefield. He then finds his wife Andromache on the walls of Troy, watching the battle with their infant son Astyanax in her arms. Their farewell scene is the emotional heart of the entire poem. Andromache begs him not to go back. Hector tells her gently that he has no choice, that his honour and the fate of Troy will not allow it. He reaches for his son but the baby is frightened by his war helmet and cries, so Hector takes it off and laughs and holds him. He prays that his son will one day be greater than him, then hands the baby back to Andromache and returns to the battlefield. It is the most human moment in the Iliad.

Hector returns to the battlefield and, inspired by the gods, challenges any Greek to single combat. Nine Greek warriors volunteer and lots are drawn. Ajax is chosen. The two fight to a standstill as darkness falls, neither able to defeat the other. They exchange gifts as a mark of mutual respect and the duel ends in a draw. Both sides then agree to a temporary truce to collect and burn their dead. The Greeks use this time to build a defensive wall and trench around their ships, which will become important in the books ahead. The truce is brief and fragile and everyone on both sides knows the real fighting is far from over.

Zeus forbids the other gods from interfering in the battle and takes control of events himself. He tips his golden scales and fate falls against the Greeks. The Trojans push forward with devastating force and the Greeks are driven back to their defensive wall. Hector is unstoppable. By evening the Trojans are camped on the plain outside Troy for the first time, fires burning across the field, close enough to the Greek ships to threaten them directly. It is the lowest point for the Greeks so far and the highest point for Troy, and it has happened entirely because Achilles is not fighting and Zeus is honouring his promise to Thetis.

The Greeks are desperate. Agamemnon, finally understanding the scale of the disaster his pride has caused, sends an embassy to Achilles — Odysseus, Ajax, and the old warrior Phoenix — with an extraordinary offer. He will return Briseis, give Achilles enormous wealth, and offer him his own daughter in marriage if he will come back and fight. Achilles refuses everything. He tells them, with startling clarity, that no amount of gifts can compensate for the honour that was taken from him, and that he is considering sailing home to Phthia entirely. Odysseus argues brilliantly. Ajax appeals to friendship. Phoenix appeals to loyalty. None of it works. Achilles is immovable. The embassy returns empty handed and the Greeks face the coming battle without their greatest warrior.

In the middle of the night, with both armies camped on the plain, Odysseus and Diomedes volunteer for a dangerous scouting mission behind Trojan lines. They encounter a Trojan spy named Dolon who has been sent to scout the Greek camp, capture him, and extract information from him before killing him. Using what Dolon reveals, they locate the camp of the Thracian king Rhesus, a new Trojan ally who has arrived with magnificent horses. They kill Rhesus and twelve of his men in their sleep and steal the horses, returning to the Greek camp before dawn. It is a small victory in a desperate night and provides one of the poem’s few moments of dark, efficient action outside the main battlefield.

Agamemnon has his finest hour on the battlefield, fighting with extraordinary courage and cutting through the Trojan lines. But one by one the Greek commanders fall or are wounded. Agamemnon himself is wounded and forced to withdraw. Diomedes is wounded. Odysseus is wounded. Ajax is pushed back. The Greeks are losing their leaders faster than they can afford to and the Trojan advance continues. Achilles watches from his ship, still refusing to fight, but sends Patroclus to find out what is happening. Patroclus goes and finds the situation far worse than either of them realised. The seeds of what will happen in Book 16 are being planted here.

The Trojans reach the defensive wall the Greeks built around their ships and attempt to break through it. Hector leads the assault with terrifying energy. An eagle appears carrying a snake, which the Trojan prophet Polydamas reads as a bad omen and advises retreat. Hector ignores him. He picks up a massive boulder and hurls it at the gates of the Greek wall, shattering them. The Trojans pour through. The Greek defensive line, which seemed like security, has been broken in a single afternoon and the ships are now directly under threat.

The fighting moves to the Greek ships themselves. Poseidon, defying Zeus’s order not to interfere, slips down to the battlefield disguised as a mortal commander and rallies the Greeks. The battle rages back and forth with neither side able to gain a decisive advantage. Ajax holds the line with almost superhuman endurance. The Trojan Hector and the Greek Ajax circle each other throughout, neither able to land the killing blow. It is one of the longest and most exhausting battle sequences in the poem, a grinding, brutal back and forth that leaves both sides bloodied and neither side broken.

Hera watches the battle going badly for the Greeks and decides to take matters into her own hands. She borrows Aphrodite’s girdle, which makes its wearer irresistible, and seduces Zeus on Mount Ida, putting him to sleep after they make love. With Zeus unconscious, Poseidon is free to intervene openly and the Greeks rally dramatically. Hector is struck by a boulder thrown by Ajax and temporarily knocked out of the battle. The Greek counterattack pushes the Trojans back. It is a stolen moment of Greek advantage built entirely on Hera’s willingness to deceive her own husband, and it will not last long once Zeus wakes up.

Zeus wakes up, sees what Hera has done, and is furious. He reasserts control immediately, ordering Poseidon out of the battle and sending Apollo to revive Hector. Apollo descends with divine energy and Hector returns to the battlefield like a force renewed. The Trojans push forward again with overwhelming momentum and the Greeks are driven all the way back to their ships for the second time. Hector reaches the ships and calls for fire. The situation for the Greeks is now truly desperate. Without Achilles they are on the verge of total destruction and everyone knows it.

Patroclus can no longer watch the Greeks suffer and goes to Achilles in tears. Achilles is moved but still will not fight himself. He agrees to let Patroclus wear his armour and lead the Myrmidons into battle, with strict instructions not to push too far toward Troy. Patroclus enters the battlefield and the effect is immediate — the Trojans, thinking Achilles has returned, fall back in panic. Patroclus fights brilliantly and saves the Greek ships. But he forgets Achilles’ warning and pushes all the way to the walls of Troy. Apollo strikes him, staggering him, and Hector delivers the killing blow. Patroclus dies on the plain outside Troy, and with his last breath tells Hector that Achilles is coming. This is the pivot of the entire poem. Everything changes here.

Both sides fight furiously over Patroclus’s body. The Greeks want to recover it and give it proper burial. The Trojans want to take it as a trophy. Hector strips Achilles’ armour from the body and puts it on himself. The fighting over the corpse goes on for the entire book, with Menelaus and Ajax leading the Greek effort to protect it. Zeus watches from above and speaks the poem’s bleakest line, that there is nothing more wretched than man among all creatures. Eventually the Greeks manage to carry the body back to their camp, though the armour is gone. Word is sent to Achilles. He does not know yet.

Achilles receives the news of Patroclus’s death and his grief is total and terrifying. He collapses, tears at his hair, and his cry of anguish is so loud that his mother Thetis hears it beneath the sea and comes to him. She holds him as he weeps and tells him what he already knows: that if he returns to battle to avenge Patroclus, he will die at Troy. Achilles does not care anymore. He is going back. Thetis goes to the god Hephaestus and asks him to forge new armour for her son. Hephaestus creates the most extraordinary armour ever made, including a shield depicting the entire world, cities at war and at peace, harvests, weddings, and the ocean running around the edge. Achilles receives it and prepares to return. The war is about to change completely.

Achilles calls an assembly and formally ends his quarrel with Agamemnon. Agamemnon returns Briseis and offers all the gifts he promised in Book 9. Achilles accepts, not because the gifts matter to him anymore but because the reconciliation is necessary before he can fight. He has no interest in eating or resting. He wants to get to the battlefield immediately. His companions urge him to eat first. He cannot. He is beyond ordinary human concerns now, operating entirely on grief and the need for revenge. His horse Xanthus, given temporary speech by the gods, warns him that he will die soon. Achilles already knows. He rides out anyway.

Zeus lifts his prohibition and allows the gods to enter the battle on whichever side they choose. The result is chaos. Hera, Athena, Poseidon, and Hermes fight for the Greeks. Apollo, Ares, Aphrodite, and others fight for Troy. The gods clash with each other while Achilles tears through the Trojan army below them. He encounters Aeneas, a Trojan hero protected by the gods, and Poseidon miraculously saves Aeneas from death because his bloodline is fated to survive. Achilles continues his rampage unchecked. He is looking for Hector and cutting down everyone in his path to get to him.

Achilles drives a mass of Trojan soldiers into the river Scamander and kills so many of them that the river fills with bodies and blood. The river god rises up in fury and attacks Achilles directly, flooding the banks and threatening to drown him. Hephaestus, sent by Hera, counters with fire, boiling the river until it subsides. The gods then fight each other openly and somewhat comically, Athena knocking Ares down, Hera boxing Artemis’s ears. Meanwhile the Trojans flee back toward the city gates. Only one man does not run. Hector stands outside the walls and waits for Achilles.

Hector waits for Achilles outside the gates of Troy while his parents Priam and Hecuba beg him from the walls to come inside. He holds his ground until Achilles appears, and then, in a moment of very human terror, he runs. Achilles chases him three times around the walls of Troy. Athena tricks Hector by appearing as his brother and offering help, then vanishing when the moment comes. Hector turns and faces Achilles. They fight and Achilles kills him, driving his spear through the gap in the armour at Hector’s throat. Hector dies asking for his body to be returned to his family. Achilles refuses. He ties Hector’s body to his chariot and drags it around the walls of Troy while Priam and Hecuba watch from above and Andromache, who has just heard the news inside the palace, faints with grief.

Achilles holds elaborate funeral games in honour of Patroclus, including chariot racing, boxing, wrestling, running, and spear throwing. The Greeks compete with full seriousness and Achilles presides, awarding prizes with a generosity that feels like the first human thing he has done since Patroclus died. The games are lively, occasionally heated, and full of the competitive pride that defines Greek heroism. But underneath all of it is grief, and the games are as much about giving that grief somewhere to go as they are about honouring the dead. Patroclus is cremated and his ashes are placed in a golden urn, to be buried alongside Achilles when he too dies.

Achilles has been dragging Hector’s body around Patroclus’s tomb every morning for twelve days. The gods are offended by the desecration and Zeus intervenes, sending Thetis to tell Achilles to release the body and sending Hermes to guide Priam safely through the Greek camp at night. Priam arrives at Achilles’ tent alone, kneels before him, and kisses the hands that killed his son. He asks, father to father, for Hector’s body back. Achilles is stunned by the old man’s courage. They weep together, each grieving what they have lost, and Achilles agrees. He has the body washed and prepared and gives it to Priam with dignity and care. Priam returns to Troy with his son. The Greeks grant eleven days of truce for the funeral. The Iliad ends with Hector’s burial, Troy still standing, the war still unfinished, and two men on opposite sides of it briefly, painfully, recognising each other’s humanity.