Iliad Character notes world of the hero A* including context, quotes, scholars analysis, all to get you 100%.
Characters include:
- Achilles
- Agamemnon
- Diomedes
- Menelaus
- Nestor
- Odysseus
- Patroclus
- Dolon
- Hector
- Paris
- Priam
- Helen
- Etc.
Iliad (c. 8th Century BC)
Iliad Characters
Greeks
Achilles
- Positive
- Good Leader
o 1 - Mid-plague, “Achilles had the men summoned to assembly” not Ag
o 1 - Achilles suggests consulting Calchas the seer who is too frightened to criticise Agamemnon and
looks to Achilles for protection.
o 1 – Willing to compromise (offers to compensate Ag “three, four times over” when they get to Troy.)
o 9 – Recognises that Odysseus is omitting Ag’s request for his submission.
o 19 - Calls his men to assembly. "Even the men who usually stayed with the ships" came - shows that
he commands the attention of all the Greeks.
o Diplomatic
19 – Renounces his anger at Ag and accepts Ag’s gifts. “So now I renounce my anger.”
19 - Achilles is eager to get back to the fighting so unites with Ag and does not admit that he
prayed to Zeus for Greeks to die.
23 – Generously gives out prizes and enjoys the sports at the funeral games.
- Xenia/Good Host
o 9 – Ajax, Odysseus and Phoenix visit him and he welcomes them and offers them a meal, even if he
refuses Ag’s offer.
9 - He asks Patroclus to bring out more wine and leave it less diluted – generous offering of
xenia.
9 - Offers Phoenix a bed in his hut if he wants to stay and sail back with him in the morning.
- Connection to the Gods
o Achilles’ mother Thetis is an immortal.
o 1 – Hera gave him the idea to call an assembly to deal with the plague.
1 - Hera sends Athene to stop Achilles killing Ag “because she felt equally close to both men
and was concerned for them.”
o 18 – Iris, sent by Hera, roused Achilles to appear armour-less on the battlefield.
o 18 – Athena “threw her fringed aegis round his mighty shoulders” and “raised the war-cry” to help
Achilles? rescue Pat.
- Treatment of women
o 1 - “Achilles broke into tears” when Briseis was taken.
o 9 - Achilles: “he has taken the wife I love, too”.
- Fights for honour/kleos
o 9 - Plays the lyre “singing of the famous deeds of heroes” in the one moment he can’t win the kleos
to be in the song himself.
o 1 - Alluded to the fact he chose to fight and live a short life in exchange for being remembered.
Thetis: “Doomed to a short life”
- Great Warrior
o 16 – The mere idea of Achilles sends panic through the Trojans. (Pat in armour).
o 19 – He is gifted armour made by Hephaestus. Thetis: “No mortal has ever worn anything like it.”
o 19 – Prepares for battle, “No Greek could wield this [spear] but Achilles, who alone knew how to
handle it.”
- Cares (for Patroclus)
o 16 – Prays to Zeus for Patroclus’ safe return.
o 18 – Cares for Pat deeply and is devastated by his death – “a black cloud of grief engulfed Achilles.”
18 – “Antilochus was afraid he [Achilles] might take a knife and cut his throat.”
18 – Thetis similarly anticipates Achilles’ death: “never again now shall I welcome him
home to Peleus’ house.”
Homer’s description of his grief is as if Achilles is already dead – “Spread out in the dust”
(normally for bodies)
o 19 – “terribly afraid” not for himself but for Pat’s body.
o 19 - He has food but can not eat without Patroclus - "Not that I lack it. I lack you." (A god has to feed
himself instead).
- Negative
, - Anger (Menis)
o 1- The proem begins with Achilles’ anger/”menis” – this dominates the 1st book.
1 – Once threatened by Ag, he considers “whether to draw the sharp sword from his side [...] and
disembowel Agamemnon”.
1 - Refuses to fight and to ask his mother to call upon Zeus to “help the Trojans and to fling the
Greeks back on their ships [...] and massacre them”.
o 18 – To Pat’s body: “at your pyre I am going to cut the throats of a dozen splendid sons of Troy, to
vent my anger at your death.”
o 19 - "the more Achilles looked, the deeper his anger against Hector grew, and from beneath their lids
his eyes shone fearfully like flames." - His anger relents against Ag but just shifts to Hector.
o 19 – Achilles about Briseis: “I only wish Artemis had killed her” – violent and blames wrong person.
o Ach: "None of your proposals interest me - only slaughter and bloodshed and the groans of the dying."
o Anger to the point of irrationality
19 - So determined that he doesn't realise the men need to eat.
19 - Od: "you must not order the men to march against Ilium and take on the enemy without
having eaten something first. When told, he still wants them to fight on empty stomachs.
o 16 – BUT – he does recognise he was “wrong in supposing a man could nurse his anger for ever”
- Proud
o 1 – Calls himself “the best of the Greeks”
o 9 – “Master your tremendous pride, Achilles” – Phoenix
o 16 – Even after Achilles rescinds his anger, he is too proud to say anything so feels trapped.
16 – Achilles: “I was wrong in supposing a man could nurse his anger for ever”.
o Aristotle calls Achilles “a good man, but a paradigm of obstinacy”
- Disliked by his troops
o 16 – Achilles “There is not one of you that did not abuse me”.
- Stays out of the fray
o 19 - His "long absence" is commented on by Homer.
o 19 - All the other heroes of his calibre arrive at the assembly injured.
19 - "The two attendants of Ares, resolute Diomedes and godlike Odysseus, came limping in, still
troubled by their wounds and leaning on their spears."
- Unwilling to take responsibility
o 19 - Ach: "rivalry about a girl"
o 19 - Ach: "Father Zeus, what tremendous delusions you inflict on men! Agamemnon would never
have provoked me to such lasting bitterness nor stubbornly taken the girl against my will, if Zeus had
not wanted a Greek massacre.”
o 19 - Blames Xanthus for leaving Pat to die.
Agamemnon
- Positive
- Connection to the Gods
o 1 - Hera sends Athene to stop Achilles killing Ag “because she felt equally close to both men and was
concerned for them.”
- Good Leader
o Leader of the Greeks by virtue of having the largest number of ships.
o 4 – Praises good soldiers: Idomeneus, Ajax + Teucer, Nestor, respected by Diomedes.
o 9 - Listens to Nestor and is willing to reconcile with Achilles, admits his failings.
o 10 – Can’t sleep (because he cares for his men).
o 10 – Tells Diomedes not to ““take the worse out of respect for his birth” and leave the better soldier,.
- Pious
o 1 - Ag ordered the “the perfect sacrifices of bulls and goats” to Apollo. Also orders Odysseus to pacify
Apollo with an offering.
- Typical hero (Appearance)
o 3 - Priam: “awe-inspiring”, “fine, tall Greek” / “He looks every inch a leader.”
- Willing to make amends:
o 19 - Ag: "I am ready to produce all that godlike Odysseus promised when he went to you yesterday in
your hut."
- Accepts criticism:
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