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CORPSE MUTILATION IN THE ILIAD
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 February 2021
Extract
The Iliad opens with the image of abandoned corpses, left as prey to the wild beasts. It closes with the hard-won and respectful funeral of Hector, during which his maimed body is finally laid to rest. In-between these passages, death and the fate of dead bodies are often part of the epic's subject matter. The audience is treated to a wide selection of images concerning the fallen and their remains, ranging from those taken gently away from the battlefield to be buried to those who are posthumously mutilated where they lie. Instances of corpse mutilation are rare elsewhere in Greek historical and literary writing, but occur in the Iliad at a regular rate. The gruesomeness of these acts makes for shocking and violent scenes, and represents a radical departure from the normal funeral ritual with lasting repercussions for the relatives of the deceased and the fate of the dead person in the afterlife.
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- Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical Association.
Footnotes
I am very grateful to my PhD supervisor Prof. Ineke Sluiter for her endless encouragement and invaluable comments during the writing of this paper, as well as to the Department of Classics at Leiden University (research institute LUCAS) for its support. I am also indebted to the anonymous reviewer of this journal for their suggestions.
References
1 Segal, C., The Theme of the Mutilation of the Corpse in the Iliad (Leiden, 1971), IXCrossRefGoogle Scholar.
2 Segal (n. 1), 72–3.
3 Segal (n. 1), 18.
4 A.M. McClellan distinguishes between ‘post-mortem abuse’ and ‘post-mortem mutilation’, in which the term mutilation is reserved for those acts in which a body part is severed from the rest of the body (‘The death and mutilation of Imbrius in Iliad 13’, YAGE 1 [2017], 159–74, at 162). I do not believe that this distinction is relevant and I use ‘mutilation’ for any act that destroys the integrity of the body (as is custom in modern forensic literature).
5 Madea, B., Handbook of Forensic Medicine (Hoboken, 2014), 151CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Dogan, K.H., Demirci, S., Deniz, I., Erkol, Z., ‘Decapitation and dismemberment of the corpse: a matricide case’, J. Forensic Sci 55 (2010), 542–5CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed, at 544.
6 A possible example is found in Hdt. 2.121, where two brothers attempt to rob king Rhampsinitus. One gets stuck in the treasure chamber he is trying to rob. The other then beheads him and takes his head to prevent the corpse from being identified. It is clearly a defensive motive but not a true corpse mutilation, but rather an intravital mutilation (death by beheading, where the mutilation occurs at the moment of death rather than after it).
7 In modern forensic science, ‘offensive mutilation’ is usually reserved for lust murders, but can also refer to cannibalism or other instances in which mutilation is the main purpose of the killing (Madea [n. 5], 32.3). Several examples of this exist in Greek literature and myth. According to some accounts, Tantalus murdered his son Pelops in order to dismember him and serve his body to the gods to eat (Pind. Ol. 1.37–53). He would not have killed his son if he had not conceived the idea of dismembering him and have guests eat the body parts. Similar examples are Atreus’ murder and cooking of Thyestes’ sons, as well as Cyaxares being served a dismembered child by the Scythians (Hdt. 1.73), and Astyages feeding Harpagus his own murdered son (Hdt. 1.119). Another example is Apsyrtus’ killing by Medea. In one version of this story, Medea kills her half-brother on the Argo and dismembers him, throwing parts of his body into the water to delay her pursuer, her father Aeëtes, who had to stop to retrieve the pieces of his son for burial (Apollod. Epit. 1.9.24).
8 The taking of body parts during necromantic mutilation can stem from a sexual desire of the murderer or from his wish to have a permanent reminder of the killing. The latter motif occurs frequently in Greek mythology. An example is Oenomaus, who displays the heads of the suitors who unsuccessfully tried to win his daughter Hippodameia's hand in marriage (Apollod. Epit. 2.5), and possibly also Antaeus, who used his enemies’ skulls to build a temple for Poseidon (Pind. Isthm. 4.52–4b), although his case is ambiguous. If Antaeus killed travellers (for whatever reason) and afterwards decided to take their skulls as trophies, he would be committing necromantic mutilations. However, if he killed people in order to use their skulls to build the temple, the mutilations would be classified as offensive. A similar example is found in Stesichorus, fr. 166a Finglass (Cycnus building a temple to Apollo from travellers’ skulls). Key to necromantic mutilation is that the body part serves a function to the killer, but the murder was not exclusively committed to obtain it (in contrast to offensive mutilation). For other examples of skull or head trophies in Greek mythology, see E. Vermeule, Aspects of Death in Early Greek Arts and Poetry (Berkeley, 1979), 236 n. 30. Pentheus’ head in Euripides’ Bacchae resembles a necromantic trophy, as his mother carries it around on a thyrsus. His dismemberment is, however, not a true necromantic mutilation but rather an intravital mutilation: he is killed by being torn apart, rather than being torn apart after being killed (Bacch. 1114–43).
9 Segal cites Dolon's decapitation as an earlier mutilation, but this is an intravital mutilation rather than a corpse mutilation, as the text states that Dolon's head is severed while he was speaking (Il. 10.454–7).
10 Text from M.L. West, Homeri Ilias (Stuttgart, 1998).
11 It is not explicit why Agamemnon chooses to mutilate Hippolochus but not Peisander. A possible reason could be that Peisander is killed at some distance by a spear while he is still in the chariot, after which he falls backwards (11.143–4). Hippolochus, however, leaps out and is killed with a sword on the ground, thus close by to be mutilated. Agamemnon's rage is apparently not such that he seeks out Peisander's body to mutilate it. In later scenes, we do see combatants trying to get to dead bodies not killed near them.
12 The aorist participles πλήξας and κόψας imply that the cutting off of the arms and the head occurs either just prior to or at the same time as the death. See also McClellan (n. 4), 161.
13 Lendon, J.E., ‘Homeric vengeance and the outbreak of Greek wars’, in van Wees, H. (ed.), War and Violence in Ancient Greece (Swansea, 2000), 1–30Google Scholar, at 8.
14 11.137. For the characterization of Agamemnon, see Griffin, J., Homer on Life and Death (Oxford, 1980), 53–4Google Scholar and van Erp Taalman Kip, A.M., Agamemnon in epos en tragedie (Assen, 1971), 48–52Google Scholar.
15 It is possible that Agamemnon had to switch weapons and accomplish the decapitation with a sword, going through extra trouble to mutilate Coön's corpse. It seems difficult to decapitate an enemy with a spear, and other decapitations in the Iliad are usually done with a sword. For a list of weapons and injuries sustained to head and neck, see Mylonas, A.I., Tzerbos, F.H. and Eftychiadis, A.C., ‘Cranio-maxillofacial injuries in Homer's Iliad’, J. Oral Maxillofac Surg 36 (2008), 1–7Google ScholarPubMed, Table 4. See below for a weapon-switch during Ilioneus’ mutilation. McClellan (n. 4), 161 doubts whether Coön's mutilation is accomplished post-mortem. The Greek text suggests a killing from afar, before Agamemnon approaches to decapitate, although it does not explicitly state that Coön is dead after being hit by the spear and before being decapitated. In these early mutilations, death and mutilation follow very quickly or appear to happen simultaneously.
16 Van Erp Taalman Kip (n. 14), 49.
17 For this as anticipation ‘on a microcosmic scale’ of Books 16–22, see Segal (n. 1), 23 n. 1.
18 See McClellan (n. 4) for how Imbrius’ mutilation anticipates Hector's mutilation, as well as for its important placement at the beginning of the second half of the poem. McClellan believes the scene to be an anomaly, the one time in which an overt mutilation is committed. However, although Imbrius’ mutilation holds an important place in the pattern of escalation that eventually leads to Hector's mutilation, the decapitation of Coön and that of Ilioneus are acts of post-mortem mutilation as well, and this scene is not as unique as McClellan makes it out to be.
19 These series of killings are typical for mutilation scenes (Lendon [n. 13], 5).
20 Repetition of ὀφθαλμός in lines 493 and 494 adds to the horror (Janko, R., The Iliad: A Commentary, Volume IV: Books 13–16 [Cambridge, 1992], 222Google Scholar).
21 For the imagery of Ilioneus’ head as the head of a poppy, see Janko (n. 20), 222.
22 Segal somewhat excuses Peneleus’ actions by saying that he ‘has not deliberately impaled the head: it is on his spear because the victim has already been struck through the eye’ (Segal [n. 1], 23; see also McClellan [n. 4], 161). This is true, but it seems that Peneleus purposefully decapitates Ilioneus with his sword to have his head on his spear. He chooses to display it and does so while boasting, using the body part for a specific purpose. This is a deliberate corpse mutilation.
23 Lendon (n. 13), 4.
24 Both German and French soldiers mutilated corpses in the First World War after hearing rumours about the other party mutilating the dead; American and Japanese soldiers also mutilated the bodies of their enemies during the Pacific War (H. Jones, Violence against Prisoners of War in the First World War [Cambridge, 2011], 73–6; J.J. Weingartner, ‘Trophies of war: U.S. troops and the mutilation of Japanese war dead, 1941–1945’, Pac. Hist. Rev. 61 [1992], 53–67, at 62 n. 31).
25 See also Segal (n. 1), 20 n. 3.
26 Many mutilations are described in detail. Sometimes, however, the act is alluded to without explicitly stating the violations that take place. Usually, the word used is a form of ἀεικίζω, which is generally translated as ‘to violate’, ‘to treat unseemly’, ‘to dishonour’ or ‘to mutilate’. In this particular passage, the meaning of ἀεικίζω is clear from its context: it is something done to the corpse (after its armour has been removed) by the enemy at a time of great emotion (anger at those perished), and it will shame his friends/fellow Trojans, who need to protect the corpse from this act. It contains all the elements associated with corpse mutilation and I choose therefore to translate it as such. For other uses of ἀεικίζω referring to damaging a corpse, see 16.559 (desire to mutilate Sarpedon), 19.26 (passive mutilation of Patroclus’ corpse by flies and worms), 22.256 (Hector asking Achilles to give his body back unharmed), 22.404 (reference to the mutilation which Hector's corpse is about to undergo) and 24.22 (Achilles mutilating Hector).
27 Segal points out that Sarpedon's gentle ending shows that ‘the mutilation theme does not yet reach its full violence’ (Segal [n. 1], 18–19).
28 Why corpse mutilation has been an act reserved for Greeks up to this point is not entirely clear. Perhaps the Greeks simply had more opportunities (most of the aristeiai are by Greeks) or perhaps the poet wanted to illustrate Greek superiority in battle. Greeks are neither mutilated nor made to plea for their lives or for burial, unlike the Trojans Adrastus, Hippolochus, Pisander, Tros, Lycaon and Hector (I.J.F. de Jong, Homer Iliad Book 22 [Cambridge, 2012], 144).
29 Segal (n. 1), 17.
30 This is the first time that passive mutilation is actually shown to happen, although it has been mentioned many times (e.g. 1.4–5, 2.391–3, 8.379–80, 11.452–4, 13.831–2, 15.348–51, 17.240–4): another sign of the escalation of the theme. McClellan (n. 4), 161 attempts to downplay this passive mutilation coming to fruition by stating that Hephaestus’ fire scorches the river and its banks, burning the corpses and thereby ‘approximating a mass cremation following the ritual cleansing with “water”’, but this happens several lines after the fish had torn the fat from the corpses’ kidneys. Burial or cremation is always eventually achieved in the Iliad, but does not negate the corpse mutilation that preceded it.
31 Achilles even wishes that his μένος καὶ θυμός would let him eat Hector's flesh (22.346–7), thereby threatening offensive mutilation. The one other reference to cannibalism comes from a female non-combatant: Hecuba wishes she could eat Achilles’ liver in requital for the loss of her son (24.212–13). Offensive mutilation is the rarest and possibly most shocking type of corpse mutilation. It is only threatened, never accomplished, and only by those who have perhaps lost the most and whose desire for revenge is so great as to justify this level of violence.
32 Achilles mentions this many times during their exchanges, in 22.335, 22.348 and 22.354.
33 For an analysis of how Achilles’ moral character has changed after his quarrel with Agamemnon (‘betrayal of what's right’) and after Patroclus’ death (‘loss of a special comrade’) in such a way that he is now capable of corpse mutilation, see Shay, J., Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character (New York, 1995), 28–30Google Scholar.
34 There is also a parallel between the defilement of Hector's head and that of Achilles’ helmet when Patroclus died (Segal [n. 1], 41). For the ritual of prothesis (which Achilles perverts by laying Hector facedown), see R. Garland, The Greek Way of Death (Ithaca, 1985), 23–31.
35 On the meaning of Hector's loss for Andromache in particular, see Segal (n. 1), 44–7.
36 Many American veterans and their families went to great lengths in the decades after the Pacific War to repatriate the skulls of Japanese soldiers that had been taken as trophies and had become objects of shame and horror: ‘[at home], it seems that many veterans and their families did not know what to do with them, because there were no accepted cultural schemata for the use of such objects’ (S. Harrison, ‘Skull trophies of the Pacific War: transgressive objects of remembrance’, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 12 [2006], 817–36, at 831).
37 Throughout the Iliad, the influence of the gods on the mutilation theme is subtle. Athena urges Menelaus to protect the corpse of Patroclus (17.557–8), Iris uses the image of Patroclus’ mutilated corpse to spur Achilles into action, and Apollo and Aphrodite protect Hector's body from decay and from devouring by dogs. As Segal (n. 1), 55 points out, the same is true for their final intervention that allows Achilles to give up Hector's corpse: the gods do not interfere ‘until such an action is already intelligible in terms of the human motivation’.
38 Achilles appears to break his fast twice. The first time is in Book 23, when he eats a funeral feast for Patroclus with the leaders of the Greek army (23.48). Yet, in Book 24, Thetis urges Achilles to stop fasting and abstaining from sex (24.128–30) (R. Seaford, Reciprocity and Ritual: Homer and Tragedy in the Developing City-State [Oxford, 1994], 159–60, 172–3). Apparently, Achilles began his fast again after Patroclus’ funeral: this is another sign that it has not fully brought him closure. Breaking his fast now, while giving Hector's corpse back, shows that the mutilation theme needed to be resolved before Achilles could reintegrate into normal life again. Achilles ending his abstinence from sex is implied by him laying with Briseïs the following night (24.676).
39 Achilles’ gentleness and rage are closely related. Achilles fears that he will kill Priam if the old king angers him (24.583–6).