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The Offer to Achilles1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

E. Watson Williams
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Extract

Probably no part of the Iliad has given rise to more discussion than the apparent contradiction between Books 9 and 16. In the former, Agamemnon's embassy offers Achilles the restoration of Briseis and ‘handsome gifts’ in recompense for taking her: in the latter Achilles tells Patroklos to obey his battle-orders exactly, ‘so that you may win me great renown and glory from all the Danaans, and they shall restore the lovely damsel and also give splendid gifts’ —just as though he had not refused precisely these things only the night before

Type
Articles
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 7 , Issue 1-2 , January 1957 , pp. 103 - 108
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1957

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References

page 103 note 2 ‘The position of the ninth book in the economy of the Iliad is a point of cardinal importance in the Homeric question. The chief arguments have been stated by Grote. … The principal is the entire inconsistency of the offered reparation with the words of Achilles in 16. 49–100.’ Leaf, W., The Iliad London, 1900, i. 370.

page 103 note 3 The usual rendering, e.g. Eichholz, loc. cit.

page 103 note 4 Leaf, op. cit. ii. 153, 162.

page 103 note 5 Lorimer, H. L., Homer and the Monuments, London, 1950, p. 480.Google Scholar

page 103 note 6 8. 473. I apologize for citations which those familiar with the text may consider redundant.

page 103 note 7 18. 81, 114; 19. 315; 22. 389.

page 103 note 8 1. 298; 9. 665; 19. 59.

page 104 note 1 1. 408: there is no suggestion of material compensation—Athene has promised this already, 1. 213.

page 104 note 2 It is not easy in English to bring out the distinction between the future indicative of 135, and the optative of 157, …. And some translators add to the confusion by inserting ‘all’ in the second passage: ‘All this will I accomplish’, e.g. Lang, A. et al. , The Iliad of Homer, London, 1912Google Scholar; Rieu, E. V., The Iliad (Penguin), Harmondswordi, 1950Google Scholar.

page 105 note 1

page 105 note 2 i.e. ‘not until Zeus has fulfilled my petition’.

page 106 note 1 See footnote 2 on p. 105.

page 106 note 2 ii. 609. ‘These words on any fair system of interpretation are quite inconsistent with the position of Book IX in the story': Leaf, loc. cit. i. 507. But in fact they have been suggested to Achilles by Phoinix 9. 451, 583. Schadewalt, W. (Iliasstudien, p. 81; v. Eichholz, loc. cit.), maintains that they imply abject humiliation in the suppliants. But similar words are used regularly of any urgent appeal with no such implication: e.g. Nestor addressing the army 15. 660, 665; also 18. 457, etc.: not ‘grovelling’, 22. 221, 414. Nestor's words 10. 118: but Achilles is thinking of his own prophecy (1. 341),

page 107 note 1 Cf. 9. 646–8.

page 107 note 2 It is usual to assume that Achilles regards this phrase as equivalent to the words he actually had used, ‘I shall not fight until Hector comes …’ I suggest, however, that the words in square brackets represent his meaning.

page 107 note 3 ‘If he had kindly feelings he would have sent the gifts already, without conditions, I should be free to fight and then….’

page 107 note 4 ‘win for oneself’, e.g. 5. 3, 16. 88, 22. 207. He isquoting Odysseus (p. 105, n. 1), putting ‘in the sight of the Achaians’ (not ‘for the Achaians’): Odysseus had offered honour and glory instead of, not in addition to, the gifts, is disjunctive, with change of mood marking parenthesis. cf. p. 104 n. 1: Patroklos has, of course, nothing to do with the ‘splendid gifts’: but Achilles can return to the fighting as soon as he has received them, therefore …. (But why ‘they’ and not ‘Agamemnon’ ?)

page 107 note 5 18. 182. He wants to find out whether Thetis has withdrawn her prohibition. ‘Those fellows have my armour’ (188) is mere excuse. If Patroklos could fight by choice in the armour of Achilles, he could wear that of Patroklos: the exact fit of helmet or greaves would hardly matter to a man whose only wish was to kill Hector and die.