The course of Peleus’ life was as troubled and tortured as that of many a hero. Perhaps one of the gods or goddesses bore a grudge against him, or wanted to test him. His birth, on the island of Aegina, was propitious. His father was the king, Aeacus, a son of Zeus whose insight and advice were so sound that he came to be a judge of the dead in Hades. The family seemed to be blessed with all the good things of life.
Now, Aeacus was married to Endeis, the daughter of the wise Centaur Cheiron, and Endeis was the mother of Peleus. But Aeacus lusted after Psamathe, the daughter of Nereus, and though at first she resisted his advances by turning herself into a seal, his persistence wore her down, and she became his concubine. She bore him a fine son, called Phocus, who grew up alongside Peleus, but the house was sorely divided, for Endeis loathed this bastard offspring of her husband, and was forever plotting ways to do him harm.
In time Endeis’ bitterness seeped into her son’s brain and curdled it, and for the sake of his mother Peleus resolved to do away with his half-brother. Peleus’ best friend was Telamon, prince of the neighboring island of Salamis, and they planned and executed the deed themselves. Phocus was a keen and outstanding athlete, always practicing for some competition or other. They joined him out in the fields for one of his training sessions, and while Telamon struck Phocus on the head with a discus, Peleus swung a double-headed ax into his spine.
As soon as the deed was done, the mist cleared from Peleus’ mind, and he came to his senses; regret overwhelmed him like a storm wave, and remorse gnawed at his wits. He took himself away from his native island, and traveled the length and breadth of the land, searching for someone who would take him in and offer him purification. But only when he came to Phthia did the king there, kind Eurytion, extend a hand of welcome. And when the period of purification was over, Eurytion gave Peleus his daughter Antigone and a share of his kingdom.
But Peleus was fated not yet to find peace. When he and Eurytion joined the other heroes for the Calydonian boar hunt, he accidentally killed his new friend. The boar had taken refuge in a dark thicket, and no one knew exactly where it was. Peleus heard a noise in the underbrush; the boar was so enormous, and so fierce, that a second’s delay could make the difference between life and an appalling death from the creature’s tusks. Already several good men had fallen, gored in the groin or the stomach, watching their innards steam on the ground before the blessed release of death closed their eyes. Peleus hurled his trusty javelin without further pause, but it was Eurytion’s blood that stained the earth.
Once more, then, Peleus had to leave the place he had made his home and take to the road as an unclean murderer, searching for surcease. This time he ended up in Iolcus, where Acastus, the son of Pelias, was king, and offered him lodging for the period of his purification. While Peleus was there, he competed in the funeral games for Pelias, where his only rival for victory in the wrestling was, to his masculine shame, Atalanta.
But Astydamia, the wife of Acastus, fell in love with the handsome visitor and tried to seduce him. When he spurned her advances, a hellish fury overtook her. First she told Antigone that Peleus was thinking of abandoning her in favor of a more promising marriage with the daughter of Acastus. Even Antigone’s suicide did not sate Astydamia’s desire for evil. Next she destroyed Peleus’ livelihood by sending a ravening wolf against his flocks. Finally, she told her husband that Peleus had tried to rape her, and Acastus believed her.
Now, Acastus could not simply kill the man he had just purified, so he took his erstwhile friend out into the wilderness of Mount Pelion. They hunted all morning, and when they lay down in the shade to rest, Acastus hid Peleus’ sword—a unique weapon, crafted by Hephaestus himself—in a shrub, and left him there defenseless against the creatures of the wild. All he could do was clamber into the branches of a tree while a band of savage Centaurs prowled below. But the wise Centaur Cheiron took pity on him, returned his sword to him, and kept him safe from his less civilized fellows.
Now, it so happened that at this time Zeus conceived a longing to sleep with the beautiful sea-nymph Thetis, daughter of Nereus. But she was fated to bear a child who would outstrip his father, however great he was, and when, as we have already told, Prometheus bargained this piece of information for his release from eternal torment, Zeus and all the gods were anxious to see Thetis married off to a mortal. None of them wanted to run the risk of being overthrown! Peleus was available, and the gods thought it would be amusing to see what happened—what son Thetis would bear for this troubled mortal.
Thetis was a goddess, and she was not best pleased by the idea of being joined in wedlock to a human being, but Zeus made it a direct order and left her no choice. For none dare gainsay the will of Zeus—or not for long. Even so, she didn’t make it easy for Peleus: he had to wrestle her, to tame her, and like her father she was a shape-shifter. As fast as thought, she became a bird, a snake, a lion, a panther, and other unnamed and unnameable monsters. But throughout her transformations Peleus held fast to her, until at last she surrendered to him. He had proved himself a worthy suitor.
Thetis became all manner of creatures, but Peleus clung to his betrothed with grim determination.[59]
The wedding was celebrated on Mount Pelion, and the guest list was incredible. All the gods and goddesses deigned to descend from Olympus to attend, at least partly in relief that Thetis was not marrying one of them. Everyone was happy with the way things were. The Muses came too, and the Fates and the Graces. Nereus was there, of course, as the bride’s father, and Cheiron, the savior of Peleus, whose gift was a sturdy staff of ash, suitable for the haft of a spear. Athena herself planed the wood to perfection, Hephaestus made and fitted the long head of iron, and the rest of the gods contributed a magnificent suit of armor. But Dionysus gave a magical jar of wine that would never empty.
Into the middle of the celebrations hall limped an uninvited guest, in a foul mood at being overlooked. The goddess Strife, her frowning face lined with the weariness of her unceasing labors, stayed no more than a few minutes, but she sowed an evil that would yield countless deaths. She stood scowling in the middle of the hall where the gods and goddesses were feasting, and let fall a golden apple, wheedled from the Hesperides.
The apple was inscribed “For the Fairest” and, as Strife had intended, Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite immediately fell to quarreling, each claiming to be the most fair, and the rightful possessor of the beautiful bauble. The argument became so heated that Zeus had to step in and command them to be silent. He promised to find a way to resolve the matter equably, and ordered them in the meantime not to mar the wedding. The party had been spoiled, however—and a heavy doom set in motion.
As calm as the lull before a storm, the happy couple lived in Phthia, where Peleus succeeded to the throne after the death of Acastus, and ruled wisely and well. His land flourished, the rain and the winds were moderate, and no wolf terrorized his people’s flocks. Each man spoke kind words to his neighbor, for peace and law ruled the land under Peleus’ guidance. In time Thetis bore her husband a son, and they called the boy Achilles.
But silver-footed Thetis still resented her sojourn in the world of mortals, and longed to spend time with others of her kind, gamboling in the underwater realm, or feasting with the gods on high Olympus. If she had to be married to a mortal husband, she would at least use her powers to ensure that their son was invulnerable. And so at night she took hold of the infant and dipped him in her magic cauldron, seeking to purge all traces of mortality from him in the seething broth.
Six nights she dipped the baby thus, and on the seventh the work would have been complete. But Peleus spied Thetis at her task and his mortal eyes could see only that Thetis was dipping their child in a cauldron of boiling water. He cried out in alarm, and Thetis stopped what she was doing and flung the child away from her onto the floor. With a disdainful glare at Peleus, she stormed out of the room, and out of her husband’s life, returning to her watery home. But Achilles was not quite invulnerable: Thetis had been holding on to her child by his ankle, pinching the tiny tendon of the heel between her fingers. This last, little bit of his body had not been dipped for the seventh time into the cauldron.
The birth pangs were beginning, the contractions still far apart. The baby would not be born for many hours yet, and Hecuba, queen of Troy, allowed herself to doze in the spaces between pain.
Suddenly, in the dark of the night, she awoke with a start. “What’s the matter?” asked one of her handmaids anxiously, wringing the last drops from a facecloth to cool her panting mistress’s forehead. “Nothing,” Hecuba whispered. “Only a dream.” But the dream had disturbed her. She saw herself giving birth not to a human being, but to a blazing torch, whose flames spread and consumed the whole city of Troy. She heard cries and screams and lamentation, and saw her husband, King Priam, fall from the city walls.
The baby was born at dawn. The birth was easy, and the little boy seemed perfect, but still Hecuba was unquiet. The dream had been very powerful. As was right and proper, especially given her high station, she consulted the soothsayers to find out what it might mean, though the message seemed all too obvious. And they confirmed that the boy would grow up to cause the destruction of the city. They couldn’t presume to advise her what to do, but she knew anyway.
After consulting her husband, she gave the boy—tentatively named Alexander—to trusted attendants, who took the squalling child out of the city and into the wilderness of Mount Ida, where they left him to be torn apart and consumed by wild beasts. But the first creature to be attracted by the baby’s cries was a shebear, who had lately given birth herself. She picked up the smooth-skinned infant in ungentle paws, thinking to sink her teeth into the soft flesh—and to her astonishment the baby, smelling the milk fresh on her teats, fastened his little mouth to one of them and began to suck. This she understood; the mother bear’s fierceness abated, and she let the little human fill his belly until his cries stopped.
So the boy survived. He didn’t starve to death, and the mother bear watched over him all that first night, protecting him from the cold and other animals. In the morning, she had to return to her own litter, but the child was sleeping peacefully. And shepherds came to that part of the mountain, following their goats as they meandered among the trees and shrubs. One of them took the infant back to his wife; they raised the boy and called him Paris.
Paris grew up an innocent shepherd boy, and his delight lay in wandering the glens of the mountains with his father’s flocks. He didn’t know that there was anything in the world beyond this pastoral life and, like all his fellow shepherds, felt only contempt for the city folk in nearby Troy. As far as the shepherd community of Mount Ida was concerned, the city-dwellers were good for nothing except buying their wool and cheeses.
Then one day his life changed forever. As he was watching his flocks one morning, the god Hermes suddenly appeared to him, where a moment before there had been only rocks and grass and meadow flowers. And in Hermes’ train, seeming to arise out of the ground from the flowers, there came three goddesses. There was nothing to which Paris could compare this vision. It was more vivid than any dream, and he was undoubtedly awake. And the beauty of the goddesses was … well, no mortal woman that Paris had seen or even imagined came close. He knew immediately that he was in the presence of the divine.
This was the way Zeus had found to solve the contest for the golden apple that Strife had tossed among the deities celebrating the wedding of Peleus and Thetis. He chose Paris, for his innocence and noble blood and astounding good looks, to decide the contest—to make the impossible choice and decide which of the goddesses was indeed the “fairest.” The father of gods and men gave Hermes his instructions, and sent him down to Mount Ida with the three divine contestants.
Paris leapt to his feet and paled in terror. “Fear not!” said Hermes, and his voice was as limpid as the mountain streams in which Paris bathed his limbs. “We mean you no harm, but bring you great renown. For Zeus, our common father, has chosen you for a task. Do you see this apple, inscribed ‘For the Fairest’? Each of these three goddesses thinks that she deserves it. It’s up to you to decide who gets it.”
Paris was chosen to decide whether Hera, Athena, or Aphrodite was the most fair goddess.[60]
Eventually, Paris calmed down enough to agree to do the job; he didn’t seem to have any choice in the matter. He sat down on a rock, while Hermes stood aside and watched. The first to approach was Hera, and she appeared to the country boy as a woman of queenly bearing in the glow of full womanhood. A purple-bordered gown draped her majestic figure, and her hair, shining like mahogany, was wound up in an elegant coiffure. Her wide, dark eyes glanced at her competition with a look that betrayed both envy and disdain. She turned her attention to young Paris. “If you make the apple mine,” she said, her voice ringing throughout the dell, “I shall grant you worldly power beyond your imaginings. You shall rule vast territories, and you shall rule them securely, with no rivals to your throne.”
Paris was sorely tempted. He was just a shepherd, and here he was being offered a throne. But, to be fair, he should hear what the other two goddesses had to say as well. Athena strode briskly forward. She appeared as a keen-eyed warrior, imbued with a contained force that was ready to be unleashed at a moment’s notice. Yet she had also the luminous skin and boyish leanness of a virgin. “Should you decide to grant me the apple,” said the favorite daughter of Zeus, fixing him with her iron-gray gaze, “I will make you invincible, not just in hand-to-hand fighting, but in all warfare. You will be the greatest general ever to lead an army. Thousands shall flock to your banner, and none shall stand against you.”
This too was a powerfully attractive offer. The decision was not going to be straightforward, and the contest was beginning to seem one of bribes, not of beauty. Paris gave Hermes an uneasy glance, as if to say “I’m not sure I can do this.” But the god cocked his head to one side and smiled back reassuringly.
Finally, Aphrodite glided up to Paris, and she appeared as sex incarnate. With each lithe step tiny bells jingled from her gilded sandals with a sound like the tide flowing in and out on the shore at sunset. She peered at the handsome young shepherd through silken lashes, and smiled as if she knew a secret. She stood tall, with slender arms and hands, and her skin was as white as the first fall of snow, but her eyes and hair were raven black and the sunlight played in her tresses. Her flimsy dress molded her ripe breasts and well-rounded buttocks, and hinted at further delights. The goddess leaned forward and breathed in his ear: “If you choose me, you will win the love of the most beautiful and desirable woman in the world.”
As her scent filled his nostrils, it suddenly seemed to Paris that this was where his happiness lay, not in the hazards of war or rule. What had he, a shepherd, to do with such things? This offer was more to his taste. “But who is this woman?” he asked. “And what does she look like?”
“She is Helen of Sparta,” replied the goddess, “and she looks just like me. For your eyes, I have made myself in her image.”
Paris forgot his lover Oenone, so certain was he of the truth of Aphrodite’s promise. His mind was swept clean: there was nothing he wanted more than the gift of Aphrodite, the weaver of snares. He indicated to Hermes that he was ready, and the three goddesses lined up expectantly. Hermes solemnly handed Paris the apple, and without a moment’s hesitation Paris held it out to Aphrodite. Gracefully she took it, and with a smile of triumph. Then the four deities slowly faded away, and Paris was left with no more than the certainty that something exciting was going to happen, although he had no idea what form it might take.
The very next day Aphrodite’s gift began to take effect. Priam, king of Troy, sent men out to search the countryside and bring back the most perfect bull they could find for the climactic sacrifice of a festival that was being celebrated in the city. The men chose a bull that was in Paris’ keeping, and out of curiosity he followed them back to Troy. He was amazed. He had heard rumors of the greatness of the city, the wealth of its merchants, the splendor of its walls and public buildings, but the reality overwhelmed him. No sooner had he set foot in the city, however, than his sister Cassandra recognized him, and began to shout out: “He’s here! The bane of the city is here! We shall burn!” But though she spoke the truth, she had been cursed by Apollo, and no one ever believed her. They thought she was just raving, and her voice was soon lost in the joyous babble of the festival.
As is usual all over the Greek world, the festival included athletic games, and Paris, with his newly acquired selfconfidence, decided to take part in a few of the events. He did extraordinarily well, beating even the local favorites, Hector and Deiphobus—his brothers, if he did but know it. Deiphobus especially was mightily displeased at being beaten by some peasant upstart; he drew his sword and Paris fled for safety to the protection of an altar. But in the tussle Deiphobus tore from Paris’ neck a talisman that he always wore, and Hecuba and Priam recognized it as the token they had wrapped in their unwanted baby’s swaddling clothes all those years ago. To his astonishment, the young shepherd Paris was acknowledged as a prince and welcomed back into the fold of his family. He could see that Aphrodite’s spell was beginning to work. In the joy of the moment, Hecuba’s dream was forgotten.
But who was this Helen, the gift of Aphrodite to Paris? Who was this woman, fated to be reviled down the centuries? She was indeed the most beautiful and desirable woman in the world, but Aphrodite also had a hidden motive: Helen’s father Tyndareos had omitted to sacrifice to her, and she cursed him, saying that his daughters Helen and Clytemestra would be “twice married and thrice married and yet husbandless.”
Tyndareos, the king of Sparta installed by Heracles, took as his wife Leda, the daughter of the king of Aetolia; one of her sisters was Althaea, the mother and killer of Meleager. But Leda was loved by Zeus, who came to her in the form of a swan. And in time she gave birth to four children, two by two, a pair in each egg. One egg contained the Dioscuri, Castor and Polydeuces, while the other held Helen and Clytemestra.
Helen was conceived when Zeus took the form of a swan to couple with Leda.[61]
Castor and Polydeuces were inseparable twins, but there was one critical difference between them. Polydeuces had inherited the immortality of his father, but Castor was fully mortal. They were two of the greatest heroes of the Age of Heroes. Together they joined the voyage of the Argo; took part in the Calydonian boar hunt; defeated all-comers in the funeral games of Pelias; stormed Athens to rescue their sister Helen after her abduction by Theseus.
Their greatest adventure was also their last. It began when they attended the wedding of their cousins, Idas and Lynceus, to the daughters of Leucippus, Phoebe and Hilaeira. When the Heavenly Twins arrived for the ceremony, just one look was enough for the girls to change their minds. They left their grooms dumbfounded and allowed themselves to be abducted by the handsome strangers. As if that insult wasn’t bad enough, Castor and Polydeuces rustled some of their cuckolded cousins’ cattle to pay Leucippus his bride-price!
Naturally Idas and his brother sought revenge. Suspecting a trap, Lynceus ran swiftly up to the top of the highest peak of Mount Taygetus, from where he could look out over the entire Peloponnese. And indeed with supernatural vision he spotted Castor and Polydeuces hiding in a hollow oak tree, waiting to spring an ambush on their cousins. Lynceus ran back down the mountain and joined Idas, and together they crept up to where the Dioscuri were hiding. And Idas, who matched great Heracles for strength, drove his spear right through the husk of the mighty tree and fatally wounded Castor.
Polydeuces leapt out and chased Idas and Lynceus to their father’s grave, where they made a stand. But Polydeuces’ aim was true, and his hurled spear took Lynceus in the chest. Idas tore his father’s tombstone from the ground with a grunt and prepared to hurl it at Polydeuces, to bury him under it (the only way to stop immortals)—and he would have succeeded, had not Zeus intervened on behalf of his son and blasted Idas with a thunderbolt. And so Idas and Lynceus lie beside their father.
Polydeuces returned to where his brother lay dying. Tears poured from his eyes, and he prayed to Zeus that he might be allowed to die along with his dear twin. Zeus hearkened to his son’s prayer, but there are some things that even Zeus cannot do, and he couldn’t deny Polydeuces’ immortality. Nevertheless, he found a solution, and shared Polydeuces’ immortality between the two brothers, so that on alternate days the Heavenly Twins dwell in misty Hades and on bright Olympus in the company of the blessed gods. As deities it is their pleasure to protect sailors from the dangers of the deep, and sometimes they appear as pale fire clinging to the masts and rigging of vessels.
But meanwhile, ignorant of the future, there was joy in Tyndareos’ palace, for he had found a noble husband for Helen. Her sister Clytemestra was already married to Agamemnon, the lord of Mycenae. There were, as can be imagined, a great many suitors for the hand of the most beautiful woman in the world: Odysseus of Ithaca, Menestheus of Athens, the gray-beard Idomeneus of Crete, Ajax of Salamis, and scores of others. All were required by Tyndareos to name the bride-price they would pay for his slender daughter.
By far the best offer Tyndareos received was from Menelaus, the noble brother of Agamemnon. But Tyndareos was worried that, whoever he chose to marry his daughter, the other suitors, proud heroes all, would cause trouble. So he made them all swear not only that they would abide by his decision, without envying the successful suitor, but also that they would, if necessary, take up arms to defend the marriage. After all, Helen had been abducted once before, when she was only a child, and she had not become less desirable over the years.
The suitors gave their word—the oath that triggered the Trojan War—and Tyndareos declared that the winner was Menelaus. He was the lucky man who would wed and bed the most desirable woman in the world. Not only that, but Tyndareos also announced that, on his death, Menelaus would inherit the throne of Sparta. He knew that his sons Castor and Polydeuces were destined for higher things. And so it came to pass, for soon afterward Tyndareos died and Menelaus became king.
* * *
Not many weeks passed before Paris set sail from Asia to claim his prize. He had made no plans, beyond simply traveling to Sparta. Helen had been promised to him by a goddess. It would happen.
As everyone knows, nobles feel themselves closer to other nobles, even those from other cities and further abroad, than they do to the peasants of their own lands. Some pledge formal friendship with one another—a network in case of need. But even without such a pledge, it’s understood that if a stranger arrives at your door, he’s not to be turned away, because he’s under the protection of Zeus. And if the stranger is of the same social rank as his host, he’s to be treated well and given the run of the house. By the same token, it’s the responsibility of the guest to show his host only the greatest respect and courtesy.
So it was when Paris turned up at Menelaus’ palace at Sparta. He was made welcome, and gifts were exchanged. Above all, Paris had brought gifts for Helen, but it was not these that turned her head. Aphrodite had made Paris irresistible to her. His exotic easternness, his strange accent, his rich clothing and luxurious ways—everything about him fascinated her. And, for his part, he found that Aphrodite had indeed shown herself to him as a perfect likeness of the Spartan beauty. Passionate looks were exchanged, breasts heaved with sighs, fingers tantalizingly brushed. The lovers knew they were destined for each other, but made no further move, for fear of the wrath of Menelaus. And then Menelaus was called away to distant Crete …
Paris and Helen lost no time. As soon as they were sure that Menelaus must have set sail from Sparta’s seaport, Gythium, they plundered the palace and left. Paris stole all Menelaus’ most precious possessions—his wife, his golden tableware, his purple-dyed cloth. In the gods’ eyes, Paris had violated the sacred laws of marriage and hospitality. He and his kin would have to pay. Justice would be done, reparation made.
The lovers too departed from Gythium, where Paris had left his ships, and set their sails east. In order to baffle pursuit, they lingered for a while on Cyprus and the Phoenician seaboard, reveling in eastern luxury and in the love they bore each other. But in due course of time Helen entered Troy, with death as the dowry she brought for her new in-laws, Priam and Hecuba.
While the lovers were taking their long honeymoon in Phoenicia, the Greeks got busy. The pretext for the mobilization of forces to attack Troy was the oath that Helen’s many suitors had been made to swear: they were honorbound to help Menelaus recover his bride, and they were the cream of the Greek aristocracy.
The Greek leaders were summoned by herald to bring their contingents to Aulis by a certain date, from where they would sail across the Aegean Sea to Asia. It was a massive expedition: over a thousand ships lay at anchor just off the coast, while their crews and the fighting men took their ease on land. But then, they would need a massive force to take Troy, one of the greatest cities in the known world, and well supplied with allies from Asia Minor and beyond. Menelaus’ brother Agamemnon, king of Mycenae, was chosen to be the overall leader, but he was accompanied by a staff of seasoned counselors and warriors.
But two of the greatest Greek warriors were reluctant to join the expedition. Odysseus of Ithaca feigned madness, for he knew from an oracle that, if he joined the expedition, he was destined not to see his home again for many a long year. As soon as he heard that Agamemnon’s agents had arrived on his island to summon him to Aulis, he yoked a plow team consisting of an ox and an ass. This was crazy in itself, because such a team would hardly plow a straight furrow. But, as if that were not enough, he then went about sowing salt instead of seed—salt that would make the land barren. But one of Agamemnon’s agents was Palamedes, second in cunning only to Odysseus himself. He took from the arms of Odysseus’ wife Penelope their new-born son Telemachus, and placed him in the field that Odysseus was plowing, right in the path of the plow. Odysseus’ ruse was exposed when he halted the plow to avoid killing his son; he wasn’t so crazy after all. So he gathered his men and went to Aulis—but in his pride he swore to avenge himself on Palamedes.
The other absentee was even more critical. Young Achilles had the potential to be the foremost warrior in Greece. His mother Thetis had placed him under the guidance and protection of the wise Centaur Cheiron. But then she learned that her son was essential to the fall of Troy, and that he was faced with a terrible choice: he could live a long but inglorious life, or he could go to Troy and die young and renowned.
The wise Centaur Cheiron tutored young Achilles.[62]
Naturally, Thetis didn’t want her son to die. She removed him from Cheiron’s tutelage, disguised him as a girl, and took him to Scyros, where he was kept safe by Lycomedes, the king of the island. Achilles longed for glory, but agreed to his mother’s scheme to give himself time to think: did he want it badly enough to face certain death? The young prince’s presence was no secret among the womenfolk of the palace; indeed, one of Lycomedes’ daughters, lovely Deidameia, gave herself in secret love to Achilles. But whenever any visitors came, everyone went along with the pretense that he was one of the king’s daughters; he was known as Pyrrha, because of his fair hair.
But the agents Agamemnon sent to Scyros included some of the most clever and cunning of the Greek leaders: Nestor, Odysseus, Phoenix, and Diomedes, son of Tydeus, one of the Seven against Thebes. As is proper, they brought gifts for the king’s daughters, but they had included among the cloth, perfume, and jewels some marvelously wrought weapons and armor. The girls fluttered around the gifts, trying out this or that item of jewelry or clothing—but one of the girls was more interested in the weaponry. Quietly, Odysseus picked up a horn and sounded the signal for danger. The terrified girls fled to their quarters as the alarm rang out—but Achilles donned the armor, seized the weapons, and sprang to the city’s defenses.
His true nature was revealed; he cast off his disguise with disgust and went eagerly to Aulis with Odysseus and the others who had been tasked with tracking him down. He accepted the choice of a candle-brief, but glorious, life. And Deidameia wept, for she was pregnant, and suspected that she would never again see her child’s father. Before long she gave birth to a boy, and called him Neoptolemus.
So all the heroes and their troops and ships were assembled at Aulis—but still the expedition could not set sail, for adverse winds kept the fleet pinned on the lee shore. Then Calchas, the wisest soothsayer in the Greek army, told Agamemnon that the wind would never abate until he had sacrificed his daughter Iphigeneia to the lady Artemis, Mistress of the Hunt. For Agamemnon, after bringing down a proud stag in a grove sacred to Artemis, had boasted that he was as great a hunter as the goddess.
So Agamemnon, lord of men, sent for Iphigeneia from his rich palace at Mycenae, saying—it was Odysseus’ suggestion—that she was to marry swift-footed Achilles, the bright star of the Greek forces. Arrayed in her bridal finery and with a lovely smile of anticipation, the girl set out, and her mother Clytemestra sped her on her way, but no sooner had the girl reached Aulis than she was bound to the altar and slaughtered. Blood was shed to betoken future bloodshed; Death led the fast ships onward to Troy.
Agamemnon was compelled to sacrifice his daughter Iphigeneia, before he could set sail for Troy.[63]
But first they were granted one more omen. Many of the leaders were gathered together and saw it. A blood-red serpent slid from beneath an altar and up a nearby tree where there were nine sparrows, a mother and eight chicks. The snake devoured the birds, starting with the chicks, and no sooner had it finished its meal than it was turned to stone. There could be no doubt that this was a powerful omen, but the Greek leaders were at a loss to explain it. Again, wise Calchas read the sign aright. It meant, he said, that the war would last nine years, and only in the tenth would they take Troy. And so it came to pass.
The Greeks made more or less directly for Troy. One important stop-off point was the island of Delos, where they picked up the three daughters of King Anius. Dionysus had granted these three young women remarkable gifts: Oeno’s grapes made limitless wine; Spermo’s grains of wheat and barley never failed; and abundant oil flowed thick and green from Elaïs’ olives. Anius let his daughters go with the Greeks to Troy, and the army’s supplies were taken care of for the duration of the war.
As the Greek fleet approached the Trojan coastline, they could see that their arrival was not unexpected: the Trojan army had come out to meet them, to try to prevent their landing. Nevertheless, Agamemnon ordered the Greeks to continue straight on, to try to force a landing. The ships’ prows crunched on the shingle of the beach, and for a split second, pregnant with doom, nothing happened. For there was a prophecy that the first man to touch the soil of Troy would die. But then Protesilaus, the leader of the Thessalians, jumped from his beaked ship on to the shore.
Back home in Greece, when Protesilaus’ wife Laodamia heard of her husband’s death, she begged the gods that she be allowed just a little more time with him, for they had been married but one day. Her request was granted. Hermes escorted Protesilaus’ ghost from the underworld, and the two lovers were together for a few hours. But when her husband left her again, never to return, Laodamia made a wooden statue of him; she spent all her time with it, and even made love to it in bed. And when her father ordered her to desist, and to burn the statue on the fire, she joined her husband in death by throwing herself into the flames. Protesilaus was cut down by Hector, the son of Priam and the Trojans’ mightiest warrior; but his death paved the way for a mass attack from the Greeks. They all leapt from their ships with blood-curdling cries, and battle was joined.
The first Trojan to die was the albino Cycnus, a son of Poseidon. Cycnus was invulnerable to iron or bronze, so Achilles laid aside his weapons and throttled the man to death with the straps from his own helmet; and as he died he turned into a swan and flew off.
The force of the Greek charge was irresistible, and they drove the Trojans back in disarray to the city walls. The Greeks had succeeded in their first objective and established a beachhead. They made their camp on the shore by Troy, with the farmland plain between them and the city, two miles distant. They beached the ships safely near their tents, and protected the entire camp, ships and all, with a palisade. They dug in, but no one expected the war to last long.
Once they had established themselves, the Greeks sent envoys under a flag of truce to the city of Troy, to demand the return of Helen and to threaten all-out war if their demand was refused. Agamemnon’s war council chose Odysseus, Menelaus, and the herald Talthybius to head the mission to the city. The Trojan counselors met, and the Greek envoys addressed them at length, warning above all about the danger of hubris and asking them whether they really wanted to die for Helen.
The Trojans listened mostly in silence, but Paris had bribed Antimachus to urge the assembled Trojans to murder the Greek envoys while they were defenseless in the city. Antimachus’ words met with approval among the Trojan counselors, but noble Antenor, the king’s most trusted adviser, was disgusted at such a cowardly and impious suggestion (for heralds are under the protection of the gods). He spoke out sharply against it, and argued that Helen should be returned to the Greeks—that she was not worth dying for. He failed to persuade the assembly, but at least the Greek envoys were allowed to leave. Their demand had not been satisfied, but their lives had been spared.
And so the first nine years of the war passed. Heroes fell on either side by the dozen, and ordinary soldiers by the hundred; Priam, king of Troy and father of fifty sons and fifty daughters by various wives, lost many sons, to his enduring sorrow. This too is the inscrutable way of the gods. One of those sons was Troilus, of whom it had been prophesied that if he reached the age of twenty, Troy would never fall. Swift-footed Achilles ambushed the lad outside the city as he was exercising his horses. Ares filled the Greek’s soul. He dragged Troilus off his mount, pulled back his head, and slit his throat.
A major loss from the Greek side was the hero Palamedes, unjustly done to death by Odysseus, seeking revenge for his discovery on Ithaca. Ever ready with all the deceptions required in war, Odysseus forged a letter from Priam to Palamedes, offering him gold if he would betray the Greeks, and buried that amount of guilty gold in Palamedes’ quarters. When letter and gold were revealed, Palamedes was condemned for treason, and ritually drowned by Odysseus and Diomedes. But Nauplius, Palamedes’ father, had his revenge: he convinced Anticlea, the mother of Odysseus, that her son had died at Troy, and in abject grief she killed herself.
Hector, Ajax (the son of Peleus’ friend Telamon), and the other leaders on both sides distinguished themselves. Achilles more than fulfilled his potential, and rose high in everyone’s esteem; at one point, he even managed singlehandedly to quell a mutiny. The Greeks made gains, but never quite broke into the city; the Trojan defense was solid and, although they were cut off from the sea, they were able to supply themselves from inland. The Greeks were never able to put the city under siege, and were forced to engage in an endless series of skirmishes on the plain. They stuck to their frustrating task, but at the end of nine years of unbroken warfare, the position was little different from what it had been at the beginning.
Many prisoners were taken in the course of the war, to be made slaves or concubines to their new masters, or to be ransomed for personal profit. Among these prisoners was Chryseis, captured from a town allied to the Trojans, the fair daughter of the priest of Apollo, Chryses. Agamemnon, lord of men, took her for his own, to warm his bed and work his loom. Chryses made his way under a truce to the Greek camp, and offered Agamemnon a generous ransom for his daughter, for she was all that was left to him. But Agamemnon haughtily refused, against the advice of his staff officers.
Chryses left in despair, and from the depths of his grieving heart prayed to Apollo to punish the Greeks in their arrogance. By the rules of war a captor should accept a generous ransom, and Chryses’ offer for his daughter had been more than adequate. Apollo heard the plea of his priest and sent a plague into the Greek camp. First the dogs and mules began to sicken and die, and then the disease spread to the troops. Every day dozens more succumbed, until the situation became critical: it looked as though, after all this time, the Greeks would have to abandon their effort and sail back home empty-handed.
With the men huddled together in little groups, complaining that all they could do was await a foul and pestilential death—with the men muttering defeatist thoughts out loud for the first time—Achilles, at Hera’s prompting, summoned a general assembly of the army. After pointing out how desperate the situation was, the chief of the Myrmidons wondered out loud why Apollo, the god of pestilence and disease, had made them the targets of his wrath.
He was answered by Calchas, the soothsayer. The plague would continue until Agamemnon had restored Chryseis to her father without ransom, and made a splendid sacrifice to the god. Agamemnon spat out his anger at Calchas, but, as the commander of the Greek forces, he had no choice: the good of his men had to take precedence over his own desires. He agreed to return Chryseis—but only if he was compensated. He felt that he would lose face if he lost both girl and ransom. “Of all the Greeks,” he said, “it’s unthinkable that I should be left without my due.” Achilles vehemently pointed out that all the booty had been distributed: there was nothing left in the common pool that Agamemnon could claim as his own. “I am the commander-in-chief,” Agamemnon hurled back. “I’ll take what I want, even if it’s something of yours! None of the Greeks is my equal; I can do as I like!” He was claiming to stand to his subordinates as Zeus stands to the other gods.
The quarrel grew ever more fierce, until Agamemnon declared that as compensation for Chryseis he would take from Achilles his own favorite concubine, the captive Briseis. Achilles was so enraged by now that he began to draw his sword to kill Agamemnon, but Athena appeared to him and stayed his hand.
Instead, Achilles cursed Agamemnon in the vilest language, and declared in front of all the assembled Greeks that if Agamemnon stole Briseis from him, he and his men, the fearsome Myrmidons, would withdraw from the fighting. He knew how important he was to the eventual success of the expedition. It was not just that he had killed more of the enemy than anyone else, but also that the men had come to admire him. Not knowing that he was more or less invulnerable, they were impressed with his cool courage. Agamemnon was taking a big risk in alienating his most important ally.
Aged Nestor of Pylos, the wisest of the Greeks in council, tried to pour oil on the troubled waters. “The Trojans would be delighted,” he said, “if they could see you now. Agamemnon, please don’t try to take the girl from Achilles; and you, Achilles, should not insult our commander like that. Respect each other, both of you.” Good words, sensible words—but both men were too far gone in anger to heed them. The assembly broke up in disarray, and swift-footed Achilles and his men returned to their tents to see what would happen next. Patroclus, Achilles’ tent-mate and dearest companion, knew his friend well enough to be sure that he meant what he said. Idleness would sit poorly with Achilles, but his will was unbendable.
Agamemnon duly returned Chryseis and carried out the propitiatory sacrifice to Apollo, as ordered by Calchas. But then he sent men to fetch Briseis from Achilles. The leader of the Myrmidons bade the envoys peace, because he had no quarrel with them. But he reiterated his determination to take no further part in the war. However badly things were going for his former friends, he would neither take up arms nor participate in their war councils.
In his sorrow and wounded pride, Achilles called on his mother Thetis, who came from the depths of the sea and sat beside him. She was highly favored by Father Zeus, and Achilles asked her to persuade him to side with the Trojans and tip the scales of the war in their direction, at least for a while. Then the Greeks would learn how much they needed him.
Thetis knelt before Zeus and begged him to punish the Greeks for insulting Achilles.[64]
Thetis recognized the signs that heralded the end of her son’s candle-brief life, but she did as he asked. And Zeus agreed, though he knew it would get him into trouble with Hera, who favored the Greeks; for Paris had denied her the golden apple, and in claiming his prize from Aphrodite had violated the sacred bond of marriage, which is Hera’s domain. But Zeus cowed his wife into silence, and then he pondered. How should he ensure that the tide of war turned in the Trojans’ favor?
The gods take their ease and play with us men, and the mind of Zeus moved into devious channels. He sent Agamemnon a dream—a lucid dream, so vivid that it seemed beyond any doubt, but it was nothing but deceit. It seemed to Agamemnon that Nestor spoke to him and said that the gods had lined up against Troy, and that if Agamemnon mustered his men and struck at once, he would easily capture the city.
At daybreak, Agamemnon summoned his staff officers to a meeting; Achilles, of course, stayed away. He described the dream to them, and they too were convinced. But Agamemnon was worried about the morale of the troops: the plague had sapped their confidence, and the business with Achilles had done no good either. If they were less than committed, the fall of Troy might not be as certain as the dream seemed to imply.
This worry was the work of Zeus, his way of robbing Agamemnon of his wits and undermining his powers of judgment. When Agamemnon next opened his mouth, he found himself saying that he would test the men by telling them it was no longer feasible for them to capture Troy, and that they should immediately return home—exactly the opposite of what the dream had advised.
The war council called an assembly of the Greek soldiers. As thick as bees they came from their tents, and Rumor blazed among them. Agamemnon addressed them, holding the staff, fashioned by Hephaestus, that he had inherited from his father Atreus, who had in his turn been bequeathed it by Pelops. As he had planned, he counseled despair and defeat. If it was just them against the Trojans, he said, their numerical superiority alone would bring them victory; the problem was all the Trojan allies. They couldn’t win; they must break camp and return home immediately.
Naturally, the thought of returning home after so many years of war found an eager response among the men. Confused cries of joy filled the damp air and the assembly broke up in disarray. The men scattered for their tents, grabbed their belongings and their booty, and began to load the ships for departure. Up on Olympus, Hera was appalled as she looked down onto the swarming shore. Her favorites were on the point of throwing everything away. She sent Athena down to Troy to see what she could do. The two goddesses worked in league, their anger fueled by resentment over their rejection by Trojan Paris.
Athena found Odysseus dispirited. A cowardly retreat was not at all to his liking. And in his mind he heard the voice of the keen-eyed goddess of war as she told him not to give in to his despair, but to go among the men and try to halt the rush for the ships. Odysseus needed no second prompting; this was just what he wanted to do. He walked around the camp, and every time he came across an officer he appealed to his sense of honor and told him that Agamemnon, for reasons known only to generals, had suggested retreat only to test the men. But every time he came across an ordinary soldier, he beat him across the back and shoulders with his stick and drove him back to the assembly point.
So the men reassembled, but they were now seething with confusion and discontent, and one of their number, Thersites, a notorious troublemaker, spoke up for them. “It’s all right for you, Agamemnon,” he shouted out. “You’ve gained plenty of plunder from the war.” And then he turned to the men and said: “I think we should leave him here to enjoy his gold and girls, while we go back home. He shows us nothing but contempt, but let’s see how he fights the war without us!”
His mutinous words were warmly welcomed by the men, but Odysseus was quick to act. He leapt at Thersites with his stick and pummeled him into silence, much to the amusement of the fickle crowd, who a moment before had been willing to give him a hearing. Odysseus then addressed the entire assembly, with Athena at his side guiding his thoughts. He appeased the men by agreeing that they were suffering hardship, but reminded them of the omen of the sparrows, promising them victory, but only in the tenth year of the war. And now it was the tenth year of the war. Nestor, whose advice had long been recognized as sound, backed Odysseus up, and Agamemnon, restored to his senses, ordered the men to eat, and then be ready to fight. Death would be the punishment for anyone preparing to leave.
The men, with their morale recovered, roared their approval and dispersed in an orderly fashion. But Agamemnon summoned his officers to attend the pre-battle sacrifice, and selected a fatted ox as the victim. He prayed for swift victory, for the destruction of Troy at his hands, little knowing how much more slaughter and sorrow the next months would bring.
The Greek army formed up for battle, and the Trojans came out of the city to meet them on the plain. The Trojans had heard of the disarray in the Greek camp, and were resolved to take advantage of it. For the first time ever in the war they made a full-fledged sortie, instead of merely defending their massive and impregnable walls, built by Poseidon himself. Everyone knew that this could be the decisive battle, and martial cries disguised extreme nervousness.
When the two armies were almost within bowshot, Paris, heavily armed and resplendent in a helmet adorned with leopardskin, got carried away by the excitement of the moment, and shouted out a challenge. “Whichever of you Greeks thinks he is the best, let him come and face me, one on one!” And Menelaus, mindful of the terrible wrong Paris had done him, eagerly stepped forward into the space between the battle lines.
Reality is different from fancy, and Paris shrank back in trepidation behind the shelter of the massed Trojan soldiers. His brother Hector, the tamer of horses, berated him as a coward and reminded him sharply that the whole conflict was his fault. “It’s all right for you,” complained Paris. “You have a martial spirit, while my talents come from Aphrodite. But you’re right, and if both armies will agree, I shall fight Menelaus in single combat. In fact, let it be that the whole war is decided in this way. If I win, I keep Helen, and the Greeks must leave. If I lose, Menelaus gets back his treasure and his lady—not that she wants him any more, now that she has me.”
Hector joyfully agreed: the war would be ended today! No more bloodshed! He advanced into no-man’s land, and shouted out to the Greeks the deal Paris had proposed. Menelaus had no hesitation in accepting the offer. The two sides would seal the bargain with a joint sacrifice, and Priam himself was to witness it and give his blessing to the pact.
When Helen heard of the agreement, she raced to the battlements to witness the duel. Two great heroes would fight for her in single combat! It was thrilling! She couldn’t even decide who she wanted to win! Priam and Antenor also came up to the fortifications and surveyed the scene. In a fatherly gesture, Priam called Helen over to him and spoke kindly to her, blaming not her but the gods for all their misfortunes.
As they gazed out over the plain, Helen identified for the old man the heroes of the Greeks: Agamemnon, the proud commander, standing in his chariot with the sun gleaming on his armor; Odysseus, the master strategist, in his plumeless boar’s tusk helmet; Ajax, who was exceptionally tall, and so terrifying to behold in full armor that men likened him to Ares himself; bold Diomedes of Argos, as furious in battle as a force of nature; Idomeneus of Crete, as sinewy as an acrobat for all his graying temples; her former husband Menelaus, with his horsehair plume waving in the breeze. She was puzzled, however, not to see her brothers Castor and Polydeuces, for she did not know that they had died not long after her abduction.
All the Greek and Trojan leaders convened between the armies for the sacrifice and oathtaking, and Priam and Antenor were taken by chariot from Troy to join them. The victims were slaughtered, libations were offered to the gods, and Agamemnon offered up a mighty prayer for all the gods to witness their oath: that Menelaus and Paris were to fight to the death, with the winner keeping all. And as they poured their libations, all prayed that the brains of anyone who broke the oath would be spilled on the ground as readily as their wine.
Priam returned to the city, for he could not bear the suspense. Odysseus and Hector marked out the dueling ground, and cast lots to see whether Menelaus or Paris would begin. Fate chose Paris.
The two champions buckled on their armor and seized their weapons. As soon as they had taken up their positions, Paris hurled his spear. His aim was true, but Menelaus easily deflected the missile with his shield. Now it was Menelaus’ turn and, with a prayer to Zeus on high for revenge, he hefted his spear and threw it. It whistled through the air and struck Paris’ shield straight on. Too violent for the toughened leather of the shield, the spear ripped through and into Paris’ breastplate, where it lodged briefly before he shook it loose.
Menelaus leapt at his opponent with sword raised. He was looking for a single, brutal, killing blow—but the sword shattered on the rim of Paris’ shield! Disappointed, but not daunted, Menelaus roared and hurled himself at Paris with his bare hands. He took a firm hold of Paris’ helmet and began to drag him back to the Greek lines, choking him at the same time with the chin strap. And he would have succeeded, but Aphrodite saw the predicament of her favorite and caused the chin strap to break.
Paris had barely struggled to his feet when Menelaus seized a javelin and hurled it at him. The deadly lance sped through the air toward Paris’ chest, and it looked as though the young prince’s end had surely come—but Aphrodite whisked him away, off the battlefield, and set him down, safe and surprised, inside his house in Troy. Then, disguised as a serving-girl, she went up to the battlements and found Helen. “Come, my lady,” she said. “Your husband awaits you in his chamber.”
Paris found that he was better suited for the bedroom than the battlefield.[65]
Helen recognized the goddess and spurned her suggestion. “Haven’t you shamed me enough?” she cried. “Menelaus has beaten Paris, and now I belong to him again. What would people say of me if I joined Paris in his bed now?” Though Aphrodite is the goddess of sensual pleasure, she is a goddess, and her will is not to be gainsaid. “Be very careful, Helen,” she warned. “Otherwise, I shall arouse such hatred of you among both the Greeks and the Trojans that your life will be unsafe whoever wins the war.”
So Aphrodite spirited Helen away from the walls and into Paris’ room. And while the two of them lay in love, Menelaus searched and called in vain for his lost foe. Nevertheless, it was clear that he had won the duel, and that by rights Helen and his stolen treasure should be returned to him. By rights, the war should be over, and on both sides men dared once again to dream of a peaceful future and the resumption of normal life.
But the gods had other plans. Hera’s hostility toward Troy was not assuaged in the slightest, and when the gods met in council in the lofty hall of Zeus’ palace, she insisted that the war should continue, despite the mortals’ solemn oath. Zeus was indifferent, but agreed to allow the war to carry on, once Hera for her part had agreed that the next time he wanted to see the destruction of a city, she wouldn’t stand in his way. So the gods toy with the lives of men.
Zeus sent Athena down to the battlefield, to carry out Hera’s plan to see the truce first broken by the Trojans. She flashed down to the plain like a shooting star, and men on both sides wondered what this omen might signify. But Athena disguised herself as Antenor’s son and went in search of Pandarus, for she knew he would obey her. “You will win praise from all Trojans,” she flattered him, “if you were the one to lay Menelaus low. You are a great bowman! Pray to the archer god Apollo, and let fly!”
Nothing loath, Pandarus had his men conceal him behind their shields, while he bent and strung his horn-tipped bow. Then he notched a trusty arrow, the best of his quiver, and took careful aim over the top of his men’s shields. With a prayer to Apollo, he let fly, and the lethal messenger of death sped through the air. His aim was true, but Athena’s job was done. It was enough that the truce was broken; she did not need Menelaus to die as well. At the last moment, she deflected the arrow so that, although it pierced the king of Sparta’s breastplate, he was not mortally wounded. The blood flowed freely down Menelaus’ thigh, but it was only a flesh wound in his side. Agamemnon summoned Machaon, the son of the healer-god Asclepius, to tend to his brother. The skilled healer of men drew out the barbed arrow, sucked the wound clean, and sprinkled it with a balm prepared for his father by Cheiron, the wise Centaur.
With the truce broken, both sides began once again to don armor and take their places for battle. Agamemnon reviewed his troops and called on them to be of good heart, for Zeus would not allow oath-breakers to win the war. To each of his senior officers he spoke suitable words of encouragement, or chided them if they had not so far been as prominent in the battle as they could and should have been. And so the two sides advanced across the plain once more toward each other. Grim Ares urged on the Trojan troops, while Athena instilled courage into the Greeks. And their immortal assistants, Fear and Hatred, sowed savagery in men’s hearts.
The two sides met with the clash of shield on shield. Spears were stabbed through or to one side of the tall shields, and men fell to the ground, blood gushing from wounds. Groans and screams added to the clamor of fighting men. Antilochus, the son of Nestor, brought down Echepolus of Troy, with a spear thrust through the man’s helmet and deep inside his skull. Elephenor tried to drag the body away, to find somewhere safe to strip it of its valuable armor; but in so doing he exposed his side, and Agenor was quick to plunge his spear in the Greek’s guts.
On and on the slaughter continued, but gradually the tide began to turn, as Hera wanted, in the Greeks’ favor. Here and there the Trojan lines wavered, and the Greeks yelled in triumph. Apollo urged on the Trojans: “Greeks are not made of iron and stone!” he cried. “Cut them with a blade and they will bleed! And see: Achilles, their greatest warrior, is not among them!” Again the battle became finely balanced; and still the carnage continued. But Athena sought out Ares and suggested that they withdraw from the battle, to leave the Greeks and Trojans to get on with it by themselves.
Now it was the turn of Diomedes to excel, the son of Tydeus who died at Thebes. He hurled himself into the thick of the fighting, and the noble brothers Phegeus and Idaeus bore down on him in their chariot. Phegeus threw his spear, but he just missed Diomedes’ left shoulder. Diomedes’ response was true; Idaeus fell from the chariot and lay still. Phegeus reined in the horses and leapt down to confront his foe, and he too would have died, had not Hephaestus cloaked him in darkness. For their father was his priest, and the lame god did not want both sons to die.
Diomedes was unstoppable. He was like a lion that descends on defenseless sheep, or like a spring torrent fed by snow-melt, that sweeps all before it. Even when Pandarus wounded him in the shoulder, Diomedes just had the arrow pulled out by a friend and carried on. “Lady Athena,” he cried out in prayer, “hear me now! Let me kill whoever it was who wounded me with his bow, a coward’s weapon, for an archer stands far from the fray.” And Athena heard his prayer and restored his strength. It was as if he had never been wounded, and his lust to soak the earth with Trojan blood redoubled. But Athena warned him not to try to battle any of the gods that appeared on the battlefield, except Aphrodite.
Man after man fell to the spear or sword of Diomedes as he hacked and thrust his way through the Trojan ranks. Aeneas, son of Anchises and Aphrodite, saw the slaughter, saw that the Trojans were being pushed back, and sought out Pandarus. “We must get that man!” he cried. “Come with me!” Together they leapt into Aeneas’ chariot, with Aeneas at the reins so that Pandarus was free to wield his spear. “I failed with an arrow,” he muttered to himself, “but I shall not fail with my spear. There’ll be no second chance for the son of Tydeus.” It was terrible to behold, the two fierce fighters bearing down on Diomedes. His friends urged caution, but Diomedes would hear no talk of retreat. He had already taken one chariot as booty, and was eager for another, especially since Aeneas’ horses were of the noblest breed. As soon as they were within range, Pandarus let fly with his spear. The brutal bronze head burst through Diomedes’ shield and Pandarus cried out in savage joy, but Diomedes had taken no wound. Now he hurled his spear, and it arced through the air and came down on Pandarus’ face. Right through the nose it flew, severing his tongue completely and shattering his teeth, before projecting out from the bottom of the archer’s chin.
Aeneas jumped down from the chariot and stood astride the corpse, keeping at bay all who would attempt to strip the valuable armor from his friend. But Diomedes picked up a massive boulder, greater than any two men of today could raise, and heaved it at Aeneas. It crushed his hip bone, and Aeneas collapsed unconscious to the ground.
That should have been the end of him, but Aphrodite flew to the scene, cradled her son’s head in her arms, and began gently to bear him aloft and away from the battlefield. But now Diomedes surpassed even himself. Seeing Aeneas being carried off by Aphrodite, he dared to give chase. And just as the goddess was moving out of range, Diomedes bounded high in the air from his chariot and wounded her in the forearm, piercing her precious robe that the Graces had made for her. With a scream, Aphrodite dropped her son—but Apollo caught him before he hit the ground.
Diomedes injured Aphrodite, forcing her to drop Aeneas and flee the battlefield.[66]
Aphrodite fled the battlefield with Diomedes’ taunts ringing in her ears: “What have you to do with war, lady? Flee from here!” She found Ares resting and watching the bloodshed close by, for there was nothing he enjoyed more than seeing mortals kill one another; the greater the savagery, the better. In truth, the wound was not that serious, but it was more than the gentle goddess could endure and, with ichor dripping from the gash, she begged her lover to lend her his chariot, so that she could return to Olympus. No more fighting for her! For her revenge, she would employ weapons with which she was more familiar: she was already plotting to seek out Diomedes’ wife and make her fall in love with another man.
Diomedes, however, was as determined as ever. He wanted nothing more than to slay Aeneas and take his suit of armor as booty. Three times he made a killing stroke, and three times Apollo warded it off. But just as Diomedes raised his arm for the fourth time, the golden god yelled at him: “Fool! Do you dare to challenge the gods? Give it up: there is an unbridgeable chasm set between us and mortal men!” Diomedes backed away in terror at the god’s wrath, and Apollo bore Aeneas safely back to Troy, where he was tended by immortal nurses, Leto and Artemis. But Apollo made a double of Aeneas, and let the Greeks and Trojans fight it out around the unconscious body.
Still furious, Apollo sought out Ares and encouraged him to re-enter the fray. Disguised as swift-footed Acamas, prince of Lycia, Ares sought out the nobles of Troy and urged them not to abandon Aeneas. And Acamas’ friend, Sarpedon of Lycia, son of Zeus and grandson of Bellerophon, lashed out at Hector: “Are you going to let the Greeks drive us back to the city gates? You Trojans aren’t pulling your weight; you’re leaving us allies to do all the fighting, while you stand like sheep. Come on!” And now the battle began to turn in the Trojans’ favor, with Ares moving among them and stirring them to ever greater exploits. This was unacceptable to Hera and Athena, and while Hebe prepared Hera’s chariot, Athena armed herself for war. Hera cracked her whip, the gates of Olympus opened, and the two goddesses rode in glory down to the battlefield of Troy. And they went with Zeus’ blessing, for Ares’ lust for blood sickened him.
While Hera rallied the Greeks, Athena found Diomedes resting. “Shame on you!” she cried. “You are not the man your father was!” But Diomedes replied, “I’m only obeying your command, my lady. You told me not to fight any of the gods except Aphrodite—and now Ares is fighting for the Trojans.”
“I release you from your promise,” Athena said. “Go! Seek out Ares and do battle with him!” And she herself took the place of Diomedes’ charioteer, and rode to war with him. But she wore Hades’ cap of invisibility, so that Ares saw only Diomedes approaching.
The god of war hurled his spear, and the god of war never misses—unless another deity engages him. Athena deflected the wicked missile, which ricocheted harmlessly from the side of the chariot. Now it was Diomedes’ turn, and he shoved his spear at the war-god’s belly, and Athena put all her power behind the thrust as well, and then pulled the spear out again, dripping ichor.
Bellowing with pain and rage, Ares flew upward to heaven. His screams terrified friend and foe alike, for none had ever heard anything like it. Bitterly he complained to Zeus at the impudence of Athena, but Zeus dismissed him with angry words to find Asclepius and be healed. And he welcomed Hera and Athena when they returned from the fray, for they had forced Ares off the field of battle. Now it was man against man, Trojan against Greek, with no gods involved, and gradually, thanks to the prowess of Diomedes and others, the Trojans were being pushed back. The Trojan seer Helenus, son of Priam, took matters in hand. He commanded Aeneas, now fully restored, to rally the troops right by the city walls and make a stand. “And you, Hector,” he shouted above the din, “go back into the city and get our mother Hecuba to gather the women of Troy. They are to offer Athena a magnificent robe now, with the promise of a munificent sacrifice in the future of twelve unblemished cows, if she will keep Diomedes out of the city. The man is proving himself the equal of Achilles.”
Aeneas and Hector did as the gifted Helenus ordered; for when he was a baby, snakes had licked his ears. He knew the languages of all creatures of air, earth, and water, and animals make more reliable harbingers of the future than men. Once within the city walls, Hector speedily carried out his errand. But before returning to the battlefield, he sought a few moments with his wife Andromache. He found her on the battlements with Astyanax, their son, watching in dread as the fighting raged ever closer to the city gates and walls. As soon as she saw him she ran up to him in joy; and the nurse followed behind, bearing the baby boy, the light of Hector’s life and Troy’s hope for the future.
Andromache rested her head on the hero’s chest and begged him to be careful. “You’re too brave for your own good,” she said. “Think of me! I have no one in the world but you. Think of your son! You fight so well that all the Greeks want to see you dead. What comfort will be left for your sorrowing family after you have met your doom? The future holds only torment.”
“Don’t ask me to stay away from the battle,” Hector replied in sorrow. “I cannot; I know no other way. I do as my fathers have always done; I live and die by honor and shame. Troy will fall—this I know—and so honor is all that is left. I shall be dead, but the worst of it is that you will pass into bitter slavery.”
Hector reached out his arms for Astyanax, but the baby burst into tears and clung to his nurse. He was terrified by his father’s helmet with its nodding horsehair plume and gleaming bronze. Both Hector and Andromache laughed, and forgot the horror for a moment. Hector took off his helmet and swung his child high into the air, and the boy squealed in delight. Hector kissed him, and Andromache’s tears were mingled with smiles.
The fighting continued until dark brought rest to the weary combatants, though all night long Zeus’ thunder rumbled in the heavens. In the morning a truce was made so that both sides could bury their dead. The Greeks also seized the opportunity to dig a trench and raise a rampart of earth and boulders to replace the palisade that had been sufficient protection for their camps and their beached ships while the Trojans were pinned inside their city. Too broad to be crossed at a leap by a chariot, the trench bristled with sharpened stakes; and the rampart was fitted with towers and well-built gates. And the Greeks indignantly refused the offer relayed by the Trojan herald: though Paris would not return Helen, he was prepared to return the treasure they had stolen from Menelaus, with interest. As Diomedes put it: “Victory is within our grasp! We have no need of lesser offers from our enemies!”
At dawn, the working parties of both sides assembled on the plain to gather their dead and prepare them for burial. If the corpse was that of a nobleman, it was carefully washed, dressed in a shroud, and laid out on a couch. After a suitable interval, the body was carried to the place of burial, accompanied by friends and dependents, and by women weeping and wailing the ritual lament. It was then reverently laid in the ground, to ensure safe passage across the River Styx and into the halls of Hades.
Meanwhile, on cloud-girt Olympus, Zeus called a meeting of all the gods. He chided them, and used the full weight of his authority, and the threat of eternal imprisonment in Tartarus, to force through his will. No god or goddess, he thundered, was to sneak away from Olympus and help either the Trojans or the Greeks—not by fighting for them, nor even by giving them advice. He would attend to this battle of mice himself.
The day after the mass burials, Zeus himself, father of men and gods, called for his chariot and team of divine horses, and sailed down to Mount Ida, from where he could survey the city of Troy and the Greek encampment and see that his will was done. The morning passed in inconclusive fighting—though conclusive enough for those who fell and died. At midday Zeus held up his golden scales and carefully placed in each of the pans the doom of the Trojans and the doom of the Greeks. The doom of the Greeks was heavier.
Zeus burst from Ida with lightning and thunder, and hurled them against the Greek forces. No one could withstand the onslaught: Idomeneus, Agamemnon, Ajax, Odysseus—all fell back. Only Nestor stayed on the field, because one of his horses had been wounded by an arrow fired by Paris. And now Hector was bearing down on him, and Nestor would surely have perished, if Diomedes had not raced up and taken the old man on his chariot. Together they charged at Hector, and Diomedes’ spear soon found the breast of Hector’s charioteer. Hector himself might well have been next, had not Zeus sent a blazing thunderbolt crashing into the ground in a ball of flame before Diomedes’ chariot.
Seeing that Zeus himself was against them, Nestor cautioned Diomedes to turn back. The Argive hero was reluctant: it seemed like cowardice to turn and run. But he heeded his sage companion, and they wheeled around and joined the general rout back to the safety of their camp, with Hector’s taunts ringing in their ears. Three times Diomedes was poised to turn back and fight it out with the Trojan, but every time Zeus emitted a warning rumble of thunder.
Hector was rampant. Shouting out encouragement to his men, he urged his team forward, calling on the horses by name. He felt powerful enough to take the Greeks’ new trench at a single bound and challenge the new rampart; he could scent victory, close at hand. He could almost taste the smoke that would fill the air from the Greek ships he would burn. He blazed like Ares, fearsome to behold and deadly to his enemies.
Teucer, the Greeks’ best bowman, tried again and again to topple Hector from his chariot, but failed. It was as though the Trojan hero were under the protection of a god. Back the Greeks were pushed, across the moat, where they made easy targets and many perished. Back they were driven, until they barely made it inside the new rampart.
As night began to fall and the fighting died down, Zeus returned to Olympus. Hera dared to chide him for stopping the rest of the gods interfering, but Zeus was adamant. “Hector will never be checked,” he said, “until or unless Achilles rejoins the fighting. And Achilles will rejoin the fighting only to defend the corpse of his bosom friend Patroclus. So it is; that is my will.” And the gods trembled, for they saw his plan: to place Achilles on a high pedestal of honor, as Thetis had requested, and to punish the Trojans for their sins.
Fear stalked the Greek camp. With the Trojans encamped for the first time close by on the plain, everyone expected death and defeat the following day. Strong pickets were posted to keep watch through the night. At a gloomy meeting of the Greek staff officers, Agamemnon, a changed man in the face of defeat, agreed to swallow his pride and try to placate Achilles. “I shall do as you say,” he said. “I shall send envoys to Achilles, bearing great gifts: tripods, gold, women, horses, cauldrons. And I shall return Briseis to him as well, who was the cause of our quarrel. She is exactly as he left her: I have not taken her to bed. And if, with his help, we succeed in taking Troy, he will have his pick of the spoils and plunder, until his ship is filled with riches. Then, when we get back home, he shall take one of my daughters as his wife, and I shall make him a baron of my kingdom, with extensive estates of fertile land.”
Everyone agreed that this was a generous offer, and envoys were detailed to take the proposal to Achilles. The delegation, headed by friends of Achilles—old Phoenix, Odysseus, and Ajax—made its way along the shore and found the leader of the Myrmidons playing the lyre by his tent, with Patroclus as ever by his side.
Achilles greeted them warmly and made them welcome with meat and wine. Then they got down to business. Odysseus explained the situation: they faced defeat unless Achilles would take up arms again and fight for them. Agamemnon repented his rash actions, and would not only return Briseis untouched, but would give him great wealth and honor. “This is no time for anger,” he concluded. “Let generosity calm your wrath. Even if you still hate Agamemnon, think of the rest of us.”
But Achilles’ heart remained unmoved and unmelted by Odysseus’ words. Phoenix tried next, and then Ajax, but to all of them Achilles made the same reply: he would never forgive Agamemnon. The only thing that could possibly make him fight would be if Hector stormed the Myrmidon encampment and directly threatened himself and his men. Otherwise, he said, he would embark his men the next day and sail for home. The envoys chastised him for his heartlessness in condemning hundreds of Greeks to certain death, but in his terrible pride Achilles remained implacable.
Odysseus and Ajax departed in frustration, but Phoenix remained. He had been Achilles’ mentor since the hero’s childhood, and felt it his duty to stay by his side, and even to sail back home with him, at the cost of abandoning the rest of the Greeks. When the returning envoys reported back to Agamemnon and the war council, there was stunned silence, but Diomedes brought their attention back to the present. They badly needed information about the enemy’s intentions, and Diomedes and Odysseus volunteered to sneak into the enemy camp and see what they could find out. They awoke before dawn and set out across the plain, keeping cover behind walls and trees.
But the same idea had occurred to the Trojans, and Dolon, attracted by the generous reward Hector promised, put himself forward. When Diomedes and Odysseus were about halfway across the no-man’s land between the two camps, they heard Dolon coming and threw themselves to the ground. They let him pass a short distance, so that his escape route back to the Trojan camp was cut off, and then raced after him. The cowardly Dolon offered no resistance. Quaking in his boots, he told them everything they wanted to know. But once they had all the information they needed, they cut his throat even as he begged for his life, stripped him of his fine armor, and hung it in a tree to collect on their way back. Traitors could expect no less.
Dolon had carefully described for them the precise layout of the Trojan encampment, and had told them especially that a newly arrived contingent of Thracians had bivouacked at a little distance from the rest. It was foretold that if the white horses of Rhesus, the Thracian king, ate and drank at Troy, the city would never be taken. Odysseus and Diomedes just had time. They crept silently up to the Thracians as they slept, slaughtered a number of them as they lay dreaming on the ground, including Rhesus, and stole the king’s horses. Diomedes was tempted to stay for more plunder—Rhesus had a fabulous chariot, decorated with gold and silver—but Athena whispered a warning to him. Just then a cry arose: someone had discovered the bodies of the men they had killed. They raced back to the Greek lines, pausing only for Dolon’s bloody armor. Their material gains were slight—but the news imbued all the Greeks with new courage, and that was worth more than a hundred horses.
At daybreak, Zeus sent Strife down to the Greek camp. The dread goddess perched in the middle of the Greek encampment and let out a frightful wail, to stir all the Greeks to action. The two sides advanced once more into the plain, disturbing the kites from their horrid meal. Strife looked on with joy, anticipating slaughter, while Zeus gazed down unconcerned from high Olympus, for to the gods the activities of mortals are just sport. One generation dies and is replaced by another; the gods play with all alike, as careless boys sport with flies.
The battle was closely contested, but at noon the Trojan lines began to waver. Agamemnon went on the rampage, sowing death left and right. And now Antimachus paid dearly for his impious attempt to kill the envoys the Greeks sent at the very beginning of the war to present their ultimatum. For Agamemnon confronted his two sons in their chariot, and though they begged for their lives, he held no pity for them, but slew them where they stood. As a forest fire leaps forward, destroying everything in its path, so Agamemnon carried all before him, and he and his men harried the Trojans back to the city wall.
But now dark-bearded Zeus came down from Olympus to his vantage point on Ida, with his messenger Iris by his side. “Deliver this as a message to Hector,” he commanded. “As long as Agamemnon remains unhurt, the Greeks will dominate the battle; but once he retires wounded, I shall grant Hector the power of slaughtering the Greeks all the way back to their ships until nightfall.”
Iris, the rainbow messenger of the gods, flies from Olympus at Zeus’ command.[67]
Beautiful Iris delivered the message entrusted to her by Zeus, and Priam’s son heard it in his heart like an inspiration. He rallied his troops, putting fresh courage into his men all over the battlefield, but still Agamemnon seemed unstoppable. One after another he slew two sons of Antenor, leaving their mother to mourn in her chamber. But at the moment of death one of the two young men struck and gashed Agamemnon on the forearm. The Greek leader tried to fight on, but was forced to leave the battlefield to seek medical help. With a cry of encouragement to the other Greeks, he was gone.
Hector’s chance had come. He urged his men to greater efforts, ordering them forward from the city gates, while he himself fell on the foe like a savage storm at sea. Ten Greek champions fell before his spear and his flashing sword. Back fell the Greeks, back and further back. They maintained good order, but all too soon they found themselves once more hard by the rampart and their camp. Diomedes and Odysseus were wounded and had to withdraw from the battlefield. Even mighty Ajax found himself slowly being driven back, and the same was happening all over the field.
Now, Achilles had been watching the action from afar, standing on the stern of his beached ship, and he saw Nestor returning from the battle with a wounded man in his chariot. He was disturbed, for it looked as though it was his friend Machaon, the son of Asclepius, and he sent his tent-mate Patroclus to find out. When the young son of Menoetius reached Nestor’s tent, the old king of Pylos made him welcome, but Patroclus explained that he had only come to see whether it was Machaon who had been hurt. Now that he saw it wasn’t, he would leave. His carelessness provoked Nestor to anger against Achilles, for the Greeks now needed him more than ever.
“Achilles’ father Peleus sent him here to perform noble deeds,” he said, “not to sulk and skulk in his tent. If he truly will not fight, ask him to lend you his armor, so that you may lead the fearsome Myrmidons into battle. The enemy will think that you are him and their courage will fail. Otherwise, I fear, all will soon be lost.”
Nestor was acting, all unwitting, as an agent of the will of Zeus. But Patroclus liked the idea. He was moved to pity by the plight of the Greeks, and could see how dire the situation was. He set out back to the Myrmidons’ encampment to see if Achilles would agree. But on the way he met his friend Eurypylus, grievously wounded in the thigh by one of Paris’s barbs, and he stopped to tend to him.
Meanwhile, the Trojans, foiled by the Greeks’ trench, decided to abandon their chariots at its lip and press forward on foot. They formed up in five columns, and at the head of each column strode a great hero: Hector for the first, then Paris, Helenus, and Aeneas, while the allied column was led by Sarpedon of Lycia. Each column advanced against a section of the Greek rampart that they thought might be vulnerable—a gate, a stretch of less secure stonework. In answer to Trojan prayers, Zeus, surveying the action from Ida, sent a cloud of dust swirling into the Greeks’ eyes.
The Trojans pressed forward with renewed vigor, and began tearing at the rampart with their hands, pulling away loose stones and earth and logs. But as fast as they removed stuff, the Greeks filled the gaps with oxhide sandbags, while raining stones and missiles down from the top of the rampart onto the attackers, as thick as hail or a snow storm.
But now the allied contingents had demolished enough of the rampart in front of them to try to clamber over it. Ajax and his half-brother Teucer ran to plug the gap, and Ajax lunged with his spear at Sarpedon. Death would certainly have met the son of Zeus had his father not protected him. Sarpedon was checked, but not hurt, and the battle raged furiously but indecisively at this stretch of the wall.
Elsewhere, however, Hector found and lifted a mighty boulder, greater than any two men of today could raise, and hurled it with all his strength against one of the gates. The cross-bars gave way and the planks of the gate splintered and burst. Through the breach Hector leapt, and his men poured in after him, while the Greeks turned and fled. It looked as though he would keep his promise to burn the Greek ships.
On Ida, Zeus saw Hector’s success, and felt that the day was won. He turned his attention away from the battlefield, confident that no other god would intervene in the action, for he had forbidden it. But his brother Poseidon, who had not been privy to the deliberations on Olympus, took pity on the Greeks, whom he favored because of his ill treatment at the hands of Laomedon. He took on the appearance of the seer Calchas and rallied the weary and terrified troops. They formed a compact phalanx, an impregnable wall of shields. Hector bore down on them like a boulder rolled in a storm-swelled river, but even he was stopped in his tracks by the massed spears and swords.
Behind the lines, Nestor met up with Agamemnon, Odysseus, and Diomedes, returning from the beached ships after tending to their wounds. For the third time, Agamemnon counseled retreat, seeing that they could do nothing against the will of Zeus, but Odysseus told him off disdainfully for such talk, unbecoming especially in their commander. Following Diomedes’ lead, the four heroes set out for the front; despite their wounds, they might give fresh heart to their men.
But the matter was not in human hands, and never had been. With Poseidon supporting one side and Zeus the other, the battle was finely balanced. And now Hera conceived the desire to disobey her husband and influence the battle in favor of the Greeks. The plan she came up with was subtle and certain. She went to her chamber, anointed her body with a rare and irresistible scent, and dressed in her most alluring robe. But still she needed to be sure. Calling Aphrodite to her side, she lied to her, for they were on opposing sides in the war.
“I’m going down to earth,” she said, “to try to reconcile the ancient quarrel between Ocean and Tethys. I intend to get them back into bed together. That will do the trick.”
Aphrodite understood what she wanted and untied her girdle of desire, that makes all who wear it irresistible and robs both men and gods of their wits. “Take this girdle,” she said. “Tethys will find her lord more than willing.”
Hera smiled artlessly and took the proffered gift. Concealing it in her breast, she flew down from Olympus to the island of Lemnos, where Sleep, the brother of Death, has his abode. Offering to reward him with the golden throne that her son Hephaestus had made, she told him that she was going to make love to Zeus, and asked him to see that afterward Zeus fell fast asleep.
Sleep was terrified: “No, not I!” he whined. “Once before you had me put him to sleep, while you blew up that storm to distract Heracles, and Zeus’ wrath was terrible. I survived only because my brother Night hid me until his anger died down.”
“It’s not the same thing at all,” countered Hera. “Zeus won’t be as furious about the Trojans as he was about Heracles.” But, seeing that Sleep was reluctant, she increased her bribe: “If you do this for me, I shall see that one of the Graces graces your bed.”
“Swear this by the River Styx,” said Sleep, “the only oath that is binding on the heavenly gods. Pasithea is the one I want!”
Hera swore a solemn oath, and together the two deities set off for Ida. When they reached the mountain, Sleep perched in a lofty pine, to avoid being seen by the father of gods and men, the thunderer. But Hera approached Zeus, the magic girdle slung low about her hips, and he was consumed by desire. He had never wanted any woman as much as he wanted Hera now.
“What? Here, now, out in the open on the mountainside?” exclaimed Hera in mock horror, but her almond eyes shone. “What if someone should see us?”
“Don’t worry,” replied her hasty husband. “I shall veil us in a golden cloud, that even Helios could not penetrate.”
“Penetrate,” purred Hera. “Now there’s a word …” As they lay together, the meadow beneath them bloomed with green grass and multicolored flowers. And when they were done, Zeus lay back satiated, and fell fast asleep with his lady in his arms.
Zeus has many lovers, but Hera is his divine spouse and queen.[68]
No sluggard, Sleep raced straight off for the battlefield and told Poseidon that the coast was clear: with Zeus asleep, the battlefield was his to control as he wished. The earth-shaker moved among the Greek troops, stiffening their resolve, urging them to forget Achilles, arguing that Hector could not withstand them if they worked together. In the guise of a Greek officer, he persuaded them that the best way to defend the ships was to push forward.
And so it came to pass. It was Ajax who made the crucial breakthrough. Hector lunged at him with his spear, but the point was deflected, and Ajax picked up a rock, one of the great stones used as wedges to keep the ships in place on the beach, and struck Hector with it on the chest. Stunned, Hector sank to the ground, blood trickling from his mouth. He would have died then and there, had Aeneas and Sarpedon not dragged him off the field, uncertain whether he was yet alive.
Still the battle raged, but with Hector’s departure something departed also from the Trojans’ hearts, as when a cat glides out of a room. Though they fought on, secretly they began to cast around for some avenue of escape should they need it. And slowly, like a tide just on the turn, they fell back step by step until they found themselves back beyond the trench.
Just then Zeus awoke. He sprang to his feet and surveyed the battlefield below. He saw the Trojans in retreat, and Hector stretched out unconscious on the ground, with men huddled anxiously around him. He knew immediately what had happened. “Treachery and lechery!” he shouted at Hera. “You scheming bitch! Don’t you recall the times I’ve punished you in the past? This time I’ll teach you a lesson you’ll never forget!”
Zeus raged on. Hera protested that it was not she who had brought Poseidon back into the fight, but she could do nothing against her lord’s anger, and even Poseidon relented, knowing that, ultimately, Troy would fall. Meanwhile, Zeus sent Apollo to tend to Hector, and the healer-god had the Trojan hero on his feet in no time. Hector’s miraculous return to the battlefield was greeted with joy from his men and dismay from the Greeks, for they knew that only some god could have healed him so quickly and thoroughly. And indeed Apollo led the way before Hector, invisible, but bearing Zeus’ aegis, before which no man can stand his ground. For thunder and lightning groaned and flashed from the aegis, fearsome to behold and hear.
And so once more the battle swung in the Trojans’ favor, with the Greeks fleeing pell-mell back toward their ships in the face of Zeus’ aegis. Once the Greeks had crossed the trench, Apollo kicked at its banks to form a causeway across which the Trojans easily flowed, as unstoppable as a flood tide. When they reached the rampart, Apollo simply swept it aside, as a child wrecks a sand castle on the shore. And now the Greeks had nowhere to go. Their backs were at their ships. Their aching muscles now were animated not by courage but by desperation. Men fell, dead or dying, and every moment that passed brought the end unmistakably closer.
Then Hector, in the forefront as usual—for this was the day Zeus would give him glory—reached one of the Greek ships and grasped its stern with his hand while fighting off all who came near. He called for fire, but Ajax stood nearby and slew all those who came close with burning brands. But even Ajax was eventually beaten back, and then a dozen men rushed in and tossed their torches into the ship, and flames immediately caught hold and licked around the stern. It was, as Fate would have it, Protesilaus’ ship.
This was the turning-point, the moment Zeus had been waiting for. His intention always had been to allow Hector the glory of bringing fire to the ships, but then to turn the tide against the Trojans. And so the din of battle, now so near, roused Patroclus. He was tending Eurypylus’ wound, but he left immediately to see if his tent-mate might have changed his mind. Now, surely, with defeat staring them in the face, he would agree to Nestor’s plan.
“You’re a hard man, Achilles,” he said. “Surely Peleus was not your father nor Thetis your mother. No, the cold, gray sea and the harsh cliffs were your parents. But at least let me have your arms and armor, and a company of your Myrmidons, to inspire the Greeks to fresh efforts, and to make the Trojans quake at the thought that you have returned.”
Swift-footed Achilles replied: “It’s true that the fighting is now close by, but I swore not to take up arms until it reached my very camp. But I cannot hold on to my anger forever. You may take my arms and armor, and my men—and do your best, I pray. But you must not carry the fight to the walls of Troy; that honor is for me alone. Beat the Trojans back from the ships—that’s all. And then return safe to me.”
So, while Achilles told the Myrmidons to get ready and stirred their hearts for the coming battle, Patroclus put on his friend’s armor, the wedding gift of the gods to Peleus: bronze greaves with silver straps, a breastplate chased with stars, the helmet with its terrifying plume, and the splendid shield. He slung the bronze sword with silver studs over his shoulder and took two of his own spears, molded to his grip. For no one but Achilles could manage his great spear, the gift of Cheiron and the gods to Peleus.
Achilles’ charioteer, peerless Automedon, prepared the chariot and team, and would drive Patroclus himself, so that for a while all should mistake him for Achilles. With a prayer to Zeus—for victory and Patroclus’ safe return—Achilles sent them on their way.
Patroclus and Achilles were beloved companions from their youth.[69]
Patroclus’ appearance on the battlefield terrified the Trojans, and the Myrmidons under his command were fresh after days of rest. But for the Greeks, the arrival of Achilles—or so they thought—was like the clarity that follows a storm, when the light is pure and the air clean and easy to breathe. The Trojans fell back a little way from the ships, but only to rally and prepare another advance. But Patroclus led the Greeks on with blood-chilling war-cries, and they plowed into the Trojan ranks, sowing slaughter. Every Greek officer killed his man, and the Trojan lines began to collapse.
Hector could see that the moment of victory had slipped away, and he wheeled his chariot and headed for home, calling for retreat. But the trench was not so easy to negotiate on the way back, and soon it was filled with abandoned chariots, horses screaming as they struggled to escape their shafts, and broken wheels and bodies. The din was hideous. Now it was every man for himself, as the foot soldiers fled in fear of being struck in the back or crushed under the wheels of the chasing chariots, seeking desperately for safety, shoving friends aside, tripping over fallen bodies. They were easy victims for the pursuing Greeks, and the slaughter was immense.
Only one man had the courage to stand against Patroclus, and that was noble Sarpedon of Lycia. The two of them vaulted from their chariots and prepared to duel. From Olympus, Zeus watched the two heroes and mourned, for he loved his son Sarpedon above all mortals then alive, and it grieved him that he had to die. He was tempted to use his power to fly him safely from the battlefield, but that would set an awkward precedent: all the gods would want to rescue their favorites, every time they were threatened. But the ground received hot tears of blood, shed by the immortal father of gods and men.
Sarpedon first hurled his spear, but his aim was off, and the missile flew safely over Patroclus’ left shoulder. Patroclus made no such mistake: his spear plunged into Sarpedon’s side, just below the rib-cage, and Sarpedon fell writhing into the dust of the Trojan plain. He breathed his last as Patroclus tugged the spear in triumph out of his body, trailing intestines on its bronze head. The Myrmidons stripped the dead man of his armor and bore it back to their camp in triumph. But Zeus commanded Apollo to collect Sarpedon’s corpse, wash it with river water, and anoint it with ambrosia. And then the twins Sleep and Death were to bear him home to Lycia, where his family could bury him with all honor.
With gentle hands Sleep and Death bore Sarpedon’s body home to Lycia.[70]
Darkness fell, but even so the battle raged on unabated in the gloom of an ill-lit night. The Trojans strengthened their ranks, but still Patroclus bore down on them in his lust for battle. Many great heroes he felled, and the Trojan lines fell back. Carried away by success, Patroclus chased the fleeing Trojans toward the city. He forgot Achilles’ orders to hold back, to leave the honor of assaulting the city to him alone. The lust of battle was upon him, and it was easy to hunt down the running Trojans, striking them in the back from his chariot, or in the face if they turned to offer token resistance. He was like a raging forest fire, consuming all before him. When he reached the Scaean Gate of the city, he hurled himself at it three times in a frenzy, but Apollo repelled him, saying: “Back, Patroclus! Troy is not fated to fall to you, nor even to Achilles!”
Just then Hector rode up to confront him, knowing now that he would face Patroclus, and win great glory if he could bring down Achilles’ bosom friend. But there was no glory in the fight. At Zeus’ behest, Apollo stood behind Patroclus, wrapped in mist, and struck him sharply on the back. Achilles’ helmet, that had never before tasted dirt, tumbled in the dust; Patroclus’ spear shattered in his hand, his shield fell from his forearm as the straps broke, and his breastplate magically unbuckled itself. Euphorbus plunged his spear from behind into Patroclus’ back. Gravely wounded, Patroclus began to drag himself to the safety of his own lines, but Hector sprang forward and delivered the killing blow, sealing his own doom.
Achilles wept. He bowed his face and poured dust and ash over his head; he lay on the ground, groaning and tearing his hair. He saw beneath the surface to the pettiness and wretchedness of human life. All his womenfolk, the warprizes he had taken, joined in the lamentation with their ritual cries. The ripples of his agony spread until they reached his mother where she sported in the deep with sea-nymphs. And Thetis knew straight away what the cry meant: that her son’s time had come, that he would never return home. She hurried to his side, as any mother would, to bring what comfort she might.
Achilles poured out his woes to Thetis: “My dearest friend is dead, the armor has been taken that Peleus received from the gods the day he took you for his wife, and now I know that I have little time left on this earth. I must turn my back on life, for I must avenge the death of my friend and rip the life from Hector.”
“You’re right,” said his mother through her tears. “Your death will follow soon after that of Hector. It is foretold.”
“Yet even Heracles had to die,” said Achilles. “If glory such as his awaits me after death, that will be enough. I regret my anger against Agamemnon; perhaps I might have saved Patroclus’ life. But the past is the past. Now I look to what brief future remains. It’s better to burn out than to fade away.”
“Don’t be too hasty, my son,” replied Thetis. “At dawn I shall bring you a new set of armor, crafted by Hephaestus himself.”
Night drew over the plain, and the weary fighters disengaged. In the Greek camp, all were mourning the death of Patroclus. Achilles swore not to bury him until he had recovered the lost armor and brought back the head of his killer. And he made a dreadful promise: to slit the throats of twelve young Trojan boys beside his friend’s funeral pyre. Then they bathed Patroclus’ body and laid him out on a bed, shrouded in white linen. And all night long Achilles kept vigil beside the corpse, while the Greeks hardly slept, for they knew that on the morrow their champion would rejoin the fray.
Xanthus and Balius, offspring of the west wind, were the semi-divine steeds of Achilles.[71]
Up on high Olympus, Hephaestus and his assistants were devoting the night to Thetis’ request for a new panoply for her son. By daybreak a marvelous work had been wrought. The gleaming breastplate, greaves of layered tin, and close-fitting helmet with golden crest were wondrous to behold; but the masterpiece was the great shield. Five layers of metal made it safe: two of bronze on the outside, two of tin on the inside, and a middle layer of gold.
On the face of the shield was shown the whole cosmos: the earth, the waters, the heavens, and all the celestial bodies. Two cities were portrayed in fine and intricate detail by the divine blacksmith. In one of the cities peace reigned, and the people were celebrating festivals and going about their daily business; but the other city was beset by foes, and scenes of ambush and treachery, of hope and despair, seemed to flow before the eyes of the spectator. Nor was country life forgotten, with its plowed fields and laborers, its cattle and flocks, orchards and vineyards. Young men and women danced while a multitude looked on; and around all lay impassable Ocean.
Early the next morning, Achilles received the gift with savage delight. Now he was ready for Hector. He summoned an assembly of all the Greeks, and he and Agamemnon were formally reconciled. Achilles apologized for sulking over something as trivial as a captive girl, and Agamemnon expressed regret for his high-handedness.
While the men took their morning meal, to give them strength for the day ahead, Agamemnon had gifts brought from his tent for Achilles, the gifts he had promised before: tripods, gold, women (including Briseis), horses, and cauldrons. And the Greeks performed a great sacrifice to seal the reconciliation in the eyes of the gods.
Achilles was too sick at heart to eat, and spurned all entreaties to do so. But Zeus took pity on him, and sent Athena to infuse in him nectar and ambrosia, so that he should not faint from hunger on the battlefield. Poised on the razor’s edge between fury and despair, he donned his new armor, and pulled his great spear from the rack, while Automedon yoked his team of immortal horses and prepared the chariot once more.
Achilles mounted the chariot and called out to his noble steeds. For these two stallions were the offspring of Zephyrus, the west wind, and Swiftfoot, one of the Snatchers. “Xanthus,” Achilles called out, “and you there, Balius! Listen up! Today I commend myself to your care. Bring me back to the Greek lines, whether I am alive or dead!”
And Xanthus replied: “Yes, we shall save you today, Achilles, but the day of your death draws ever nearer. It is your fate, and none can escape the doom that is written for him.”
“No need to prophesy my death, dear Xanthus,” Achilles replied. “I already know that I shall die here, far from home. But never mind that! Today is the day I shall make the Trojans suffer!”
The next morning, the Greeks and Trojans again faced one another across the plain—the same beginning as often before, but with the vital difference, to the morale of both sides, that peerless Achilles was there, in the front rank, eager for the fray. Meanwhile, on Olympus, Zeus the cloud-gatherer summoned an assembly of all the gods, including Poseidon and all the rivers and nymphs. He was concerned that under Achilles’ leadership the Greeks might sack Troy before its time, and as a way of keeping things in balance, he gave the gods permission to go down once more and support whichever side they liked, while he remained on Olympus and watched.
As a result of the gods’ interference, the battle seesawed across the plain. Gradually, however, Achilles gained the upper hand. Poseidon prevented him killing Aeneas, and Apollo hid Hector from him, but by the end of the day the Greeks had driven the Trojans off the plain and back to the city walls. The gods returned to Olympus, except for Apollo, who hovered around Troy. He watched as King Priam gave the gatekeepers a delicate task: they were to hold the gates open for the retreating Trojan troops, while not allowing a single Greek to enter, especially Achilles.
They did as they were told, but Achilles still might have burst into the city, had not Agenor, son of Antenor, summoned up his courage. Despite knowing that he was no match for the Greek hero, he confronted him and delayed his advance toward Troy, giving his men time to make themselves safe. And though Achilles aimed a killing blow at the young Trojan, Apollo hid Agenor in mist and swept him from the battlefield to the safety of the city. Then he himself took on the appearance of Agenor and kept Achilles occupied at some distance from the city while the rest raced for the gates. Troy’s doom was delayed for another day.
All the Trojans were safe inside the city? No, not all, for Hector remained outside. Though his parents, Priam and Hecuba, begged him from their vantage point on the walls to come inside, to save himself, the very thought made him ashamed. But now Achilles had extricated himself from his futile pursuit of Apollo; realizing that he was dealing with a god, he abandoned the chase and raced once more for the city gates. Priam saw him coming and redoubled his appeals to his son, and Hecuba shed bitter tears, imploring her son to save her from inconsolable grief. But war is a cruel master. Hector remained unmoved, though in his heart thoughts of flight competed with visions of a heroic victory.
Inexorably, Achilles drew closer, hefting his great spear on his shoulder, his armor seeming to glow. Finally, Hector could take it no more. He broke and ran. Achilles set out after him, and he was famously swift-footed. Three times around the walls of Troy they ran, pursuer and pursued, and gradually Achilles was closing the gap, as a hound gains on a hind in flight. There can be no doubt that he would have caught him, had Apollo not breathed strength into Hector’s limbs. From the walls of Troy Priam and Hecuba looked on aghast and prayed helplessly for their son’s life.
Up on cloud-covered Olympus, Zeus asked the assembled gods whether or not they should let noble Hector be laid low by Achilles. But Athena rebuked her father, saying: “How can you even think of releasing the man from his doom? He is mortal; he would die soon anyway, but this day is fated to be his last.”
As Achilles and Hector began their fourth circuit of the great walls of Troy, Zeus raised high his golden scales. In one of the pans he placed the death of Hector and in the other the death of Achilles. Hector’s doom was heavier, and Apollo immediately withdrew his support from the prince of Troy. Meanwhile, Athena appeared to Achilles and told him to rest and catch his breath, for she would go to Hector and persuade him to stand and fight.
No sooner said than done, and she appeared alongside Hector as his dear brother Deiphobus. And Hector believed her when she said that she would fight at his shoulder, that the two of them would tackle Achilles together and bring him down in his pride, as two tawny lions work together to bring down a magnificent gazelle.
So Hector stood his ground and waited for Achilles to draw close. Instead of the usual taunting—for each knew the other’s lineage and prowess—Hector promised that, if he should win, he would not insult or mistreat Achilles’ corpse. But Achilles replied: “Does the wolf deal with the lamb? I’ll make no pact with you. On guard!”
With these words he cast his long-shadowed spear, but Hector ducked and it passed safely over his shoulder and stuck in the earth. Now it was Hector’s turn: “You seem better at hurling words than spears,” he cried, but his spear was deflected harmlessly by Achilles’ marvelous shield. He called on Deiphobus to pass him another spear, but there was no reply, for there was no one near him. And now he realized that he had been duped by a deity, and knew that his doom was imminent.
Hector bravely drew his sword and advanced on Achilles, slicing the keen blade through the air. Achilles adopted a defensive position, tucked in behind his great shield, and once more hefted his spear over his shoulder; for Athena had surreptitiously returned it to him. Hector’s armor—the armor he had taken from Patroclus—protected almost his entire body, except for the neck. As the Trojan charged forward, Achilles thrust his spear at the exact spot—a terrible wound, but not enough to kill him immediately. Hector fell to the ground, choking on his own blood, and Achilles stood in triumph over him. “Did you think you could get away with killing Patroclus, you swine? The dogs and kites will rend your body, while the Greeks honor Patroclus.”
In a bubbling whisper, Hector begged Achilles not to dishonor his body, to let his father ransom it, but the Greek victor refused. “Ask me nothing, you whining cur! I hate you with such passion that I could hack chunks from your body and eat them raw! No amount of gold will stop you feeding the crows.”
So Hector died at the hands of a pitiless man. But inside Achilles something slumped, and he spoke to himself: “It is done. Now I can accept my own death when it comes.”
He called on his fellow Greeks to return to camp, leaving only a token force on the plain in case the Trojans tried anything. After stripping Hector of his armor, reclaiming it as his own, he pierced the dead man’s ankles, drew strong cord through the holes, and tied the body to his chariot. So he drove back to the Greek camp, defiling the body of his foe, dragging it over the rocky plain, breaking every one of its bones, disregarding the laws of gods and men.
Achilles defiled the body of Hector by dragging it behind his chariot.[72]
Priam and Hecuba, looking down from the walls, saw their son’s death, and collapsed to the ground, broken by grief. But Andromache still knew nothing.
She was in the chambers she shared with her husband, drawing a bath for him to enjoy when he returned from battle. But then the sound of Hecuba’s wailing reached her, and she ran in trepidation to see what had happened.
She arrived just in time to see Achilles dragging Hector’s body toward the ships. The sight caused her to fall in a faint to the floor, but the wailing of her parents and the womenfolk roused her. She mourned equally for herself and her fatherless son. Neither of them now had anything to hope for. Their lives had fled with Hector’s.
Night fell and, with his vengeance complete, Achilles let grief possess him. In the night Patroclus appeared to him, begging for an early funeral so that he could cross the Styx into Hades. In his dream, Achilles stretched out his hands for his friend, but grasped only mist and air. And the next day the Greeks forgot war and devoted themselves to the funeral rites for one they had loved and honored.
Men collected firewood and heaped it on the shore. Achilles’ womenfolk prepared Patroclus’ body, and Achilles himself bore it and laid it on the pyre. He cropped his hair in mourning and closed Patroclus’ hands around the golden tresses. Sheep were sacrificed, and the corpse smeared with fat. Four horses were killed and their bodies added to the pyre, and two fine hounds, and all twelve of the Trojan youths Achilles had captured the previous day, their throats slit. Then Achilles thrust the burning brand into the pyre, and the hungry flames consumed all. And he swore that Hector’s body should receive no such funeral, but should be food for dogs and crows.
The following day, the Greeks damped down the glowing coals of the fire with wine, sifted the ash for Patroclus’ bones, and sealed them in an urn. Achilles reverently laid the urn in the ground and surrounded it with all those things that were dear to his dearest friend, and whatever he would need for his final journey. Then all the Greeks heaped up a vast mound of protective earth over the bones, and turned in his honor to athletic competition, as was the custom.
But the games did little to settle Achilles’ anger with Patroclus’ killer. Still his heart was racked with bitter grief. Time and again he harnessed his chariot in the dawn’s gray light to drag Hector’s body around the newly constructed tomb, seeking to calm his restless spirit that way. But each day Apollo refreshed and restored the mutilated corpse.
The gods looked on from high Olympus in abhorrence at this transgression of sacred custom. For a while, the opposition of Hera and her allies created a stalemate, but Zeus, as always, had the deciding vote, and he issued a direct command: Achilles is to return Hector’s body to Priam. He summoned Thetis, to ask her to make her son see reason, or risk the anger of the gods. And he sent Iris to Priam, to tell him that the way was clear for him to ransom his dear son’s body.
Thetis found her son still wrapped in inconsolable sadness over the death of his friend, and exhausted by sleeplessness and savagery. But he readily obeyed Zeus’ command: he would let Priam have Hector’s body. He put aside the thought that he was somehow doing Patroclus a disservice by returning the body. Meanwhile, Iris told Priam to go alone and secretly to Achilles’ tent, with valuable gifts for the ransom, taking only a driver for the cart; and she told him not to worry about the danger, because Zeus would send Hermes himself, the wayfinder, to guide him. She found the king begrimed with dust and earth that he had poured over his head and body in his grief, and all the womenfolk of the palace in deep mourning.
Hecuba thought her husband had lost his mind, but, trusting in Zeus, Priam was determined to go. He ordered a great wagon loaded with bolts of the finest cloth, ten talents of gold, tripods, cauldrons, and a gorgeous golden cup of the finest Thracian workmanship. When they reached the ford across the Scamander, they were met by Hermes in the guise of a young Myrmidon from Achilles’ camp. Safely he guided the old man through the Greek picket lines, by the simple expedient of putting the sentries to sleep.
So Priam completed his terrifying journey and entered Achilles’ quarters. The son of Peleus greeted him kindly, and the old man dropped to the floor and tearfully begged the warrior to pity his old age and grant him the right to take his son’s body back to Troy. Achilles gently raised the old man to his feet and bade him sit down, but Priam said that he could never rest while Hector’s body lay unburied and dishonored.
Priam made his way in secret to beg Achilles for Hector’s body.[73]
Achilles’ temper flared at the suggestion that he had acted in a dishonorable manner, but he accepted the ransom and had all the valuables taken from the cart and stored in his quarters. Then he had his womenfolk bathe and anoint the corpse, and dress it in fine linen. He suggested that Priam spend the night in his quarters, and wait for daylight to make his way back across the plain to Troy. And for the first time since his son’s death Priam felt able to sleep for a few hours, calmed by Achilles’ assurance that the period required for Hector’s funeral rites should be an armistice, untainted by war.
But in the middle of the night, while Achilles lay asleep, Hermes appeared again to Priam and urged him to arise and leave, in case word reached Agamemnon or one of the other Greek officers that the king of Troy was in their camp, and could easily be taken. Priam got ready in silence, and Hermes guided him back to the Scamander, where he took his leave and returned to Olympus. Priam, head bowed and covered, drove the cart slowly home along familiar lanes.
At the sight of Hector’s body, trundling toward the city in the dawn’s early light, all gave in to grief and mourning. Women tore their hair and raked their nails down their cheeks, while sighing bitterly when they thought what they had lost and what the future held for them. Andromache was utterly disconsolate, and young Astyanax wailed constantly, oppressed by the mood and his mother’s tears.
Achilles arranged a truce as promised, and the citizens of Troy piled up wood for nine days. On the tenth they carried Hector out of the city gates to his pyre and burned him with all honor. With tears streaming down their cheeks, they gathered his bones and sealed them in a jar of gold. They placed the jar inside a deep-dug grave, and heaped up stones and a mound of earth over the remains. And so they buried Hector, breaker of horses.
All too soon, after the funeral truce, armor was once again donned, weapons once more straightened, sharpened, and burnished. Now reinforcements were arriving for the Trojans from the ends of the earth. From the north came a contingent of the wild warrior women, the Amazons; from the south came Memnon of Ethiopia. The war was not over yet.
The Amazons were led by Penthesilea, a daughter of Ares, who was eager for glory in a war against men. She and her troop displayed great valor on the battlefield, and took many Greek lives, but then Penthesilea met Achilles. The duel was brief: Achilles’ spear soon found her breast. But when the Greek hero removed the dying woman’s helmet, he fell in love with her. He refused her burial, and kept the body by his side in his tent. Thersites, the crude troublemaker of the Greek army, made lewd suggestions about what Achilles got up to with the corpse, and paid for his insults with his life. But Diomedes was Thersites’ kinsman, and he and Achilles fell out over the murder, until their fellow officers and aristocrats reconciled them. They did not want to see Achilles go off in another sulk. Nevertheless, he had to leave for a while, to be purified for the murder.
Memnon of Ethiopia was a giant of a man, the son of Eos and Tithonus, equipped with armor made especially for him in Hephaestus’ workshop. He and his men cut swathes through the Greek troops, and confined them once again to their encampment. In the course of the Greek rout, Paris wounded one of the horses of Nestor’s chariot team. The old man couldn’t make it back to the Greek lines; his charioteer was dead, and he was caught in no-man’s land. Just then, Memnon approached, and it seemed as though the Greeks would lose their most respected counselor—but Antilochus, Nestor’s son, stepped up and took Memnon’s blow in his father’s stead, and his head rolled in the dust.
Antilochus’ sacrifice gave Achilles time to rescue Nestor from Memnon. The two heroes faced each other, battle fury disfiguring their faces. As they hefted their spears, up on Olympus the two mothers were begging Zeus for the lives of their sons. Once again Zeus raised the golden scales of fate. The death of Memnon was heavier, and Achilles slew him. Eos had not been able to save her son’s life, but she implored Zeus for a special boon. And the father of gods and men turned the smoke from Memnon’s funeral pyre into birds, which fought in mid-air, and fell dead into the flames as offerings to the hero.
But the slaying of Memnon was Achilles’ last great deed. His death had often been foretold. He knew it, and he had made his choice, the heroic choice. After Memnon’s death, the Trojans had no fighters to match the remaining Greek heroes, and they found themselves hard pressed. Achilles burst into the city at the head of his men, and the city seemed certain to fall—but this was the day of Achilles’ doom, not Troy’s. Apollo the archer himself took the form of Paris, no mean bowman even without the god’s help. Paris aimed for the body, but Apollo knew better, and steered the fatal dart onto Achilles’ ankle, the only place where his skin could be pricked. And though it was only an ankle wound, all his vulnerability was located there, and his life ebbed away on the threshold of the city.
A terrible fight arose over the hero’s body, with every Trojan determined to win for himself Achilles’ fabulous armor. Glaucus, the leader of the Lycians since Sarpedon’s death, beat back the Greeks, wounding even Diomedes in the fracas, and managed to attach a rope to Achilles’ leg; but even as he was dragging the body deeper into Troy, Ajax struck him dead with one mighty thrust of his spear. On and on the battle raged, until night was drawing near, and Zeus sent a thunderous storm to break it up. Then at last mighty Ajax managed to bear Achilles, armor and all, back to their camp.
Antilochus was buried with all honor, while Achilles’ body lay long in state. All the Greeks paid their respects, but Thetis and the Muses keened and wailed by the fair corpse, on which no mark of a wound could be seen. After his body had been cremated and his bones collected, they were placed in the same urn as those of Patroclus and covered by a great mound of earth. For the funeral games, Thetis extracted prizes from the gods themselves. And ever after Achilles is worshipped at the site of his tomb as a hero.
But a far more bitter contest awaited the Greeks as a result of Achilles’ death. Both Odysseus and Ajax coveted his armor, and each claimed a right to it on the same grounds: that he was the foremost warrior in the Greek army. In order to decide the quarrel, the army assembled and heard both Odysseus and Ajax state their cases. Trojan prisoners bore witness that Odysseus had done them more harm than Ajax, but even so the Greeks’ vote was exactly tied. There was nothing to tell between the two of them in terms of valor. But Athena was the presiding judge, and she decided for Odysseus, her favorite.
This loss was more than Ajax could stand; it drove him out of his mind. He left the assembly staggering like a drunkard, and everyone kept out of his way in fear. They watched as Ajax fell on a flock of sheep, butchering the defenseless beasts in their pen, for he saw them as his enemies, those who had cheated him out of his prize, and was determined to have his revenge. When the hero came to his senses and saw what he had done, the disgrace was the final straw. On the secluded beach, he planted his sword hilt in the sand and fell forward onto the blade.
Dishonored, Ajax planted his sword hilt-first and fell upon the blade.[74]
Now Troy’s end was close, and the Greek army had complete control of the plain. The Trojans were bottled up inside the city, too scared to show their faces, anticipating death or slavery within a few days. Odysseus captured Helenus and forced the soothsayer to reveal the final conditions that would have to be met before Troy could fall. First, Neoptolemus would have to be fetched from the island of Scyros, and Philoctetes from Lemnos; second, the city’s magical talisman would have to be stolen.
Neoptolemus, the son Deidameia had conceived while Achilles was hiding, would act as a kind of substitute for his father, for though very young in years, the gods had smiled on his youth and had raised him well before his time to the prime of young manhood. Philoctetes was needed because he was the bearer of Heracles’ bow, passed down to him by his father Poeas, and it was foretold that Troy would not fall except with the help of Heracles’ bow. But more difficult than fetching either of these two was Helenus’ other condition: Troy could never be sacked as long as the Palladium was safe inside its walls. This was an effigy of Athena that had fallen long ago from the skies, and was the most sacred object in Troy. It was kept in the heart of the city, and cast a protective ring all around.
Odysseus fetched Neoptolemus from Scyros. On arriving, the young hero spent several hours of silent grief at the tomb of the father he had never known, and ended by swearing revenge. In battle, he performed great deeds of valor, and put heart into the Greek troops, for he was the very image of his golden father. Odysseus gave him Achilles’ armor, and the young man blazed on the battlefield like a savage new star.
With Neoptolemus in action, Agamemnon felt he could spare Odysseus and Diomedes to go and fetch Philoctetes. Now, Philoctetes was a mighty warrior, and had sailed as eagerly as any Greek to do battle at Troy. But on the way, when the fleet stopped at the island of Lemnos, he had been bitten on the foot by a snake, and the festering wound became so foul and smelly that the Greeks abandoned him there.
Ten years later, then, Diomedes and Odysseus returned to Lemnos to bring Philoctetes to Troy. They found him still in agony, with his foot still oozing evil-smelling slime. Nor was he pleased at having been left for so long on his own, and over the long years of bitter waiting he had fanned the flames of resentment of Agamemnon and the other Greeks. So while Diomedes hid, Odysseus appeared to Philoctetes as a stranger, with Athena’s help. He won Philoctetes’ trust and sneaked the bow away to Diomedes when the opportunity arose. Philoctetes was furious at the deception, but Odysseus, now revealed in his true form, assured him that, if he accompanied them to Troy, he would win great fame, and his foot would be healed.
And so it happened. Philoctetes was greeted with great joy by the Greeks, and once Machaon had healed his wound, he was put immediately to work. In the course of their very next assault on the city, the two great bowmen, Philoctetes and Paris, squared off against each other. Thick and fast their arrows flew through the air. But in the hands of Philoctetes Heracles’ bow was invincible, and Paris fell, his corpse bristling with arrows. There were those, even in Troy, whose tears were blended with relief that the cause of the war had been punished. At any rate, with Paris’ death, the heart went out of the Trojans. Heracles’ bow had effectively brought the war to an end.
Troy was now under close assault, the end inevitable and imminent. But first the Greeks had to gain the sacred Palladium. Odysseus and Diomedes volunteered to enter the city and try to steal it. Their disguises had to be perfect: they both dressed in rags as beggars, and Odysseus even had himself beaten up for the occasion. They approached the city by night and, while Diomedes kept watch outside, Odysseus crawled through a drain that ran out under the walls.
But fear of the future was keeping Helen awake, and she too was out in the streets at night. She bumped into Odysseus and recognized him in spite of his disguise. But she saw a way to ingratiate herself with the Greeks, into whose hands she was sure she would soon fall, and directed Odysseus to where the sacred relic was kept. First and last, Helen was the bane of Troy. Odysseus carried the effigy out to Diomedes and together they bore it in triumph back to the Greek camp. Trojan morale plummeted even further at the theft, but in order to calm their fears, Priam gave out that it was not the real Palladium that had been stolen, but a fake.
Wounded Philoctetes and the bow of Heracles were retrieved from Lemnos.[75]
Now the Greeks were ready for their final ruse; now Zeus’ will would be fulfilled. It was Athena’s idea, whispered in the mind of Odysseus. The Greeks constructed an enormous horse out of wood, big enough to hold the cream of the Greek heroes. Odysseus, Diomedes, Neoptolemus, Menelaus, and many others took their places inside, in eager anticipation. The Greeks then burned their camp and sailed away out of sight—but only just out of sight: they hid on the far side of the nearby island of Tenedos, and waited for the signal.
After some hours of inaction, the Trojans cautiously emerged from the city to see what was going on. They were astonished to find the Greek camp abandoned and destroyed. The only solid structure standing amidst the litter was this enormous wheeled horse. What was it? What should they do with it? Now the next part of the trap was sprung. The Greeks had left behind a man called Sinon, who was, as planned, taken prisoner by the Trojans.
Feigning terror, Sinon told them that he hated the Greek nobles, and was so hated by them in return that they had left him behind. To the Trojans’ questions about the horse, he replied that it was an offering to Athena, and that the Greeks had made it so large to prevent its being taken into the city. An oracle had told them, he lied, that if the horse entered the city of Troy, it would keep the city safe forever.
The Trojans debated what to do. The majority wanted to bring the offering inside, to keep the city safe, but there were dissenting voices. Cassandra knew it for what it was, and tried to warn her fellow citizens, but as usual her truths were taken for the ravings of a madwoman. And Laocoön, Antenor’s son and the priest of Apollo, was so suspicious that he hurled a spear into the side of the horse. It stuck there, quivering, and the structure emitted a hollow clang, but nobody recognized what that meant.
Then two vast serpents emerged from the sea and coiled their sinewy strength around Laocoön and his two sons, crushing them to death. That seemed decisive. Laocoön had died, people supposed, because he had opposed the will of the gods. No more talk of setting fire to the horse, or pushing it over a cliff. Now they were resolved to bring it into the city. They pulled down a section of the walls to allow the thing to be trundled inside—that is how sure they were that the war was over. In actual fact, what had been foretold was that the city would never fall unless by a kind of suicide. The Trojans themselves had to be responsible for their city’s fall.
Laocoön and his sons were destroyed for doubting the Wooden Horse.[76]
The horse was left for the night in the main square of the city. Among the curious sightseers were Helen and Deiphobus. Three times they circled the strange structure, and Helen called out to each of the Greek leaders by name, making her voice sound like those of their wives. But inside the horse, under Odysseus’ leadership, the men maintained strict silence. They were not even wearing metal armor. The Trojans, all unsuspecting, gave themselves over to wine and celebration, and slept well. But Helen knew what would happen on the morrow, and spent the night with her maids, preparing for departure.
In the silence of deep night, the Greek fighters silently opened the secret doorway set into the horse’s side, let down a rope, and slipped into the dark streets of the city. Stealthily, the assassins went their separate ways. Meanwhile, alerted by the beacon Sinon lit at the tomb of Achilles, the Greek forces silently returned from Tenedos. As the numberless stars wheeled overhead, the Greeks poured in through the new, self-inflicted breach in the walls.
Neoptolemus sneaked into the royal palace, and found everyone asleep, from the king down to his servants, whom he cut down at their posts. Alerted by the noise, Priam raced on aged legs to take refuge at the altar of Zeus, but Neoptolemus dragged him away. He forced the old man to his knees, pulled back his grizzled head, and drew his blade sharply across the exposed throat.
Meanwhile, Odysseus and Menelaus went to Deiphobus’ house. They would find Helen there, for, in accordance with Trojan custom, she had been awarded to Paris’ brother after his death. While Odysseus engaged Deiphobus, Menelaus drew his sword to dispatch his former wife—but in her terror she let her robe slip from her creamy shoulders, and lust stayed his hand. He dragged her instead back to his ship—and the same thing happened all the way down to the beach: any who took up stones to harm her let them fall from slack hands at the sight of her loveliness. After a hard fight, Deiphobus succumbed to his wounds and bled to death on the floor of the chamber that he had shared so briefly with the most desirable woman in the world.
The Greeks gave themselves over to bloodlust. The frustration and fear of ten long years of warfare awarded them terrible energy. This too was justice: the Trojans had to pay. Very few survived the slaughter. One was Antenor, his door marked by Agamemnon for safety, in gratitude for his protection of the ambassadors ten long years before, and for his known opposition to Paris.
Another was Aeneas, who escaped with his crippled father on his back. He had taken Laocoön’s suspicions to heart and fled early to the hollows of Mount Ida, from where he looked down on the burning city and dimly heard the screams of the dying.
Neoptolemus snatched Hector’s son Astyanax from his screaming mother’s arms and hurled the innocent baby to his death from a high tower: Andromache was his prize, and he wanted no whelp of Hector’s in his household. The women were spared, but not out of mercy: they were hauled off to captivity and slavery and unwelcome concubinage. Cassandra sought refuge at the altar of Athena, and was raped in the very sanctuary by Ajax of Locri, a crime for which the Locrians are still paying. Then she became the prize of Agamemnon.
Ajax of Locri angered Athena when he raped Cassandra in the goddess’s sacred precinct.[77]
The most terrible fate awaited Polyxena, the fairest of the daughters of Hecuba and Priam. After the sack of the city, she was not assigned as booty to any Greek chieftain, for the ghost of Achilles appeared to the senior Greek officers in a dream, demanding that she be sacrificed to him, as the price of their departure, just as Iphigeneia’s death had released them from Greek shores ten years earlier. Ruthless Neoptolemus eagerly slaughtered the innocent maiden on his father’s tomb.
Aethra, the mother of Theseus who had been forced to serve Helen, was found safe and returned to the bosom of her family after so many years.
Hecuba joined the entourage of Odysseus, but she and some of the other women escaped at the first stop of the Greeks’ journey home, in Thrace. She had sent her youngest son Polydorus to King Polymestor there for safety during the war, so that Priam’s line should not altogether die out in case of disaster; but on hearing of the sack of Troy Polymestor murdered the young man, and now Hecuba found his corpse washed up on the shore. Feigning ignorance, and knowing the Thracian king’s greed, Hecuba enticed him and his children into an ambush with a tale of Trojan gold.
She and her friends slaughtered his children before his eyes, and then blinded him with their brooches. For this she was turned into a dog—but the former queen found this preferable to servitude, and thus she was saved from the hazards of Odysseus’ tortuous journey home.
