Looking Up and Out
Starting to Read Iliad 12
This post is a basic introduction to reading Iliad 12. Here is a link to the overview of book 11 and another to the plan in general. As a reminder, these posts will remain free, but there is an option to be a financial supporter. All proceeds from the substack are donated to classics adjacent non-profits on a monthly basis.
Iliad 12 puts the audience both at the middle of the epic’s ‘run-time’ and at the middle of the field between Troy and the Greeks. One of the many inversions that characterize our Iliad is the transformation of besiegers into besieged. The only wall-breaching that occurs in the Iliad is of the Achaean Walls at the end of book 12 by Hektor himself. In the arc of the poem’s action, this book sits in the 6 book sequence that takes up the single day following the embassy to Achilles and the night raids of book 10.
Book 12 occupies a curious place in this arc, however: the focus of the narrative moves between the frantic defense of the Greek fortifications and conversations among the Trojan attackers. In addition to the final breaking of the wall and an initial foreshadowing of the wall’s future destruction, book 12 contains two famous scenes: (1) Hektor arguing with Polydamas about an omen that appears as they prepare to breach the wall and (2) Sarpedon reflecting to his buddy Glaukos about why they have to fight. Near the end of the book there are a few remarkable similes, to which I will dedicate an entire post.
The plot of this book engages critically with the major themes I have noted to follow in reading the Iliad: (1) Politics, (2) Heroism; (3) Gods and Humans; (4) Family & Friends; (5) Narrative Traditions, but the central themes I emphasize in reading and teaching book 11 are Narrative traditions, heroism, and politics.
Narrative Traditions (Redux): The Destruction of the Wall
As discussed in an earlier post, one of the features of book 12 that has made interpreters a little batty is the description of the destruction of the Achaean fortifications after the events of the Iliad are complete. When the wall is first built in Iliad 6, Poseidon complains that the new wall will erase all memory of the wall he and Apollo built for the Trojans. The back-and-forth between Poseidon and Zeus makes it clear that the wall is in part about divine honor and fame, and that Zeus’ ability to guarantee such things keep the divine realm stable politically in a way that is impossible for mortals (and which underpins the conflict between Agamemnon and Achilles in book 1).
When the wall is ‘destroyed’ at the beginning of book 12, it provides a nice structure to the book (anticipating Hektor’s breaching of the wall at the end), but it also engages with the ‘glory’ of the epic in interesting ways.
Iliad 12.1-33
“So, while the valiant son of Menoitios was tending
To wounded Eurupulos in the tents, the Argives and Trojans
Were fighting in clusters. The ditch and the broad wall beyond
Were not going to hold, the defense they built for the ships
And the trench they made around it. They did not sacrifice to the gods
So that it would safeguard the fast ships and the piled up spoils
Held within it. It was built without the gods’ assent,
And so it would not remain steadfast for too much.
As long as Hektor was alive and Achilles was raging,
And as long as the city of lord Priam remained unsacked,
That’s how long the great wall of the Achaeans would be steadfast.But once however so many of the Trojans who were the best died
Along with many of the Argives who killed them, and the rest left,
And Priam’s city was sacked in the tenth year,
And the Argives went back to their dear homeland in their ships,
That’s when Poseidon and Apollo were planning
To erase the wall by turning the force of rivers against it.
All the number of the rivers that flow from the Idaian mountains to the sea,
Rhêsos, and Heptaporos, and Karêsos, and Rhodios,
And the Grênikos, and Aisêpos, and divine Skamandros
Along with Simoeis, where many ox-hide shields and helmets
Fell in the dust along with the race of demigod men.
Phoibos Apollo turned all of their mouths together
And sent them flowing against the wall for nine days.
And Zeus sent rain constantly, to send the walls faster to the sea.
The earthshaker himself took his trident in his hands
And led them, and he sent all the pieces of wood and stone
Out into the waves, those works the Achaeans toiled to make
And he smoothed out the bright-flowing Hellespont,
And covered the broad beach again with sands,
Erasing the wall, and then he turned the rivers back again,
He sent their beautiful flowing water back to where it was before.”῝Ως ὃ μὲν ἐν κλισίῃσι Μενοιτίου ἄλκιμος υἱὸς
ἰᾶτ’ Εὐρύπυλον βεβλημένον· οἳ δὲ μάχοντο
᾿Αργεῖοι καὶ Τρῶες ὁμιλαδόν· οὐδ’ ἄρ’ ἔμελλε
τάφρος ἔτι σχήσειν Δαναῶν καὶ τεῖχος ὕπερθεν
εὐρύ, τὸ ποιήσαντο νεῶν ὕπερ, ἀμφὶ δὲ τάφρον
ἤλασαν· οὐδὲ θεοῖσι δόσαν κλειτὰς ἑκατόμβας·
ὄφρά σφιν νῆάς τε θοὰς καὶ ληΐδα πολλὴν
ἐντὸς ἔχον ῥύοιτο· θεῶν δ’ ἀέκητι τέτυκτο
ἀθανάτων· τὸ καὶ οὔ τι πολὺν χρόνον ἔμπεδον ἦεν.
ὄφρα μὲν ῞Εκτωρ ζωὸς ἔην καὶ μήνι’ ᾿Αχιλλεὺς
καὶ Πριάμοιο ἄνακτος ἀπόρθητος πόλις ἔπλεν,
τόφρα δὲ καὶ μέγα τεῖχος ᾿Αχαιῶν ἔμπεδον ἦεν.αὐτὰρ ἐπεὶ κατὰ μὲν Τρώων θάνον ὅσσοι ἄριστοι,
πολλοὶ δ’ ᾿Αργείων οἳ μὲν δάμεν, οἳ δὲ λίποντο,
πέρθετο δὲ Πριάμοιο πόλις δεκάτῳ ἐνιαυτῷ,
᾿Αργεῖοι δ’ ἐν νηυσὶ φίλην ἐς πατρίδ’ ἔβησαν,
δὴ τότε μητιόωντο Ποσειδάων καὶ ᾿Απόλλων
τεῖχος ἀμαλδῦναι ποταμῶν μένος εἰσαγαγόντες.
ὅσσοι ἀπ’ ᾿Ιδαίων ὀρέων ἅλα δὲ προρέουσι,
῾Ρῆσός θ’ ῾Επτάπορός τε Κάρησός τε ῾Ροδίος τε
Γρήνικός τε καὶ Αἴσηπος δῖός τε Σκάμανδρος
καὶ Σιμόεις, ὅθι πολλὰ βοάγρια καὶ τρυφάλειαι
κάππεσον ἐν κονίῃσι καὶ ἡμιθέων γένος ἀνδρῶν·
τῶν πάντων ὁμόσε στόματ’ ἔτραπε Φοῖβος ᾿Απόλλων,
ἐννῆμαρ δ’ ἐς τεῖχος ἵει ῥόον· ὗε δ’ ἄρα Ζεὺς
συνεχές, ὄφρά κε θᾶσσον ἁλίπλοα τείχεα θείη.
αὐτὸς δ’ ἐννοσίγαιος ἔχων χείρεσσι τρίαιναν
ἡγεῖτ’, ἐκ δ’ ἄρα πάντα θεμείλια κύμασι πέμπε
φιτρῶν καὶ λάων, τὰ θέσαν μογέοντες ᾿Αχαιοί,
λεῖα δ’ ἐποίησεν παρ’ ἀγάρροον ᾿Ελλήσποντον,
αὖτις δ’ ἠϊόνα μεγάλην ψαμάθοισι κάλυψε
τεῖχος ἀμαλδύνας· ποταμοὺς δ’ ἔτρεψε νέεσθαι
κὰρ ῥόον, ᾗ περ πρόσθεν ἵεν καλλίρροον ὕδωρ.
As I mention earlier, this passage can be seen as engaging fundamentally with epic concerns about the stability of memory and the persistence of human stories. There no mention of kleos in the proleptic destruction of the wall. But there are several markers of the passage of time: the wall is related to the action of the story being told (it will last as long as Hektor lives and Achilles rages), it is situated within the Trojan War tradition (it will last through the sack of Troy), and it is marked as part of the destruction of the race of heroes, placing it in a cosmic outlook.
Lorenzo Garcia suggests that the wall is in a way a metonym: “The wall—itself a stand-in for Achilles, as I argued above—here functions as an image of the tradition itself and its view of its own temporal durability” (2013, 191). Then he draws on Ruth Scodel’s work (1982) to note that this narrative necessarily positions the wall and the actions around it in a larger cosmic framework:
I would like to add to this that the position of this temporal reminder at the middle of the epic, in the very book in which the wall is breached, is of structural significance. If we follow models of performance that split the Iliad into three movements, then the first mention of the Achaean walls’ destruction comes during a different performance. The secondary mention, then, is both a reminder and an expansion. It emphasizes different themes (extinction, destruction, erasure) in contrast to the former. And, in line with Homeric composition in general, it amplifies the discussion, taking the audience outside of the timeline of the Iliad temporarily before plunging us back into the chaos of war.
Beginning book 12 with the destruction of the object that the whole book is dedicated merely to breaching creates a dynamic tension between the larger story tradition and the one being told. How we interpret this tension depends on the position we take towards epic participants. Does divine intervention to erase the wall in the future elevate or denigrate Hektor’s accomplishment in the book? How does the erasure of evidence of the actions help to characterize the power of epic narrative over objects?
I don’t know that I can answer either of these questions, but I suspect a third is important as well: how does knowing about the future destruction of the walls shape our attitude about all the events that fall around them? In a way, I think the entire setup at the heart of the epic is a metaphor for human accomplishment. A pessimistic view sees the juxtaposition of destruction and Hektor’s big moment as showing how futile human action is, how useless from the cosmic scale. Such a reading, I suggest, takes an overly deterministic stance, wholly crediting the notion that all of the events of the epic are just a part of Zeus’ plan.
A less pessimistic view: how impressive it is that Hektor breaks the wall and changes the balance of the war when it eventually takes so much divine effort to get rid of the gods altogether. From the perspective of Homeric poetics, the story of Hektor’s battle persists even though the wall is gone.
But, wait, there’s more: I think the less pessimistic view may be too generous to the power of Homeric poetry to preserve great deeds from destruction. Hektor disappears (in this epic!) long before the walls are erased. I get a sense from this book that the pairing of the two wall-events is indeed about putting human action in cosmic perspective. This is not to relativize it or dismiss it, but to see it for what it is. Hektor did something, he meant something. We spend our lives wondering what it means to have been, to have done much, to have suffered, and then to be gone. Iliad 12 may ask us to think about what it means if no one remembers us at all.
Perhaps it is the general zeitgeist, but scenes like this and those from Iliad 6 cause me to recall the final scenes of the tonally odd but striking Don’t Look Up (2021). As a final atmospheric event promises to end all life on earth, a small group gathers for a final meal, incapable of changing anything. Leonardo DiCaprio’s character opines, “We really did have everything, did we? I mean, when you think about it…” (and it seems the actor may have improvised this!)
I know it may seem that this post-apocalyptic film is rather far away from Hektor, tamer of horses, but the language of book 12 invokes cataclysmic destruction and for the city and the Trojans, Hektor’s death is truly one of those last distant events that seals their doom. I think the point of the final scene and book 12 is the reminder that living is in the doing, in the day to day, in the struggle.
Memory belongs to something else altogether.
Signs and their Meanings: Hektor and Polydamas debate a bird omen
I think that some reading of the futility/meaning of human action is important to this book as well because it can help frame the critical engagement between Hektor and Polydamas in the middle of the book. When the Trojans are about to break through the Achaean wall an eagle carrying a snake flies over them: the snake bites the eagle; eagle drops the snake and flies off screeching. The narrator tells us that the Trojans shuddered at the sight.
Iliad 12.199–257
“They were still struggling standing before the wall when a bird went over them as they were struggling to cross it, a high-flying eagle moving its way over the left side of the army holding in its talons a huge, reddened, snake still alive, breathing: it had not yet lost its fighting spirit. For it struck back at the bird who held him in the skin along the chest as it bent double. And the bird tossed him away to the ground because he was tortured with pains. It dropped the snake in the middle of the throng but flew away on the breath of the wind, sounding out in pain. The Trojans shuddered when they saw the winding serpent lying there, a sign from Aegis-bearing Zeus.
Then Polydamas stood aside and addressed bold Hektor: “Hektor, you are always threatening me in the public assemblies for some reason, even when I advise well, since it is not ever deemed proper for some member of the people to advise against you, either in council or in war. Instead, we must always increase your strength. But now I will tell you what seems to me to be best. Let’s not go to fight the Danaans around their ships. I think that it will turn out this way, if truly this bird came over the Trojans as we struggled to cross the wall, a high-flying eagle moving its way over the left side of the army holding in its talons a huge dark, reddened snake still alive. For it dropped it before it could return to its dear home and did not complete the task of giving it to his children. In the same way we, if we break through the gates and walls of the Achaeans by means of great strength and the Achaeans yield, so too we will not find the same paths in order among the ships. We will lose many Trojans there as the Achaeans strike us down with bronze while defending the ships. This is how a prophet would interpret, one who clearly understands in his heart divine signs and one the people obey.”
Glaring at him, shining-helmed Hektor answered: “Polydamas, you never announce things dear to me in public. You know how to make a different, better speech than this one. If you are really arguing this out loud earnestly, well, then, the gods have ruined your thoughts themselves, you who order me to forget the counsels of loud-thundering Zeus, what he himself promised and assented to for me. Now you ask me to listen to some tender-winged bird? I don’t notice or care at all about these birds, whether they go to the right to dawn and the sun or whether they go to the left to the dusky gloom. We are obeying the plan of great Zeus. He rules over all the mortals and the immortal too. One bird omen is best: defend your fatherland. Why do you fear the war and strife so much? If all the rest of us are really killed around the Argive ships, there’s no fear for you in dying. Your heart is not brave nor battleworthy. But if you keep back from the fight, or if you turn any other away from the war by plying him with words, well you’ll die straight away then, struck down by my spear.” So he spoke and led on, and they followed him with a divine echo. Zeus who delights in thunder drove a gust of wind down from the Idaian slopes, which carried dust straight over the ships. It froze the minds of the Achaeans and gave hope to the Trojans and Hektor. Trusting in these signs and their own strength, they were trying to break through the great wall of the Achaeans.”
Looking at omens helps us to consider how the epic sees people using narratives in different contexts and where re-intrepretation is presented as acceptable or not. In short, this scene is another opportunity for the Iliad to train its audiences in how to read epic and engage with narrative. And understanding Hektor’s position within a larger cosmic scale, may help us to better grasp his response.
In Polydamas’ response to the omen, note how he provides an end to the story and an interpretation. The audience faces a quick and compressed comparison of the story of the omen to the experience and world of the Trojans, a prediction for what might happen in the story, and an extended application to future action. This process enacts a clear blending between the Trojan world and the omen world: children, homes, and families are projected in the narrative blend to the bird; the snake and bird are projected back upon the Achaeans and Greeks; and unforeseen events are predicted for both.
It is really hard for me not to see this exchange as an elaborate allegory for interpreting epic. But let me stick to the process at hand. We can imagine both Pulydamas and Hektor applying the story of the omen to their own experiences and making different moves when the comparisons clash. Pulydamas extends the story of the omen to create parallels between his world and that of the omen; Hektor rejects the comparison altogether, responding either to Polydamas’ extension and disambiguation or rejecting the clash between his expectations and his reality. In other words, when the story fails to work for Hektor, when he cannot assimilate its messages to his experiences, he rejects it as inapplicable and replaces it with another. (And here, coyly, I might suggest Hektor is the kind of reader who is quick to emend a text that frustrates him).
To be clear, I am suggesting that maybe Hektor’s rejection of the omen is not merely a flouting of divine will and a demonstration of his monomaniacal desire to kill Achaeans. The epic sets us up to think this, of course: this pattern of a leader rejecting a prophet is part of the power play in the first book. But here, what if we imagine instead Hektor’s incredulity at Polydamas’ inferences and extensions? Maybe the bird’s just a bird and the snake a snake? Hector is not so simplistic, of course, but he increases the dissonance of the clashing to the point that the stories are irreconcilable. Hektor’s violence in reference to Polydamas extends in part from his rejection of the omen’s applicability. He posits cowardice and fear as influencing Polydamas’ interpretation. We on the outside of the poem know that Hektor is wrong in the long run; but within the poem he seems to be right in the short one, when he receives a sign of the rightness of his interpretation when Zeus sends a blast of blinding dust over the Achaeans.
To return to Don’t Look Up!, if only briefly, Hektor’s willful denial, his embrace of a worldview that allows him to act in it, is so essentially human as to countermand any dismissal of it. At the same time, we know he is likely wrong even as we know nothing he does will change the outcome. Hektor is not yet ready to acknowledge the truth.
For Omens: See De Jong 2001, 52 for list and typology; Ready 2014 for recent bibliography
De Jong, Irene. 2001. A Narratological Commentary on the Odyssey. Cambridge.
Ready, Jonathan. 2014. “Omens and messages in the « Iliad » and « Odyssey »: a study in transmission.” Between orality and literacy : communication and adaptation in antiquity. Ed. Scodel, Ruth. Orality and literacy in the ancient world; 10. Leiden: 29-55.
Some guiding questions for book 12
What is the impact of the vision of the future destruction of the Achaean walls?
What does the omen interpretation in book 12 between Polydamas and Hektor contribute to the political and narrative themes of the epic?
How does Sarpedon’s speech to Glaukos respond to ideas of ‘heroism’ contested by Achilles in book 9?
A Short bibliography on the Achaean Wall
Garcia, Lorenzo F., Jr. 2013. Homeric Durability: Telling Time in the Iliad. Hellenic Studies Series 58. Washington, DC: Center for Hellenic Studies.
Heiden, B. (1996). The three movements of the iliad. Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, 37(1), 5-22. Retrieved from https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/three-movements-iliad/docview/229178418/se-2
Maitland, Judith. “Poseidon, Walls, and Narrative Complexity in the Homeric Iliad.” The Classical Quarterly 49, no. 1 (1999): 1–13. http://www.jstor.org/stable/639485.
PORTER, JAMES I. “Making and Unmaking: The Achaean Wall and the Limits of Fictionality in Homeric Criticism.” Transactions of the American Philological Association (1974-) 141, no. 1 (2011): 1–36. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41289734.\
Purves, Alex. 2006a. “Falling into Time in Homer’s Iliad.” Classical Antiquity 25:179–209.
Scodel, Ruth. “The Achaean Wall and the Myth of Destruction.” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 86 (1982): 33–50. https://doi.org/10.2307/311182.
H. W. Singor. “The Achaean Wall and the Seven Gates of Thebes.” Hermes 120, no. 4 (1992): 401–11. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4476919.
Tsagarakis, Odysseus. “The Achaean Wall and the Homeric Question.” Hermes 97, no. 2 (1969): 129–35. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4475580.
West, M. L. “The Achaean Wall.” The Classical Review 19, no. 3 (1969): 255–60. http://www.jstor.org/stable/707716.
On Trojan politics [see this post too]
n.b this is not an exhaustive bibliography. If you’d like anything else included, please let me know. Follow-up posts will address kleos and Trojan politics
Christensen, Joel P.. “Trojan politics and the assemblies of Iliad 7.” Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, vol. 55, no. 1, 2015, pp. 25-51.
Clay, J. S. Homer’s Trojan Theater: Space, Vision and Memory in the Iliad (Cambridge, 2011)
Donlan, Walter. “The Structure of Authority in the Iliad.” Arethusa 12 (1979) 51-70.
Esperman, L. 1980. Antenor, Theano, Antenoriden: Ihre Person und Bedeutung in der Ilias. Meisen Heim am Glam.
Létoublon, Françoise. “Le bon orateur et le génie selon Anténor dans l' Iliade : Ménélas et Ulysse.” in Jean-Michel Galy and Antoine Thivel (eds.). La Rhétorique Grecque. Actes du colloque «Octave Navarre»: troisième colloque international sur la pensée antique organisé par le CRHI (Centre de recherches sur l'histoire des idées) les 17, 18 et 19 décembre 1992. Nice: Publications de la Faculté des Lettres, Arts et Sciences Humaines de Nice, 1994, 29-40.
Mackie, Hillary. Talking Trojan: Speech and Community in the Iliad . Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1996.
Redfield, James. Nature and Culture in the Iliad: The Tragedy of Hektor. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1975.
Sale, William M. “The Government of Troy: Politics in the Iliad. GRBS 35 (1994) 5-102.