Running from the Better Man

Type-Scenes and the Chase in Iliad 22

This post is a continuation of my substack on the Iliad. All proceeds from the substack are donated to classics adjacent non-profits on a monthly basis. Last year this substack provided over $2k in charitable donations. Don’t forget about Storylife: On Epic, Narrative, and Living Things. Here is its amazon page. here is the link to the company doing the audiobook and here is the press page. I am happy to talk about this book in person or over zoom.

Soon after Hektor decides to face Achilles, he loses his nerve and runs. The epic lingers on the moment.

Homer, Iliad 22.157-170

“They both ran around that point: One chasing, one fleeing.
In front, there was a good man trying to get away, but a much better man was pursuing.
Quickly. They weren’t struggling over a sacred prize or an oxhide,
The kinds of things that are prizes for men on their feet,
But instead they were running for the soul of Hektor, tamer of horses.
Just as when prize winning horses turn their feet
Quickly around the bend and a great prize lies in wait—
Either a tripod or a woman when some man has died,
So too did these two men run around Priam’s city
On their swift feet as all the gods were watching.
The father of gods and men started a conversation among them:
“Oh my fools, am I really watched a dear man pursued
Around the walls with my eyes? My heart feels grief for Hektor….”

τῇ ῥα παραδραμέτην φεύγων ὃ δ’ ὄπισθε διώκων·
πρόσθε μὲν ἐσθλὸς ἔφευγε, δίωκε δέ μιν μέγ’ ἀμείνων
καρπαλίμως, ἐπεὶ οὐχ ἱερήϊον οὐδὲ βοείην
ἀρνύσθην, ἅ τε ποσσὶν ἀέθλια γίγνεται ἀνδρῶν,
ἀλλὰ περὶ ψυχῆς θέον ῞Εκτορος ἱπποδάμοιο.
ὡς δ’ ὅτ’ ἀεθλοφόροι περὶ τέρματα μώνυχες ἵπποι
ῥίμφα μάλα τρωχῶσι· τὸ δὲ μέγα κεῖται ἄεθλον
ἢ τρίπος ἠὲ γυνὴ ἀνδρὸς κατατεθνηῶτος·
ὣς τὼ τρὶς Πριάμοιο πόλιν πέρι δινηθήτην
καρπαλίμοισι πόδεσσι· θεοὶ δ’ ἐς πάντες ὁρῶντο·
τοῖσι δὲ μύθων ἦρχε πατὴρ ἀνδρῶν τε θεῶν τε·
ὢ πόποι ἦ φίλον ἄνδρα διωκόμενον περὶ τεῖχος
ὀφθαλμοῖσιν ὁρῶμαι· ἐμὸν δ’ ὀλοφύρεται ἦτορ
῞Εκτορος, ὅς μοι πολλὰ βοῶν ἐπὶ μηρί’ ἔκηεν

There are several reasons this passage draws my attention: first, the grammar elegantly advances some of the blending of the characters I mention in my post about Hektor imagining sweet-talking Achilles. The two are combined in duel verbs (the form that is just for two grammatical subjects like eyes, hands, and pairs) to frame the episode (παραδραμέτην δινηθήτην) but then this potential equality is undermined by the concession that one is good, but the other is much better. This serves in part to echo some of the interdependence of the pair, but also to illustrate their ultimate difference (echoed sweetly in the language of competition.

Berlin Painter - period / date: late archaic, ca. 490 BC -

Second, the comparison to men racing for a prize—as will happen in the following book—emphasizes the stakes of Hektor’s flight and, in a way, relativizes the competitions to come. The simile brings into question fundamental Iliadic themes of honor and reward, hearkening back to book 1, but leaving in direct contrast all that has transpired since: these heroes are not merely competing for a geras (prize) or time (honor), they are struggling over life itself (and, note, for the time being, kleos has been left aside. I have probably written too much on similes, but this one is especially powerful in the way it includes within in it images that connect the details of this particular moment to the broader epic themes.

Third, the position of the divine audience reminds us that the human audience is outside the poem. Zeus here—as he does throughout the epic—acts as an internal audience to guide the external gaze. His response of frustration and sorrow frames the scene and informs the audience (to an extent) how they should feel about this scene: it is sad, but the outcome is inevitable. No matter how good Hektor has been, he still must die. Both the simile and the divine reflection extend the narrative space of Hektor’s final moments.

What is also interesting about this passage is the specification of how many times they run around the walls. In an epic tradition where Achilles is famed for the swiftness of his feet, it seems somewhat suspect that it takes him three times around a wall (and then a divine trick) to catch up with a hero known for man-slaying and horse-taming (especially when the narrator tells the audience that Achilles is a lot better than his quarry.) A conventional answer offered in commentaries is that specific numbers like this (nine years of war, nine years of plague) represents the penultimate moment before a final turn. By that logic, mentioning three times anticipates a fourth and final turn around the wall that will be decisive. The delay here, then, creates additional suspense based on audience experience of the structure earlier in the poem (cf. 5.436-39).

ca. 490 BC - material: pottery (clay) - height: 34 cm - findspot: Vulci - museum / inventory number: München, Staatliche Antikensammlungen 2406 -

This type of repeated structure that facilitates both composition and audience understanding is typically called a “type scene” in the study of Homeric and oral poetry. In my book Storylife, I position type scenes as structures that help create far more complex compositions, building on formulas and other repetitions:

Type-scenes are repeated patterns in what we might think of as conventional or repeated scenes: moments of dining, arming, onset and conclusion to speaking, and other kinds of near-ritualized performances, especially in sacrifices. Many modern scholars have seen type scenes as evidence of what Albert Lord describes as “composition by theme.” These scenes can vary in length, but tend to present recurring actions. That is, they have a stock set of elements that can be altered to fit the needs of their narrative environment. As Katherine Hitch argues (following Egbert Bakker, 1997), type scenes are like formulae: conventional material used innovatively through different combinations and variation within a specific pattern is the expected way to create meaning in an oral poetic context. Type scenes are made up of motifs and formulae the way multicellular lifeforms are composed of individual cells: and in each case the overall form can have a very different function from those of its constituent parts and separate iterations of the ‘same’ form will have different characteristics and functions based on their local environments.

A general concern of Homerists—and literary theorists in general—from the 20^th century was to figure out how to balance innovation in language against traditional forms. One of the more rigid and dull approaches to this is to imagine that oral poets function in a “poetry by number” environment that limited their creativity to chunking together pre-established units. My contention is that all language is to some extent limiting and that this facilitates understanding across different consciousnesses. It does not mean, however, that poets and audiences can’t press on prior structures to bend them or use them to create extrinsic meaning. In other posts I have introduced the term “productive dissonance” to describe how conventional forms can be used “incorrectly” or against expectation to produce new kinds of meanings (this is, essentially, my argument for the duals of Iliad 9).

But dissonance is not always the way: sometimes a lack of resolution or delayed resolution based on an expected pattern is useful as well. In her article “Emotional and thematic Meanings in a Repeating Homeric Motif”, Deborah Beck looks at this passage specifically. She sees the duals here as making “this chase into one deed and Achilles and Hector into a single actor….which “will eventually result in the death not only of Hector but also of Achilles, but not yet…” (2018, 162). The opening verses anticipate the repeated nature of the chase, but it is not until the close of the simile that the thrice+1 pattern is introduced. This structure, Beck suggests, creates a ring around the mention of the prize here, which is Hektor’s life. The shared grammar and the repeated pattern bring Achilles and Hektor closer together as characters while also heightening the emotional response of the audience. Beck summarizes the whole effect well:

The narrative of Achilles chasing Hector around and around the city of Troy before killing him might come across as repetitive, or even as pointless delay. Instead, the various elaborations that extend this τρὶς μέν ... τρὶς δέ scene depict the two most important fighters in the Iliad as fundamentally the same, and the fates of both – but especially Hector – as a matter of the warmest interest to the gods both individually and collectively. The ‘length confers emphasis’ aesthetics of Homeric epic are particularly effective for depicting a pivotal event that the characters themselves experience as taking a long time. Moreover, the individual expansions that appear in this scene foster the audience’s emotional engagement with the characters and the story. These include: several similes, which depict Achilles and Hector both as predator and prey and also as essentially identical competitors (162–65, 189–93, 199–201); a conversation between the gods watching from Olympus, where we would expect a single speech by one of the τρίς characters (168–85);36 a counterfactual condition within a rhetorical question, which brings the audience vividly into the poem in a manner nearly unparalleled in Homeric epic (202–04); and, finally, the τέταρτον turn of events (208–13), which features a character who, about to fail in his τρὶς μέν attempt, chooses to renounce his endeavour rather than simply be overpowered by a hostile god. These techniques work together even – or especially – as Hector’s death approaches to depict him as a brave and admirable warrior fully deserving of sympathy from both the internal audience of gods and the external audience of the Iliad.

I think all of these effects are worth highlighting, but it is worth noting as well how much familiarity with Homeric language is needed to respond fully to these cues and to understand them. Homeric poetry has a grammar of meaning that rises above the level of the individual word and relies on composite structures and audience familiarity with both. While we as modern audiences can sense the impact from close reading and from the confluence of so many poetic indicators in this scene, one would be fair to wonder how much of the substance of Homeric poetry we continue to miss out on because of all the performances that were never recorded and all those that we’ve lost.

As modern readers, we need to work overtime to restore the nuance that is lost to us and to slough off modern ideas about how and what epic poetry makes meaning. In a way, this is similar to restoring the pigment and decoration to plain white marble statues, understanding that they were more dynamic in the past and that modern aesthetics have been (mis)shaped by misunderstanding. But the level of challenge is greater, I suggest: epic is a living, breathing statue that moved in response to audiences. Modern aesthetics and translation often presents a fossil or desiccated form, in need of color, breath, and movement.

From The New Yorker: “The Myth of Whitenes in Classical Sculpture.”

Other Posts on Iliad 22

1. Hektor's Body and the Burden: Introducing Iliad 22: Trauma and Homer; Characterizing Hektor, again; Fight or Flight

2. Laying My Burdens Down: Hektor Sweet-talks Achilles in Iliad 22: Hektor and Achilles; The Lions of Al-Rassan; PTSD

3. A New Widow and Her Orphan: Andromache's Lament for Hektor in Iliad 22: Women in Homer; Andromache; Laments; Astyanax; PTSD; Trauma

Type Scene Bibliography

Bakker, Egbert J. 1997. Poetry in Speech: Orality and Homeric Discourse. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

Beck, Deborah. “ Emotional and thematic meanings in a repeating Homeric motif: a case study” The Journal of Hellenic Studies, vol. 138, 2018, pp. 150-172. Doi: 10.1017/S0075426918000095

Beck, Deborah. 2005. Homeric Conversation. Washington, D.C.: Center for Hellenic Studies.

Bonfante, Larissa. “The judgment of Paris, the toilette of Malavisch, and a mirror in the Indiana University Art Museum.” Studi Etruschi, vol. XLV, 1977, pp. 149-167.

Collins, Leslie. “The wrath of Paris. Ethical vocabulary and ethical type in the Iliad.” American Journal of Philology, vol. CVIII, 1987, pp. 220-232.

Edwards, Mark W.. “The conventions of a Homeric funeral.” Studies in honour of T. B. L. Webster, I. Eds. Betts, John H., Hooker, James T. and Green, John Richard. Bristol, Eng.: Bristol Classical Pr., 1986. 84-92.

Edwards, Mark W.. “Type scenes and Homeric hospitality.” TAPA, vol. CV, 1975, pp. 51-72.

Faraone, Christopher A.. “Circe’s instructions to Odysseus (Od. 10.507-40) as an early Sibylline Oracle.” The Journal of Hellenic Studies, vol. 139, 2019, pp. 49-66. Doi: 10.1017/S0075426919000028

Fenik, Bernard. 1968. Typical Battle Scenes in the Iliad. Wiesbaden: F. Steiner.

Gainsford, Peter. “Formal analysis of recognition scenes in the « Odyssey ».” The Journal of Hellenic Studies, vol. 123, 2003, pp. 41-59. Doi: 10.2307/3246259

Grethlein, Jonas. “The poetics of the bath in the « Iliad ».” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, vol. 103, 2007, pp. 25-49.

Hitch, Sarah. 2009. King of Sacrifice: Ritual and Royal Authority in the Iliad. Washington, D.C.: Center for Hellenic Studies.

Jurriaans-Helle, Geralda. Composition in Athenian black-figure vase-painting: the « Chariot in profile » type scene. Leuven ; Paris: Peeters, 2021.

Reece, Steve. 1993. The Stranger’s Welcome: Oral Theory and the Aesthetics of the Homeric Hospitality Scene. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

Rood, Naomi Jennifer. “Craft similes and the construction of heroes in the « Iliad ».” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, vol. 104, 2008, pp. 19-43.

Vouzis, Panagiotis. Οι ομηρικές τυπικές σκηνές του ταξιδιού στη θάλασσα: η τυπολογία του πλου στον Όμηρο. Vivliothiki Sofias N. Saripolou; 137. Athina: Ethniko kai Kapodistriako Panepistimio Athinon, Filosofiki Scholi, 2020.