Hundevad Productions

The Iliad draws many parallels to human conditions and cultures across time. On the backdrop of a massive war, the real action of the story explores the ethical dilemmas and consequences of personal desires conflicting with morals.

The Minoans mainly worshipped goddesses, the Greeks held the male gods higher on the hierarchy, yet in the Iliad, goddesses do more action and influence than Zeus or other males do. Hera is the one who gets Zeus to take action in the war, calling his hypocrisy out by reading his mind when he agreed to help Athena.  Athena numerously influences Achilles by either calming his anger or guiding his fighting in battle. She can be viewed as the wiser character. Achilles is following her guidance when he changes his mind against killing Agamemnon. Achilles also seeks guidance from his mother, Thetis. She not only comforts him in the way traditional values would expect, but provides supernatural help only a goddess could do. It is Athena, Hera, and Thetis that through their character decisions get the mortals and Achilles to take Troy. 

On a mortal note, the ethical squabbles continue with Achilles’ ‘’prize”, (the priestess Briseis), being taken from him causing him grief. Agamemnon’s prisoner is also deemed to hold power over the men by needing to be returned to her father causing an outrage in him. Women are swaying the influence of men all over The Iliad. The whole epic and war is about women. The irony is that the characters are arguing about which women they will get to take and pouting when they don’t get their way, yet are complaining and suffering about the huge war caused by a man taking a woman away. 

Achilles’ pouting attitude and refusal to fight was caused by the same means. His prisoner of war was taken for a short time. Agamemnon’s refusal to help rid the plague by offering his prisoner followed by the taking of others, infuriates Achilles to the point of not fighting anymore. This shows that even though the characters are fighting a war, it is Agamemnon’s war, and they are not his sole subjects. They are kings as well of their own tribes and cities. This is why Achilles calls Agamemnon a warlord. His greed and thirst for power and control blind him from the labors of real fighters, the real suffering caused by his actions. 

Achilles goes to kill Agamemnon out of this rage once, but is soothed by Athena, knowing his fate is to be more famous than Agamemnon will ever be. This is important to the text because it shows Achilles’ greed too. His personal desires for immortal fame is to allow the Trojans to advance in war to the point where he can then jump in and save the day. This spiteful attitude towards the prisoner dilemma causes Patroclus to take his place and then dies in battle. Achilles’ actions fatefully caused that, his refusal to fight killed the one thing he loved. 

Achilles then decides to fight but only because the ethical problems of the war have drastically changed. Before, Achilles would not fight to spite Agamemnon, as a strike to the women being taken, and the punishments and suffering on the men from the plague. Now, Achilles will fight for Patroclus’ honor and revenge. The stakes have changed and have boiled over. Achilles sees Patroclus’ death as his failure, and it must be annulled. 

Hector’s death shows Achilles’ aggression, his rage he has hidden from Athena for so long has finally exposed itself. Achilles’ treatment to Hector’s deceased body were brutal even for the standards of the Greeks. Yet Achilles also allows for an armistice, which shows his mercy and respect on Troy and Priam. This dichotomy of behavior might make Achilles seem like he just had rage issues and was only out for war in the name of sport, until Patroclus died, then it became personal. As a warrior he is a hero, as a friend, is he a failure? Our mistakes do not make us failures, and Achilles knows each action is a different decision, a different opportunity to make a hero or a failure. To kill Hector was a necessity for Achilles, but he understood when talking to Priam, that he is not at war with Priam, or Troy, or Agamemnon, but at war with his own choices, battling the decision every day. A hero or a failure, Achilles is both, as all humans are capable of.