Agamemnon's Aristeia: Iliad 11.101-21

Abstract

Book 1 1 of the Iliad, standing nearly at the half-way point of the poem, has a particularly complex relationship bom to what precedes and follows. On the new day of battle that begins here, the plan of Zeus, mentioned first in Book 1, is explicitly laid out. Zeus proclaims that Hector will have power to kill until he reaches the ships of the Achaeans (11.186-94). Also in this book Achilles sends Patroclus to Nestor, "and this was the beginning of his doom" (11.604).1 The Janus-face of the book manifests itself not only in the content of the narrative but also in the accompanying similes. Carroll Moulton has demonstrated convincingly that a number of the similes of Book 1 1 possess clear connections with the long-range movement of the action. Thus the simile likening the movements of Hector to the intermittent light of the Dog Star (1 1.62-64) looks backward to a description of Diomedes (5.5-6) and forward to the climactic charge of Achilles against Hector in Book 22 (26-32). Likewise, the simile comparing the serpents on Agamemnon's armor to rainbows (11.27-28) looks forward to the simile at 17.547-50, where Athena's cloud is also compared to a rainbow; both signs are portents from Zeus.2 The pivotal role of Book 1 1 of the Iliad is reflected through the complexity with which its plot reflects the past and future through the present poetic moment. In this paper I will study in detail the imagery and the density of temporal references in one brief episode of the aristeia of Agamemnon (11.101-21) in order to demonstrate the artful complexity attainable through a Homeric multiple-correspondence simile both in relation to its immediate narrative context and to incidents of the past and future to which it is related.3 An