The Iliad - Book 4 - The truce erupts in war

• Reading time: about 40 minutes

• Zeus, the supreme god, favors the Trojans as does Aphrodite. Hera and Athena are on the Achaeans' side.
• IliadStructure.ppt

• Meeting of gods: Zeus, Hera, and Athena.

• Book 3 ends with a seeming Achaean victory. It seems that Menelaus beat Paris and so should get Helen back and then the war would be over. However, Aphrodite rescued Paris and so the duel turned out to be inconclusive. So Book 4 begins with the question of how to settle the issue. Zeus is logical and believes that the Achaeans won. But he also taunts Hera by declaring Achaean victory. She is provoked.
• Zeus and Hera struggle for supremacy in calling the shots. Hera seems to yield to the more powerful Zeus, her husband and brother, yet it is her plan that Zeus agrees to in a sort of compromise. He will send Athena down to provoke the Trojans to break the truce and start up the war again. Thus, although for a moment, it may have seemed that Troy would not fall, we now resume the inexorable progression toward Troy's fall. Does this light-hearted treatment of the gods' quarrel undermine the tone of seriousness of Troy's impending doom? The entire Book 4 builds toward the battle that occurs at the end of the book.It starts with the light-hearted squabble between husband and wife and ends with the deadly serious slaughter of "real" men. Observe how Homer builds to the climax at the end of the book and reflect in a journal entry on his writing tactics as he builds a picture of the first battle of the war that we see. [Discuss Il 04 Homer leads up to war]

• Athena tricks Trojan Pandarus to break the truce

• Athena appeals to Pandarus's vanity and foolish greed. He's not hard to persuade, though. He yields to the temptation and shoots an arrow at Menelaus. Notice the extensive passage that describes Pandarus's act of readying his bow. Note too how carefully the wounding of Menelaus is described.
• The first result of Pandarus wounding Menelaus is Agamemnon's renewed anger at the Trojans. He blames himself for trusting the truce and exposing Menelaus to harm. He recommits himself, therefore, to Troy's fall and Priam's death.

• 252: Now begins the first major battle of the war that we see.

• The Trojans begin to move forward.
• On the Greek side, we meet Idomeneus; then the two Ajax--Great Ajax and Little Ajax (the plural of Ajax is Aeantes, on line 321); Nestor, a great, old, experienced fighter who gives specific instructions to his troops;
• 393: Agamemnon seems to reprimand Odysseus and call him lazy and greedy. This, of course, angers Odysseus. Agamemnon backs off and says, "Just kidding--I was just testing you."

• 425: Diomedes:

• We haven't met Diomedes yet, but he is the key fighter in the first third of the epic. Seth Schein says
  • Diomedes is the perfect embodiment of traditional heroic values (Whitman)
  • Diomedes in Bk 5 & 6 is a straightforward and morally uncomplicated hero.
• When Agamemnon sees Diomedes, he challenges him and says Diomedes's father was a great fighter, probably better than Diomedes. Diomedes respects Agamemnon and understands Agamemnon's role and tactics (478 ff).
• Appreciate Homer's description, the literal one on 485 of Diomedes and then the simile on 490, of the amassed troops ready for battle. Here is the great Greek warrior, Diomedes, and the implacable Greek army coming on.

• The battle begins.

• Contrast the similes applied to the Achaeans and the Trojans (490 and 503).
• 510: Ares is the war god, son of Zeus and Hera, a god of the Trojans (Mars in Latin).
• 517: Homer's incredible description of battle. Take some time to think about how well Homer describes the fighting, both the literal description as well as the unstated implications of his words. [Discuss Il 04 Homer's description of war]