The War That Killed Achilles (19 page)

Equipped as they may be with this grim knowledge, men and women, heroes and civilians have little recourse but to pray to the gods and carry on. That the gods have power to save them is made explicit not so much by the few miraculous rescues—such as of Paris and Aineias—as by those cases when death could have been, but was not, forestalled; as when, on this longest day in the
Iliad,
Zeus looks down and recognizes that his own son, Sarpedon of Lykia, born of a mortal woman, will shortly be killed. “ ‘Ah me,' ” Zeus sighs to Hera. “ ‘The heart in my breast is balanced between two ways as I ponder, / whether I should snatch him out of the sorrowful battle / and set him down still alive in the rich country of Lykia, / or beat him under at the hands of the son of Menoitios.' ” Beside him, Hera bristles:

Zeus is chastised in this manner on more than one occasion. Always, regretfully, he backs down, and the contested event takes its fated course. Here, as elsewhere, the implication is that Zeus is stronger than Fate and could change even destined outcomes, if he chose to; maintenance of peace among his undying peers on Olympos, however, outweighs concerns for transient mortals on the earth below. As Apollo, the god least well disposed to humans, puts it most bluntly, he will not fight with another god “ ‘for the sake of insignificant / mortals, who are as leaves are, and now flourish and grow warm / with life, and feed on what the ground gives, but then again / fade away and are dead.' ”

The plain of Troy, then, like any field of war, is dense with the prayers of doomed and frightened men and their womenfolk, who do not know if a god is near, or even listening: “‘... have pity / on the town of Troy, and the Trojan wives, and their innocent children,' ” the women of Troy pray, “but Pallas Athene turned her head”; “ ‘Zeus, and you other immortals, grant that this boy, who is my son, / may be as I am,' ” Hektor prays to Zeus, but Homer's audience knows that his young son will be killed. Some of the epic's most heartbreaking futile prayers still lie ahead.

Unsolicited and unsummoned, the gods crowd the plain of Troy, thrilled by the great game of mortal warfare, jostling to rally, rescue, or menace embattled heroes. Their presence in the epic is usually diverting; the inspiration for their presence, however, surely lies in history as much as poetry—a reflection of the soldier's very real need to believe, in the face of all evidence to the contrary, that he is not abandoned on the field of war. How powerful this need can be is illustrated by an extraordinary story that arose at the very outset of the First World War, in 1914. Harrowed by intense days of artillery battle, the British forces had also endured a grueling thirty-six-hour-long forced march to the south of the Belgian town of Mons. Titanic thunderclouds, illuminated by lurching searchlights, loomed over the field of battle. The German cavalry, almost upon them, slowed to await the arrival of their artillery.

“We were surrounded by Germans at the time and we were out to the last round,” recalled Private John Ewings of the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers.

The Angel of Mons would eventually be recalled by many soldiers in many forms—as St. George, as one of a line of angelic bowmen, as the archers of Agincourt returned to fight for their countrymen, as a ghostly cavalry charging from the clouds. Careful investigative studies, however, have not been able to discover a single contemporary account of the phenomenon. Attestations like that of Private Ewings all arose after the fact, fueled by the power of suggestion and the stricken need to believe that almighty powers intervened on the harrowing field of war. The story of the Angel of Mons was eventually traced to a short work of fiction mas querading as journalism entitled “The bowmen,” by one Arthur Machen. This is perhaps beside the point. What matters is that the myth was absorbed and multiplied in desperate earnest by untold numbers of both military and even civilian Britons, whom the early horror of war had induced to look beyond the Church of England.

The antidote to this wishful fantasy that the soldier never really stands alone can be found in a few grim verses of the same era. A. E. Housman's “Epitaph on an Army of Mercenaries” is a commemoration of the rank and file who did their job in a universe in which prayers could be expected to go unanswered:

The
Iliad
's few miraculous deliverances notwithstanding, by and large its warriors battle for their lives on a dark plain that, as they know and accept, the gods may well abandon. Like all soldiers', their heroism is forged from those twin facts—their knowledge and their battle.

Man Down

Back at the Achaean camp, now under siege by Hektor and the Trojans, the wounded are returning from the field. Standing on the stern of one of his ships is Achilles, who, Zeus-like, looks “out over the sheer war work and the sorrowful onrush.” He has not, it appears, yet returned to Phthia. Despite the cavalcade of events that has transpired on earth and in heaven since his last appearance, and the multitude of strong heroes who have died, only two weeks have passed since Achilles withdrew himself and his men from the war. But, from the lofty vantage of his beached ship, it appears he has been closely watching.

Embedded in the tumultuous events and deaths of this longest day of the Trojan War, which begins in Book Eleven and will end with Book Eighteen, is the episode upon which the
Iliad
turns, and which was categorically predicted by Zeus to Hera, as early as Book Eight:

The extended sequence that will culminate with the fall of Patroklos is broken into several widely separated segments. It begins, however, with Achilles on the lookout of his ship's stern, from where he observes the returning soldiers, including a warrior whom he does not recognize. Calling to his companion-in-arms, Patroklos, he dispatches him to find out what has happened. Patroklos “heard it from inside the shelter, and came out / like the war god, and this was the beginning of his evil.”

Obedient to Achilles, Patroklos sets out on his commission in Book Eleven; he does not return to Achilles until Book Sixteen. Between departure and return, Patroklos is detained by two parties, and during these delays the epic narrative cuts back to the ongoing battle. Poseidon's defi ant interference in the fray, the Deception of Zeus, the breach of the Achaean defenses, the Trojan setback while Zeus slumbers—all occur while Patroklos dallies in the tents of his companions. A casual audience could be forgiven for losing track of Patroklos' mission, and of Patroklos himself, amid these other dramatic episodes. This risk is offset in part by the several prophecies that relentlessly forecast the course of events that will lead to Patroklos' imminent death; and the audience has been warned that this is “the beginning of his evil.”

Hastening on his mission of inquiry through the Achaean camp, Patroklos first comes to the tent of Nestor, where he is warmly greeted and offered hospitality. “ ‘No chair, aged sir,' ” Patroklos declines when asked to sit down. “ ‘Honoured, and quick to blame, is the man who sent me to find out / who was this wounded man you were bringing. Now I myself / know, and I see it is Machaon, the shepherd of the people. / Now I go back as messenger to Achilles, to tell him.' ”

Nestor's response is sarcastic: “ ‘Now why is Achilles being so sorry for the sons of the Achaeans?' ” he asks, and embarks upon a list of the heroes who have been injured. “ ‘Meanwhile Achilles / brave as he is cares nothing for the Danaans nor pities them. / Is he going to wait then till the running ships by the water / are burned with consuming fire...?'” As often, Nestor's aged helplessness inspires memories of earlier youthful prowess. A long digression follows, involving the division of spoils of a long-ago raid that had once brought him, the young Nestor, much glory. Then, abruptly, the old man suddenly concludes his reminiscence and wheels around to Patroklos:

Years ago, Nestor had come to Phthia with Odysseus “ ‘assembling fighting men' ” for the war that was just beginning at Troy across the sea. The two recruiters had found Peleus in his courtyard making sacrifice, with Achilles, Patroklos, and Patroklos' father, Menoitios; and when the two fathers took leave of their sons, each had given parting words of advice. Peleus had enjoined Achilles “ ‘to be always best in battle and pre-eminent beyond all others,' ” and Menoitios had told Patroklos “ ‘to speak solid words' ” to his stronger, younger companion, to “ ‘give him good counsel, / and point his way.' ”

“ ‘This is what the old man told you, you have forgotten,' ” Nestor now admonishes. “ ‘Yet even / now you might speak to wise Achilles, he might be persuaded.' ” In the event that Patroklos cannot persuade Achilles to relent, Nestor suggests a fateful alternative:

To this solemn directive, Patroklos gives no response, although Nestor's words “stirred the feeling” in his breast. Departing, he makes directly for the ships and Achilles but is delayed again, this time by the appearance of a wounded companion, Eurypylos, who is dripping sweat and blood as he limps out of battle. “ ‘No longer, illustrious Patroklos, can the Achaeans / defend themselves,' ” Eurypylos replies bluntly in answer to Patroklos' query as to how they are faring, and he asks Patroklos to attend to his wound with medicines, “ ‘good ones, which they say you have been told of by Achilles, / since Cheiron, most righteous of the Centaurs, told him about them.' ”

Anxious though he is to return to Achilles, Patroklos is moved by pity for his friend, and with an arm about him helps the wounded warrior to his shelter. And here he stays, throughout all of Books Twelve and Thirteen and the Deception of Zeus in Book Fourteen, which results in Poseidon's rallying of the Achaeans.

When Zeus awakes from his cloud-enshrouded sleep, he sees the Trojans in rout and instantly perceives he has been deceived. “ ‘Hopeless one,' ” he growls at Hera, who lies beside him, “ ‘it was your evil design, your treachery, Hera, / that stayed brilliant Hektor from battle.' ” After issuing threats such as lashing her, or hanging her from heaven with anvils on her feet, Zeus pronounces an adamantine directive: Hektor will return to battle, fortified by Apollo, and the Achaeans will be driven back in panic. Achilles will send out Patroklos, and glorious Hektor will cut him down, and eventually the Achaeans will capture Ilion.

Zeus' resumption of power turns the tide of battle again to the Trojans, driving the Achaeans once again back to their ships; and it is thus, with the Achaeans in full rout, that the narrative rejoins Patroklos. In the tent of Eurypylos, he makes the determination to “ ‘go in haste to Achilles, to stir him into the fighting. / Who knows if, with God helping, I might trouble his spirit / by entreaty, since the persuasion of a friend is a strong thing.' ” Nestor's words evidently struck home. Shortly, Patroklos, delayed by loyalty and pity, returns at last to Achilles' tent. And this really is the beginning of his evil.