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BOOK ELEVEN
The previous day of fighting (book 8) ended with the Achaeans forced back
to their ships. Their appeal to Akhilleus was unavailing, but Agamemnon
had been shamed (see o,.7O7ff.) into leading them back into the fray. A
splendid arming scene heralds Agamemnon's initial success; after heavy
fighting the Achaeans rout the Trojans and drive them back to the city. But
this effort is doomed to failure, and the poet must already have in mind the
superb 'epic moment' to which he works his way at the conclusion of book
12 when, spears in hand, Hektor burst through the gates of the Achaean
wall. He has already hinted at this at 9.650-3:
ou yap TTpiv TroAepioio |is6r)CTO|jiai
TTpiv y' uiov npidjioio 8a?9povos, "EicTopa 6Tov,
Mup|ii86vcov ETTI T£ KAKJIOCS KOCI vfjas iKEaOai
KTEIVOVT' 'Apyeious, Korra xe aiiO^ai irupi vfjas.
That does not come to pass in fact until we reach another fine moment at
the end of the fifteenth book when Hektor cries "oicTETe m/p" and lays hold
of the ship of Protesilaos; for the Great Battle of the central Books of the Iliad
is related in two roughly parallel episodes, 11-12 and 13-15, each beginning
with Achaean success and ending in Achaean disaster. The repeated
pattern is part of the poet's technique for increasing the amplitude of the
narrative, but it affords him also (as b to 13.1 notice) the opportunity to
embroider his tale (TTOIKIAIOC) as well as augment it. The moments of great
visual imagination and dramatic power with which the two episodes culminate
are narrative foci, which in oral traditions of heroic poetry the singer
can bear in mind and around which he can weave a sequence of appropriate
themes.
Despite his early success therefore Agamemnon is soon wounded and the
tide rapidly turns. Diomedes, Odysseus, Makhaon, and Eurupulos are
wounded in succession as the Achaeans, their retreat covered by Aias, are
forced back to their starting-point. bT attribute this order of narration,
victory before defeat, to the pro-Greek bias of the poet. On any account,
however, the bias is subtle and the effect here is rather to show that, without
Akhilleus and against the malign influence of Zeus, the best efforts of the
Achaeans cannot prevail.
The first part of the book (1-283) should be compared for its content
with the entry into battle of Patroklos in 16.130-418. It is evident from that
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