The Anger of Achilles

by Peter Tonkin

  We all stood, frozen with horror as Khloe sobbed quietly behind us.

  Then Briseis said, ‘This is all Agamemnon’s doing! If he had not started on this dishonourable course with the gold…’

  ‘Ah, the gold,’ said Odysseus, glancing at the bronze-bound olive-wood chest. ‘What shall we do with the gold?’

  Everyone was silent for a moment, then Briseis said, ‘We should take it back to its owner. Perhaps High King Agamemnon can use it to bribe his way into Troy! At the very least he might use it to cause another murderous fiasco in Ilium like the one he created in Lyrnessus!’’

  ‘Ah, but that was not entirely the High King’s doing, now, was it Princess?’ said Odysseus. ‘Had Agamemnon’s plan gone smoothly and King Idas secretly dispensed the gold as agreed, how much bloodshed might actually have been avoided. Had poor old Idas lived through the final assault on the palace. Had you not run him through the chest with that spear…’

  SOURCES

  Major source:

  The Iliad new Penguin edition Tran. Martin Hammond. Particularly Book 23.

  The Odyssey tr E V Rieu.

  Online etc:

  Michael Wood In Search of Troy (BBC)

  The True Story of Troy An Ancient War.

  The Trojan War & Homeric Warfare

  The Trojan War - Myth or Fact

  Academic sources:

  Achilles and the Sallis Wastais ritual: Performing death in Greece and Anatolia Ian Rutherford, University of Reading.

  Between the Aegean and the Hittites Western Anatolia in the Second Millennium BC Peter Pavuk.

  Bronze Age Interactions revisited & Various Works and Lectures Eric H Cline.

  Food in Mycenaean Greece Josef Fischer.

  The Wooden Horse - Some Possible Bronze Age Origins - I. Singer (ed).

  The First Cities Ruth Whitehouse.

  The Book of Swords Richard Francis Burton.

  Mediterranean Portrait of a Sea. Ernle Bradford.

  The War That Killed Achilles Caroline Alexander.

  The Wooden Horse – The liberation of the Western mind from Odysseus to Socrates Keld Zerundeith.

  Creative sources:

  The Silence of the Girls Pat Barker.

  The Song of Troy Colleen McCullough.

  The Song of Achilles Madeline Miller.

  Troy Adele Geras.

  NB All ‘Songs’ are based on Ancient Greek poems adapted from various translations.

  ‘Glaucus… was a Lycian prince who assisted Priam, king of Troy, in the Trojan War. When he found himself opposed in combat to his hereditary friend Diomedes, they ceased fighting and exchanged armour. Since the equipment of Glaucus was golden and that of Diomedes bronze, the expression “gold for bronze” (Iliad, Book VI, line 236) came to be used proverbially for a bad exchange.’ Encyclopaedia Britannica.

  ‘Then Zeus, son of Kronos, took Glaucos’ wits away from him: he exchanged with Diomedes, son of Tydeus, gold armour for bronze – a hundred oxen’s worth for nine.’ (Iliad, Book VI, line 236) Tran. Martin Hammond.

  Glaucus outlived Sarpedon, leading the fighting to recover his body. But later, during the fighting over Achilles’ body (and his golden armour) Glaucus was killed by Ajax. His body was given a full formal funeral. His pyre was built outside the Dardanian (Skian) Gate, through which (later) Odysseus’ wooden horse would enter Troy.