by John Dolan
But Ajax’s shield holds, and he’s unhurt. He looks around for a rock of his own, finds a young boulder and lifts it easily, though it would take three of today’s weaklings just to pry it from the ground. Ajax grins, lifts the boulder, and tosses it like a little asteroid. The boulder smashes Hektor’s shield and slams into his body. He ends up dazed, on his back, with that huge rock on top of him.
Apollo hates to get involved, but Hektor will die unless he does something. So he gives Hektor some of his strength, slaps him back to his senses, and stands him up again, ready to fight on.
Now the two of them are facing off once more, with swords out this time. Suddenly two referees step out, one from the Greek army and another from the Trojan side, both carrying their official staffs. The two referees announce, “Stop! Hektor, Ajax, you’ve both fought well, but night is falling, and darkness is something we must all obey.”
Ajax grumbles, “Make Hektor say it’s over for the day.” He’s not sharp, he’s been fooled before.
Hektor: “Ajax, I’ve seen your strength, your power with a spear. You’re the finest Greek I’ve faced. But darkness is here, and darkness is something we must all obey. So go to the Greek camp, by the ships, and show your followers you’re unhurt. And I’ll go to feast in Troy, where all my kin will pray to the gods for me. And now, let’s give each other a gift, so people can say, ‘They fought like lions, but ended the day as friends.’”
This speech is over Ajax’s head. But then he hears the cheers, from Greeks as well as Trojans, and realizes that whatever Hektor said, everybody likes it.
The truth is that no one, not even the Greeks, wanted to see Hektor die today. Hektor’s a good man, even if he is the enemy. But people like Ajax too; they didn’t want him killed either. So everyone’s glad the referees stopped this fight. Now, everybody on the field feels noble. They can go back to the campfires and talk about the day’s big fight till they pass out.
They all cheer wildly as the two champions exchange gifts. Hektor gives Ajax a sword inlaid with silver, with scabbard. The Trojan herald parades it in front of both armies, so everyone can get a good look. There are appreciative grunts and nods from Greeks as well as the Trojans. Then Ajax has one of his slaves run and get a girdle from his tent, one of those purple things the Levantines make from some creature that lives in the ocean. The Greek referee carries that around and the Trojans show their appreciation. For the first time in years, men in armor from both armies stare at the other side with something besides fear and hate.
It has to end. Darkness is deepening now, and the two armies withdraw.
Ajax is a hero today, and everyone cheers when he comes into camp, unhurt. Agamemnon is feeling generous; after all, didn’t Ajax save Menelaos, the only man in the army Agamemnon really cares about? So Agamemnon orders his slaves to butcher a fine ox, five years old, never pulled a plow in its life, meat soft as butter. The slaves hack its head off, take an ax and split the body, and roast all the pieces over a fire.
Agamemnon gives Ajax the finest cut, a long strip of tenderloin, not a bone, nothing but sweet fat and soft red meat.
Everyone gets a good gobbet of meat, even the ordinary spearmen. All the meat a man can force down his throat! There’s wine, too, mixed more strongly than usual. Soon every man is feeling fine. The slaves, seeing them half-dazed with wine, sneak in and grab the scraps, to eat them behind the tents before anyone sees.
And now it’s time for old Nestor to make another of his speeches. No one minds, not now. Let the old duffer talk.
Nestor turns out to have a suggestion, a good one. “My lords, Agamemnon, Menelaos, and all you chieftains, let’s make tomorrow a day for burning our dead, so we can send clean, polished bones home to their families. And then we’ll make a big mound, out near the camp perimeter, a bed for those bones until we take them home.”
The leaders nod. Nothing wrong with that idea.
Nestor goes on, “And when we have the slaves dig out the dirt for this mound, let’s keep them at it! I mean to say, let’s build a wall around the camp, and a moat outside it, and fill the moat with spikes, so the Trojans can’t break through and burn our ships.”
The Greeks all cheer. A day off, a chance to sleep off this wine, and a wall. Everything seems wonderful.
Not for the Trojans, though. No feasts inside those walls. The Trojan chiefs gather by Priam’s big stone house, glum and silent. The end is close, and the thought of dying for a selfish fool like Paris is hard to bear. Antenor, an old man but no fool, blurts out what they’re all thinking: “We have to return Helen and the goods she brought with her to the Greeks. The gods will never help us while we keep a wife from her lawful master.”
The whole room reverberates with cheers. They’ve all been thinking this for nine long years. They all glare at Paris, finally letting their resentment show.
Paris gets hot, stands up, growls: “Antenor, I don’t like these words, and I’m sure you could find more pleasant ones if you tried. If you were serious, then you must be crazy. I say now, and I want every one of you to hear it, that I won’t give up Helen, now or ever. But I will return the goods she brought to the Greeks. In fact, I’ll add wealth from my own stock to buy her properly.”
A long silence, until Priam ends the argument by saying, “Trojans, allies, get your dinners now, and mount a strong watch on the walls tonight. Tomorrow we’ll send my herald, Idaeus, to the Greeks, to tell them my son’s offer. And tell them also, Idaeus, that we want a day’s rest from fighting, so we can burn our dead, who are piling up in the town. After that, we can go back to fighting to the end.”
It’s a cold dinner for the Trojan fighters, the nobodies. They eat handfuls of old grain by the walls, each contingent muttering in their own weird languages but all saying the same dark things about Paris and his father, Priam, who spoiled the boy.
At dawn Idaeus goes to the Greek camp with a herald’s staff. He finds Agamemnon and the rest talking by the ships, and sits with them until they give him the sign to speak. Then he stands and says, “Lords of the Greeks, I’ve come with an offer from Priam, King of Troy. Paris, who took Helen from your king’s brother—if only Paris had died before he ever reached your country!—now says he’ll give back all the robes, the jewels, the gold that Helen took away with her, and he’ll add his own wealth to it, so that he can purchase her properly, and save our town.”
The Greeks don’t react. Idaeus goes on, “But … he says he won’t return the woman to Menelaos, her proper husband.”
Idaeus lowers his voice and hisses, “The truth is, Paris is in love, like a fool! Like a boy! So he won’t give up the woman for anything. Believe me, my lords, we all begged him to! Everyone in Troy begged him to. He’s possessed! Afroditi claimed him when he picked her over Athena and her mother. Love is all he thinks about, even if it kills us all!”
Another silence. Idaeus goes on, “And also, Priam asks me to ask you to give us a day of rest today, to let us bury our dead. Then we can go back to fighting, until one side or the other is destroyed.”
Still Agamemnon says nothing and the rest of the Greeks wait, watching for his reaction. Then Diomedes jumps up and shouts, “I say no deal! No mercy! A fool can see that Troy is doomed! That’s why they’re offering this deal, because they know it themselves!”
Agamemnon stands, says, “There, Idaeus; that’s the Greeks’ answer. There’ll be no deal while Troy still stands. But as for burying the dead, you can have your day off from battle, because no one should grudge the dead their rites. I call Zeus to witness this answer.” And he raises his king’s staff to the sky, to the watching gods.
Idaeus goes back and finds all the Trojan lords and their allied chiefs waiting, hoping for a deal. He tells them there will be no deal—they knew it, really—but that the Greeks agree to a one-day truce, so that the dead can be burned.
So the Trojan slaves disperse through the countryside to find wood for the pyres, while others lay out the dead warriors’ corpses in the c
ity square.
When the wood is piled high enough the corpses are laid on it, as many as will fit. Then slaves light the woodpile. Priam has ordered no wailing for the dead, no letting the Greeks know how broken-hearted the Trojans are. So the Trojan dead burn with no sound but the popping of fat and the snap of twigs.
The Greeks spend the day doing the same chore. Slaves scour the dunes for firewood, and when the piles are high enough, the Greek dead are placed on them and the pyres lit. The driftwood is wet and takes a long time to catch. Slaves are sent to collect pine knots, and with their help the pile finally catches. The Greeks watch the bodies burn away to clean bone and go back to the ships.
Next morning, before the sun is even up, the Greeks go to the ashes, take the clean bones from them, lay them all in one shallow pit and raise a huge burial mound over it. Then, before even laying down their shovels, they start building a wall and moat around the camp. They work so fast and so well that the gods are shocked, looking down at them. In fact, Poseidon, who hates newfangled things, complains to Zeus, “Look what these uppity Greeks are doing now! This wall of theirs will be finished in one day, and they haven’t even sacrificed to us! If this goes on, nobody will even remember the walls that Apollo and I have built around the great towns of the east!”
But Zeus isn’t going to be dragged into any more quarrels. He shrugs, has another gulp of nectar, and says, “Poseidon, what are you worrying about? You control the earthquakes, as well as the ocean. You can shake down that wall as soon as the Greeks leave. Just toss it into the sea and cover it with sand, so no one even remembers it was there.”
Poseidon isn’t satisfied. He wants these mortals taught a hard lesson. Finally Zeus waves him off, saying, “Here’s what I’ll do. The Greeks will have a big feast tonight to celebrate this new wall. I’ll send a storm right when they’re gulping their wine and scoffing down meat. That’ll teach them to sacrifice to us next time they build something.”
Poseidon subsides, grumbling into his beard.
The Greeks, not knowing they’ve angered the gods, work all day, warriors and slaves sweating together. By sundown the wall and moat are finished. Then the Greeks hurry down to the sea because a ship has beached, full to the decks with wine from the Black Sea vineyards. Every man who has anything to give—gold, silver, even iron—stands in line to buy as much wine as he can hold. Men with no metal to trade offer hides from slaughtered oxen, or even live cattle captured from Trojan farms; those who have nothing else offer up their captured slave-girls for a jar of that sweet Black Sea vintage.
Then they have a huge drunken feast. Zeus waits till the food is laid out and the wine cups are full, then sends a storm, with plenty of thunder and lightning. Men spill their wine in terror, and beg forgiveness, promising they’ll make proper sacrifice next time. Then everyone, Greek and Trojan, lies down to get what rest they can.
8
SLAUGHTER
ZEUS IS SICK OF THIS WAR. Nine years of killing, no results. He calls the family to conference and lays down the law: “No more meddling with the Greeks or Trojans, trying to tilt the battle. No more interference from any of you gods … or goddesses.”
As he says “or goddesses,” he looks hard at Hera and Athena. Athena is sulking, refusing to look him in the eye. Zeus says, “Maybe you all need to be reminded that I could throw the whole bunch of you into Tartarus, one layer below Hell. Would you like that? I threw the Titans down there, and all of you put together aren’t as strong as they were.”
He hunches over the table to let them see his strength. “Suppose we were to play tug-o-war, with all of you dragging me down toward earth. I’d pull you all up into the sky instead, and the whole Earth and ocean with you. I’m the papa here, and don’t you forget it.”
Athena speaks up: “Papa, we all know you have final say. But you can’t blame Mama and me for being sad when we see so many brave Greek warriors dying down there at Troy.”
Zeus is about to rage at her when she smiles, suddenly girlish, and pipes up, “Papa, what if we didn’t interfere directly, but just made some suggestions to the Greeks, a little advice?”
Zeus can’t help laughing. “Just suggestions, huh? Ah, girl, don’t worry, I’d never hurt you.”
He turns to the rest of them: “But as for the rest of you: No more meddling in the war, or you’ll regret it.”
Zeus descends to the hill above Troy, leaving his horses and chariot in the clouds to wait for him. He sits in his temple to watch the day’s fight. He can see the walls of Troy and the far campfires of the Greeks. If he wants, he can see every pebble in the darkest cellar of Troy, each goat-hair strand of the Greek tents. If he felt like it, he could snake his way through the wet interior of every Greek and Trojan skull, and if he took a dislike to any of the ideas sparking in that wet brain-mush, he could turn the owner of that thought into a carbonized husk with one lightning bolt.
It’s time they showed him some respect. You have to knock heads now and then to keep your power. If any of the other gods show up on the battlefield today, he’ll knock their heads hard. After all, he made a promise to Thetis, that sweet little sea-goddess, to run the battle, hurt the Greeks, show them they need her doomed son Akilles. Zeus keeps his promises; that’s what being god-father is all about.
He sees the two armies getting ready. The Greeks gulp their porridge by the tents and jam on their armor. The Trojans get ready in their houses, then meet up in the streets of Troy, march together out to the dust fields for the day’s fight.
When the two hordes run into each other, they charge. No talk today, no courtesies between the two hordes. Today is for killing.
They kill each other all morning, with no advantage to either side.
When noon comes, Zeus is tired of watching this game. He’s bored. If you’ve seen one human punctured with a bronze spearhead, you’ve seen ’em all.
He decides to force an outcome. So he makes a golden scale, perfectly balanced, gleaming in the noon sun. He takes a pinch of dust and puts it on one of the pans, whispering, “Doom for the Greeks.” He takes another pinch of dust, puts it in the other pan, and whispers, “Doom for the Trojans.”
The dooms in the scales swarm with life. He can hear the sounds they make, tiny worlds shrieking, oozing, whimpering. Zeus holds them level, then whispers, “Now!” The scales begin to tip. The Trojan pan rises higher and higher, while the Greek pan sinks until it touches the ground. As it touches Earth, the thing in the pan turns back to dust and dribbles off onto the ground.
Zeus smiles. “Death to the Greeks, then; I had a feeling it would be.” He laughs at his little joke. Funny how these scientific experiments always turn out the way he wants them to.
Now for the fun part of his job: the lightning. Few pleasures compare to incinerating pesky humans from on high with sizzling, million-volt bolts of lightning. And today’s targets are those Greeks who were so rude to Thetis’ boy.
Zeus chooses a fine Greek spearman for his first target, tracks the man’s every muscle-pulse, and then, with a flick of his mind, sends a bolt down on him. In far less than a second, the man is nothing but melted bronze, charred bone, and burnt meat.
He picks another target, sends another bolt. Another Greek becomes the ground for a million volts of divine annoyance.
Ah, that got their attention. They’re running around down there like ants in a rainstorm, wondering where to hide as the drops fall. Now he gets down to business. The bolts fall randomly through the Greek horde, zapping one man and leaving the men next to him unhurt, choking at the smell of roast meat and ozone, wondering if they’ll be next.
Zeus is laughing, feeling better than he has in years. He knows the whole god-family is watching his tour de force. It’s aimed at them too, them above all. They’ve been getting very insolent lately. This should remind them who’s in charge.
The battlefield is a strobe-lit horror. Compared to the flashes of blue-white electric light from Zeus’ lightning, daylight seems like a moonl
ess night. The men are all blinded, frozen in place waiting to be fried alive. Lightning bolts sprout like a forest of white trees, appearing and vanishing in an instant. And at the foot of every one of these trees is a dead Greek, smoking like a bee carbonized with a magnifying glass.
The Greeks break and run for their camp. Agamemnon sets sprint records back to the camp.
The Trojans cheer among the burnt patches, each with its carbonized Greek, still sizzling. Hektor shouts, “Fight like men, now that we have them on the run! We’ll smash through that jerry-rigged wall the Greeks have built! Be sure to bring torches; we’ll set their ships on fire! And as the fools stumble through the smoke, I’ll kill them all!”
He lashes his horses, yelling, “Pay me for your keep, all four of you! If you carry me fast enough, we’ll catch up to old Nestor and Diomedes and I’ll hang their armor in Apollo’s temple!” Hektor flies over the plain toward the sea, the Greek camp, and his men follow, spearing lightning-blinded Greeks in the back as they run.
It’s more than Hera can stand, watching Hektor and the Greeks being slaughtered. She goes in a rage to Poseidon, Zeus’ old brother.
“You see what’s happening down there, Poseidon? Don’t you care about all those Greeks dying, after they offered us so much meat and fat over the years? If all of us stick together, we can push the Trojans back, and my husband won’t be able to do a thing but watch!”
Poseidon gives Hera a long hard stare. “Are you crazy, woman? Don’t you remember what happened to the Titans when they tried to fight Zeus? He could send us all down where they are now, one layer below Hell. Leave me out of your scheming.”
Hera decides to work indirectly, through the mind of Agamemnon, so as not to annoy Zeus. She puts courage into Agamemnon, who’s cowering in his tent.
He stands, feeling strong all of a sudden, and starts acting like a king again. He wraps himself in a mantle of royal purple and strides out, to stand in the center of his army penned behind the wall. He climbs onto the wall and shouts down at them, “Greeks! You look like warriors, but you don’t act like them! Don’t you remember all the bragging you did when we stopped off at Lemnos on our way here? You drank my wine, rivers of it! And ate meat at my expense, and swore each of you could kill a hundred Trojans! And now the whole horde of you is huddled here, frightened of Hektor, run off the field by one man!”