Provocations From The Iliad Writing Assignment Paper

Provocations from the Iliad
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Provocations from the Iliad
The Iliad is the tale of the last part of the Trojan War, where the Greeks finally defeated the Trojans and overran their city. The Iliad is a poem which has a lot to say to people who read it, but what is of particular significance for the citizen-student is the way in which the Iliad approaches command. This approach can help citizen-students to better understand how they can work together in a group context, as it shows how people with power (i.e. the individual kings) came together under one single ruler (Agamemnon) for the duration. True, the way in which the ancient Greeks and Trojans saw command is very different to how we would approach it today, but there are some similarities which are important.
Our first view of commanding in the Greek army comes via the Catalogue of Ships in book two (Homer, 1990, 584-989), which shows us the individual kings and leaders who are present in the Greek army.
The scepter of authority that Agamemnon carried was a sign of his kingship, and a symbol of how that kingship derived from Zeus himself. This is what gave Agamemnon his divine right to power. (Boyle & Croot, 2004, 35)
We know from the start of book two, however, that all of these individual kings, while they can be like Odysseus and discipline their own men as they see fit (Homer, 1990, 2:229-230), they are still subordinate to the whims of Agamemnon, the high king for this expedition (Homer, 1990, 1:211-221). The ways in which Agamemnon and the other kings interact (with Nestor (Homer, 1990, 2:22-23) being the one chosen by Zeus to bring the prophetic dream to Agamemnon, as he is the advisor who everyone listens to (Dalby, 2007, 32) are useful for showing how power worked in ancient Greece of this time period.
It is true that the transition of power is not entirely smooth – see the episode in the first book where Achilles has to be restrained from killing Agamemnon (Homer, 1991, 1: 228-251), but there is a clear distinction that, while there is a top-down hierarchy where Agamemnon is the main player in terms of authority, every other king has their rightful place and power honoured, and they are all allowed to have their say (though again, they all defer to Nestor, the oldest and wisest of them all, for wisdom (Homer, 1990, 2:22-23).
While an exact rendition of the way in which power was used during this time is not helpful ...