Tripods are great, but they are not worth a man’s life. In The Iliad of Homer (1), Achilleus seems to be exceptionally reflective about the nature of mortality. While the rest of the Achaians battle for glory, gold, and girls, the hero of the poem sits brooding by the ships, “for not worth the value of my life are all the possessions they fable were won for Ilion” [bk. 9, lines 400-402]. Yet if this is so, why do the rest of the warriors fight and die for those very possessions? An an embassy, headed by Odysseus, is sent to convince Achilleus to return to battle, and still he refuses. However, although he appears to hold different values than his comrades, Achilleus holds the same system of values as all the Homeric heroes. Only his knowledge of his own fate separates Achilleus from the others. The importance of timé, and the social system surrounding it, hold as much sway with him as they do with any other Achaian.

Timé is an Ancient Greek concept meaning the value attributed to a person by society. Through acts of excellence, in battle, leadership, and sports, the Homeric hero could win glory and prizes. Indeed, the concepts of honor and material wealth are hard to distinguish, as both are integral to timé. The stealing of Helen dishonored Menelaos, who in turn was justified in sacking Troy. Priam’s sons could plead to be ransomed instead of killed, their gold and horses traded for their lives. The stripping of dead men’s armor increased the victor’s acclaim as well as his holdings. But perhaps the most relevant example of timé is told to Achilleus himself: “It is not yours to have a pitiless heart. The very immortals can be moved… with libations and with savour men turn back even the immortals in supplication, when any man does wrong and transgresses” [496-501]. Here, Phoinix, a member of the embassy, introduces the concept of using bribes to mend relationships and restore honor. Wealth acts as a physical manifestation of honor, allowing social transgressions to be overcome quickly. Timé is the foundation upon which the Achaian warrior’s code is built, combining status and possessions in a single currency for both social and battlefield interactions.

Odysseus appeals to these materialistic values in his embassy to Achilleus, revealing timé to be fundamental to the Greek warrior. For example, Odysseus does not just mention Agamemnon’s bribe, he iterates through the entire list of gifts. Judging from the space this takes up alone, it is obviously highly relevant. The bribe is the accepted way of asking forgiveness, repaying the damage done to Achilleus’s honor with women and land. Odysseus also makes use of timé by continually deprecating the Greeks: “At least take pity on all the other Achaians who are afflicted along the host, and will honour you as a god” [301-303]. Odysseus portrays Achilleus as separate from the others, so much greater that the entire Achaian army is reduced to helpless children on a beach. Achilleus is the superman who must come and “rescue the afflicted sons of the Achaians from the Trojan onslaught” [247-248]. Further, by mentioning the reward of glory, he creates a real incentive for Achilleus to save the day. Odysseus makes the incredible potential for timé-gain, both in accepting Agamemnon’s gifts and rescuing the Achaians from certain death, very clear. In fact, the value of timé encompasses his entire argument.

Achilleus, though he rejects Odysseus plea, affirms timé as a being an important value. He focuses on the rewards of battle and the warrior’s code. “Neither do I think the son of Atreus, Agamemnon, will persuade me… since there is no gratitude given for fighting incessantly forever against your enemies” [316-317]. The Achaians’s materialistic values are readily apparent here: there is no point in fighting unless he himself gets something out of it. He works as a mercenary for Agamemnon, fighting for gold and glory, not for personal reasons. However, Agamemnon regularly cheats Achilleus out of his due payment, “we took forth treasures, goodly and numerous, and we would bring them back, and give them to Agamemnon, Atreus’s son; while he, waiting back beside the swift ships, would take them, and distribute them little by little, and keep many” [330-333]. This unfair distribution of wealth violates the core laws of timé, granting Agamemnon the glory that rightfully belongs to the man actually doing the work. Briseus is simply the last in a long series of events proving Agamemnon to be completely untrustworthy, “not if he gave me gifts as many as the sand or the dust is, not even so would Agamemnon have his way with my spirit until he made good to me all this heartrending insolence” [385-387].

Yet Achilleus is not rejecting his materialistic culture by rejecting Agamemnon’s gifts. He does not disapprove of wealth and glory at all, but rather feels strongly the lack of timé. Indeed, Achilleus does not plan to leave empty-handed: “from here there is more gold, and red bronze, and fair-girdled women, and grey iron I will take back; all that was allotted to me” [365-367]. There is no need for glory-winning, either; Achilleus has already proved himself the better man. Agamemnon “cannot hold the strength of manslaughtering Hektor; and yet when I was fighting among the Achaians Hektor would not drive his attack beyond the wall’s shelter… There once he endured me alone, and barely escaped my onslaught” [351-355]. If timé were not important to Achilleus, he would not take the time to defend his honor or lament over lost spoils. There is no departure from Achaian values at all.

The difference in Odysseus’s and Achilleus’s arguments is based solely on the fact that Achilleus knows his own fate. He will die if he returns to battle:

I carry two sorts of destiny toward the day of my death. Either,
if I stay here and fight beside the city of the Trojans,
my return home is gone, but my glory shall be everlasting;
but if I return home to the beloved land of my fathers,
the excellence of my glory is gone, but there will be a long life
left for me, and my end in death will not come to me quickly. [411-416]

Timé is worth nothing to a dead man. The Achaian values only apply to a man who thinks he can cheat death on the battlefield. There is strong evidence that the warriors believed they could change their own destinies: they could pray and make sacrifices to the gods in an attempt to gain their favor. All throughout the Iliad, gods and goddesses play an active role in the lives of the mortals, and many Achaians do indeed survive to enjoy their timé (for a while, at least). Odysseus does not mention the threat of death because Achilleus, beloved of the gods and a skilled warrior besides, should be able to avoid it entirely. Uncertainty about death makes timé a strong incentive in the Greek warrior culture, but Achilleus knows certain death, making timé, as an incentive, quite pointless.

Achilleus’s mind works just like any other Achaian. He tells the embassy that “all that you have said seems spoken after my own mind” [645]. Both he and Odysseus think along the lines of timé, the system of honor and prizes that binds Greek warrior society. Achilleus’s anger is easily justified within this system, only his continued refusal to accept Agamemnon’s bribes and Odysseus’s pleas constituting a violation of social conduct. However, what Achilleus’s companions do not understand is that the relative worth of timé, when it comes at the cost of one’s life, is approximately nothing at all. Of course they hate death, but they can fight death until the bitter end. In their eyes Achilleus is being stupid and rude, for “the gods put in your breast a spirit not to be placated, bad, for the sake of one single girl. Yet now we offer you seven, surpassingly lovely, and much beside these” [636-639]. Timé requires the Achaians to be always assessing the relative worth of their actions and possessions — Odysseus’s and Achilleus’s arguments spring from this mindset. Achilleus adds his own life to the scales, but the warrior values affirmed by both men are the same.

Notes:

1. Homer. The Iliad. Trans. Richmond Lattimore. Chicago: University Of Chicago Press, 1951.