Then at last Achilles, yielding to the earnest entreaty of Patroclus, sends him to the aid of the Greeks, equipped in his own armour, and leading the whole force of the Myrmidons. Patroclus easily drives the Trojans back from the camp, and slays Sarpedon, one of the bravest warriors among the allies of Troy; but he himself falls by Hector's hand, and the armour of Achilles passes into the possession of his slayer. A tremendous struggle ensues over the body of Patroclus, which is only ended by the appearance of Achilles himself, who comes, attended by strange prodigies, to the wall, and, by the mere terror of his presence, scares the Trojans from the field, and saves his friend's body from outrage.
The rest of the story may be briefly told. By the intercession of Thetis, Hephæstus, the divine smith, makes a splendid suit of armour for Achilles, and, after a solemn scene of reconciliation with Agamemnon, Achilles leads the Greeks to battle. The whole torrent of his fury is now turned upon the Trojans, and, after a wholesale massacre of lesser victims, he meets Hector in single combat, slays him, and drags his body behind his chariot to the camp. The funeral obsequies of Patroclus are celebrated with great pomp, and then Achilles, who is possessed by a demon of rage and grief, continues for a space of twelve days to wreak his vengeance on the lifeless body of Hector, which he drags repeatedly behind his car round the tomb of Patroclus. The gods interpose to make an end of this senseless fury, and Hector's body, which has been miraculously preserved from harm, is restored to Priam, who comes in the night, under the conduct of Hermes, and redeems the corpse with a heavy ransom. With the burial of Hector the poem reaches its conclusion.
Such, in the briefest and baldest outline, is the story of the Iliad. Space does not allow us to discuss the various objections which have been raised against some of the details of the narrative, still less to enumerate the reconstructions and mutilations to which the great epic has been subjected in the dissecting-room of criticism. Where opinion is still so much divided, we may be allowed to state our conviction that the Iliad, though wanting the structural perfection of the Odyssey, is one poem, and the work of one master mind.
II. THE DIVINE CHARACTERS
The gods in the Iliad play a very active and human part, and indeed they may be said in a sense to be more human than the men themselves. They are passionate, sensual, vindictive; they have no sense of fair play, but are always ready to help their favourites by all means, fair or foul. When Patroclus is to die, he is stripped of his armour and beaten half senseless by Apollo, and delivered over in this helpless state to Euphorbus and Hector; and Hector, in his turn, is cheated and beguiled to his death by Athene. In the chariot race which is described in the twenty-third book Athene wrecks the car of Eumelus to secure the victory for Diomede; and the same goddess interferes in the foot race on behalf of Odysseus, whom she loves like a mother. We have already remarked, in the Introduction to the Odyssey, that the only humorous scenes in the Iliad are those in which the gods play the chief or sole part. And, in fact, the want of dignity and decorum which we find in these mighty beings is simply astonishing. The battle of the gods, which is introduced with such pomp and parade, ends in the broadest farce. In the fifth book, Ares roars and bellows like a beast when he is wounded by the spear of Diomede, and Aphrodite, whose hand has been scratched, goes whimpering and whining to her mother for comfort. Only in a few passages do we find a great and worthy conception of the divine nature—as in the famous lines in the first book, when Zeus nods his immortal head confirming his oath to Thetis, and in the sublime description of Poseidon at the beginning of the thirteenth book.
At the head of the Olympian hierarchy stands Zeus the lord of the sky, who divides with his brothers, Hades and Poseidon, the empire of the universe. He is the highest in power and authority, and with him rests the final decision in all the disputes of Olympus. But this genial and patriarchal deity is not without his troubles: he rules over a disorderly household, and his purposes are constantly thwarted by the lesser powers who reign under him. In his heart of hearts he favours Priam and the Trojans, but he is a fond and indulgent father and husband, and Hera, his wife, and Athene, his daughter, cherish an implacable hatred against Troy and all things Trojan. The reason for this bitter animosity does not appear: for the judgment of Paris, which is the cause assigned by later legends, is only mentioned in one passage, of doubtful authenticity. Hera is described as a lady of shrewish and vixenish temper; she will never be satisfied, says Zeus, until she has gone down into Troy and eaten Priam and all his people raw! Her human counterpart is Hecuba, who would like, she says, to tear out the heart of Achilles, and devour it. On the side of the Trojans are Apollo, Artemis, Hephæstus, the river-god Scamander, and Leto.
Such are the gods of Homer, and such the national divinities of Greece. For the poems of Homer and Hesiod, as Herodotus informs us, are the chief sources of the popular theology. Small wonder, then, that the more earnest minds of a later age were much occupied by the endeavour to raise and purify the accepted mythology, or that Plato excludes Homer, "the great magician," from his scheme of reformed education.
III. THE HUMAN CHARACTERS
Of Achilles and Odysseus we have already spoken at some length, so that we have only to notice briefly the other chief characters. At the head of the Greek army stands Agamemnon, whose authority rests on his personal prowess, his vast wealth, and the extent of his dominions. In the absence of Achilles he shares with Ajax and Diomede the highest place among the warriors of Greece. A certain strain of weakness runs through his character. He is jealous of his authority, and somewhat covetous, and at moments of crisis and peril he is always foremost in the counsels of despair. Next to him in rank comes Menelaus, his brother, an amiable but somewhat feeble prince, to whom the poet shows a certain playful tenderness, such as is felt by chivalrous natures towards a woman or a child.
The most knightly figure on the Greek side is the young Diomede, whose wonderful exploits fill so large a space in the earlier part of the poem. His gallant and buoyant spirit shines brightest when the fortunes of the Greeks are at their lowest ebb; and the beautiful episode of his meeting with Glaucus on the battlefield is a rare exception to the savage ferocity of Homeric warfare.