Epictetus, Discourses 1.22.2

Such you will find is the conflict between Agamemnon and Achilles. Call them to come forward. 

 

What do you say, Agamemnon? Do you say that what is right and noble ought not to be done? 

 

“Of course it ought.”

 

And what do you say, Achilles? Do you not approve of doing what is noble? 

 

“No, I approve of it above all things.”

 

Now apply these primary notions: and here the conflict begins. 

 

One says, “I ought not to give back Chryseis to her father.” 

 

The other says, “No, you ought.” 

 

Certainly one or other of them wrongly applies the primary notion of right. 

 

Again one says, “Well, if I must give back Chryseis, I must take the prize from one of you.” 

 

The other says, “What, take away my beloved?” 

 

“Yes, yours,” he says. 

 

“Am I alone then to be the loser?” 

 

“But am I alone to have nothing?” 

 

So a conflict arises. 

—from Epictetus, Discourses 1.22

 

It took me some time to warm to the Iliad, as my first impression was that there was too much talking and not enough action. After a few more tries, I came to admire it as an ideal study of the human condition, more than worthy of its reputation as one of humanity’s finest works of art. 

 

It operates on a grand scale, and yet so many of the individual episodes can be considered in themselves, as remarkable snapshots of people both at their best and at their worst. I have a special place in my heart for the final meeting between Hector and Andromache, but the opening events of the story, where Agamemnon and Achilles argue over the division of spoils, come in at a very close second. 

 

Here we have two heroes squabbling like spoiled children, about which of them has the right of “ownership” over a woman. Chryseis and Briseis had been taken as prizes of war, and have been claimed by Agamemnon and Achilles respectively.

 

A problem arises, however, when Chryseis’s father, a priest of Apollo, unleashes a plague on the Greek army to force his daughter's return. Agamemnon has little choice but to submit, and yet his pride demands that he be compensated for the loss. So as to still feel like he is a big man, he insists that Achilles surrender Briseis to him. 

 

Harsh words are exchanged, violence is contemplated, and Achilles finally gives in, only to have his bitter revenge by now refusing to fight for the Greeks any longer. He sits in his tent and broods. Every other tragedy of the story now unfolds in the context of his stubborn rage. 

 

If the tale sounds familiar, similar things happen every day, in schools, workplaces, and families, even if the scale is not quite so epic. In such cases, everyone appeals to justice, and yet so few seems to have any idea of what it genuinely means to act with justice. The primary conception is there, while its true meaning gets lost in the greed, jealousy, and resentment. 

 

Both Agamemnon and Achilles want what is “good” and to do what is “right”, though they think of these principles simply in terms of their immediate gratification. They are skipping steps in their judgments, hastily coming to conclusions about the application of the good, since they have not given any serious thought to the specific nature of the good. 

 

It is no accident that most of these blunders occur as a result of a double standard, where the good of the one is seen as being isolated from the good of the other. “Who cares about you? It’s about me!” The error is in failing to see how the good must encompass all creatures, at the exclusion of none. 

 

I’d like to feel offended at the deeds of Agamemnon and Achilles, condemning them for their petty wickedness, and then I remember how often I have done much the same. The point of the great story is not that it allows us to point fingers at others, but rather that it challenges us to look more carefully within ourselves. 

—Reflection written in 3/2001 

IMAGE: William Page, The Quarrel of Achilles and Agamemnon (c. 1832)