The Trojan War (18 page)

It was vital too for orders to be given clearly. These leaders told the men when to fan out, when to form tight masses, when to attack, and when to fall back. Command and control on the Late Bronze Age battlefield was primitive, depending on speeches from the top, on trumpet calls and hoisted banners. A booming voice was no small advantage; small wonder that the intensity of a man's battle cry was taken as a sign of warrior prowess. Less dramatic but equally important were the subordinate officers who spread the word, especially in the Trojan army, where orders had to be given in a number of different languages.

But all the speeches in the world could not have driven one particular emotion from the soldiers' hearts—and that was fear. The favorable omen of eagle's flight on the right, the feeling of a comrade standing close by, the sound of an enemy in flight: all provided temporary relief. Even so, no one from the sword-bearers to Agamemnon escaped without a moment of terror that day. As a Babylonian hymn says, the war-god shines with a frightening gleam.

The flames of Protesilaus's ship fired Hector's imagination but they also marked the beginning of his end. With an almost mathematical logic, his success entailed his failure because it reawakened Achilles. As the tide began to turn against the Greeks, Nestor planted an idea in the mind of Patroclus: although Achilles had sworn off battle, he, Patroclus, could fight in his behalf. Nestor said:

After the briefest of hesitations Achilles agreed to let Patroclus wear his armor, lead his Myrmidons, and save the ships. In fact, Achilles was so concerned that, as soon as he saw the flames of the burning ship, he told Patroclus to hurry up. The only condition Achilles placed was that he conduct a limited operation. Patroclus could drive the enemy out of the Greek camp but under no circumstances was he to press on to Troy. That might anger some god, Achilles said, and besides, it would diminish Achilles' honor. Patroclus agreed to these terms.

Achilles did everything he could to help his men, except fight. He toured the huts and roused the Myrmidons to arms; he sent them off with a rousing prebattle speech; and he took the precaution of pouring a libation to Zeus. Patroclus also added his own words about the men's glorious reputation and their even more glorious commander, not forgetting to dishonor Agamemnon—not for nothing was Patroclus the perfect second in command:

The Myrmidons attacked the Trojans like ravenous wolves. They drove the enemy back from the burning ship of Protesilaus and put out the fire, but it was a harder fight to clear them from the camp. The Trojans held their ground inside the wall; only after fierce hand-to-hand combat did the Greeks prevail. The Trojans were propelled into a pell-mell flight that left a number of chariots stuck in the trench, the horses having broken free, but the men sitting ducks for Greek bronze.

Back on the plain, Patroclus cut off the Trojans' leading battalions in their retreat to Troy and forced them to stand and fight. The result was bloody but triumphant for the Greeks. Of the many Trojan casualties the most important by far was Sarpedon: a man who claimed to be son of Zeus or the Storm God, king of Lycia, and one of Troy's main allies. His lieutenant, Glaucus, suffered from a hand wound, having been hit by one of Teucer's arrows during the Trojan attack on the walls. But Glaucus knew that his honor depended on the recovery of Sarpedon's body, so nothing could have held him back. He made a blunt approach to Hector: the allies felt abandoned, so he had better help fight for the corpse. And he did. Hector's men engaged in a bitter hand-to-hand battle but the Greeks won. Accepting failure, Hector remounted his chariot and called a retreat. The Greeks stripped Sarpedon's armor while even the heavens sighed; as Homer says, Apollo spirited his corpse back home to Lycia. It was a total triumph for the Myrmidons. In a moment of inspiration, the Trojans had recognized Patroclus's identity, but that wasn't enough to help them stop him.

Then Patroclus got carried away. He disobeyed Achilles' orders and went in thunderous pursuit across the plain to the walls of Troy. There he made three assaults on the wall. Homer says that he climbed the parapet and was pushed back three times before giving up. Presumably a support company had brought ladders with them.

Homer has Apollo call Patroclus down from the walls, just as he talks Hector into rejoining the battle instead of bringing his men to safety behind the walls. Hector ordered his chariot to go after Patroclus, but the Greek was ready. Patroclus killed Hector's latest charioteer, Cebriones. The two men dismounted and fought over the body, joined by their followers. Again, the Greeks won.

By now it was late afternoon. There was still time for Patroclus to make three charges into the Trojan ranks, on which Homer has him kill no fewer than twenty-seven men. Homer mentions by name another twenty-seven Trojans whom Patroclus slew that day, as well as an indeterminate number of others, for a total of more than fifty-four! No single warrior could have carried out all the killing that Homer attributes to Patroclus on his vengeful spree. But with Patroclus at their head, fresh troops like the Myrmidons would have ripped a bloody hole in the Trojan lines.

But now Patroclus's luck had run out. Divine intervention (or a loose strap) caused him to lose his armor, and a young Trojan named Euphorbus son of Panthous took advantage by hurling his spear into Patroclus's back. Seeing his chance for glory, after Euphorbus had removed his javelin, Hector forced his way through the ranks and speared Patroclus in the belly. This was the most vulnerable part of the trunk and a favorite spot in Homer's epic, along with the neck, for administering the death blow. No wonder a Syrian general referred to annihilating an enemy as “smashing his belly”!

The fight for Patroclus's body raged until sunset. Hector had mixed success. He had to suffer charges of cowardice from Glaucus for not having recovered Sarpedon's corpse. He also lost his close friend Podes son of Eëtion, a regular guest at Hector's table. And Hector failed to secure the ultimate prize of Achilles' horses, which had pulled Patroclus's chariot. They escaped. But Hector did manage to claim Achilles' armor and to drive the enemy back across the plain to their camp.

The news of Patroclus's death was a bitter blow to Achilles, but he recovered sufficiently to go to the Greek trench where he boomed in a voice that, like pharaoh's war cry, frightened all the land. According to Homer, Achilles had only to roar three times and the Trojans retreated far enough for the Greeks to retrieve Patroclus's body. By now it was too dark to continue the fight.

The Trojans held an assembly. Once again, Polydamas gave the soundest advice: go back to Troy, camp in the marketplace, and, at dawn, man the walls. They were impregnable, even to Achilles. As Polydamas put it:

It was good advice, but Hector rejected it. He scorned retreating now that Zeus or the Storm God had decided to give him glory. Not for the last time in history, a general would claim to have god on his side. The Trojans were convinced; rapturously they cheered Hector's speech and put his plan into effect. They would camp out again on the plain and, at dawn, return to battle, Achilles or not.

Now comes one of the most memorable parts of the
Iliad.
The death of Patroclus gives birth to a new Achilles. Older and wiser, Achilles confesses the error of his past ways and decides to return to battle, although not before accepting the gifts that Agamemnon had offered. The next day, presented by the gods with matchless new armor and a marvelous shield, the hero slaughters a crowd of Trojans. He fights even the Scamander River in a display of the sort of superhuman power attributed to pharaohs. Finally, Achilles hunts down Hector.

The tragic education of an arrogant young hero is one of literature's oldest themes, antique already in Homer's day, and dating back to Mesopotamia's
Epic of Gilgamesh
around 2000
B.C.
Could anyone tell the tale more eloquently than Homer does in the latter books of the
Iliad
? Literature aside, in military terms these scenes are important mainly in the negative. With the deaths of Hector and then Achilles, the Trojan War would continue in a different form, with new leaders and new tactics.

Homer narrates a double tragedy: Achilles versus Hector, with Patroclus triangulated between the two. The reality was probably more prosaic. Achilles says that he is avenging Patroclus out of loyalty to a friend who was his soulmate, his very life, and out of shame also for having let him down. However, if Achilles did not kill Hector, he would have been finished as warlord. As even Achilles admits, while Patroclus and many of his other companions had been slaughtered during Hector's offensive, Achilles had sat out the war by the ships, a “useless weight on the ground.” The Myrmidons would not long have tolerated a leader who was unable to make good on this failure.

Achilles protests that he knows that by killing Hector he is signing his own death warrant. The fates had decreed that his death would follow fast on Hector's. What else could he have said, given the prophecy? Besides, he loved war; the odor of death was in his nostrils. Achilles had no other way of salvaging his reputation except by killing Hector. He said this clearly to his divine mother—or, as we might put it today, he said it in a moment of honesty:

Friendship was fleeting but fame was immortal. Achilles had his priorities clear.

Achilles would have preferred to begin his fight at dawn the next day but the preliminaries could not be overlooked. There had to be a formal reconciliation with Agamemnon, and, afterward, Odysseus prevailed upon Achilles that there be sacrifice and rest before going into battle. War booty also had to be displayed to the men in order to stir up their lust for battle. Then Achilles led them out. The Greeks struck so hard and the enemy ran so fast that after it was over, as soon as a Trojan found safety behind the walls, his first thought was not relief but quenching his thirst.

The old Achilles had disappeared. The amiable buccaneer who preferred ransoming an enemy to slaughtering him was now a killing machine. His victims included two more sons of Priam, Polydorus and his brother Lycaon, a man whom Achilles had earlier spared and sold into slavery. Achilles ignored his pleas for mercy. Most Trojans ran at the mere sight of Achilles; of those who stood their ground, only a rare few, like Aeneas, lived to tell the tale, and then only thanks to divine intervention.

What made Achilles such a successful warrior was that he had strength and speed and superb soldiers to support him. His reputation alone was enough to panic most enemies, which gave him a huge psychological advantage. In an afternoon on the battlefield the
Iliad
's Achilles kills at least thirty-six Trojans. It was a smaller tally of victims than Patroclus's but it is no less a reminder that the Bronze Age liked its heroes hot.

Achilles' final victim was Hector. Courageous enough to stand and face him when he might have retreated behind his city's walls, Hector nonetheless had second thoughts. But then he thought of the shame that he would face. Hector had to admit that Polydamas had been right about the danger of an enemy led by Achilles. He himself had been a fool, and the Trojan army had paid a terrible price.

In spite of his fears about public dishonor, in the end, Hector ran. Panicked by Achilles' approach, he sprinted off, only to be followed by the great runner. They circled the city three times; indeed, there are indications in Homer that the poet thought of them as circling the entire Trojan Plain three times, a distance of thirty-six miles or more. Finally recovering his courage, Hector stood and fought. Achilles threw his javelin and missed, but recovered it through divine intervention (or a dash to retrieve it). Hector struck Achilles' shield with his javelin. Then he drew his sword and rushed Achilles, but the Greek was ready and drove his spear into Hector's neck. The Trojan fell to the ground, and, with a prophecy of Achilles' approaching doom, he died.

The thrust to the Greek ships was the high-water mark of the Trojan army's resistance. Never again would it pose such a threat. The Trojans followed the wrong strategy. They should have let the Greeks tire themselves out. (In recent times Muhammad Ali brought such a tactic to boxing, the rope-a-dope.) Impatient, arrogant, and hungry for glory, Hector could not accept low-intensity tactics in a defensive strategy; he went after a decisive battle.

The withdrawal of Achilles and the Myrmidons had marked the breakdown of the Greek coalition. Hector should have taken advantage of it by doing precisely nothing. A good rule of warfare is never stop an enemy from trying to withdraw. Instead, Hector did the worst possible thing by launching a frontal attack on the Greek camp. He drove Achilles and company right back into the other Greeks' arms.