Free The War That Killed Achilles by Caroline Alexander

flags. Angrily, she evokes “ ‘the sweat that I have sweated in toil, and my horses worn out / gathering my people, and bringing evil to Priam and his children.’ ” Zeus’ response is that of a very weary husband: reluctantly, against his own inclination, he gives in. His speech to Hera and hers again to him bear some of the most tragic import in the epic:
    Deeply troubled, Zeus who gathers the clouds answered her:
“Dear lady, what can be all the great evils done to you
by Priam and the sons of Priam, that you are thus furious
forever to bring down the strong-founded city of Ilion?
If you could walk through the gates and through the towering
ramparts
and eat Priam and the children of Priam raw, and the other
Trojans, then, then only might you glut at last your anger.
Do as you please then. Never let this quarrel hereafter
be between you and me a bitterness for both of us.
And put away in your thoughts this other thing that I tell you:
whenever I in turn am eager to lay waste some city,
as I please, one in which are dwelling men who are dear to you,
you shall not stand in the way of my anger, but let me do it,
since I was willing to grant you this with my heart unwilling.
For of all the cities beneath the sun and the starry heaven
dwelt in by men who live upon earth, there has never been one
honoured nearer to my heart than sacred Ilion
and Priam, and the people of Priam of the strong ash spear.
Never yet has my altar gone without fair sacrifice,
the libation and the savour, since this is our portion of honour.”
Then the goddess the ox-eyed lady Hera answered:
“Of all cities there are three that are dearest to my own heart:
Argos and Sparta and Mycenae of the wide ways. All these,
whenever they become hateful to your heart, sack utterly.
I will not stand up for these against you, nor yet begrudge you.”
    Once this agreement has been reached, events unfold swiftly: Athene is given orders “ ‘to visit horrible war again on Achaeans and Trojans,’ ” and to do so in a way that makes the Trojans the offenders. Like a falling star, she flashes to earth in a blaze of light and then, in the likeness of a man, insinuates herself among the Trojans. Her patsy is the Trojan Pandaros, son of Lykaon. Sidling up to him, she speaks “winged words” describing the glory and gratitude he will win from the Trojans, the gifts he will receive from Paris, if he lets fly an arrow at Menelaos: “So spoke Athene, and persuaded the fool’s heart in him.” The arrow Pandaros shoots flies true but is deflected from its intended mark by Athene herself, true to her role as a double agent. Driven into Menelaos’ belt buckle, the arrow harmlessly grazes his skin, while drawing blood.
    â€œ ‘Dear brother, it was your death I sealed in the oaths of friendship, / setting you alone before the Achaeans to fight with the Trojans,’ ” groans Agamemnon, unmanned at the sight of his brother’s blood. In his loving solicitude, he makes here, perhaps, his most sympathetic appearance in the epic. Vacillating between self-recrimination and anger, Agamemnon calls for the Trojan people to pay a great penalty for this outrage “ ‘with their own heads, and with their women, and with their children.’ ” The war machinery starts to grind again; as the Trojans approach, Agamemnon rallies and positions his troops: “The Achaeans again put on their armour, and remembered their warcraft.” 41 Shortly afterward, the first man in the epic is killed, a Trojan named Echepolos, who falls at the hands of Antilochos. And so the truce, with all the promise it held, is shattered, and the war is on. There will be a few future acts of friendship between individual warriors, and one more solemn attempt to end the war, made by an assembly of Trojans desperate to save their city, but this also will be futile.
    The proud drumroll represented by the Catalogue of