Agamemnon, Achilles, and Responsibility in the Iliad
To illustrate his view, and argue that he is free of responsibility, Agamemnon recites to the assembly the story of Hera’s deception of Zeus via his elder daughter, Delusion. The story itself seems to parallel the situation: the most powerful figure (Zeus/Agamemnon) is deluded by the immortal Delusion on account of some feminine deception, interference, or other stumbling block (Hera/Briseis), and as a result, a great hero (Herakles/Achilles) suffers, and Delusion is expelled. In both instances, the kingly figure, despite being great and powerful, has the wool pulled over his eyes by Delusion, “the accursed who deludes all … and leads them astray.” (Iliad IXX ll. 91-94) Agamemnon’s admission after telling the story – “… I was deluded and Zeus took my wits away from me …” (Iliad IXX ll. 137) – even further cements his point; the Gods’ whim is the master of men.
Seemingly diametrically opposed to Agamemnon, Achilles, in a word, does not regard himself as subject to the Gods, but rather as one in league with the Immortals. Certainly he doesn’t think of himself as their equal – he realizes their power far exceeds his strength, and that he is ultimately subject to death: “‘Fate is the same for the man who holds back, the same if he fights hard. … A man dies still if he has done nothing, as one who has done much.'” (Iliad IX ll. 318-320) However, he treats his relationship with them as a more mutual one. Not only can mortals like Achilles accomplish the Gods’ ends, but the Gods can accomplish Achilles’ ends; the bending of Zeus’ head will secure Achilles his glory. The hero makes use of his connections with Olympus to obtain Zeus’ consent; his entreaty to Thetis, though carefully spoken, is rather a command: “‘Sit beside [Zeus] and take his knees and remind him of these things now, if perhaps he might be willing to help the Trojans … that Atreus’ son wide-ruling Agamemnon may recognize his madness, that he did no honor to the best of the Achaians.'” (Iliad I ll. 407-412)
In Agamemnon’s mind, being held responsible for his actions while delicate-footed Delusion walked the air above his head would be foreign, to say the least. “[Y]et I am not responsible but Zeus is, and Destiny, and Erinys the mist-walking who in assembly caught my heart in the savage delusion on that day I myself stripped from him the prize of Achilleus.” (Iliad IXX ll. 86-89) Achilles, on the other hand, regards his actions and his quarrel with Agamemnon as entirely between the two of them; in speaking of their fight, Achilles mentions the Gods only as a figure of speech: “‘Son of Atreus, was this after all the better way for both, for you and for me, that we, for all our hearts’ sorrow, quarrelled [sic] together for the sake of a girl in soul-perishing hatred? I wish Artemis had killed her with an arrow on that day when I destroyed Lyrnessos and took her. … Still, we will let all this be a thing of the past, though it hurts us, and beat down by constraint the anger that rises inside us.'” (Iliad IXX ll. 56-66) The responsibility for his actions while he was enraged Achilles claims as his own. The implication of this attitude, of course, is that Agamemnon is likewise responsible for his anger and his greed in taking Briseis.
That these two conceptions of responsibility are conflicting is obvious; the heroes’ respective ideas of the Gods’ influence is accountable for the conflict. Thus the question becomes one of determining which conception of the Gods accords with Olympus, and thus leads to the appropriate determination of responsibility. Either case can be made, however, and neither refute the other completely; for certainly Achilles does literally interact with the Gods in a different manner than Agamemnon. To reconcile the two, one must step outside the reality and context of the epic somewhat in order to examine the nature of the Gods.
Rather than regard the Gods as physically extant beings, per se, essentially as incredibly powerful and deathless humanesque figures (which renders them entirely unreal to our modern way of thinking), they may be thought of as psychological projections given reality and power by the individual and, in the case of the Greek pantheon, by general agreement of the society. As constructs of the mind, the Gods have as much power as mortals give them; this power and its exercise are no less real than that of a “real” figure. Indeed, one might suggest that, our knowledge of some ostensibly “real” person being based entirely on our perceptions of them, and those perceptions being entirely subject to the mind, we are only able to know anyone as our mind projects them to us. This being the case, the Olympian Gods are not less but more real; or rather, they are as real as we make them. Achilles’ brief encounter in Book I with Athena, sent by Hera to dissuade him from drawing his sword and killing Agamemnon, resembles a pause and thinking through of his actions, on Achilles’ part, which is rendered epically as a divinity staying the hero’s hand. Again, this isn’t to say the Gods aren’t real; only that they are made whole by mortal’s minds.
Both Agamemnon and Achilles’ conceptions of the divinity are compatible with this paradigm. Agamemnon is subject to the Gods because he thinks of them the way he does; that is, as supra-human beings whose will influences and controls more or less every aspect, quality, and occurrence in the world. He invokes Delusion, daughter of Zeus as the avatar of his own (tellingly human) delusion, which indeed took away his wits. Likewise, Achilles can operate as if in league with the Gods because he thinks of himself as such. He conceives of them as not unlike himself; only more powerful. Thus, his interactions with them possess more of a character of closeness and directness, as in his exhortation of Thetis, and less of the sense of removal present in Agamemnon’s conception.
Continuing to use the same perspective, one can assess the two heroes’ conflicting ideas about mortal responsibility. The conflict can now be seen not as one revolving around which hero’s understanding of the Gods is right and which is wrong, but simply as a difference between Agamemnon and Achilles’ understanding of the divinity, and thus a different idea of the appropriate degree of responsibility a mortal has in a situation where they are under the Gods’ influence. Essentially, according to this paradigm of deity as psychological projection, the Gods are manifest through the minds of mortals, and in turn influence those mortal minds and mortal actions; this means that both the divine and human parties share responsibility, in their respective ways. Man projects the Gods, who cause Man to act. Heaven is completed by Earth; Earth is completed by Heaven.
Where does this leave Agamemnon and Achilles? If the Gods are projections of their minds, aren’t the heroes themselves responsible for “divine” influence? But to ask such a question is to overlook the power which the epic’s characters give the Gods; Agamemnon and Achilles both make the Immortals as real as the birds interpreted as their omens. When some one of us give a mental construct – an idea, a feeling, a fleeting thought – such power over themselves, we may indeed be inclined to say that they have lost control. So with the heroes: truly they have made the Gods godly in their might.
