Book IX The Embassy to Achilles

In order to win Achilles back, Agamemnon declares that he will offer a priceless treasure to compensate Achilles for the dishonor he has suffered at Agamemnon's hands, although Agamemnon is careful to say that the gods "entangled me in madness, blinding ruin --" (20).

The vast treasure is listed in lines 145-175.

An envoy is dispatched to Achilles' camp with the offer of the treasure. They find Achilles playing music, relaxing from war with his best friend, Patroclus. Although hospitable, he declines the treasure. Questioning the validity of the warrior code, he speaks a long piece on death and how the coward and the brave come to the same thing in the end; he also questions the value of what they are fighting for in Troy: lines 382-134. This speech marks a turning point in Achilles. Everything he says is in opposition to the values and beliefs of his culture. The reader knows Achilles' point of view contradicts his culture's because the other Greeks are so shocked by what he says: "A stunned silence seized them all, struck dumb -- " (523).

They tell him that even the gods would be more reasonable, more understandable: lines 602-608.

When the envoys return to Agamemnon's camp to report on Achilles failure to accept the treasure and reenter the war, everyone is "struck dumb" (846) so unusual it is for a warrior to be uninterested in gaining the treasure that is the mark of the respect in which his fellow-warriors hold him.

Achilles' dilemma, being shamed by Agamemnon, is a crisis for Achilles that causes him to reexamine his commitment to the heroic code. This is the first instance of Achilles' individuality. He rejects the values of his culture by questioning the institution of war. He questions everything in this book and rejects the heroic code.

Homer may be using Achilles to demonstrate to the people of the eighth century BCE that war was what caused the downfall of their ancestors, the Mycenaean Greeks. By questioning war through Achilles, Homer, is perhaps warning his contemporaries not to make the same mistake of their ancestors, not to base their lives on war.

Book XVIII The Shield of Achilles

Achilles learns that Hector has killed Patroclus. Achilles' grief is reminiscent of Gilgamesh's grief over the death of Enkidu.

Achilles determines to return to the war so that he can avenge Patroclus' death. He swears to kill Hector and slit the throats of 12 Trojan children in front of Patroclus' funeral pyre. Like Gilgamesh, he refuses to allow Patroclus to be buried: lines 387-398.

Meanwhile the Trojans -- who have been successfully attacking the Greeks on the plains outside the city -- are panicked by the sight of Achilles returning to the battlefield. A Trojan warrior, Polydamas, advises Hector to return to the safety of Troy and to fight the Greeks from the walls of Troy. Hector refuses: lines 330-340. He wants to "seize some glory."