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Able leaders and fallible men: success and excess in Iliadic battle exhortations

Abstract: Battle exhortations are found throughout the fighting books of Homer’s Iliad, primarily in the narrative of the great battle that spans books 11 to 18. The early examples of exhortations prefigure their increasingly important role in later books, especially 15 and 17. From the perspective of the macro-narrative, the frequency of exhortations and the choice of motifs they feature serve as indicators of the progress of fighting. On the level of micro-narratives, the exhortations of individual leaders highlight their strengths and weaknesses, and to an extent those of their respective camps, especially in the case of paired exhortations and those delivered by the same leader such as Hector or Ajax. The narrator employs exhortations as a means of illustrating the back and forth between personal, emotional commitments, or deluded expectations, and sober, collective pursuit of a strategic goal. Despite their seniority or prowess, the exhorting leaders do not present themselves as models the addressees, especially the rank and file, should emulate. This indicates that the narrative of exhortations privileges collectivity and cooperation over competitiveness, fostering the ideal of fighting in solidarity for the common goal. The failure to draw distinctions by stressing one’s achievements or advantages contrasts with several rebukes, and with the paraenetic speeches of Nestor off the battlefield. References to the all-important epic ideal of the pursuit or acquisition of glory, and even to the past, occur very rarely. This is noteworthy, especially as the past also looms large in paraenetic speeches delivered off the battlefield, primarily those of Nestor and Phoenix. Iliadic speakers on the battlefield are generally efficient, although naturally to varying degrees, but they run the danger of deviating from their goal because of their personal illusions and limitations. Exhortations show how the attempt to achieve the common goal, to do one’s duty as leader and comrade, and especially to fulfill one’s personal ambitions may sometimes shape an idiosyncratic or distorted view of past and future.