Dynamic change in the image of the Hero in Homer’s 'Iliad'

Abstract

The variable, dynamic nature of the image of a Homeric hero is examined here on the example of Achilles’ transition from rage to mercy. Such moral change is explicitly shown by the poet to happen only to a single one among the heroic characters of the poem, but the idea of inadmissibility of unrestrained rage, rage with arbitrariness, and that of the relevance of mercy, is a dominant motive in Homer; in the culminating episode of the Iliad, the encounter of Achilles with Priam, it only finds its most complete manifestation. Achilles exhibits sympathy for the king of the Trojans, which seems almost inappropriate given the framework and the inner logic of their situation and the plot in general. He acts both in conformity with the logic of customary practice and strictly against it, following above all his own choice and decisions. The decisions and actions of this sort, though fully described only once in this single passage of the Iliad, do find many repercussions in both poems. All such cases where we discern a momentary break with traditional values occurring in the mind of this or that character, confirm that we are dealing with some kind of a pattern representing certain behavioral tendencies in Homeric world. By expressing his benevolence to Priam, Achilles proposes a new standard of humanity, thus indicating a most profound moral alteration in the heroic ethos of Greek epic.