Personal costs of war in Euripides' Iphigenia at Aulis

Homer

The Eternal Cycle of Loss and the Trojan War in Homer's epic "Iliad"

One of the most interesting narrative or literary questions raised by Homer's "Iliad" is why, structurally, the poem begins and ends with negative rather than positive Greek actions. The epic begins with the decision of Achilles to leave the conflict temporarily, and the poem ends with the surrender of Hector's dead body to his father, the king of Troy. After all, is the poem not by a Greek bard, about a Greek triumph? After all, a Trojan man named Paris who instigated the war by absconding with a married Greek beauty to his city -- it was not a Greek crime that began the cycle of violence. The full tale of Trojan War cumulates with a Greek victory and the total razing of the enemy city. These triumphs, rather than the Greek losses, might seem like more fitting subjects to frame the poem. However, by beginning with the petty rivalries of the Greeks and ending with the personal rather than political peace treaty between the king of Troy and the Greek warrior, Achilles Homer demonstrates the futility of war, as viewed by the Greeks. War is structured upon an eternal cycle of loss, no matter who wins glory or wins the final battle.

The "Iliad" demonstrates how the Greeks saw the losses of war as tragic, fated by the gods and human folly, and inevitable. The Greeks were not pacifists, but they did not necessarily see war as glorious in an uncomplicated manner, even when they emerged victorious from the conflict. The close nature of Greek combat, so different than modern warfare, forced warriors to acknowledge the sadness of on a personal, human level. In the "Iliad" there are sights of mourning of the loss of all combatants, even the enemies who must be killed. Even the death of a Trojan like Hector is mourned by some of the Greeks, eventually by his own executioner Achilles, because of Hector's integrity and greatness in battle. Tomorrow, one's enemy could be one's friend, and vice versa. Perhaps the frequent civil conflicts of Greece, depicted even within the Greek camp of Homer's time, demonstrates how the loss of familiar faces and neighbors to war, at one's own hands, was not an unaccustomed sight. When Greece was not at war with Troy, the Greeks were at war with one another.

In the "Iliad," Achilles provides an important case study of the futile nature of war, as demonstrated within his own personal, journey. At the beginning of his life, Achilles was given a choice, by his mother the goddess Thesis. As a mortal man, but a demigod he could either live a short and glorious existence, cumulating in an early death on the battlefield, or live a long and peaceful life away from war in obscurity. Achilles chose the former when he was still a relatively young man, filled with false dreams of what war was like and the glory he could obtain. He thought little of the prospect of losing his own life and friends. But although he is a skillful fighter, this does not translate into Achilles' wisdom or integrity away from the battlefield because he still does not appreciate the solemn and negative side of war.

When the leader of the Greeks, Agamemnon takes away Achilles' beloved spoil of war, the girl Briseis, Achilles throws a kind of temper tantrum, and refuses to fight as he originally agreed to, although he is sworn to do so as a former suitor of Helen. Achilles' personal loss of a female spoil of war results in the national loss of many Greeks, as his withdrawal substantially weakens the Greek's fighting force, particular in relation to the prowess of Hector. The loss of Helen's husband Menelaus spawned the original conflict and Achilles' own defiance is a mirror of Helen's husband's own blindness, pettiness, and self-interest in avenging his wrong, rather than a regard for his fellow men.

Agamemnon's decision to take Briseis away is also selfish. Because the general was deprived of his own concubine, the daughter of a priestess of Apollo, he alienates Achilles at a particularly unfortunate junction of the war. Achilles was not at fault for Agamemnon's deprivation, so Achilles should not be penalized. But Agamemnon places his own needs above the needs of the Greeks as a whole, just like Achilles. Both men have no sense of personal, societal responsibility to other Greeks. They see only their own glory and do not care what is the Greek forces lose, so long as their own desires are satiated.

Thus, war destroys Greek integrity, Greek unity, and individual Greek lives, and loss in war simply provokes more loss, an unending economy of loss, beginning with the loss of a woman, leading to the loss of another woman and more needless deaths. Agamemnon sacrificed the life of his own daughter, Iphigenia, to go to war and keep his promise and honor to recover Helen, exchanging the girl's innocent life for a fair wind. Helen is a faithless woman, far from innocent, and as the complaining Greeks frequently note, really not worthy of having so much Greek blood spilt in her name. The self-willed and selfish loss of a beautiful woman begets even more, serious loss and tragedy and death.

Meanwhile, in the Trojan camp, rather than seeing a city full of enemy soldiers, angry at the Greeks, they are instead angry at Paris, who is not a particularly good fighter, but whose actions have caused the loss and death of man men greater and more valuable to the city than he, like Hector. Still, Paris refuses to set Helen aside, and not even the gods can be appealed to, because they too take sides, acting petty and squabbling like the mortals.

Thus, the epic sweep of the Homeric poem, which does not focus on one human being of consequence in the war, but a multitude of actors, including the gods, enables Homer to create a complex moral dynamic between the two sides, both of whom emerge as sympathetic, yet fallible, again, much like the gods who oversee their doings. The Greek warriors cannot simply leave, because to do so would be to vanquish the fragile trust and sworn bonds that hold together all of Greek society, as all Greeks swore to uphold the integrity of Helen. But the loss of life, moral cohesion, and national cohesion does not really justify the costs to the Greek people, or the Trojan people.

The Trojans themselves mourn the consequences of the fight, and the lack of Helen's real worth in relation to the deaths she spawned, but the social mechanisms generating the production of war continue. Attempts to reduce the personal conflict that began the war to one-on-one combat, through a duel between the cuckolded Menelaus and Paris, result in the equally amoral gods intervening in the struggle and machinating an end to the struggle that satisfies neither party. The war continues on, with no real winners or losers in the sense that death is a constant threat to every soldier.

The full climax of the tragedy of the "Iliad" comes when Achilles beloved friend Patroclus dies at the hand of Hector. Achilles is disconsolate at the loss of his dearest friend. The loss of Briseis suddenly seems small in relation to that of his dearest companion, and he resolves to arm whether the girl is returned to him or not by Agamemnon. For the Greeks, who valued male relationships above the relationships men had with women, Achilles' loss of a male, Greek companion and warrior and fellow national would have been seen as of far more sad and serious consequence than that of a foreign slave girl and spoil won during a war. Briseis, along with many gifts, is returned to Achilles, courtesy of Agamemnon, but this recompensing gesture is in no way equal to the loss that Achilles has suffered as a consequence of his stubbornness.

The loss of women thus begets the loss of men, once again. If Achilles had never sacrificed so much for Briseis, his friend would never have donned his gold armor, been mistaken by Hector, and died. Nor would many good Greeks have died, as almost immediately after Achilles departed from the field of battle, the Greeks began to lose in greater number. Women function as symbols of honor in the Greek camp, things to be slaughtered to bring fair winds, to fight wars over, or as markers of status, as Agamemnon must have the best slave-girl, even if it means offending the honor of the great Achilles. But Homer suggests that such losses of what function as symbolic objects in the masculine, warlike morality of the Greeks, leads to bloodshed rather than pleasure or honor. Winning the spoils of war, whether women or glory, simply generates the cycle of loss, death, and jealousy, not gain.

The death of Patroclus indirectly condemns the selfish morality of Achilles, and Agamemnon as well, as Agamemnon has gained nothing. Achilles, in effort to match his personal loss on a national level, strives to kill Hector, again fueling the economy of revenge, but this time in a far more 'high stakes' manner. Now, the loss of a man will result in the loss of Troy's greatest warrior. But even though Achilles emerges victorious from this struggle, his is an empty victory. He knows that his own death will follow shortly after the death of Hector. He does not care; revenge means everything to him in the heat of the moment, just like sacrificing the Greek advantage was worth upholding his honor at the beginning of the poem.

Although Achilles' sudden loyalty to his friend may seem honorable to some degree, perhaps more honorable than Menelaus' obsession with Helen, it also shows how the dynamic of loss leading to more and greater losses has spiraled out of control. The one real positive action of the poem is not Achilles' revengeful killing of Hector, but the attempted mending of the anger Achilles feels towards Hector even after Hector's death by Priam. At night, Priam bravely and humbly begs Achilles to return the body of his son. Priam comes, not as a king to the tent of the great warrior, but as someone who has lost a dear, beloved person to war.

This is why Achilles is sympathetic to Priam, unlike his behavior towards Agamemnon. Now Achilles understands loss more deeply, and more meaningfully, than he did when he first agreed to go to Troy and seek glory rather than a long life. Priam, as a man who has known and suffered loss, rather than shut himself away from the consequences of his loss like Agamemnon, who fled the circumstances he left at home after the loss of his daughter, provokes sympathy in Achilles. The epic ends with the sight of two people who have suffered losses together, from opposing, supposedly enemy sides. Even though Achilles has killed Priam's son, he is still able to sympathize with and mourn with Priam, because both men appreciate the terrible dynamic of war and loss that begin with the loss of spoils, women, and beauty, and now has lead to the losses of the best of men.