Chapter 4. The Death of Achilles and a Festival at Delphi

4§1. The quarrel between Achilles and Odysseus in the first song of Demodokos, viii 72–82, dramatizes the antithesis of two inherited central themes built into the Iliad and the Odyssey, namely, the qualifications of Achilles and Odysseus respectively for the title “best of the Achaeans.” Their epic actions are striving to attain what is perhaps the most distinctive heroic epithet that the kléos of the Achaeans can confer upon a mortal. In the first song of Demodokos, the poet—or let us say Demodokos—comments not only on the Odyssey but also on the Iliad itself. Or better, I should say, “an Iliadic tradition” instead of “the Iliad.” Moreover, Monro’s Law is not overturned, in that this quarrel between Odysseus and Achilles in Odyssey viii is no playback of the quarrel between Agamemnon and Achilles in Iliad I. There are basic differences in roles as well as in characters.

4§2. As we have seen, there are elements of diction and theme in the first song of Demodokos that must stem from an independent and idiosyncratic tradition and simply cannot be based on the opening of Iliad I. One of the most divergent and interesting aspects of the quarrel between Achilles and Odysseus is that it took place ‘at a sumptuous feast of the gods’ (θεῶν ἐν δαιτὶ θαλείῃ: Odyssey viii 76). Besides the intrinsic meaning here, the other Homeric contexts where feasts of the gods are mentioned make it clear that this expression denotes a sacrifice. [1]

4§3. By good fortune, we have indirect evidence about the nature of such a sacrifice, especially from Pindar’s Paean 6. This piece was composed for performance at a Delphic festival called the theoxénia. Within the framework of this ancient festival, the gods were treated {59|60} as actual participants at the sacral banquet of their worshippers. [2] The institution of theoxénia ‘having a host-and-guest relationship with the gods’ survives elsewhere too in the Hellenic world of the classical period, [3] and there is reason to suppose that its ritual traditions—if not the ritual itself in its attested form—were already attested at the time that our Odyssey took on its present shape. [4] Since the first song of Demodokos in Odyssey viii makes a thematic connection between Apollo’s Delphi and a ‘feast of the gods’ attended by Achaean heroes, the preeminence of Apollo at the Delphic theoxénia [5] leads me to suspect that we are witnessing a Homeric reflex of the ritual traditions surrounding this festival. [6] Furthermore, there are ominous implications for Achilles in the lore connected with the theoxénia. It seems as if the death of Achilles were a traditional theme that is appropriate for a Paean performed at the theoxénia.

4§5. The evidence may seem meager at this point, but there must have been something about Achilles that was particularly offensive to Apollo. Conversely, we know that Paris, the antagonist and future killer of Achilles, offended the same gods whom we now see {61|62} quarreling with Apollo in Paean 6, namely, Hera and Athena. The offense of Paris was the outgrowth of a quarrel that took place at a banquet given by the gods to celebrate the wedding of Peleus and Thetis, the parents of Achilles himself. This quarrel of the gods served as the epic theme for the opening of the Cypria (Proclus summary 102.14–16 Allen), and there are clear references to the same epic tradition in Iliad XXIV 25–30. Moreover, the Cypria presents this quarrel as a fitting epic theme for the opening of the entire Trojan War! The grievance of Hera and Athena against Paris was that he made a choice favoring Aphrodite instead of them (Cypria Proclus 102.16–19 Allen). The Iliadic allusion to this tradition, however, also alludes to a grievance of Apollo against Achilles. It seems as if the polarization of Hera and Athena on one side and Apollo on the other corresponds not only to the hostility of the first two divinities against Paris but also to the hostility of the third against Achilles. [11] The three divinities are continuing their quarrel in Iliad XXIV 25–63. In the course of their quarrel, Apollo describes Achilles as a brute who is like a ravenous lion, without any control over his bíē ‘might’ (Iliad XXIV 42). [12] In Pindar’s Paean 6, at the very moment that Apollo destroys Achilles, the hero is described as βιατάν ‘endowed with bíā [epic bíē]’ (line 84). One of the reasons, then, for Apollo’s enmity may well have been the championing of bíē by Achilles. A more general reason, however, is yet to emerge from our ongoing scrutiny of the characteristics common to the god and the hero. It is too early at this point to attempt a precise formulation, and I offer here only the essentials: the hostility of Apollo and Achilles has a religious dimension, in which god and hero function as ritual antagonists. [13]