Clasificación científica Escherichia coli 46 (Ver Anexo 02)

The unique cohesiveness of the Myrmidon unit allows Achilles and Patroclus to address

the troops directly as hetairoi. No other heroes in the Iliad do this. Even so, the use of ἑταῖροι in direct address is extremely rare. Patroclus’ speech in Book 16 contains one of only two

appearances of hetairoi in the vocative. The other occurs in Achilles’ second major speech to the Myrmidons, just after Hector is killed.

Just as in Book 16 Achilles unleashes the Myrmidons’ bloodlust under the command his

hetairos and under the obligations of hetaireia, so also in book 23 he closes the Myrmidon battle-frenzy by appealing to the obligation of hetairoi to lament:

οἳ μὲν ἄρ’ ἐσκίδναντο ἑὴν ἐπὶ νῆα ἕκαστος, Μυρμιδόνας δ’ οὐκ εἴα ἀποσκίδνασθαι Ἀχιλλεύς ἀλλ’ ὅ γε οἷςἑτάροισι φιλοπτολέμοισι μετηύδα· Μυρμιδόνες ταχύπωλοι ἐμοὶ ἐρίηρες ἑταῖροι μὴ δή πω ὑπ’ ὄχεσφι λυώμεθα μώνυχας ἵππους, ἀλλ’ αὐτοῖς ἵπποισι καὶ ἅρμασιν ἆσσον ἰόντες

108_{Hetaireia accounts for Patroclus’ and Nestor’s idea in the first place: Patroclus was first moved to enter battle by} the sound of Danaans dying (Iliad 15.395-398). Hetaireia also touches off the sequence that leads to his doom: grief for the death of Epeigeus named hetairos drives him to charge the Trojans and Lykians during the fight for

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Πάτροκλον κλαίωμεν· ὃ γὰρ γέρας ἐστὶ θανόντων.

(Iliad 23.3-9)

Achilles and the Myrmidons are joined by their sorrow for Patroclus. As Patroclus addresses his

men as “Μυρμιδόνες ἕταροι Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος” before battle, so Achilles addresses the same

troops as “Μυρμιδόνες…ἐμοὶ…ἑταῖροι” after Patroclus is avenged. Again like Patroclus,

Achilles identifies himself with the Myrmidons by speaking in first-person plural verbs

(λυώμεθα, κλαίωμεν). The first verb is a foil for the second: “let us” not let our horses go, but rather “let us” lament Patroclus (enjambed: Πάτροκλον κλαίωμεν). As Patroclus’ solidarity with

the Myrmidons is located in the honor they all show Achilles, so Achilles’ solidarity with the

Myrmidons is located in their lamentation for Patroclus.

Before Achilles even begins to speak, Homer emphasizes how well the Myrmidons still

cohere. While the non-Myrmidons split up (ἐσκίδναντο) and depart to their own tents

individually (ἐπὶ νῆα ἕκαστος), the Myrmidons do not scatter and do not go each to their own

ship. They remain together under Achilles’ command, for he does not let them disperse (οὐκ εἴα

ἀποσκίδνασθαι) until they lament Patroclus together.

But Achilles’ request for lament in Book 23 merely expresses what the Myrmidon

hetairoi have already done. In Book 19, Thetis returns from Olympus to deliver the new armor she received from Hephaistos, only to find Achilles in mourning with the Myrmidon hetairoi

around him in tears:

ἣ δ’ ἐς νῆας ἵκανε θεοῦ πάρα δῶρα φέρουσα. εὗρε δὲ Πατρόκλῳ περικείμενον ὃν φίλον υἱὸν

136 κλαίοντα λιγέως· πολέες δ’ ἀμφ’ αὐτὸν ἑταῖροι

μύρονθ’·…

(Iliad 19.3-6)

As in battle, the hetairoi are “around” (ἀμφί) the hero. The image is repeated two hundred lines later, but this time the hetairoi are “around” (ἀμφί) Patroclus himself:

πρὶν δ’ οὔ πως ἂν ἔμοιγε φίλον κατὰ λαιμὸν ἰείη οὐ πόσις οὐδὲ βρῶσις ἑταίρου τεθνηῶτος ὅς μοι ἐνὶ κλισίῃ δεδαϊγμένος ὀξέϊ χαλκῷ κεῖται ἀνὰ πρόθυρον τετραμμένος, ἀμφὶ δ’ ἑταῖροι μύρονται. (Iliad 19.209-213)

The repetition of ἀμφί…μύρονται emphasizes how deeply the Myrmidon hetairoi are woven into the Achilles-Patroclus relationship. Both Achilles and Patroclus are at the center of Myrmidon

lament. Indeed, at this point the Myrmidon hetairoi are grieving for Patroclus more than Achilles is, for in the next two lines Achilles explains that murder and blood and screaming have

momentarily supplanted lamentation in his phren (τό μοι οὔ τι μετὰ φρεσὶ ταῦτα μέμηλεν, / ἀλλὰ φόνος τε καὶ αἷμα καὶ ἀργαλέος στόνος ἀνδρῶν: Iliad 19.213-214).109 _{While Achilles prepares to}

109 _{At Iliad 1.249, separation from the Myrmidon hetairoi signifies Achilles’ isolation: before he calls his mother he} sits on the shore and “weeps and sits apart from his hetairoi” (δακρύσας ἑτάρων ἄφαρ ἕζετο). The phrase ‘ἑτάρων ἄφαρ’, the exact opposite of ‘ἀμφὶ δ’ ἑταῖροι’, appears only here. For Achilles, the feeling that trumps sorrow for a dead hetairos is rage. Cf. Shay 1994, chapters 3 (grief) and 5 (berserk rage). For Indo-European parallels see most recently Woodard 2013.

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avenge him, the Myrmidons lament the dead hetairos that both have failed to protect from Hector.

Conclusions: groups of hetairoi and the plot of the Iliad

In the Iliad, nothing motivates warriors in combat more than hetaireia, but hetaireia is not a military institution. The ἔθνος ἑταίρων is not a unit of military organization, but rather a

group of individual warriors fighting together. Nobody earns ‘hetairos’ as an institutional title;

rather,warriors are called hetairoi when they act as hetairoi, that is, when they protect, avenge, and lament their companions in battle. Moreover, heta(i)r- signifies action and affection

indifferently. Warriors are called hetairoi when they are felt as hetairoi, joined together as a ‘we’ in violence or lament. The effect of these features of hetaireia is that, in the Iliad, there is no distance between physical and moral support. Commanders lead well who fight well for their

hetairoi. The most cohesive unit is led by the only pair of mutual hetairoi, and the most effective warrior is also the most emotionally attached to his hetairoi. The hero who feels grief for a dead

hetairos, but does nothing to defend the corpse, is rebuked repeatedly by his most important allies, who twice almost abandon him as a result.

While the Iliadic account of warrior-companionship is consistent with the “face of battle”

approach in modern historiography,110 _{the transmission of hetaireia from the Iliad to modern war} narratives is surprisingly discontinuous, given the domineering influence of Homer on European

literature in general. For hetairoi after Homer are not warriors; and fifth and fourth century war

110 _{For ‘face of battle’ work in ancient history see general introduction, with more detailed survey in Wheeler 2011.} For the psychological plausibility of Iliadic warriors see Shay 1994; for Iliadic psychology in general the most influential works remain Snell 1948, Dodds 1951, Adkins 1960, and Fränkel 1962 (none of which are now accepted uncritically). For hetaireia and ancient psychology see “Conclusions and postscript,” under “History of psychology: hetaireia from the Iliad to the Odyssey.”

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narratives say comparatively little about the experience of warriors in battle, let alone the

specific kind of affection and cohesion encoded in the Iliadic concept of hetaireia.111 _By

Thucydides’ time, war has become the business of the polis, not the warrior-band. The society of the Iliad is still treated as irretrievably primitive by many social, political, and military

historians, even as literary critics and military psychologists are beginning to rediscover the

value of the Homeric depiction of the psychology of combat.112

The post-Iliadic treatment of hetaireia is therefore important to historians as well as literary scholars. The rise of state warfare in Greece has been documented extensively, but the

role of Homer in the transition, in capacities other than point of departure or partial prototype,

has been overlooked. Where Homeric warfare appears in historical work on the rise of the

hoplite and the polis, the poem treated is usually the Iliad, and the Iliad’s narrative function is to

serve as either seed or foil for the birth of hoplite warfare. Where Homeric society is treated as

predecessor of the polis, the Iliad serves as point of departure (“primitive warrior-society”) and the Odyssey is treated as foretaste (“the oikos is the polis”).113

What happens in the Odyssey to the warriors of the Iliad is narrated explicitly; but what replaces warrior-companionship in the Odyssey is not well understood. In particular, the thematic relevance of the destruction of Odysseus’ hetairoi by their own atasthalia (Odyssey 1.7) to the historical disappearance of warrior-companionship has never been treated in depth. Since the

Odyssey actually tells how Odysseus’ hetairoi die, and then tells how Odysseus retakes his

111 _{That is, until Phillip II deliberately revives Homer-like hetaireia in fourth-century Macedon. See “Conclusions} and postscript,” under “Prospective: hetaireia and military companionship after Homer.”

112 _{Shay 1994 and 2002 are regularly cited in clinical literature on combat trauma.}

113 _{For ancient historians on Homer see general introduction; for the transition from the warrior-society of the Iliad} to the post-military society of the Odyssey see Chapter 4.

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kingdom with violence but without warrior-companions, it seems clear that the Odyssey poet is interested in telling the story of the dissolution of hetaireia and its replacement. The next two chapters sound the Odyssey for this tale.

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