1. I have used M.L. West's Teubner edition of the poem (1998-2000). Except where noted, all translations are my own.

2. This must be at least one implication of the comparison of anger to smoke; see Edwards (1991), 161.

3. As Afroditi Angelopoulou reminds me, this phrase is repeated from Il. 9.553f., in Phoinix’ story of Meleagros. Phoinix has experienced the consequences of anger in his own family (Il. 9.463). These echoes in the past of Akhilleus’ present situation show how firmly rooted eris and kholos are among humankind.

4. Cf. the bT scholium on Il. 18.111: ἠρέμα παραπολογεῖται ὑπὲρ ἑαυτοῦ ὁτι ἄλλος αἴτιος τῆς ὀργῆς ϰατέστη (‘he is subtly implying in his own defense that someone else was to blame for his anger’).

5. I use eris in this connection because the word can refer to war between as well as within communities and appears with this meaning a number of times in the Iliad (Thalmann [2004], 368). Akhilleus goes on to talk about what he wants to do to the Trojans in general as well as to Hektor. The word is not used by the narrator of Akhilleus’ conflict with Hektor, possibly because the competitive dimension of eris is submerged or lacking in this case (I am grateful to Erwin Cook for this point), although Hektor uses it of his imminent single combat with Akhilleus (Il. 22.129). For eris in connection with the poem's final battle between Akhaians and Trojans, see Il. 20.48 and possibly 20.55 (depending on the reference of αὐτοῖς). Akhilleus himself uses the related verb ἐρίζειν of his fight with Asteropaios at the river (Il. 21.185).

6. Cf. the bT scholium on Il. 18.122-24: ἤδη ὑπ’ ὄψιν λαμβάνει τὰ ἀϰολουθήσοντα τοῖς πολεμίοις δεινά, ὥσπερ ἐμπιπλάμενος τῆς ἐϰ τῶν πολεμίων τιμωρίας διὰ τῆς ἐλπίδος (‘he already is envisioning the terrible things to come for the enemy, as though sated by anticipation with revenge exacted from them’).

7. For a Homeric parallel for one party to a conversation rejecting an undesired alternative to a course of action that is being discussed by simply ignoring it when the other has raised it, see Od. 7.308-33. Alkinoos offers Odysseus Nausikaa's hand in marriage and a home on Skheria as an alternative to passage home to Ithaka. Odysseus limits his reply to a delighted acceptance of the second offer.

8. Richardson (1993), for example, passes over it in silence.

9. See Elmer (2013), 151-53.

10. According to Shifferd (2011), 58, the phrase was first used in 1982 by then-Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger to describe the relations between the United States and the Soviet Union and was then adopted by the military as a definition of peace. In 1984, the National Council of Teachers of English conferred a Doublespeak Award on it. The phrase is, of course, meaningless: a permanent condition cannot be pre-anything. The confused thinking that it reflects is dangerous because it rules out serious consideration of how to establish peace and avoid war.

11. For a balanced assessment of Weil's essay in the context of her other writings, see Holoka (2002).

12. Shay (1994).

13. Alexander (2009)

14. Gittings (2012), 39-47.

15. It is symptomatic of this difference that Gittings (2012), 44, mentions Akhilleus’ wish that strife and anger perish as a passing ‘moment of introspection’ opposed to violence, whereas I read it as an insight that paradoxically opens the way to more killing by expressing a passive helplessness before anger.

16. Gottschall (2008).

17. On this word, see Collins (1998), especially his statement that in its aggressive form it ‘is stylized as a central organizing principle of the military world in Homeric poetry. Not merely one in a series, alkē defines the man who has committed his being to total war’ (14).

18. Cf. Shay (1994), 77-99.

19. I have studied these words with the aid of the TLG, and then checked my results against the various articles in the Lexikon des frühgriechischen Epos and Trümpy (1950).

20. In the Iliad only Phobos is explicitly said to be Ares’ son (Il. 13.298-300), but he and Deimos appear together several times and form a complementary pair, so that they are apparently assumed to be brothers.

21. Il. 7.26, 8.171, 15.738, 16.362, 17.627.

22. Kirk's translation (Kirk [1990], 119). I follow Kirk and depart from West in treating Κυδοιμός as a personification and capitalizing the initial letter.

23. That there is thought to be such a further dimension to reality is suggested when Athena removes the mist from Diomedes’ eyes so that he can distinguish between gods and mortals (Il. 5.127f.).

24. On the methods used in Odysseus’ speech, see Cook (2003), 180-82.

25. Unlike most editors, West prints the initial letter of this word in the lower case rather than capitalizing it. I think there is much to be said for this choice, although if we view the word as a proper name the passage is another example of one becoming possessed or ἔνθεος.

26. With characteristic astuteness, Eustathios links Hektor putting on this armor with the same act by Patroklos and by Akhilleus before him, and comments that just as Patroklos ‘entered’ the armor so Ares (or ares) entered him. See Collins’ excellent discussion of Il. 17.210-12 (Collins [1998], 17-27), which examines what it means to be possessed by a god (ἔνθεος) and discusses Eustathios’ comment.

27. The helmet's role in marking the separation between one's peacetime and wartime identities and personalities has been established in Hektor's scene with his son Astyanax (Il. 6.466-75).

28. Note Janko's comment on these lines (Janko [1992], 53): ‘Aias’ words are full of μένος, since μαιμάω, μενοινάω, ἄμοτον and μεμαώς are all from that root.’

29. Pleasure is not the only emotion the gods feel on watching mortal affairs (see Griffin [1980], 179-204, who discusses the full range of their responses as audience), but it is especially aroused in them by scenes of general combat.

30. ‘Un rayonnement de puissance’ (Chantraine [1999], 595, s.v. ϰῦδος). The participle is related to γάνυμαι, ‘gleam’ and then ‘sparkle with joy’, and also to γηθόσυνος, as in Il. 13.83, quoted above (Chantraine, s.v. γάνυμαι). Note Griffin's comment on divine and mortal laughter at the sufferings of others (Griffin [1980], 183): ‘This mirth proceeds from a delighted sense of one's own superiority’.

31. On this passage see Griffin (1980), 180f., although he does not discuss the implications of the phrase ϰύδει γαίων.

32. Richardson (1993), 87 (on Il. 21.388-90). Cf. Griffin (1980), 183.

33. On this topic see especially Lynn-George (1996).

34. Of course, we should take account of the context of these words and the rhetorical effect Menelaos is aiming at. In a boast over an enemy one has killed, it is good strategy to blame the other side. When a warrior tries to intimidate an opponent, he uses the opposite strategy. So when Hektor, facing Ajax in the duel of Book 7, boasts of his warrior prowess, he describes it with martial zest (Il. 7.233-43).

35. van Wees (1996), 58. The whole article gives a balanced assessment of Homeric warriors’ motives for fighting. See also Collins (1998), 69. An excellent example of a warrior's interest in self-preservation is the speech by Telamonian Aias at Il. 17.238-45 (he fears not so much for Patroklos’ corpse as for his own head). It may make a difference, however, that he and Menelaos are fighting to defend Patroklos’ body rather than attacking aggressively. Hektor for his part wants to gain possession of the corpse so that he can cut off the head and feed the rest to the dogs (Il. 17.125-27, 18.175-77).

36. van Wees (1996), 13-29; Allan and Cairns (2011), 138; Graziosi and Haubold (2003), on ἠνορέη, ‘manliness’ in a positive sense, as opposed to ἀγηνορίη, ‘excessive manliness’, which is considered a negative quality so that the word is used pejoratively.

37. See Deacy (2000), on Athena and Ares as each embodying the contradictory nature of war: ‘controlled and defensive violence, but also violence that is wild and aggressive’ (294).

38. Most (2003) shows how even a generous feeling like pity can be implicated with anger in the Iliad, when a warrior, pitying a comrade who has been killed, is inspired by anger against the killer and seeks revenge. Cf. Nagy's argument that in Hesiod's account of the races of mortals (W&D 106-201), the fourth race (heroes) corresponds to the positive aspects of the Homeric hero, the third (bronze) to his ‘recessive dark side’ (Nagy [1979], 151-73; quotation from 159). I think that this dark side is not very recessive, however. Cf. also Clarke (2004b), 80.

39. Why, for example, does it take Zeus's deception of Agamemnon in Book 2 to re-start the fighting when the Akhaians clearly want to go home? Why should the war not be settled by Menelaos’ defeat of Paris in Book 3?

40. Rabel (1997), 107-12.

41. See especially Redfield (1994), 99-103.

42. See Scodel (1982), 47f., who opts for a purpose clause, although I would not follow her in limiting the ‘plan of Zeus’ to his agreement with Thetis to let the Trojans win for a while in order to honor Akhilleus.

43. Cypria fr. 1 Allen; Hes. fr. 204.95-104. The phrase ‘plan of Zeus’ at Il. 1.5 will bear this more comprehensive sense as well as the one immediately pertinent to the plot of the Iliad, as its occurrence in the Cypria fragment shows.

44. Murnaghan (1997), building especially on Slatkin (1986 and 1991). Cf. also Scodel (1982). On the ambiguity of the ‘plan of Zeus’ in the Iliad proem, see also Marks (2002) and Elmer (2013), 155-59. My argument would dovetail with their view that this indeterminacy is a sign of the Iliad's absorption and supersession of epichoric traditions: a Panhellenic perspective could well entail a broad view of violence as universal because of the longer sweep of divine and human history it encompassed (see next note).

45. On these various perspectives, see especially Elmer (2013), 157f. There are, as he says, actually three perspectives: a short-term plan to aid the Trojans against the Akhaians, which corresponds to what Apollo would like the narrative of the Iliad to be (the safety of Troy); a medium-term plan for the sack of Troy, which corresponds to what Hera and Athena want the narrative to be; and a long-term plan for the destruction of Trojans and Akhaians.

46. I am not, however, reducing these identities to violence. What it means to be human is also defined by the ‘structures of care’ that Lynn-George (1996) eloquently describes. But it is also reductive of the Iliad's complex vision to ignore the violence with which these qualities, as I have said, are deeply implicated.

47. Cook (2012), xxvii-xxix, suggests a wider context: the marriage of Peleus and Thetis, the judgment of Paris, and the Trojan War are displacements onto humanity of the eris of the cosmogonic combat myth (so that eris, I would add, is at the heart of the world order).

48. On honor as one of the motivations ‘that make human beings complicit in their own destruction’, see Murnaghan (1997), 29-32. I discussed the dynamics of masculine honor in Homeric society in Thalmann (1998), 115-70.

49. Cf. Murnaghan (1997), 28. Marks (2002), 9, points out that Akhilleus’ withdrawal from battle also serves the purpose of killing heroes—Akhaians as well as Trojans.

50. Hes. Theog. 225.

51. For correspondences between Nestor's narrative of the quarrel at the end of the war and the quarrel in Iliad 1, see Elmer (2013), 42.

52. On what follows see Thalmann (1998), 178f., 231f., 283f. Cook (1999), 164-67, brings out very well the ambivalence of the revenge and within the character of Odysseus, especially with reference to the similes at the conclusion of his victory over the suitors.

53. Aiskhylos’ Oresteia will later suggest that some progress can be made against these problems in the institution of the lawcourt as a way of limiting violence in the form of reciprocal revenge. Otherwise, it recommends the usual partial remedy of avoiding internal strife and promoting civic unity by collectively turning enmity against those outside the community. Or so I read Eum. 976-87 (especially ϰαὶ στυγεῖν μιᾷ φρενί, ‘and to hate with one mind’).

54. In fact, the high value placed on cooperation seems to be a response to the problem of how a society in which violence plays a constitutive role can survive; a publicly shared ideal of internal cohesion helps check violence. Cf. Ulf's argument that the need to avoid internal strife and foster unity is primary in Homeric ethics (1990), although I would not follow him in concluding from this that the poems are informed by a ‘Demos-Ethik’ rather than an ‘Adels-Ethik’.

55. Cf., for example, Nestor's words at Il. 9.63f.: ἀφρήτωρ ἀθέμιστος ἀνέστιός ἐστιν ἐϰεῖνος / ὃς πολέμου ἔραται ἐπιδημίοο ϰρυόεντος (‘unworthy of community, law, and hearth is that man who is in love with war within the community that chills one with horror’).

56. For an example, see Elmer (2012).

57. I discussed this point at some length in Thalmann (1998), 133-40, and Thalmann (2004). One omission from my bibliography there, I now find, was Beidelman (1989), who describes athletic contests as ‘domesticated combat’ (131; I am grateful to Erwin Cook for this reference).

58. Kitts (2005).

59. Bourdieu (1977), 183-97. Cf. Žižek (2008), 1f., on the distinction between subjective and objective violence, the former being the direct, physical form of violence that I have mainly focused on here, the latter the violence exerted by social and economic formations that he argues underlie subjective violence. Conversely, ‘positive peace’ (as opposed to ‘negative peace’—the absence of war) would be the elimination of structures of inequality in world society and the equal sharing of power and wealth. See Gittings (2012), 1-3, with bibliography.

60. It is a pleasure to thank the editors, Helen Morales and Sara Lindheim, for organizing the conference at which an earlier version of this paper was presented, the Classics Department at the University of California, Santa Barbara, for its hospitality on that occasion, and the participants in the conference for a lively and helpful discussion. Warm thanks are also due to Russell Pascatore, Afroditi Angelopoulou, and Erwin Cook for reading drafts of the paper. I benefited enormously from their comments in improving it. I am of course responsible for flaws that remain.