39 pages • 1 hour read
Barry StraussThe Trojan War: A New History
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2006A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapter 6Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 6 Summary: “An Army in Trouble”
Achilles and Agamemnon have divided the coalition. Thersites, who is lame and bald, ridicules Achilles and Odysseus, and the men need to laugh because a plague has swept through the Greek camp. Smoke from the funeral pyres reaches the Trojans, who rejoice bitterly. On the tenth day of the epidemic, Achilles calls a meeting on the beach, and Calchas, a prophet, pronounces that Apollo has sent the plague as punishment for capturing Chryseis, whose father is a priest of Apollo.
This presents a challenge to Agamemnon, who grudgingly agrees to return Chryseis. The divide between Agamemnon and Achilles deepens. Achilles lacks respect for Agamemnon, who is threatened by his martial prowess. What starts as insults quickly turns to threats. Agamemnon threatens to take Achilles’s mistress Briseis, and Achilles swears an oath that he and his men will fight no longer.
Agamemnon returns Chryseis, sending Odysseus, his most diplomatic subject in the return party. The army carry out purification rites. Chryseis is returned to her father, who prays to Apollo on behalf of the Greeks. A ritual sacrifice of bulls follows, on which the worshippers feast. Agamemnon sends for Briseis, who resists. Achilles allows her to be taken and weeps afterward, praying to the gods for revenge. The epidemic ends, but has resulted in a swathe of casualties, and Achilles and his Myrmidons (5% of the Greek forces) have retired from the fight.
Despite a prophecy that the Greeks will not take Troy without Achilles, Agamemnon has a dream of victory. Agamemnon calls a council and to gauge morale, he tests his men at an assembly by pretending the prophecy favored Troy. Hoping for a rallying resistance, the men instead march to the ships. Odysseus takes Agamemnon’s royal scepter and rushes amid them, restoring order. Thersites taunts Agamemnon and is reproached by Odysseus, to the men’s amusement. Odysseus reminds the men that honor demands they stay and fight, and of the prophecy that they will be victorious. Nestor seconds this and Agamemnon tells the men to prepare for war. A role call is taken of the rallied troops.
Chapter 6 Analysis
The epidemic that gripped the Greek camp might have been a disease passed from animals to humans, such as malaria, from which the region suffered until recently. The lowland area in which the camp was located was at high risk of mosquitoes. Though the disease did devastate the armies that attacked Rome, the Greeks may have had immunity.
Hittites typically blamed disease on wrathful gods. The Anatolian god of war, Iyarri, was also the god of pestilence. Apollo was worshipped as the god of mice and plague in western Anatolia, and a shrine of him stood in Chryse in 700 BCE, and possibly also in the Bronze Age. The paean (a song of praise and triumph) that the worshippers sing was a typical Hittite custom. Bronze Age nobles were believed to have the ear of the gods. Agamemnon’s investment in his dream follows a pattern of Bronze Age leaders’ prophetic dreams. The scepter symbolized kingship throughout the ancient world. Likewise, the Iliad’s famous “Catalog of the Ships” (a roll-call of the parties who comprise the Greek army) is typical of Bronze Age military enterprises.
