Trucker v Dispatch: Greek Edition

The Five-Minute Iliad, #1

I found myself in between fiction reads and I have this beat-up old paperback of THE ILIAD on my shelf, and while I’m pretty sure I’ve read the story before, I decided to give it the slow treatment and pick through it one chapter at a time. I say “chapter” even though it’s divided into “books” but they’re the same thing here, so that’s what I’m going with.

Forethoughts

I have never locked in harder in my life.

In the summer of 2004 I was serving my mission in Tarragona, Spain. I saw posters everywhere for Troy starring Brad Pitt and a huge lineup of other big names. I put it on my watchlist and eventually saw it a few years later when I was stateside. While it had cool production values and a gorgeous soundtrack, I felt like it was lacking something more substantial.

Later when I read The Iliad for the first time all the way through, I realized what it was: the movie intentionally omitted the direct interventions of the Greek gods. They were characters with roles to play, and the mortals’ consideration of the gods’ will was crucial to the story.

There are probably other reasons why that movie didn’t become an all-time classic (I still think it’s pretty good, but flawed). In my opinion, cutting the gods out also gutted the story’s core.

Summary

We open up right after a big raid on the outskirts of Troy. King Agamemnon and his forces have laid siege to the city for nine years and they’re now in the tenth. King Priam of Troy has been holding out for a long time because his city is rich. Agamemnon wants it along with its spoils.

One of his early spoils is a woman, Chryseis, daughter of a priest of Apollo. The priest comes to Agamemnon to beg the return of his daughter. Agamemnon, who is a d**k, says “Not only hell no, but she’s gonna spend the rest of her life at the loom or in my bed.” This guy sucks.

The priest then prays to Apollo, citing his faithfulness, and asks for Chryseis’ return. Apollo physically comes down from Olympus and beats the piss out of Agamemnon’s forces for ten days straight. (This can be interpreted as a plague, but the text literally has him putting arrows into their boats.) When they can take it no more, Achilles tells Agamemnon to return the girl, saying they’ll pay him back several times over once they sack Troy.

Agamemnon, who still sucks, says “Fine, I’ll return the girl, but I’m taking your girl to replace her.” Achilles then has an argument and a schism with Agamemnon, because the king gets all the glory but the warriors do all the fighting. He almost throws hands, until Athena literally comes down from Olympus (see?) and puts her hand on his back and says “Patience. Don’t do this, at least not now. Wait.” And he does. This interaction is invisible and silent to everyone else in the room, only Achilles knows that it happens.

And so King Agamemnon returns Chryseis, takes Briseis (Achilles’ girl) to replace her, and Apollo stops raining down hot fire on their forces. Achilles goes to the sea and cries out for the loss of Briseis, because damn she was so fine, and his mother Thetis comes up from the deep to console him.

Brief note on Achilles and Agamemnon and their lineage: Agamemnon is of the line of Atreus (House Atreides, you might say…) and Achilles is of the line of Peleus, who is a lesser royal with lesser wealth, and thus his rank is subservient to Agamemnon. Achilles’ mother is a nymph, daughter of Nereus, friend of Poseidon. Not exactly a demigod, but more than human.

This also gives Achilles an indirect line to Olympus, and after he pours his heart out to his mother, she goes to Zeus and transfers Achilles’ grief to him. Zeus then bends his ear to Achilles’ will, if slightly, and starts scheming on his behalf. This is tricky because Zeus’ wife Hera is already scheming on Achilles’ behalf, via Athena, who kept the warrior from slaying Agamemnon.

We’re one book into this mess and it’s already chock full of drama and complications. I love it. Hera hates Troy and wants Agamemnon to win. She can’t control the other gods, and as we’ve seen, the different sides have the favor of different factions of Olympus. In the end, Hephaestus calms things down between Hera and Zeus, and they all get to partying, but things are tense going forward.

My Observations

The timing on this is funny. I've found myself in Achilles' position throughout my entire time as a truck driver; we do all the work, but we have to answer to dispatchers and supervisors who, in the majority of cases, have never done our job, never even held a CDL. They tend to be fat losers who only speak one language, don’t read books, and never comprehend driver feedback. Nevertheless, they outrank us, and they can really screw us over if they don't like our attitudes.

I've had my Athena Moments when dealing with these people. (I use the term "people" very lightly.) I've also had my Ares Moments, when perhaps I ought not've. There have been good supervisors in my past, and invariably they were all drivers who aged out. My particular line of driving is also heavy on manual labor and critical logistical thought patterns, neither of which these tards are capable of demonstrating. They just want their Chryseis (salary, promotions) which is brought home by drivers who kill enemies and sack strongholds (deliver high volumes of material ahead of schedule and in excellent condition.)

I expect that I shall find other analogous anecdotes as I continue to digest this story.

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Go read my boy's adventure novel FOSSIL FORCE, set in the Utah desert, featuring four friends who use ancient power armors to defend the surface from a hollow-earth invasion.