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Between lions and men: Images of the hero in the Iliad
Clarke, Michael
Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies; Summer 1995; 36, 2; ProQuest
pg. 137

Between Lions and Men: 
Images of the Hero in the Iliad 

Michael Clarke 

I
F THE BEAST-SIMILES of the Iliad appear easy to understand, 
this is because they correspond formally to one of the sim­
plest types of comparison found in poetry of the modern 

European tradition. As a rule our own culture encourages us 
only to contrast the human world with that of animals, so that 
an image drawing them together seems trivial: we know we are 
dealing in tropes when Shakespeare calls the Black Prince a 
"lion's whelp" or when Byron says that "the Assyrian came 
down like the wolf on the fold."1 As such things are not taken as 
expressions of deep ideas, the habit of analogy makes it easy to 
assume that the beast-similes of the Iliad are likewise an external 
ornament rather than a serious part of Homer's evocation of 
the heroic age. In the past this prejudice led even to the strange 
belief that they are designed to relieve the monotony of 
repeated battles; 2 and although more recent years have seen 
many fruitful studies of the similes' role in amplifying the 
narrative,3 there is room for further inquiry into their deeper 

1 Shakespeare, Henry V i.2.109; Byron, "The Destruction of Sennacherib" 
(1815) 1. 

2 See e.g. C. M. Bowra in A. J. B. Wace and F. H. Stubbings, edd., A 
Companion to Homer (London 1963) 70; G. P. Shipp, "General Remarks on 
Similes," in his Studies in the Language of Homer (Cambridge 1972) 208-22, 
esp. 212 on "Homer's love of pictorial effect, of the picturesque scene"; cf W. 
C. Scan, The Oral Nature of the Homeric Simile (=Mnemosyne Suppl. 28 
[Leiden 1974: hereafter 'Scott']) 4-7, 31 ff. 

3 For thorough treatments of beast-similes with regard primarily to their 
form and decorative function, see esp. H. FRANKEL, Die homerischen 
Gleichnisse (G6ttingen 1921: hereafter 'Frankel') 71-86; C. MOULTON, Similes 
in the Homeric Poems (=Hypomnemata 49 [G6ttingen 1979: 'Moulton']) esp. 
139ff; Scott 58-62; S. LONSDALE, Lion, Hunting and Herding Similes in the 
Iliad (Stuttgart 1990: 'Lonsdale') passim. 

137 



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138 BETWEEN LIONS AND MEN 

meaning in relation to the central themes of the epic. 4 My aim 
here is to work from a single example to suggest that the 
symbolism of aggressive wild animals is much more than a 
matter of style, and that they playa major part in Homer's 
portrayal of the ethical and psychological problems of heroism. 
The argument will mostly concern lions, the subject of the 
most prominent similes in the group, but it will also draw on 
similes of leopards, wolves, and boars. Although these latter 
species--especially wolves-have different associations in other 
areas of Greek lore, in the similes they are portrayed in such 
similar ways that it makes sense to take them together with 
lions as a group with a single poetic role. 5 

Similes in Co-ordinated Systems 

In past generations of scholarship much effort was spent on 
trying to understand similes by isolating the precise point of 
comparison (Vergleichspunkt, tertium comparationis) at the 

4 For the approach to similes taken in this paper cf esp. M. Coffey, "The 
Function of the Homeric Simile," AJP 78 (1957) 113-32; M. W. Edwards, 
Homer, Poet of the Iliad (Baltimore 1977) 102-10; and on beast-similes in 
particular note the structuralist approach by A. Schnapp-Gourbeillon, Lions, 
heros, masques: les representations de l'animal chez Homere (Paris 1981). Of 
great interest also is G. P. Rose's study of a kindred but distinct theme in the 
Odyssey: ·Odysseus' Barking Heart," TAPA 109 (1979) 215-30. 

5 Obviously there are important differences in real life between these species 
and their different kinds of enmity with men, but in Homeric practice there is 
no discernible contrast in the way they are described and the qualities they 
embody. Two or more species are often co-ordinated as the subject of a single 
simile, so that the emphasis seems to be on the strength, courage, and 
aggression that all of them share (lion and boar: 5.782f=7.256£, 11.292-95, 
12.41£; lion, boar, and leopard: 17.20-23; wolf, leopard, and jackal: 13.103). As 
wolves hunt in packs, they alone prompt similes for large groups of warriors 
(4.471£; 13.101-06; 16.156-66, 352-57), just as a pack of jackals (8roec;) is 
contrasted with a solitary lion (11.473-84). Otherwise, however, Homeric 
wolves are described in terms of the same qualities as the other predatory 
beasts. Elsewhere in Greek lore the wolf can function as a symbol of the 
alienation of a young hero from society in something like a rite of passage into 
manhood, but I can find no sign of this association in the Homeric similes. 
On wolf and outlaw see most recently C. Sourvinou-Inwood, 'Reading' 
Greek Culture (Oxford 1991) 244-84, on the story of Lycophron at Herod­
otus 3.50-53; also J. Bremmer, "Heroes, Rituals and the Trojan War," 
StStorRelig 2 (1978) 5-38. 



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MICHAEL CLARKE 139 

centre of each.6 Still very useful is G. P. Shipp's classification 
(supra n.2) into three types of simile: simple or undeveloped 
images, those that are an extended parallel to the scene in the 
narrative, and those that that are extended independently or in 
contrast to it. As different beast-similes can easily be found that 
belong to all three types, however, it will be better to begin by 
treating every simile alike as an organic growth that can develop 
in varying directions from a more basic association of ideas. 7 

Whether the simile is a long and detailed scene or a single 
glancing comparison such as A£O)v WC;, the primary subject of 
this study should not be the mechanics of the comparison but 
the symbolic or aesthetic consonance that causes this particular 
image to be drawn in at this moment in the path of the story. 

From this angle we can begin by assigning beast-similes to one 
of two distinct varieties of Homeric simile-making. At one 
extreme lie similes that emerge from their contexts in unique 
and unexpected ways, setting the scene of the narrative in sharp 
relief: as when a warrior jumping between the prows of ships is 
compared to an acrobat leaping from horse to horse (15.679-
86), or blood dripping from a wound is compared to purple dye 
when a woman stains a piece of ivory (4.141-47), or a god 
demolishes a stockade like a child knocking down a sandcastle 
(15.361-66). The effect-what we might call the virtuosity-lies 
in the slenderness of the link between the simile image and the 
thing to which it is compared, which deepens the contrast 
between the world of the narrative and that of familiar or non­
heroic life. 8 Quite different, and requiring a different kind of 
reading, are groups of similes that repeat similar images under 
different forms, ringing the changes on a single abiding 
association of ideas. The effect is most obvious when a long 
stretch of the narrative is punctuated by a succession of themati­
cally linked similes: here, as C. Moulton has shown, 9 the 
cumulative effect can be to draw together the depictions in nar­
rative and similes in a way that transcends the formal points of 

6 The most supple of the early approaches is that of Frankel 4 and passim, 
contenting himself with the distinction between Wiestiick and Sostiick. 

7 Cf Frankel 106; Scott 7. 
8 See D. H. Porter, "Violent Juxtaposition in the Similes of the Iliad, " C] 68 

(1972) 11-21; Moulton esp. 51, 86£; for a comparative approach to this aspect of 
the poetics of simile-making, see S. Wofford, The Choice of Achilles (Palo 
Alto 1992) Ch. 1. 

9 See esp. 18-49, making the point that "the simile itself assumes the func­
tion of auxesis" (32, of 2.479). 



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140 BETWEEN LIONS AND MEN 

comparison in their individual images. 10 When we move to a 
broader level of analysis, it is worth asking whether a still 
deeper and more traditional association of ideas may be ex­
pressed when a system of kindred similes is scattered across the 
entire epic. On this level what we face is not simply an example 
of Homer's art but part of the overall view of man and the 
world that informs his storytelling. On the strengh of their 
numbers alone, the beast-similes make an excellent candidate 
for such a system: so many are they, and so varied in the links 
that they forge, that their combined effect may be not only to 
amplify the narrative but even to assimilate aspects of the 
appearance and personality of the warrior to those of the 
animal. 11 

Let me cite one example to illustrate the implications of this 
distinction between an isolated simile and one that belongs in a 
system. Three times during the battle over the dead Patroclus 
an Achaean warrior is compared to an animal: first Menelaus 
stands over him like a cow protecting her calf (17.3-6), later the 
same hero is like a lion standing over a cow that it has killed 
(17.61-69), and again Ajax defends the corpse like a lioness 
guarding her cubs (17.132-37). The first is one of those that 
work by deft comparison and overall contrast: there is an exact 
parallel between the two examples of protection of the 
powerless by the strong, but Menelaus is diametrically different 
from a cow in every other way. In the latter two examples, 
however, the potential for meaning runs far deeper, because the 
image of the lion can resonate with countless other beast­
similes articulated in other contexts. It may be helpful to 
express the contrast in the vocabulary that has been applied in 
Silk's study of associative imagery.12 Silk distinguishes the image 
in the narrative (the tenor) from the extraneous image in the 
simile (the vehicle), relating both to the neutral ground of 
shared meaning uniting them. When Homer strikingly and 
unexpectedly compares Menelaus to a cow, the neutral ground 

10 For sequences of lion-similes studied in this light see Moulton 76-86, 96-
99; Lonsdale 49-70; Schnapp-Gourbeillon (supra nA) 95-131; cf Scott 56f. 

11 Cf W. Schadewaldt, Von Homers Welt und Werk2 (Stuttgart 1951) 144-
51; B. Snell, The Discovery of the Mind (Oxford 1948) 202: "The animals in 
Homer are not only symbols, but the particular embodiments of universal 
vital forces." For a working-out of the same hunch (as it seems to be) in 
structuralist terms see Schnapp-Gourbeillon (supra nA) 1-27. 

12 M. Silk, Interaction in Poetic Imagery (Cambridge 1974) 3-26, adopting 
the terms of I. A. Richards, The Philosophy of Rhetoric (Oxford 1936). 



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MICHAEL CLARKE 141 

is narrowed down to the ideas of helplessness and protection, 
and the effect is perhaps nothing more than a startling moment 
of vivid focalisation; but every time the image of a lion is 
deployed, the neutral ground is not merely the ostensible point 
of comparison but the full range of potential points of contact 
between the images of beast and warrior. In effect, the context 
from which the simile takes its meaning is not only its im­
mediate environment in the poem, but the whole field of 
association between lions and men throughout the Iliad--or, 
indeed, in the wider tradition of martial epic that lies behind it. 

By the same token, such a simile must be read in a different 
way from one appearing in a story where the themes of the 
battlefield do not belong-as in the Odyssey, for example, 
when Odysseus is startingly compared to a hungry lion when 
he emerges naked to confront Nausicaa (Od. 6.130-36). There 
the juxtaposition of man and beast seems to have a dislocating 
or even comic effect. 13 In the Iliad, on the contrary, as different 
realisations of the same comparison can be seen as assimilated 
into a single system, they can be taken together as exyressing a 
fundamental correspondence between the identities 0 warriors 
and beasts. This means that we should ask not only how they 
arise from the narrative but also how they reflect back upon it 
and deepen its significance in ways that cannot be done in the 
plainer language of straightforward description. Our approach, 
then, will be to regard these similes not as isolated creations but 
as instances of a single item, or group of items, in Homer's 
symbolic repertoire. 

Before going any further, however, it must be said that there 
is a danger in treating a set of related images as a co-ordinated 
whole. To take a famous example, Whitman 14 showed that 
throughout the Iliad war and the warrior are associated with fire 
on many different levels of figured language and narrative, of 
which similes are only the most explicit. Warriors struggle like 
blazing fire, 8EJ.ta~ 1tUPO~ ai8ollEvOLO (11.596=13.673=18.1; 
similarly 17.366); a hero in full career is compared to a forest fire 
(11.155-59); Hector surges into the fray like a flame, q>Aoyi 

\3 Compare the even more startling simile where Penelope, turning in 
thought from one desperate prospect to another, is compared to a lion looking 
for a way to escape from a massed party of hunters (Od. 4.787-94); see further 
W. T. Magrath, "The Progression of the Lion-Simile in the Odyssey," C] 77 
(1981-82) 205-12. 

\4 C. WHITMAN, Homer and the Heroic Tradition (Cambridge [Mass.] 1958: 
hereafter 'Whitman') 128-53. 



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142 BETWEEN LIONS AND MEN 

El1C£AO<; 'HcpaicrtotO (17.88); a tongue of flame rises from 
Achilles' head when he stands on the trench defying the 
Trojans (18.205-14); it is a sign of dangerous fury when eyes or 
even armour flash like fire (e.g. 1.104, 19.16£)); and in an 
extended simile describing Hector in battle, raging fire and the 
presence of Ares are still more closely linked (15.605-08): 

lluivE'tO o· Ox; Ot' "AP11<; EyxEO,[{UA.O<; 11 OA.OOV '[{up 
OUPE<H lluiV11"Cat, ~ueE11<; tv "CapqlEOLV ;)1...11<;, 
UCPA.Qt0Il0<; Of ,[{EPI. o"COI!U yiyvE"Co, no OE oi OOOE 
A.a1ln€O~V /3'A.oouplll0W \)1t' OcppUOW .... 15 

Clearly it makes good sense to stress the single association of 
ideas that underlies these scattered examples, and to use it as 
part of an analysis of what both war and fire mean in the poetic 
landscape; 16 but at the same time the analysis can become vague 
or whimsical if it is pushed too far. 17 It is not hard to find images 
relating to fire that do not seem to partake of this connexion at 
all-as, for example, when Rumour personified is said to 
"burn" ("Ocrcra 8d5i)n, 2.93);18 and by the same token it is not 
guaranteed that all the warlike associations of fire must be 
present in the same way every time that the two are associated 
explicitly. 

In short, there is no universal meaning in the symbol, no 
simple equation beween Homeric war and Homeric fire, and 
we would go astray if we read one or other mention of fire in 
the light of other passages with which it has no real link. 
Nonetheless it remains clear that some symbolic unity does 
underlie the first set of passages we cited, and that we can gain a 
real insight into this unity by comparing its scattered manifes­
tations. The lesson is that what we have seen is not part of a 
fixed vocabulary of signs with accepted and unambiguous 
values: instead, it is a potential association whose every mani­
festation makes sense only on its own terms, by suggestion and 
not by statement. The symbol cannot be defined in straight-

15 "He raged, like when spear-brandishing Ares or destroying fire rages in 
the hills, in the glades of a deep wood, and froth appeared around his mouth, 
and his eyes blazed under his shaggy eyebrows." 

16 Cf M. N. Nagler's highly abstract theory of the "preverbal Gestalt" in 
his Spontaneity and Tradition: A Study in the Oral Art of Homer (Berkeley 
1974) 64-130; W. G. Thalmann, Conventions of Form and Thought in Early 
Greek Epic Poetry (Baltimore 1984) esp. 75ff, 113-56. 

17 This danger is suggested by Whitman 153; see also Silk (supra n.12) 63-70. 
18 Cited by Whitman (336 n.4) as a problematic exception. 



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MICHAEL CLARKE 143 

forward terms, and in our own analysis a meaning that is 
discernible in one passage must not be forced willy-nill), onto 
others: so that in the present discussion the cumulative effect of 
the system of beast-similes must be balanced against the organic 
independence of every member of it. This means that the best 
way to proceed will be to pinpoint our investigation on a single 
simile by trying to evoke its full depth of meaning in the light of 
others in the system. After doing this we will finally be able to 
explore how the symbolism deployed in that simile plays a vital 
part in Homer's portrayal of a single character, namely Achilles. 

Achilles' Rhetorical Simile: "Between Lions and Men" 

The simile on which we will rest our argument is one that 
Achilles himself expresses at a high point in the episode of his 
final duel with Hector. The narrative has hitherto been 
especially rich in similes of birds and beasts, crystallising images 
both of Achilles' glamour and his lust for vengeance, but at this 
point it is not in the narrative proper but in the hero's words 
that the beasts appear. Hector, turning at least to face his foe, 
has asked for an agreement that the victor in the combat will 
give back the body of the slain to his family for burial. Such an 
arrangement is elsewhere (7.76-91) treated as customary before 
single combat, but Achilles now refuses (22.261-66): 

"E1C'top, ~Yi ~Ol, aAao't£, ouvl1~oouva.c; ayop£u£' 
ci><; oine Eon AfOUOl KUt avopaolV opKm mOla, 
ouoe AUKOl 't£ Kut apv£~ o~ocppovu eu~ov EXouolV, 
aA'AiJ. KUKU CPPOVEOUOl OlU~1t£pe~ aUYiAololV, 
Ox; OUK EO't' E~e KU{ O£ qIlAYi~£V(ll, oust n vro'i.v 
OPlCla. eocrov'tut .... 19 

Achilles equates his implacable hostility towards Hector with 
two paradigms of enmity that immediately recall beast-similes 
of the kind seen throughout the Iliad. Here in the hero's high 
rhetoric the parallel is extended almost to the level of a parable, 
and its emphatic and negative structure is peculiar: where a 
similar comparison in the narrative might serve only to 

19 -Hector, you wretch, do not speak to me of compacts: just as there are no 
oaths to be trusted between lions and men, nor do wolves and sheep have like­
thinking minds, but always have hostile intent against each other-even so 
there can be no friendly treatment between me and you, and we will make no 
oaths. " 



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144 BETWEEN LIONS AND MEN 

juxtapose the images of beasts and humans with each other, 
here Achilles pushes the association to mark out three examples 
of the absurd or the impossible. The anaphora with wr" suggests 
that the beasts' antagonism is being brought into especially close 
parallel with his and Hector's situation, with an exact cor­
respondence between the three pairs of opponents: lions and 
men, wolves and sheep, Achilles and Hector. This encourages 
us to read the simile with the view that the lion and the wolf 
correspond to Achilles and the man and the sheep to Hector.2o 

Crucially, this means that the point of comparison is pinned on 
psychology and social mores as well as action: wolves and lions 
do not feel affection or make contracts in the way that normal 
people do, and this is the relationship in which Achilles stands 
to the man at this feet. 

The speech can be compared with others where a warrior 
cuts short an idle conversation before a fight and uses a simile 
to express his impatience. In the heat of battle Meriones wants 
to borrow a spear from Idomeneus, and when the two start to 
brag Idomeneus breaks off impatiently, "Let us no longer stand 
around talking like fools" (vTl1tUnOl wr", 13.292); similarly, during 
Aeneas' aristeia he and Achilles boast of their ancestry and 
prowess, and Aeneas ends in the same way, "Let us not ramble 
on like fools" (again VTl1tUnOl, 20.244), comparing their exchange 
to an idle women's squabble (20.251-55) and urging that the 
fight begin; and Hector addresses Achilles in the same vein as 
they boast before their first abortive duel (20.431-37). But 
Achilles' image of beasts and men cuts deeper than any of these 
others. If he had said only (for example) that Hector was as 
terrified of him as a hind would be of a lion, then the implica­
tions of the simile would be less striking: the contrast between 
predator and prey is a standard one in speeches, where a 
warrior compares those he fights, or those he sees, to brave or 
cowardly beasts (e.g. 11.383,13.101-06,17.20-23). In Achilles' 
case, however, the refusal is made in terms of his own per­
sonality rather than the fixed codes of warrior society. His 
words do not merely characterize the immediate situation or 
the addressee: instead, they present the speaker in a startlingly 
new aspect. 

As such the simile is peculiarly characteristic of Achilles, who 
of all characters in the Iliad is the one who deploys language in 

20 Cf Eust. Il. 1269a: opa 00<; IlEYaA.o<ppOvOl<; Emnov 'AXtndl<; dKu1;n 00<; 
M:ov'ta 1tpo<; c'ivopa Kat 00<; A:UKOV 1tpo<; apva. 



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MICHAEL CLARKE 145 

the most figured and creative way. He lS the speaker par 
excellence as well as the greatest fighter (Jlu8wv 'tE [Hl'tTtPu '" 
1tPTl1('tTtpa. 'tE EPYWV, 9.443). Here, extending a traditional image 
to reveal something about his own personality and his attitude 
to human relationships, he is using rhetoric in his characteristic 
fashion, making heightened language the servant of heightened 
self-awareness and self-exposition. 21 As a rule other characters 
do not use similes about their own feelings, but Achilles does so 
repeatedly. In his great speech of self-pity to the Embassy, 
Achilles likens himself fighting and suffering for Agamemnon 
to a mother bird suffering in the search for titbits for her chicks 
(9.323-27; see Moulton 100f). As he joins in his mother's lament 
over his own approaching death, he cries out equally vividly 
against strife and against the bitter rage (XOAOC;) that "rises up in 
the breasts of men like smoke, sweeter than dripping honey" 
(18.107-11). Fighting Scamander he fears that he will be killed 
not by Hector-a death worthy of himself-nor by Paris, as his 
mother had foretold, but drowned like a wretched swineherd 
swept away by a river in spate (21.273-83). If the beast-simile 
belongs with this introspective group, we have added reason to 
expect that it may be markedly significant as an indication of 
Achilles' state of mind, and as such that it may be bringing out 
the most profound depth of meaning associated with the 
imagery of beasts. To understand him fully, then, we must first 
set his words against the full range of possible associations 
exhibited in beast-similes throughout the Iliad, returning finally 
to consider the place of this image in his progress from the 
beginning of the Wrath to the killing of Hector and its after­
math. 

The Life of Beasts and Warriors 

First, we must do away with any assumption that men and 
beasts belong in different departments of creation, or that a 
resemblance between the two must be vague and superficial. 
The association between them begins with physical appearance: 
in particular the demeanour of the warrior recalls that of the 
beast, as for example Ajax "gazing like a beast" (rrurr'tl)vuc; ... 

21 R. P. Martin, The Language of Heroes (Ithaca 1989) 146-230, esp. 225ff; J. 
Griffin, "Homeric Words and Speakers," filS 106 (1986) 50-57; P. Friedrich 
and ]. Redfield, "Speech as a Personality Symbol: The Case of Achilles," 
Language 54 (1978) 263-88, esp. 277ff. 



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146 BETWEEN LIONS AND MEN 

e'Tlpi tOtlCW<;, 11.546-57), as he proudly withdraws from the fray, 
and the lion's eyes are blazing (YAClUlCtOWV, 20.172), like those of 
a fell warrior. Menelaus looks or turns in different directions 
like a lion (tV'tP07tClAt~O/lEVO~ &~ 'tE A\.e; Tti.iyEVEtO~, 17.109). But 
for our purposes it is more significant that Homer's beasts have 
the same emotional and cognitive apparatus as men. n The beasts 
have lCPClOl'Tl, ~top, eU/lO~, and CPPEVE~, and they carryon their 
psychological life just as men would do. The lion's heart or 
mind "bears itself wth strength" (eU/lO~ tv\. <J'tTtew<Jt 7tEP\, <JetVEt 
PAE/lWlVEt, 17.22)23 and a lion can be ordered to an act of 
bravery by its heart (lCEAE'tClt OE £ SU/lOe; ayftvwp, 12.300). The 
range of emotions given to them and to animals in general is 
wide, however unsophisticated: courage, rejoicing, desire, 
fear.24 The beast has a mind full of dominating force (lCPClt£p­
ocppwv, 10.184); it goes into combat thinking proud thoughts 
(/lEYCl CPPOVEWV, 11.325, 16.824), or with dire or destructive 
thoughts (OAOOCPPWV, 15.630, 17.21); like the warrior it is proud 
or manly in spirit (ayftvoPl eU/lWl, 24.42);25 and conversely an 
especially formidable hero such as Heracles or Achilles has a 
lion's heart (eU/lOAEOV'tCl, 5.639, 7.228). 

The implication is that for Homer the mental and emotional 
state of the fighting animal can be assimilated to that of the 
fighting man more closely than would ever be possible in a 
culture like our own. A particularly revealing simile describes 
Menelaus' lust for battle before his duel with Paris (3.23-28): 

~ 't£ AECOV exap" jleyaACOl btl croojlan KUPcrW;, 
£uprov ~ fAacpov K£paov ~ a:yplOv atya 
7t€lVaCOV' jlaAa yap 't£ Ka't£cr8in, £l1t£p av atl'tov 

22 For full lists see Lonsdale 33-38, 42-46, and the tables at 133ff; also H. 
Rahn, "Das Tier in der homerischen Dichtung," Studium Generale 20 (1967) 
97-105. 

23 ~AqLEaivOl must be translated vaguely, as here, because neither context 
nor etymology allows us to pin down its meaning. What matters in the 
present discussion is that the verb is used exclusively of beasts (see also 12.42, 
17.135) and of warriors in battle (8.337, 9.237; extended to Hephaestus 
engaging in the fray, 20.36). 

24 For negative emotions as the pivot of beast-similes note esp. Ajax with­
drawing from battle, "grieving in heart" ('tEnT}~Evo~ ~'tOp) like a lion with 
'tE'UT}O'U e'\l~iill (11.555f); similarly Menelaus withdraws from Patroclus' corpse 
like a lion whose "heart coagulates as frost" (~'top 1tux,vou'tat, 17.109-13; cf 
Hes. Op, 360); and Antilochus fears ('tPE(JE) like a predatory animal driven 
away from a farmstead (15.585-90). 

25 On the meaning of a'f11vrop see n.43 infra, 



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MICHAEL CLARKE 

cn:U(OV'tal 'taXEE'; 'tE K1.>VE'; 8aAEpoi 't' aL~T}oi· 
Ox; ExapT} MEvEAao.; 'AAE~avOpov 8EOnOEa 
:"All... ~ • s: ' 26 
""",all.fLOlOLV luON ...• 

147 

Here the innermost similarity between man and beast is the 
emotion named by xaipoJlat. and hence it amounts to what 
Homer calls XapJlTl,27 the exultation of the rush to combat or of 
battle. In this way the lion stands for the warrior's most violent 
and warlike mood-in other words, for his state of mind when 
he behaves in the way that defines him as a hero. 

This leads us to another, more subtle aspect of the link 
between beasts and warriors. This is the quality of (lA, KTt. 
fearlessness coupled with physical strength, which is the kernel 
of battle-virtue. It is aAKTt that makes one a true man, as in the 
repeated exhortation to hard-pressed comrades: aVEp£s £aL£. 
<piAot, JlvTtaaa8£ Of 8ouptoos aAK11s.28 In the same way it is the 
source of the beast's relentless aggression: so that when a 
fighter is compared to a beast the turning-point can be that each 
is aAKt 7t£7tot8ws ("trusting in valour": see 5.299, 13.471, 17.61, 
17.728).29 Crucially, aAKTt is the quality that makes man or beast 
willing to risk death in battle. For example, when Agenor's 
heart, his ~'top aAKlJlOV (21.571£), prompts him to pit himself 
against Achilles in defiance of the odds, his state of mind is 
likened to that of a leopard confronting an armed huntsman 
(21.576-80): 

d m:p yap <p8aIlEvo,; IllV 11 Oll'taO"T}l tlE ~aAT}lOlV, 
aAAa 'tE Kat 7tEpt OOUPl 7tmapIlEVT} OUK a7tOA~yn 
aAKi1.;. 7tpiv y' tlE ~UIl~A~IlEval tlE OallTtval" 

26 «As when a lion rejoices after coming upon a great carcass, when it has 
found a horned deer or a wild goat, and it is ravenous; and the lion devours it 
greatly even if nimble dogs and flourishing young men try to drive it off: so 
Menelaus rejoiced when with his eyes he saw godlike Paris." 

27 Note also the fighting lion who attacks with Xapf.!TJ (16.823) in a simile 
describing Hector as he attacks Patroclus; compare a description of warriors 
rejoicing in high fury (13.82): Xapf.!Tjt Y'186crtlVOl. 'tTJV crqnv 8ro<; (f.!~aAr eUf.!rol. 
It does not affect our discussion that the noun can also reter to the event of 
battle rather than to a psychological state. On Xapf.!TJ see J. Latacz, Zum 
Wortfeld 'Freude' in der Sprache Homers (Heidelberg 1966) 30-38. 

28 "Be men, my friends, and call to mind your surging valour": 6.112=8.174= 
11.287=15.487,734=16.270=17.185. 

29 Other references for the aA~ or UAKlf.!OV ~'top of beasts: 4.253; 16.157, 753; 
17.111,281; 20.169. 



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148 BETWEEN LIONS AND MEN 

Ox; 'Av't~vop~ v1<><; ci-yCXVOl> olOC; 'AYJlvrop, 
Ollie e9EM:V <pEuynv, ltplv ltnp~crcxn' 'AXlAl1oC; .... 3o 

Man and beast are alike in deciding to court death in the 
exercise of valour. In the same way, when Sarpedon's eUfl6~ 
orders him to advance across the stockade in peril of his life, he 
is compared to a lion whose eU!l6~ orders it to risk death in 
quest of food in the sheepfolds (12.299-308). Here it is 
especially significant that he explains his act on the grounds that 
there is no escape from death, so that it must be better to seek 
glory than to shrink from the fray (12.322-28). The beast-simile 
becomes a symbol of the psychological trait on which the 
tragedy of the Iliad hinges: the heroic temperament and the 
pursuit of glory lead inevitably towards death. From here our 
argument can begin to take a more definite shape: and we must 
explore this theme further before we can pin down the form it 
takes in the rhetorical simile with which we began, where 
Achilles dares to identify his own state with that of a lion or a 
wolf. 

Underlying <lA,Kit is !lfVO~, the force of personality that makes 
the hero fight in defiance of the odds. 31 It is the source of his 
virtue, but it is also dangerous, and this inherent ambiguity is a 
deep-seated theme in the epic. 32 !lEVO~ can drive the warrior to 
such an extreme of passion that it shades into !lavia, un­
controlled frenzy: J3 the etymological closeness between the 

30 -Even if the huntsman is first to strike or thrust at the leopard, although 
it be transfixed by a spear it does not abandon its valour, before it either joins 
combat with him or is overcome itself: just so wonderful Antenor's son, bright 
Agenor, refused to flee before pitting himself against Achilles." On this simile 
see Lonsdale 36ff. 

3\ In what follows I assume that the meaning of the verb ~t~ovu, with the 
participle ~EI1Uc.O~, is co-ordinated with that of the noun ~vo~. 

32 On the antiquity of I1tvo~ as defining a theme in the prehistory of Greek 
epic, see R. Schmitt, Dichtung und Dichtersprache in indogermanischer Zeit 
(Wiesbaden 1967) 103-22, with extensive Vedic parallels. 

33 l1uivOl1Ul is built on the zero-grade of the root *men-, as *mn-i-ole > 
l1uw-: see P. Chantraine, Dictionnaire etymologique de la langue grecque 
(Paris 1960-80) s.v.; H. Frisk, Griechisches etymologisches Worterbuch (Heid­
elberg 1960-70) s.v. Semantically, the crux is that cognates in other languages 
refer simply to thought in the broadest sense (e.g. Latin mens), but in 
Homeric Greek the family represented by ~tvo~, ~t~ovu, and l1uivol1at 
clusters around aggressive or furious mental activity in different degrees. 

It could be argued, of course, that the etymological link between ~tvo~ and 
l1uivo~ul is irrelevant to the Homeric realities. The best answer to this is that 
Helenus the prophet acknowledges the connexion in meaning explicitly when 



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MICHAEL CLARKE 149 

two words underlies a thematic connexion that reappears in the 
disasters that face those who push their battle-fury too 
far-notably Diomedes, PatrocIus, and Hector, as well as 
AchiIIes.34 In this context it is especially ominous that the beast 
is an eater of raw flesh, ro~ocp6.yo<;, something that civilised 
Homeric man must not be. 35 At the beginning of the Doloneia, 
an episode where Diomedes and Odysseus will behave with 
unusual brutality, there is a strange simile in which the blood­
thirsty savagery of lions spills over into the narrative scene 
(10.297f): 

~UV p' tjlfV ~ tE AEOVtf OUO) OlCX VUKta jlEAalVuv 
iijl q>6vov, iiv VEICUU~, OlU t' EV'tEa Kat jlEAaV Uljla.36 

Pursuing this image, is there something bestial or inhuman 
about a slaughtering warrior whose hands and feet are bloody as 
a lion, CXiIlCX'tOEl<; w<; 'tl<; 'tE AEWV (17.541f)? Simply to assert that 
might be to go beyond what Homer actually says. Evidence in a 
broadly similar direction, however, can be adduced from 
another passage, where a lion-simile is deployed negatively to 
symbolise overweening arrogance. Like Achilles' simile, it 
appears in the rhetoric of an emphatic speech. In the battle over 
the dead PatrocIus, the young Euphorbus orders Menelaus to 
fall back before him, and the older man mocks this rash 
insolence: 

ZEU 1tUtfP, ou jlEV KUAOV i)1tEP~tOV Euxnuua8m· 
OUt' o;)v 1tUPOOAlO~ toacrov jlEvO~ OUtE A.EOVtO~ 

he describes Diomedes' dangerous extreme of passion in his onslaught on the 
Trojans: 

... UM·oOcl..illv 
lLaivE'tctl, oUO( 'ti~ Ot ouva't(lllLtvo~ lcro<papi/;Elv 

(6.1 OOf, cited by Chantraine s. 'tI.) 
34 This is not the place to discuss the fascinating possibility that fli1Vt~, the 

name of the vengeful anger at the centre of the Iliad, may belong both 
thematically. and etymologically to the J.liv~ family. See most recently L. C. 
Muellner, "Etymologie et semantique de MHNn:," in F. Utoublon, ed., La 
langue et les textes en Grece ancien (Paris 1992) 122-35. 

J5 See 5.782, 7.256, 11.479, 15.592, 16.156f; similarly in the Odyssey Poly­
phemus is like a lion when he devours Odysseus' men (9.292f). 

36 "They stepped out to go like a pair of lions through the black night, 
through the slaughter, through the corpses, through the weaponry and black 
blood." 



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150 BETWEEN LIONS AND MEN 

ou'te cru~ KUnpOU OAo6<ppOVO~, ot 'te ~qW'tO~ 
9u~o~ Evl. Onl9ecrm nepl. 09EVel ~Ae~ealVn, 
oocrov Oweou ute~ Eii~~eAial <ppoVEoumv Y 

Menelaus suggests that there is something sinister or even 
hubristic in being like a lion or a boar: the beasts are symbols of 
the excess of J1£VOC; that characterises the young and the 
reckless. Here we can begin to isolate the essential ambiguity of 
the wild animal's personality: he has the strength and power that 
characterise the hero, but he lacks the circumspection and re­
straint that should make a mortal man aware of his limitations. 

This suggests that wide thematic resonances may be brought 
into play in all the many places where we find a beast-simile 
applied to a warrior who has taken on extraordinary J1EVOC;.38 
Where this marks a change in his mood that will eventually lead 
to folly, it must be worth asking whether the image of the lion, 
boar, or wolf indicates that he is imperilling himself through 
excessive violence. For example, a strikingly extended lion­
simile marks the moment when Athene gives Diomedes the 
rush of supernatural J1EVOC; (5.121-32) that will eventually lead 
him to overstep the mark by pitting himself against the gods, 
and the fury itself is the pivot (5.136-43): 

o~ 'tme ~lV 'tPI.~ 'tocrcrov EAev ~EVO~, w~ 'te AEovm, 
OV pu 'te nOl~"v Uyprol En' dponoKol~ O'{£om 
xpaucrTjl ~EV 't' aUAll~ lmepuAIl£vOv ouo£ oallucrcrTjl ... 
Ox; ~eJ!a~ Tproecrcrl J!lYTl Kpa'tepo~ ~lOJ!TtOTj~.39 

Here, however, we face the problem of the inherent ambiguity 
of symbols that we touched on earlier: nothing in the way this 
simile is expressed suggests that the lion-like quality of his J1EVOC; 

is precisely what will lead to the excessive aggression of his 
assault on Aphrodite and Ares. Similarly Agamemnon's aristeia 
in Book 11 is an episode full of unusually extreme violence, but 
among the five lion-similes that punctuate it (11.113-21, 129f, 

37 -Father Zeus, it is disgraceful to boast excessively. Not even the leopard or 
the lion or the dire-minded boar, whose heart in its breast bears itself with 
most strength of all-not even they have as much fury as is in the minds of 
the sons of Panthus with their fine ash spears." 

38 See 5.136-43, 161-64; 5.299-302; 10.482-88; 13.198-202; 15.275-78 (with 
262),592-95,630-36 (with 603-10; see n.54 infra); 18.161-64 with 155f. 

39 -Then three times as much fury seized him: like a lion which a shepherd 
attacks in the field among the woolly-fleeced sheep, after it has leapt over the 
enclosing wall, but he cannot overcome it ... with just such fury did 
conquering Diomedes surge among the Trojans." 



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MICHAEL CLARKE 151 

172-78, 238ff, 292-95) there is only one (11.238ff) that mentions 
the beast's Il€vo<; at all, and nothing in the similes or the 
narrative proper suggests hubris or inhumanity in the king's 
demeanour. In themselves, these examples allow us only to 
infer that the image of the beast encapsulates the same 
ambiguity as docs the word Il€vo<;, ranging from heroic violence 
to something we can almost call madness. 

There are two crucial similes, however, which identify the 
beast's mental state with the self-destructive recklessness of a 
warrior who has gone beyond the bounds of mortal self­
restraint. The first comes at the climactic moment when 
Hector is about to break through the Achaean stockade and 
lead his men to burn the ships.40 He is in full career, fighting like 
a storm (EllapVo.'W 100<; a€A.A.l1l, 12.40), as he urges his horses 
across and bids his men follow (12.41-46): 

Ox; 0' at' av EV 'tE KUVWcn Ko.l. avopaol 91lPEU'tlll0l 
Kan:pLO-; Tte Mrov O'tpECjlE'to.l 09EVEi: PAE~WlVroV' 
Ot OE 'tE n:upYT\OOV OCjlEo.-; o.u'tou-; ap'tuVo.v'tE-; 
aV'tlOV to'to.V'to.l Ko.l. aKov'tl~OUOl 90.~El(X-; 
o.iXI.ux-; EK XElProv . 'tOU 0' ou n:O'tE KUOaAl~ov K1lP 
'tappEt ouOe CjlOPEl'to.l, aYT\Voplll OE ~LV EK'tO' .... 41 

The crossing of the trench will eventually lead to Patroclus' 
foray to drive the Trojans back, and his death will make it 
inevitable that Hector will be killed in turn by Achilles. Later, 
after he has crossed the trench, Hector glories in his brief 
success without realising that according to Zeus' plan he will 
eventually be discomfited: Zeus gives him his hour of glory 
because he is short-lived (lllvuv8a8LO<;) and Athene is already 
preparing his destruction (15.605-14). In this light the moment 
of the crossing can be seen as the fatal mistake that brings about 
Hector's ruin. 42 The narrative moment and the image in the 
simile mirror each other exactly, both physically and psycho­
logically. Hector goes up and down the Trojan ranks, just as the 
beast moves up and down along the press of men; they are 

40 Note the perceptive reading of this simile by Moulton 47 n.54. 
41 "Like when a boar or a lion turns back and forth in the midst of hounds 

and huntsmen, bearing itself with strength, and they stand against it in wall­
like array, supporting each other; and they thrust out thronging spears from 
their hands; and its glorious heart does not fear or feel terror, and its own 
heroism kills it .... " 

42 See J. M. REDFIELD, Nature and Culture in the Iliad (Chicago 1975: here­
after 'Redfield') 143-53. 



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152 BETWEEN LIONS AND MEN 

terrified by his mood; and Hector is being led into mortal 
danger by his overweening confidence, just as the boar or lion's 
fury will destroy it when it hurls itself at the armed huntsmen. 
The key words linking the two scenes are UYTlVOPlTl Of ~tV EK't<X : 
it is because the beast is excessively proud or heroic (UYIlvcop) 
that its ferocity will lead to its death. 43 The psychological point, 
and even the form of words that expresses it, correspond 
exactly to Andromache's earlier warning to her husband at their 
parting: OUtJlovu:, <peion <JE 'to <Jov JlfVO<; (6.407: "your own fury 
will destroy you "). 

A parallel simile appears when Patroclus' success against the 
Trojans has brought him into similar folly, so that he has 
forgotten Achilles' warning that he must not push the fight too 
far or try to storm Troy alone, lest he usurp the other's glory or 
arouse divine anger (16.87-96). He has now kiIled Hector's 
charioteer, with overweening taunts, and he is about to face 
Hector over the corpse (16.751-54): 

ffi<; elmov E1tt KEPPlOVllt ~pco'( PEP~KEt 
o1j.1u AEOV'tOC; Elcov, OC; 'tE o'tU0j.10UC; KEpU'iCcov 
EPAll'to 1tpbc; oTilOoc;, Eft Of j.1lV mAEoEv aA~, 
ffi<; E1tt KEPptOVllt, nU'tpOKAEEC;, d.Aoo j.1q.luroC;.44 

Patroclus' valour has led him to face an enemy beyond the 
measure of his strength, just as the courage that makes the lion 
brave enough to risk death is here what brings about his ruin 
(Ell Of ~tV WAtcn:v UAKll). The fatal flaw in beast or hero is that 
his defining strength, passion, and courage is something that 
threatens to destroy him. In short, these similes sum up the link 
between glory and death. 

43 Whatever the original etymological basis of uyljvrop. in Homeric usage it 
seems to be treated as if it were the intensive uyu. prefixed to the stem seen 
in t\vopt" ("manhood" or "manly courage"): see Chantraine (supra n.33) s.'V.), 
Literally, then, to be uynvrop is to abound in that quality, potentially to the 
point of excess. This is well illustrated when Diomedes expresses the idea that 
Achilles' pride and anger are implacable: he is "especially uvljvrop" and has 
been now -driven to greater Urrlvopf,," (9.699f). 

44 "So saying he stepped over the warrior Cebriones, with the bearing of a 
lion, which has been wounded in the breast while ravaging the farmsteads, 
and its own valour destroys it: so, Patroclus, did you leap onto Cebriones in 
fury. " 



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MICHAEL CLARKE 153 

Achilles' Fury and Self-Destruction 

With this in mind we return to our starting-point, the simile 
where Achilles equates himself with a lion or a wolf, implacably 
cut off from Hector as the beast is cut off from men or sheep. 
By now it will be clear that in this image Achilles is associating 
himself not merely with strength and courage but also with a 
state of extreme mental ferocity that implies a tendency 
towards self-destruction. So far we have seen this theme either 
suggested or made explicit in the poet's voice or in the way 
Homer's characters describe each other: what makes Achilles' 
simile uniquely ominous is that he is describing himself through 
an image with such dark associations. In effect he is glorying in 
an extreme of heroism-IlEvo~, aAxfj, o:Yllvoptll-that ap­
proaches the suicidal. A patriotic hero might accept death as the 
necessary price of saving his country-"it is no shame for him 
to die defending his country, for his wife and children are 
saved, and his home and farm unharmed," as Hector declares 
(15.497ff)-but Achilles embraces death in his lion-like mood 
with no object beyond the sating of his own passion. To 
understand the full significance of this, we must see it as part of 
the inner transformation that he has undergone in the course of 
the Wrath,45 as he moves towards the inexorable prospect of his 
own death.46 

In the course of the Wrath Achilles has become ever more 
deeply isolated. In the quarrel with Agamemnon we saw him in 
pride and anger; in his speeches to the Embassy we saw this 
mood developed into pity for himself and his mortal soul, 'I''\)X~ 
(9.321f, 408f); now with the death of Patroclus his pride 
demands that Hector should die and his fate, equally, demands 
that his own death will follow, as his mother reveals to him: 
a:\)'ttl(a. yap 'tOl E1tEl'ta. IlES' "El('topa. 1t6'tllo~ ho'illo~ (18.96: 
"Death is ready for you, immediately after Hector"). In the 

45 This is not the place to enlarge on the problems of the "hamartia of 
Achilles ft and his supposed ·purification ft in the later books: see esp. o. 
Taplin, Homeric Soundings (Oxford 1990) 194-201; Redfield 203-23; C. Segal, 
The Theme of the Mutilation of the Corpse in the Iliad (=Mnemosyne Supp!. 
17 [Leiden 1971]) 9-17; Whitman 181-220. 

46 The clearest synoptic statement of the early part of this causal chain is by 
Zeus to Hera, 15.53-77, echoed in the poet's voice at 15.592-614. On the 
prophecies that punctuate it see M. W. Edwards in The Iliad: A Commentary 
V (Cambridge 1991) ad 17.404-11 and 18.85f, with further references. On the 
general theme of heroes facing their own deaths see R. Renehan, "The 
Heldentod in Homer: One Heroic Ideal," CP 82 (1987) 99-116. 



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154 BETWEEN LIONS AND MEN 

earlier episodes Achilles had already known that he would die at 
Troy,47 but only since the death of Patroclus has he seen the 
inevitable link between the three deaths;48 so it is that in 
mourning Patroclus he laments his own end,49 and in seeking 
Hector's death he also hastens his own. 50 Not only is he brave 
enought to suffer death, he accepts it gladly in return for the 
satisfaction of his own anger: airtllm 'tE8vail1v, E1td OUK ap' 
EIlEAAoV haipon/ K'tElVOIlEVOll E1taIlUV<Xl (18. 98f: "Let me die at 
once, since I could not defend my friend when he was killed "). 
This embracing of death is the key to his alienation from human 
society throughout his onslaught on the Trojans. He makes this 
link himself when Lycaon begs to be ransomed: he refuses to 
spare him not merely as part of his vengeance for Patroc1us but 
also because his own approaching end makes life meaningless 
(21.106-13): 

aAM, q>iA~, eave KUt au· 'tiT] OAOq>upwt oU'too.;; 
Ka19uvE KUt ITU'tPOKAOS, 0 1tEp aEo 1tOAAOV CqleiVOOV. 
OUK opUat.; olo.; KUt tyro KUA.6.; 'tE IlEYUS 1E; 
1tu'tpoS 0' elll' ayu90lo, 9Ea Of IlE yeivu'to IlTJU1P, 
aAA' tm 'tot KUt EIlOt 9uvu'to.; KUtllOlPU KpU1:uiT]. 
taaE'tUt il TJffis il OeiAT] illlEaov ~IlUp, 
01t1tmE ns KUt EIlElO "ApT]l EK 9ullov £All'tUt, 
il 0 yE OOUpt ~uArov il a1to vEupiiq>tv ounffit. 51 

It is this certain prospect of death that makes Achilles wild 
(llaA' EIlIlEllaffi<;, 20.468) and cuts him off from the kind of men 
that make truces and civilised pacts. His present IlEVO~ is bound 

47 fLtvuv9uow<; is the key word: 1.352 (Achilles to Thetis), 414-18 (Thetis to 
Achilles). On this theme and Achilles' choice of a glorious life and an early 
death see esp. Schadewaldt (supra n.11) 234-67. 

48 Homer is ambiguous on the prediction of Patroclus' death: cf. 16.50-54, 
249f; 17.401-11; and 19.328-33, where Achilles implies he had no knowledge 
of Patroclus' coming disaster, with 18.8-14, where he says that Thetis had told 
him that "the best of the Myrmidons" would die before him. 

49 19.315-37; cf. Thetis' lamentation in anticipation of his death (18.54-64) 
with 18.440f. 

50 Dialogue of Thetis and Achilles (18.52-137; cf. his reaction to the proph­
ecy of the horse Xanthus (19.404-23). 

51 "Die, my friend, you also: why do you wail so? Patroclus also died, who 
was a much better man than you. Do you not see how tall and handsome I 
am? I am the son of a noble father, and the mother who bore me is a goddess, 
but death and conquering Fate stand over both you and me. There will be a 
dawn or an evening or a noonday, when someone will take the breath of life 
from me in battle, striking me with a spear or with an arrow from a 
bowstring. " 



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MICHAEL CLARKE 155 

up with the XOAOC; that caused the Wrath, and the proud iso­
lation of his withdrawal has given place to a still more proud 
rejection of the restraint that tempers violence in battle. 

In this way Achilles is separated from other men by the 
qualities that we have already seen linking heroes and beasts 
throughout the poem. In his rhetorical simile he expresses the 
darkest implications of his isolation: by counting himself among 
lions and wolves he announces that he is abandoning human 
values and human society and choosing death in preference to 
life. Ultimately, the image of the beast expresses the fact that 
those two decisions imply each other. In this way the simile 
plumbs the depths of the state of mind to which he has been led 
by the extreme of passionate heroism that characterises him: so 
that he explores the poetic, 'Homeric' meaning of the symbol 
on a level of rhetorical skill that no other character in the poem 
achieves. 

Our simile can be further characterised as the high-point in a 
sequence of beast-similes punctuating Achilles' movement 
towards Hector's death and his own. The first of the series is 
especially striking because the immediate point of comparison 
is psychologically precise, but in a more intimate way than in 
any of the similes we observed earlier. Achilles begins his 
lament over Patroclus like a lion grieving the loss of its cubs 
(18.318-22): 

1tU1(Va j.l.UAa O'tEVUX<OV Ox; 'tE Ats 1\iiYEVElOS, 
<ill pu S' U7tO O1cUj.l.VOUS EAaql1'\POAOS apnaOT]l UV1lP 
UA1'\S EK 1tUKlVllS' 0 Of 't' iiXVU'tCXl UO'tEPOS EA8wv, 
7tOA-ACt OE 't' iiYKE' E7tllASE j.l.E't' UVEPOS 'lXVl' EpEUV&V, 
El7tOSEV E~EUpOl' j.l.UAex yap OPlj.l.Us XOAOS CXi.PEt.52 

Here the correspondence turns on XOAOC;, the destructive 
emotion that turned the Wrath to disaster. When Achilles 
revealed himself to the Embassy, he spoke of the XOAOC; that 
had swollen in his breast (9.646£); when he refused to help the 
Achaeans in their need, his followers railed against him that his 
mother had reared him on XOAOC; instead of milk (16.203; cf 
16.30f); now he tells his mother that he loathes it (18.107-11), 
but it deepens in him as his battle-fury gathers. The mood that 
now holds him is bitterness transformed into violent aggres-

52 .... moaning constantly like a well-maned lion, whose cubs have been 
snatched by a deerhunter from a dense wood: and the lion grieves as it goes 
behind, and it passes on through many valleys searching after the man's 
tracks, in the hope of discovering him, for very bitter anger holds it." 



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156 BETWEEN LIONS AND MEN 

sion. The clearest sign of this ominous move comes when 
Thetis brings his armour, and he alone among the Myrmidons is 
seized not with awe but with bitterness and pleasure together: 
a\)t(xp 'AXlA,A,dxj 00<; do', <0<; illY IlUA,A,OY EOu X0A,o<;, EY OE oi. 
ooofJ Onyoy U7tO j3A,£cpuprov 00<; d oEA,a<; ESEcpuav8Ev (19.15ff: 
"But when Achilles saw, still greater rage entered him, and his 
eyes shone out terribly under his eyebrows like a blazing fire"). 
The passion that now seems lion-like is what has forbidden him 
to "conquer his mighty spirit" (Oullaooy 8ullov IlEyav, 9.496) 
either in sulking or now in his final, fatal career. In this first 
simile of the sequence Achilles' movement towards unbridled 
violence is expressed through an image that links the lion to the 
emotion that has carried him from the beginning of the Wrath. 

The prospect of the lion's self-destruction comes more ex­
licitly to the fore in the next simile in the sequence, when Achil­
les' onslaught begins and he faces Aeneas. Here the co-ordin­
ated description of appearance and emotion is finely detailed 
(20.164-75): 

nrlAd8,,~ 8' E-rEpr09£v EvaV'tiov c1pto AEWV w~, 
aiV't,,~, ov t£ Kat av8p£~ (X1tolCtall£Vat fl£llaacnv 
aypoll£VOt 7ta~ 01l1l~' (, oE 7tpffitov flEV ati~wv 
epX£tat, uu' Ott KEV tt~ ap,,;:9owv al~Tlwv 
OOUpt ~aA"t, EaATl t£ Xavrov, 7t£pi t' u<ppo~ o86vta~ 
yiyvual, EV OE tE Ot Kpaoi"t atEVEl aAlClflov ~tOP, 
oUPlll oE 7tA£Up~ t£ Kat laxia Ufl<potEpw9£v 
Ilaatiuat, EE 0' autov E7tOtPUVEl llaXEcracr9at, 
YAaUKlOWV 0' i9u~ <pEpetal flEVEl, TlV ttVa 7tE<PVTl 1 

uvopwv, 11 auto~ <p9ietat 7tpcOtWt EV (,IJ.{AWl, 
Ox; 'AXlAll' ciYrpuv£ IlEvO~ Kat 9uIJ.O~ UY11VWP 
Uvtiov EA9EIJ.£Vat lleyaA~topo~ A lvdao.53 

At every point the description of the lion corresponds to 
something in our image of the hero at his most fey and 
dangerous: mouth yawning to cry out, foaming jaws, blazing 

53 • Achilles surged against him from the other side like a lion, a marauder, 
whom men are rushing forward to kill, the whole community gathered 
together: the lion goes in first unheeding: but then one of the battle-swift 
youths strikes it with a spear, and its crouches gaping-jawed, and froth 
appears around its fangs, and its proud spirit groans in its heart, and it lashes 
its ribs and flanks on both sides with its tail, and urges itself on to fight, and 
with blazing eyes it is hurled forward by its fury, either to kill one of the men 
or to be destroyed itself in the front of the throng: just so did Achilles' fury 
and his proud heart urge him on to go against great-hearted Aeneas." 



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MICHAEL CLARKE 157 

eyes. 54 Here the risk of self-destruction is expressed as an even 
balance of possibilities, as in some of the less highly-charged 
similes that we have examined from elsewhere, but the pros­
pect is given still darker significance by its place in Achilles' fatal 
progress. The closer the thematic correspondences, the deeper 
the resonances of the simile will be; here, consequently, the 
psychological as well as visual assimilation of hero to beast is at 
its most evocative. 

The next stage of the sequence is our rhetorical image of 
Achilles standing over Hector like a lion or a wolf and refusing 
to make pacts. At this point he is about to fulfil a decision of 
momentous import: not only to kill Hector but also to defile 
his corpse and to slaughter Trojan captives over Patroclus' 
body (see 18.334-37; Segal [supra n.45] 33-47). In the past he 
had been prepared to return prisoners for ransom (11.1 04ff, 
21.34-48), and once at the very start of the Wrath we even hear 
him described as JlE8~JlwV ("gentle") and without XOAO~ (2.241), 
just as when he killed Eetion in the sack of Thebe he honoured 
him after death out of a sense of respect «jE~a(j(jCl:to yap 'to yE 
8THU))l, 6.417). Now, however, he refuses to curb the urge to 
violence, and in this sense above all his mood is wJlO~ 
(" savage"). A little later Hector, now on his knees, renews his 
plea that his body be returned for burial, and Achilles replies 
with the same wildness as before (22.345-47): 

Jll) JlE, KUOV, youvrov yoUVaCEO Jl'lloi: 'tQKTJWV' 
at yap xox; all'tov JlE JlEvO~ Kal. eUJlO~ civet'll 
cOJl' cixo'taJlvoJlEvOV KpEa EOJlEVat, ola Eopya~.55 

Achilles' rhetoric expresses in human terms what he had 
impied in the simile of his previous speech: 56 he stands outside 
the pale of human behaviour, and he has become like the beast 
that battens on the flesh of its victimsY 

54 Cf Hector's berserk fury (15.605-14), which we have already cited in a 
different context (supra 142). Lonsdale (68f) points out the close correspon­
dence between the description of Hector in this passage and that of wild 
beasts in similes like the one cited here. 

55 "You dog, do not beg me by my knees or my parents: I wish my fury 
and my proud spirit would let me cut off your flesh and eat it raw, for what 
you have done." 

56 Cf K. Stanley, The Shield of Homer (Princeton 1993) 217f. 
57 The threat to eat human flesh is voiced elsewhere by others, but in 

contexts where it looks like mere hyperbole: as when Zeus mocks Hera's 
hatred of the Trojans (4.30-36), or when Hecuba vents her impotent hatred of 
Achilles (24.209-16). 



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158 BETWEEN LIONS AND MEN 

Inhumanity offends the gods, and when it comes to their 
notice we see the implications of the lion-pattern at its most 
dangerous. Achilles is letting the dead Hector rot, and Apollo 
complains to Zeus through a closely detailed simile that again 
equates Achilles with a marauding lion (24.39-45): 

aU' oMan 'AxtA:iri, SWl, /3ouMoS' E7tap~YEtv, 
? ., t" , "" ", COt ou"C ap "CE <PPEVE') EtOtv Evatotllot OU"CE vOT\).la 
yvall7t"COV EVt O"C~SEOOt, Mcov 0' ~ uypla OtOEv, 
0') "C' e7td up IlE)'UAT\l "CE /3lT\l Kat U~VOPt SU).l(;:n 
El~a') do' E7tt 1lf\A.a /3po"Crov, '{va Oat"Ca Au!3T\tOlV, 
~ 'AXlAEU') EAEOV IlEV U7tcOAEOEV, ouM oi. aiow,) 
yiYVE"Cat. 58 

Both man and beast are savage, they yield to their swelling 
passion and reject ai8w~, the law of communal restraint. 
"Yielding to the eu~6~," as the lion does here, is exactly what 
Phoenix warned Achilles against in vain (9.597-601). Similarly, it 
was because of his proud spirit (aYTlvoptTl) that Achilles refused 
to accept Agamemnon's offer from the Embassy (see 9.699f), 
just as now he is behaving like a lion whose 8u!lo~ arTlvwp turns 
him away from pity. According to Apollo his savagery brings 
defilement on him: Kwcpilv yap 8il yatav anKl~n !l£v£aivwv 
(24.54: "In his fury he is doing outrage to dumb earth"). By 
mistreating one who cannot defend himself, Achilles has defied 
the laws of human nature and the order of things. 59 This is the 
act of one with frenzied thoughts (cpp£oi. !lCXlVO!lEVTltoLV, 24.135). 
These thoughts appear to have passed when Achilles receives 
Priam into his tent, but they show themselves again when 
Priam tries to hurry him towards handing over the body. His 
rage overcomes him once more, he threatens to break Zeus' 
command and kill the suppliant visitor, and as he does so the 
image of the lion flashes out again (24.568-72): 

58 "Gods, you are willing to help ferocious Achilles, whose mind is not held 
in reasonable measure, nor are his intentions held curbed in his breast: he has 
savagery in his thoughts, like a lion who yields to his great violence and his 
proud heart, and goes against the flocks of mortals to seize his prey: just so 
has Achilles abandoned pity, and there is no restraint in him." 

59 This line is difficult, as it is ambiguous whether "(a'ia/ra'ia refers to the 
dead Hector or the divine earth, who could be seen as guardian of the eEfll~ 
violated by Achilles. The former interpretation is strongly suggested by the use 
of the verb aEl1ci~El (cf esp. 22.256, 404; 24.22); and see further C. Macleod, 
Horner: Iliad Book 24 (Cambridge 1982) ad lac. 



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MICHAEL CLARKE 

" ... 't& VUV~.., ~O~ ~aAA.oV tv aA"(EO~ OU~OV OPlVTj~~, 
~.., en:, "(EPOV, ouO' au'tov ivl KAlOlTjlOW EaOOl 
Kul iKE'tTjV 1tEp EOV'tU, L\lO~ 0' aAi'tOl~ul E<pE't~ac;." 
Cix; E<pU't', EOElOEV 0' b ,,(EPOlV KU1. E1tEiOE'tO ~UOOl~, 
nTjA.E'ioTjc; 0' OlKOlO A.EOlV Cix; &.A. 'to Ou pU~E. 60 

159 

The two words ').lCJ)V roc; remind us, as nothing else could do so 
succinctly, that Achilles' anger has been cloaked but not 
conquered. 61 

It is in the light of Apollo's judgment that we can sum up our 
reading of the simile in which Achilles identifies his state of 
mind with that of a beast. Read through the deeper associations 
of the beasts in Homer's symbolic language, to be like a lion in 
the most profound sense is to defy Zeus and sanity and to 
welcome the death that such defiance can bring. When Achilles 
likens himself to a lion, he is revelling not only in being a hero 
but in being a madman. In that extraordinary speech the 
symbolic vocabulary of the simile tradition enables him to 
express an idea that could not otherwise have been put into 
words without straining the resources of poetic language or 
making the hero himself seem grotesque. 

CHRIST'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE 

December, 1995 

60 "' ... Do not torment my heart any more in its grief, old man, lest I cease 
to restrain myself from you, suppliant though you are, and break Zeus' 
commands'. So he spoke; and the old man feared and obeyed his words; and 
Achilles sprang out of the door like a lion." 

61 Cf N. Richardson's perceptive comment on this passage: The Iliad: A 
Commentary VI (Cambridge 1993) ad 24.552-95.