At the beginning of the Iliad Bk 2, Zeus sends his messenger Dream to Agamemnon with the false message that, if the war should be resumed, the Greeks would beat the Trojans Agamemnon, determined to rearm his soldiers, summons, prior to the general assembly, a council of the leading generals, and requests their cooperation in carrying out his plan, which is summarized in ll 72-5 At the assembly, however, his plan proves to be a sheer failure, as soon as the proposal of retirement is made, the army rush to their camps to make preparations for their return home The confusion is so disastrous, that, but for Hera's intervention, the retirement of the Greek army would be realized 'contrary to fate' (υπερμορα) Evidently it is not Zeus but Agamemnon himself, who is responsible for this confusion, because the idea of "tempting" the soldiers was not involved in Zeus' plan How, then, does such a strange idea, which seems to serve only as a cause for troubles, occur to Agamemnon ? The present author thinks that the clue to the solution of this question is to be sought in ll 72-5 Let us start our discussion from the following two points (1) What is in this context the meaning of the phrase η θεμιζ εστι (73) ? (2) What is the object of ερητυειν (75) ? 1) After having examined several views set forth hitherto by modern critics, the author concludes that the scholiast's interpretation (Scholia A ad loc) best suits the context He says that the King tries to test the army κατα τι παλαιον εθοζ, with the intention of knowing whether they are going to fight voluntarily or reluctantly, compelled by force, for, the scholiast continues, the King knows that the Greeks had been discouraged by the long war, by the plague, and moreover by Achilles' withdrawal from the battle-line We do not know, it must be confessed, what precedents the poet had in mind when he said η θεμιζ εστι, i e κατα τι παλαιον εθοζ. We must assume, however, that there were examples so familiar to the poet and his audience alike that it was hardly necessary for the poet to add further comments on the topic We moderns could easily collect a dozen similar examples from various times and places 11) With regard to the second point, the author again takes sides with the ancient critic (Scholia B ad loc ), who takes sue (sc Agamemnon) ταυτα λεγοντα as the object of ερητυειν, not εκεινουζ (sc 'Αχαιουζ) φευγονταζ, as did Leaf et alii Interpreted on this line, Agamemnon's plan was to stage a sham fight between the chieftains and himself, and thus to lead the debate toward his intended conclusion It is true that his plan did not succeed at the first assembly, Agamemnon may be blamed for his miscalculation of the low morale of his army But let us here turn our attention to the reopened assembly, and we shall see how smoothly, after the Thersites-scene, of course, everything proceeds, almost (not exactly, indeed) as the King had intended Agamemnon had been no fool His plan, though checked for a while, proves a success after all Certainly there are some exaggerations in the narrative from Agamemnon's "Temptation" up to the "Thersites-scene" One may even call it a trick on the poet's part Probably the poet thought that a detailed narrative to such an extent was necessary in order to make the audience realize how low the army's morale was and how difficult a task it was to make this resume warfare But it must be admitted on the other hand that the emphasis, perhaps over-strong, on this aspect has mainly been responsible for causing various misunderstandings, especially among modern critics The present writer suggests that the Temptation passage including the Thersites-scene may be called a "detachable" part of the poem By "detachable" the author means no "interpolation" in the Analyst's sense, but rather a section which the

(View PDF for the rest of the abstract.)