He remained headstrong, stubborn and selfish in his actions, even warranting rebuke from the men on certain occasions. This is seen in the very first conflict that is witnessed on the pages of The Iliad. Agamemnon is faced with the request to give up his war prize, and immediately and indignantly decides against all the council of the army in order to keep his prize of a woman (28). With this decision, he sought his own desires selfishly and disconnected himself from the men he was meant to lead. Granted, he possessed a strong will, a thing very necessary for good leadership.
Agamemnon was dismissive and rude to the priest which dishonored him so in turn dishonored Apollo. To dishonor a God is obviously a very great offence throughout Greek mythology there are many instances of great warriors walking on eggshells to stay in the gods good graces. Needless to say, offending Apollo lead to great destruction of Agamemnon’s forces “Nine days the god’s arrows rained
Having anger in general and furthermore acting upon his anger makes him less heroic. He replaces compassion with disrespect and discipline with revenge in his fighting. There is no point in calling someone a hero if their intentions are evil. Also as Agamemnon reflects upon his outburst of anger with Achilleus, admitting, “ Aged sir, this was no lie when you spoke of my madness. I was mad, I myself will not deny it.” (IX 115).
Written by Homer, The Iliad, portrays the life of Achilles, and how the Greek Hero allowed anger to overwhelm his decision making. Complications arise when anger leads to hate, pride, or suffering, and Achilles life illustrates the results of anger. Throughout the book anger slowly consumes Achilles and significantly changes results of the Trojan War. Causing him to act foolishly, Achilles’ anger brought harm upon many Greek people. Also, The Iliad teaches that anger caused a downfall to Achilles’ life.
In The Iliad 2.246-324, Homer discloses quite a bit about the society his characters live in and displays important aspects of the martial code. This sequence begins with Thersites, a common soldier, berating king Agamemnon. He his speaking out of anger, since he and his comrades had been at war for nine years, and also attempting to entertain his fellow troops. Thersites is exceptionally ugly. The author says the following: Here was the ugliest man who ever came to Troy.
His boldness and willingness to confront the superior is further expressed in his impulse to kill Agamemnon. Another unexpected action Agamemnon undertakes is his decision to not go to war, as he
Agamemnon is one of the key characters of Book One of Iliad, as a matter of fact, you can even say he was the one who made the whole story go round. Some may say he is a person of bad character, but we have to admit he was able to solve some of the conflicts presented in the plot. In the lines, "So harsh he was, the old man feared and obeyed him, in silence trailing away" (Book 1, 39-40), it was presented that Agamemnon was able to solve the problem of the Priest trespassing his lands by aggressively telling him to leave, through the means of threatening and scaring the poor old man. Driven by his anger, Agamemnon did not think twice and allowed his emotions to take over, even with the warnings of his army, presented through the line, "Behave well to the priest. And take the ransom!"
"The Aeneid both constructs a world and articulates an unresolved set of problems" - said by Philip Hardie in the introduction of the book Aeneid translated by Robert Fitzgerald. One of the problematic theme lies in the book is the Notion of duty itself and how it is related with the sense of honor. The figure of Greek and Roman heroes had their own specific ideals. It is often seen from most of the epics and poems , that the principle domain of 'polis ' in the society is held often by Men. However, the heroes who are not immortal like gods must suffer and endure the universal conditions of that period of time.
With each loss, Achilles spiraled father and farther into insanity. During the war, a series of critical losses causes Achilles's sanity to disintegrate. Achilles losing his true love caused him to go on a rage. King Agamemnon had stolen Achilles's true love, Briseis, to replace his stolen girl. Achilles is enraged, and is not afraid to tell Agamemnon how he feels.
In the Divine Comedia balance is shown through the restoration of justice in the contrapassos. Homer’s central character, Achilles, characterizes wrath and sullen fury in a way that offers complementing insights to the fifth contrapasso of the Divine Commedia. Achilles is a portrait of the wrathful and sullen souls that suffer in the fifth circle of hell. However, Achilles devolves into an individual, as he isolates himself in rage, whereas the souls in Dante 's fifth contrapasso are a collective whole, fighting against themselves in uncontrollable wrath or bubbling in an indistinguishable swamp of sulking anger. Imbalance first comes to play in the Iliad when Agamemnon refuses to honor Chryses pleas to return his daughter.