Dolon: What Kind of Hero?

From Iliad Book X

In Book 10, Dolon, from the Trojan side, takes up Hector’s challenge to spy on the Greeks in return for the promise of Achilles’ horses. Meanwhile, Agamemnon is rousing his own men to spy on the Trojans. Diomedes volunteers, and picks one of the other volunteers, Odysseus, to come with him.

I’m kinda chuffed that I remembered that Dolon was mentioned in the Aeneid, too, in Book 12. He was the famous father of a son who would be killed by Turnus.¹

Here’s the expanded story, in the Iliad, which makes him look much less heroic to me.

Diomedes and Odysseus have already gone past the ditch that separates the Greeks, camped by their ships, from the Trojans, when they hear Dolon coming towards them. Dolon also hears them, but since he believes himself still to be in Trojan territory, he assumes they are allies until it is too late. When the Greeks capture him, he begs to be held for ransom, and Odysseus lets him believe his life will be spared and he will be ransomed. It’s just a ruse, to get information out of him.

From my point of view, then, he tells the enemy everything they need to know, and points out Rhesos as a good target for the Greeks to attack, since his men have just arrived and haven’t set a guard. I was taken aback by that, because he actually offered information that the Greeks hadn’t specifically asked for. But it does not seem to me that his spilling all this info is considered a cowardly or dishonorable thing at all, at least so far, in the Iliad. Nor does Virgil portray Dolon that way in Book 12 of the Aeneid.

What am I missing? How can it be consistent with honor to point your enemy to a good target, without even trying to hold back the information?

Odysseus and Diomedes capturing Dolon, late classical, ca. 390-370 BC, British Museum

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I showed my first century Romans this description of Dolon from the Iliad:

ἦν δέ τις ἐν Τρώεσσι Δόλων Εὐμήδεος υἱὸς
κήρυκος θείοιο πολύχρυσος πολύχαλκος,
ὃς δή τοι εἶδος μὲν ἔην κακός, ἀλλὰ ποδώκης:
αὐτὰρ ὃ μοῦνος ἔην μετὰ πέντε κασιγνήτῃσιν.
	Iliad, book 10, lines 314-317

but there was among the Trojans a certain man named Dolon, son of Eumedes, the famous herald- a man rich in gold and bronze. He was ill-favoured, but a good runner, and was an only son among five sisters. — Translated by Samuel Butler

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“Okay, so ill-favored –”

“Still, he’s a fast runner. And rich. Son of a great herald. Rich means favored by some god or other. At least his father was. Only son, though, with five sisters, that would be expensive ….”

“No kidding. A decent dowry for five girls? Yes, Daddy’s rich, but then again, it means he’s not looking for just anyone to marry them off to.”

“Not just that. Remember what happened to Andromache? When brothers die, their sisters become captive wives. Or worse.”

“So sad. No one to avenge his death. Or to handle the funeral rites. Or to serve the household gods….”

1. In Latin and English translation from the Aeneid:

Parte alia media Eumedes in proelia fertur,
antiqui proles bello praeclara Dolonis,
nomine avum referens, animo manibusque parentem,
qui quondam, castra ut Danaum speculator adiret,
ausus Pelidae pretium sibi poscere currus;
illum Tydides alio pro talibus ausis
adfecit pretio, nec equis adspirat Achillis.
	Aeneid book 12, lines 346-352

Elsewhere on the field Eumedes charged
Into the melee – a man famed in war,
Son of the fabled Dolon – having his name
From his old grandfather, his recklessness
And deft hand from his father, who had dared
To ask Achilles’ team as his reward
For spying on the Danaan camp at Troy.
For that audacity Diomedes gave
A different reward: all hope expired 
For horses of Achilles.
	Robert Fitzgerald, translation lines 474 - 483