Iliad Battle Scene (some gore)

From Iliad Book IV

Menelaus, husband of Helen, had agreed to fight Paris over her. Whoever won, would take Helen, and either way, Troy is left standing and the Argives go home, parting as friends, not enemies. But Paris was no match for Menelaus, and Aphrodite spirited Paris away (just as Juno will do for Turnus in the Aeneid) before he could be killed.

The gods all decide the war is back on, but no one has specifically broken the truce. So the gods decide: Troy must fall. Athena goes down and goads a Trojan into breaking the truce. The armies, expecting the years long war to be decided in the duel, are stunned. But their leaders rouse them to war. Again.

My paraphrase, in common language, of the battle, to give me practice in writing a battle scene.

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Combat Between Greeks and Trojans Sebald Beham_MetMuseum

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Two armies were advancing toward each other on the plain between the boats and Troy. The Argives advanced in silence, the Trojans advanced, with voices raised.

You know how snow melts in early spring in the mountains, and all the streams are full and flood together finally in a thundering torrent? The way that would sound to a shepherd away in the hills, that’s how it sounded when the Argive line crashed into the Trojan line.

Here’s how the battle went.

Antilokhos was the first Argive to down a Trojan, a guy by the name of Ekhepolos, son of Thalysios. The shot went through his helmet, continued through his forehead, and lights out. Dead. He went down like a tree falling. Then an Argive named Elephenor, son of Khalkodon, king of the Abantes, grabbed him by the feet to get him somewhere safer to get his weapons. Bad idea. It exposed his flank when he bent down, and a Trojan called Agenor speared him. While he was dying, everyone went to it, Argives and Trojans, like wolves, man to man.

Then Ajax Telamonias got another Trojan, Simoeisios, son of Anthemion. Simoeisios was a young guy at his peak. His mom got pregnant with him while she was tending the sheep with her folks on Mount Ida, next to the Simoeis river – that’s how he got his name. That’s one guy who’s not making it home to dear old Mom and Dad, to take care of them in their old age. Ajax’s spear made sure of that. Right through the front of his chest on the right side, and out through the shoulder blade.

You ever see a poplar tree, with its smooth trunk beneath the branches higher up, standing high and alone in a meadow? They use the wood, warp it to make wheel rims, set it by the river to season it. That’s how Ajax laid Simeoisios low, like that tree —Ajax, a warrior raised by the gods.

Then prince Antiphos, one of King Priam’s sons, all geared up fancy, took a shot at Ajax, but he missed, and got the guy next to Odysseus in the groin, a good friend of his called Leukos, just as he was bending over the body of Simeoisios to pull it away. Leukos fell over it, dead. That made Odysseus crazy mad, and he cut ‘em down right and left, heading for the prince’s crowd. Got one of the King’s illegitimate sons, too, Demokoon, who’d come down from his horse-racing farm at Abydos to fight with his father. Odysseus speared him right through the head, side to side through the temple, and lights out. Dead. Down he went, thud, armor clanging.

The Trojan front line gave way, and Prince Hektor gave way too. Now the Argives finally gave a yell. They dragged the dead out of the way and pressed deep.

Then the Trojans heard the voice of the god Apollo, not too happy, bellow out from the citadel of Troy: “Horse masters! Forward! Don’t give in to the Argives! They’re not made of rock or iron. Your weapons will cut them. And look, their hero Achilles is out of action, nursing his anger and the wrongs done him, back by the ships.”

Meanwhile, Athena moved through the ranks of the Argives, riling them up as well.

The next Argive to go down was Diores son of Amarynceus. The Thracian captain from Ainos, Peiros, son of Imbrasus, fighting with the Trojans, slammed him with a jagged rock that cut both the tendons in his right leg, near the ankle, and down he fell – a tall guy – into the dirt, his arms thrown out for help from his fellows. But Peiros was right on it and ran up to finish him off. He gashed him in the middle so his guts spilled out, and lights out. Dead.

So then another Argive, an Aitolian called Thoas, went after Peiros and speared him in the front of the chest, getting a lung, pulled the head of the spear out, and then got him square in the belly with his sword. Couldn’t get his gear though – his Thracian friends drove Thoas off, big as he was. And so the Thracian captain Peiros, fighting for the Trojans, was laid out in the dirt next to the Epean captain Diores, fighting for the Argives.

And that’s how it went from there. That was quite a fight, any fighting man would agree, if he’d had the chance to go around the battlefield as a mere observer, shielded by Athena from all harm. Trojans and Argives, loads of them, all laid out in the dirt next to each other.