Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction: The Strange Career of Tyranny
- Part One The Rage of Achilles: From Homeric Heroes to Lord and God of the World
- Part Two City of God or City of Man? The Tyrant as Modern State Builder
- Part Three The Eagles Will Drop Dead from the Skies: Millenarian Tyranny from Robespierre to Al Qaeda
- Conclusion How Democracy Can Win
- Reading for Further Interest
- Index
Part One - The Rage of Achilles: From Homeric Heroes to Lord and God of the World
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 March 2016
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction: The Strange Career of Tyranny
- Part One The Rage of Achilles: From Homeric Heroes to Lord and God of the World
- Part Two City of God or City of Man? The Tyrant as Modern State Builder
- Part Three The Eagles Will Drop Dead from the Skies: Millenarian Tyranny from Robespierre to Al Qaeda
- Conclusion How Democracy Can Win
- Reading for Further Interest
- Index
Summary
Achilles was in many ways the original Greek ideal of youth and manhood, a beautiful man with a divine aura, born of a sea goddess and a mortal king. Real conquerors and rulers including Alcibiades, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, and Napoleon took inspiration from him. And yet his primary passion was rage. The rage of Achilles is what sets Homer's great epic, the Iliad, into motion, a rage born of competition with his overlord, the older Agamemnon, which eventually left thousands of Greeks and Trojans dead in steaming heaps on the blood-soaked field before the great city.
The feud between the younger man and his elder is over who should rightfully be given the captive Trojan woman Briseis as a trophy of war. Achilles believes she is his by right because he has been by far the bravest warrior on the Greek side. But Agamemnon claims her for his own because he is not merely a king, but the King of Kings, the commander of the entire Greek force including Achilles. The mixture of erotic jealousy over the possession of the unfortunate woman and their resentment for each other over their status and prestige – Achilles thinks Agamemnon is a coward and a lightweight gaining glory through what are really his own achievements, while Agamemnon finds Achilles insufferably arrogant and insubordinate – boils over in their accusations of each other. You can fairly hear the words spitting through clenched teeth of these two kings clashing:
Then looking darkly at him Achilles of the swift feet spoke:
“O wrapped in shamelessness, with your mind forever on profit, how shall any one of the Achaians readily obey you either to go on a journey or to fight men strongly in battle? I for my part did not come here ... to fight against the Trojans, since to me they have done nothing ... For your sake, o great shamelessness, we followed, to do you a favor, you with the dog's eyes, to win your honor ... Always the greater part of the painful fighting is my work, but when the time comes to distribute the booty, yours is the far greater reward.”
Then answered him in turn the lord of men Agamemnon:
“Run away by all means if your heart drives you.
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- Information
- TyrantsA History of Power, Injustice, and Terror, pp. 18 - 70Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2016