If I haven’t mentioned it yet, the ancient Greeks assembled here do nothing in a half-assed way—everything is performed to the full extent of their abilities, every effort running what one twentieth-century scholar called “the full risk of failure.”

Opposite Agamemnon and standing to the right of Achilles is Patroclus—the man-killer’s closest friend, whose death by Hector’s hand is fated to set off the true Wrath of Achilles and the greatest slaughter in the history of warfare—as well as Tlepolemus, the mythic hero Herakles’ beautiful son who fled his home after killing his father’s uncle and who will soon die by Sarpedon’s hand. Between Tlepolemus and Patroclus stands old Phoenix (Achilles’ dear friend and former tutor) whispering to the son of Diocles, Orsilochus, who will be killed by Aeneas soon enough. To the raging Achilles’ left is Idomeneus, a far closer friend of the man-killer’s than I had suspected from the poem.

There are more heroes in the inner circle, of course, as well as countless more in the mob behind me, but you get the idea. No one goes nameless, either in Homer’s epic poem or in the day-to-day reality here on the plains of Ilium. Every man carries his father’s name, his history, his lands and wives and children and chattel with him at all times, in all encounters both martial and rhetorical. It’s enough to wear a simple scholar out.

“All right, godlike Achilles, you cheater at dice, you cheater at war, you cheater with women—now you are trying to cheat me!” Agamemnon is shouting. “Oh no you don’t! You’re not going to get past me that way. You have the slave girl Briseis, as beautiful as any we’ve taken, as beautiful as my Chryseis. You just want to cling to your prize while I end up empty-handed! Forget it! I’d rather hand over command of the army to Ajax here . . . or Idomeneus . . . or crafty Odysseus there . . . or to you, Achilles . . . you . . . rather than be cheated so.”