“Do it then,” sneers Achilles. “It’s time we had a real leader here.”

Agamemnon’s face grows purple. “Fine. Haul a black ship down to the sea and fill it with men to row and sacrifices for the gods . . . take Chryseis if you dare . . . but you will have to perform the sacrifices, Achilles, O killer of men. But know that I’ll take a prize as recompense—and that prize will be your lovely Briseis.”

Achilles’s handsome face is contorted with rage. “Shameless! You’re armored in shamelessness and shrewd in greed, you dog-faced coward!”

Agamemnon takes a step forward, drops his scepter, and puts a hand on his sword.

Achilles matches him step for step and grips the hilt of his own sword. “The Trojans have never done us any harm, Agamemnon, but you have! It wasn’t the Trojan spearmen who brought us to this shore, but your own greed—we’re fighting for you, you colossal heap of shame. We followed you here to win your honor back from the Trojans, yours and your brother Menelaus’, a man who can’t even keep his wife in the bedroom . . .”

Here Menelaus steps forward and grips his sword. Captains and their men are gravitating to one hero or the other now, so the circle is already broken, turning into three camps—those who will fight for Agamemnon, those who will fight for Achilles, and those, near Odysseus and Nestor, who look disgusted enough to kill both of them.

“My men and I are leaving,” shouts Achilles. “Back to Phthia. Better to drown in an empty ship heading home in defeat than to stay here and be disgraced, filling Agamemnon’s goblet and piling up Agamemnon’s plunder.”

“Good, go!” shouts Agamemnon. “By all means, desert. I’d never beg you to stay and fight on my account. You’re a great soldier, Achilles, but what of it? That’s a gift of the gods and has nothing to do with you. You love battle and blood and slaughtering your enemies, so take your fawning Myrmidons and go!” Agamemnon spits.