Intro. [Recording date: May 25, 2026.]
Russ Roberts: Today is May 25th, 2026, and my guest is Ido Hevroni, my colleague here at Shalem College. Every year since the college opened 13 years ago, Ido has been teaching The Iliad by Homer and The Odyssey by Homer to our students. This episode is the first episode of the EconTalk Book Club on The Iliad. I encourage you to read the book. We’ll be reading the Fagles translation, but there are many to choose from.
I want listeners who may be listening with children that: This episode will likely contain adult themes, so you may want to screen this episode accordingly.
Ido, welcome to EconTalk.
Ido Hevroni: Thank you. I’m very happy to be here.
1:19
Russ Roberts: When did you first read The Iliad, and why did you read it?
Ido Hevroni: It didn’t start from reading The Iliad itself. It started to be familiar with the themes, with the stories, of course, of the Trojan War or the Trojan horse. It started when I was a kid. My father would used to on Saturdays to sit with me and read from an encyclopedia. An old encyclopedia, which had amazing pictures. So, then I fell in love with the story–not with the books, with the story. It took me a lot of years to start meeting the book.
Here in Israel, it is much less known, I think, from at least in America or Europe. Nobody, I think, really read it in Israel, at least not in high school ages, while I know that in America, in some high schools, they do read at least part of that. When I went to the university, I had an introduction. I studied literature and psychology, and I had an introduction to Western literature. So, we had one meeting introducing Homer, and we read, I think, a few lines from the book, but much later, when I became familiar with liberal education, which is less known here in Israel, I started to self-educate myself. So, I started reading these books. So, the first time was, I assume, 15 or 16 years ago–a little bit–a few years before I came to Shalem.
Russ Roberts: And, what impression did you have when you read it at some level of seriousness as an adult?
Ido Hevroni: It is strange. Let’s admit it. It’s hard to begin with it. It’s very surprising to discover that The Iliad, which the meaning is the story of the Trojan War–Iliad is after Ilios, which is one of the names of Troy–is not really about the Trojan War.
And I’m sorry for disappointing some of our listeners, but the Trojan horse itself does not appear in the book.
And of course, it takes time to dive into it. It is strange. You have to start to understand the gods–which I was a little bit familiar from before because I was interested in Greek mythology. It takes time to get into it. It takes time to understand what the book is trying to do. But the best experience I had and the best way to study anything, I think, is to have to teach it. And, when I started reading it with the students and I had to teach them, then I started, I think, to really understand the book.
4:21
Russ Roberts: So, we’ll come back to the students in a little bit, but if you’re just a person listening to this, we have listeners all over the world. They do all kinds of things with their lives. They’re not scholars. They’re not classicists. They’re not that interested in ancient Greek, most of our listeners. Why do you think they should read it? Why should a thoughtful, curious person read The Iliad?
Ido Hevroni: I can give you two answers from different angles. One is it is the DNA [Deoxyribonucleic acid]. The Iliad and The Odyssey are the genesis of the Western culture. So, if you are interested in Western culture, if you are interested in understanding yourself better, even if you have critical view upon Western society or Western culture, this is where it all starts.
Hollywood started there. Everything we know about heroes and action and a lot of our notions and understandings, they all started there.
It’s before Philosophy. We have to remind the listeners that it’s something like about not the events themselves–if they were historical events–but the book itself comes something like 400 years before Philosophy. So, this is the first document that we have on Western culture. So, that’s, let’s say, a reason from the outside, a rationalistic reason.
The other reason is then when you start to read it seriously–and seriously doesn’t mean professionally, because I have to admit, I’m not a profession, I’m not a scholar of these books. My profession is in literature, but it’s in Jewish literature, which is very, very much different from these kinds of literature. So I assume I have some tools which are beyond what a regular person would be, but not more than that. When you start diving into it, you discover so many truths and so many depths that can enlighten our situation even today that it’s worth the effort.
Russ Roberts: Yeah. I’ll say I had never read it. I’ve read chunks of The Odyssey. I’d never picked up The Iliad–because after all, it’s just about mostly killing. So, I thought it’s not that interesting to me. It’s the book before The Odyssey. That’s the way I’ve always thought about it. And, I’m now about halfway through and we’ll continue to read it as we continue this Book Club here at EconTalk.
And, it’s a stunning book. First of all, like The Odyssey, it’s incredibly cinematic. You referenced Hollywood: there’s so many scenes that feel like you’re watching a movie.
A friend of mine says it’s like reading a Tarantino script, because it’s quite graphic. The violence isn’t just, ‘Oh, and he died,’ or, ‘This person killed this person.’ Homer describes in detail where the arrow went and what the results are. Actually, for my generation, it’s more like Sam Peckinpah. I date myself with that allusion. The violence, it is quite graphic. But it is–besides the language, which we’ll try to give listeners a little bit of a flavor of it today–as you say, as a work of psychology, as a work of understanding the human heart in war, but not just in war, it’s actually a small part of the book. A lot of the books we’ll talk about is about negotiation. It’s about frailty. It’s about ego. It’s about pride. And, you’re right, it all began here. Everyone’s riffing on it in a certain way. It’s quite extraordinary.
8:35
Russ Roberts: Now you’ve read it many, many times, and you’ve taught it, more importantly, many, many times. How do you read it differently than from, say, when you read it 10, 15 years ago, when you came to it as an adult for the first time?
Ido Hevroni: First of all, the experience itself. From year to year, I think I understand it better, especially because the way we teach it and I teach it, of course, in a dialogue with the students, the students are reading it. I don’t lecture them about the book. I don’t tell them what to think about the book. They read it. They come to class. We have discussions. And every discussion where the participants are serious usually would tell me something new about the book.
But, of course, we have the unique experience of teaching it now for the last three years for students who are returning from war. And not just the people who are warriors or participating in actual combat, but everyone here in Israel is now a part of a war, of an ongoing war. And, it really deepened the way I understand now the book and the way I can lead my students in reading it.
Russ Roberts: I want to say something in passing about the Israeli army, because Israeli armies–the IDF [Israeli Defense Force]–gets a lot of bad press these days. I think it’s important for people who don’t live here to understand and remember that Israel’s army is very unusual. There is a large group of 18- and 19- and 20-year-olds who serve. And they are drafted. Unlike in the United States, they almost–outside of the Arab-Israeli community, which is they’re allowed to serve, but they’re not required; and outside the ultra-Orthodox community where similarly they’re allowed to serve but are not required–outside of those two communities, everyone serves in some fashion, and almost all of them in the army. And, you serve 18, 19, and 20; but the rest of your life, for many, many years, and some people–there’s no age limit–are in what is called the Reserves.
And, in American parlance, when you hear that phrase, the Reserves, you think, ‘Well, that’s the backup if they’re ever needed.’ Well, the Reserves train regularly here, meaning once you’ve served in the army, you go back regularly to stay, quote, “in fighting shape” and knowledgeable shape. But, more importantly, when there is a war, it’s not like, ‘Oh, some of the Reserves get called up.’ They all get called up.
And, here at Shalem, our students come–they’re 25 years old on average when they get here. They’ve all served, and then they’ve done some other things often. But, when the war broke out, they had to go back into the army. It’s not like, ‘Oh, they went to a thing in the back room where they kept the paperwork’: They served in battle.
And so, you are dealing, until recently–we’re now sort of at peace–but you have been dealing for three years with people who are coming back from war, with having seen things that no human beings should have to see, having done things they are troubled about by definition because they involve death and destruction.
And, it’s an overwhelming experience that you’ve told me that–and you’ve written about it; we’ll link to some of your essays–reading this book, having come out of Gaza or Lebanon, is a therapeutic experience for them. It is a very different book than for the rest of us.
Ido Hevroni: Yes. And, after I started publishing about it, I heard a lot of reactions from veterans in America, which have the same experience. And I know that there are book clubs for veterans in all sorts of places, in many places in America, which do the same thing.
I would just add that I myself was serving in the Reserve until I was 40. So, I know the experience. I didn’t participate in actual war like our students, but I have a son-in-law that is right now in Lebanon and last week lost a friend who was married. So, the scenes from The Iliad speak to us directly.
But, I would also want to add–and you said something about it–because now the conversation sounds that it might be that the book fits only to people who really experienced war, but war is a place to examine humanity in a very deep way.
I would just quote Milan Kundera, the Czech writer. He said that literature is a laboratory where you can use it in order to understand better the human condition in all kinds of ways. In only literature, you can put people in situations where you are not allowed to do in actual life and to think about what would happen to the values. How would they act in front of danger, in front of something that breaks everything they believe in? How would someone would treat his wife and child when he has to serve his country? And, again, doesn’t matter what the cause is.
So, war is a great laboratory for literature to examine some basic assumptions and understandings about human life. And, this is why The Iliad is also, I think, important for people who are not participating, thank God, in war.
Russ Roberts: Yeah. The word that comes to mind when you talk about it is: it’s a crucible. It’s a place where things get hammered out and transformed. And, of course, there’s an extraordinary literature from war, everything from War and Peace, Norman Mailer’s The Naked and the Dead, Catch-22 by Joseph Heller, many novels by Mark Helprin. These are places, these are fictional attempts to understand the human condition using the laboratory–the crucible of war–as a way to see human beings under the most intense conditions.
15:14
Russ Roberts: Having said that, when I lived in America until I came here, war was something–it’s in the history. I didn’t love The Naked and the Dead. I didn’t love Catch-22. It’s kind of depressing, war. It’s obviously unnatural. And yet when you read The Iliad, you have to confront the reality that there is violence as part of the human condition from time immemorial.
It goes back to another ancient book that you and I know. Cain and Abel is very early on in the Book of Genesis. It’s about violence and combat.
Ido Hevroni: What’s interesting is that it might be that people are now trying to avoid reading books about war, but maybe most of the movies we see are full with violence; and the series we watch, they are full with violence. And, what they lack–first of all, they are more graphic than reading. Reading gives you the opportunity to be a little bit distant and think about things, but when you watch it, you cannot be distant from it. Your imagination works less, and your judgment work less when you watch a movie. So when you read, and when you read a deep book, you are doing a much better, I think, work than watching a movie which involves violence. It gives you the opportunity to train your muscles, your moral. The muscles of morality, you can train them much better when you read and you not watch it. So, it might be even better to recommend people to read books about war than watching movies about war.
Russ Roberts: It’s a very interesting observation that so much of our popular culture is about violence. A friend of mine, a rabbi, was in the hospital for a procedure, and he didn’t own a television. And so, in his hospital room, there was a TV going 24/7, which is often the case in American hospitals. And I asked him what it was like to watch TV. I mean, he didn’t, like, close his eyes. He watched it. He’s a pretty morally serious person. I said, ‘What did you think about it?’ He said, ‘Eh,’ he shrugged. He said, ‘A lot of kissing and killing.’ And, The Iliad, there’s a little bit of kissing–not much–but it’s mostly killing; but there’s a lot more than just kissing and killing, I would say.
The other thought I have about popular culture is that there are many, many times in this book when I think about superheroes. These are not normal soldiers. These are superheroes. Achilles is Superman. He’s Spider-Man. He’s Daredevil. Hector on the Trojan side–Achilles is Greek, Hector is Trojan–Hector is invincible, or at least seems invincible, until he faces another superhero. But, these are people who, the normal rules of combat don’t apply to them. And so, when we watch the Avengers, say–this team of gods and goddesses come into war or into battle–it’s straight out of Homer. I felt like I was reading the Avengers a number of times when I’m reading this book.
Ido Hevroni: Right. But, you get the lesser version when you watch the Avengers–with all due respect, of course. But, many psychologists, starting, I assume, with Freud and then with Jung, Rollo May in America, were speaking about the need for myth and even the desperate need for myth after the Enlightenment–after burying the big myths, right? It became a synonymous to a lie. But, that was not the truth in the beginning. A myth is a way to say something about the world in a very, very deep way, which sometimes you cannot say in a realistic novel. So, again, if we’re dealing with it anyhow, I think that these books are offering us a much serious way to think about aspects of our lives than the commercial cinema.
Russ Roberts: That’s a fantastic point about myths. Yeah, it’s so true.
20:04
Russ Roberts: Let’s talk a little bit about a part of the book I didn’t expect. Again, my education is inadequate. I thought the book was about–first of all, I thought it was about the Trojan War. It’s not. It’s about an episode in the Trojan War that takes place nine years after the war started. So, it’s kind of in the middle, and you don’t get much about how we got here from there–yeah–got here from there.
But, the other fascinating piece about this when you read the book for the first time–and I want to alert readers to it and listeners–is the role of the gods. Now, one of my favorite children’s books is called Something from Nothing. And it’s about a family that–the father is a tailor, and he’s constantly salvaging and repurposing clothing. So, what starts as a shirt turns out to be a vest, and then it’s a handkerchief–and then a tie, then a handkerchief. I can’t remember all the steps. Doesn’t matter.
But in the version I like, under the floorboards of the house, there’s a family of mice, and they’re leading their own lives while the humans are doing their thing, in this situation. The mice are also trying to repurpose things, and they pick up scraps, a thread here and a thread there, and they’re doing stuff. And, this book, The Iliad, has the same bizarre two-tiered motif. The human beings are struggling, doing the best they can; they’re failing constantly. At the same time, there’s this incredible conflict going on in Olympus between the gods, who are also sparring and fighting and negotiating and maneuvering like the humans are. And, their fights, which are often quite petty, spill over into the pettiness of human affairs. So, talk about the role of the gods in this book.
Ido Hevroni: I am, of course, speaking from my point of view. It’s not clear that that was exactly the point of view of the ancient Greeks. But let’s start with explaining to the listeners that if they are coming to it with the expectations of monotheism, doesn’t matter whether what kind of monotheism they believe or disbelieve, but they’re familiar with monotheism.
This is polytheism in its best, I think. And, the gods are not the creators of the world. Let’s start with that. And the gods–and that’s what usually is very much amazing–are not in charge of morality. They do not care for morality. On the contrary, human beings are much more interested in morality or in need for morals in order to live together.
The gods are powers. They’re not just natural powers; they are much beyond that. We can think about them today as psychological powers or even beyond that, and understanding that, in a way, if one want to describe or even to understand better the world, one has to take into account the fact that there are powers beyond our power or beyond a human being.
This is, I think, what they can give us again back, something which was the notion of every man and woman before the great break of the great religions.
So, let’s take, for example, Aphrodite. Aphrodite is a very, very important character in this book because basically she started everything. So, let’s start from the beginning, right? Let’s tell something about the background. The background is what is called the Judgment of Paris; but it started a little bit before that. So, let’s start really from the beginning. So, it starts with Thetis. What I’m telling right now, part of it is discovered during the book, but that was a common knowledge to the readers. So, Homer didn’t have to put all the introductions because they knew it. They believed in it, right? That was the culture. So, in the background, we have the upper, the Olympian gods. Above them all, of course, Zeus; his brother, Poseidon, who is in charge of the seas; and Hades, which is in charge of what beneath earth, which is, of course, the realm of the dead.
And they all fall in love with Thetis, which is a sea goddess, but there’s a prophecy that the son of Thetis is going to be stronger than his father. And that’s, of course, a huge threat for any ruler.
So, they decide among themselves to not let her marry a god–because then they will have a super-god, which is not good for them, of course. But, she is going to be married to a human being, to a mortal. Another word in Greek for gods is i-mortals. That’s exactly what defines them as unique and not like human beings. We are mortals. They are immortals. And that, of course, affects everything from character to what they are looking for in the world.
And, they decide to take her to Peleus. She’s getting married, and, of course, they do not invite Strife, which is a goddess, to the wedding. She’s, of course, you know it, I assume, from Sleeping Beauty. It recounts the same basic story. And, during the wedding, Strife throws into the palace, or wherever this wedding is taking place, a golden apple, which, upon it is written, ‘to the fairest of them all.’ And, three goddesses are at war over who has to take the apple. It’s Aphrodite, it’s Hera, and it’s Athena.
And so, let’s say something about the three of them. So, Aphrodite usually is considered to be the goddess of beauty, but she’s the goddess of sex. She is the goddess in charge of the impulse that drives human beings and animals to mate and to have children.
And, we are familiar with this drive, right? You can call it the genes, right? The genes which moves us towards the other sex in order to have more children. You can see it–right?–if you look at the animals, you can see it everywhere.
So, she’s in charge of this. She is this power; and beauty, of course, serves this power. This is why she’s connected to beauty; but it’s not beauty for itself.
Hera is the ruler. She’s the woman ruler–and they could imagine a woman ruler. She’s the wife of Zeus, but she’s also the queen of [inaudible 00:27:20 ?Argeia?]. And Athena is very unique because Athena is a woman–and this is clear–but her sexuality is a non-issue. We have almost no records of partners–of sexual partners–of Athena. She’s very smart. She’s the goddess of smartness, of strategy, and of weaving together.
So, it’s a good question, right? Who deserve–who is more important? The one who drives us to have children, the one who gives us the option to be rulers, or the one who gives us strategy and power in war and the power to organize our homes, which is what she gives to women?
So, instead to judge, the gods don’t want to judge between them. They send Paris, who is Alexandros, who is the young prince of Troy. And, this is how it starts. Every goddess offers him something because it’s not a real competition. It’s more about what would a young ruler choose to do with the power he got, right? Aphrodite promises him the best sex ever–which means being together with Helen, which is the most beautiful woman on earth. Who is married.
But, of course, Aphrodite is not interested in marriage. Marriage is an arrangement or social arrangement. Hera is in charge of marriage because she’s interested in politics, in society, in the ways a society holds together. Then you need rules, right? Then you need laws of marriage.
But, Aphrodite is not interested in that. And, again, everyone who involved with sex knows that sex doesn’t know rules. So, this is Aphrodite; and she promises; and he chooses her, which is a poor decision for a young prince to choose, to use his power in order to enjoy life instead of giving something to the society he is going to be one day the ruler of.
And, he’s going to visit Menelaus, who lives in Sparta, right? It’s across the sea. Troy is on the shores, in the eastern shores. Eastern, right? Western–
Russ Roberts: Western, yeah–
Ido Hevroni: Western shores of Turkey today. This is the place we think they were. So, if you cross the sea, you go to Sparta, which is part of the Peloponnese, and then he is a guest of Menelaus, the king of this place. And, Menelaus one day goes out of home, so Paris takes his beautiful wife, Helen, and goes back with her to Troy. And, this is how the whole story begins.
So, when he brings her home, of course, Menelaus calls his brother, Agamemnon, and all the other kings who rule small cities all around Greece, and they go together in order to bring back the wife of Menelaus. And, this is how the Trojan War starts. But, all of this is the background, and it’s not in the book itself.
30:48
Russ Roberts: And, the King of Troy is Priam, or Priam. He has an enormous number of sons. He has many wives, obviously. The most prominent sons and their role in the book–remember, this is Troy, so it’s going to be a war between Troy–the Trojans–and the Greeks. His most prominent sons as warriors are Hector–who is a superhero, as I suggested earlier–and Paris. But he has others, and they play a role in the book, which we may or may not get to. But, the book opens. Let me read the opening of the book. Tell listeners what the opening of the book is called.
Ido Hevroni: We call it–
Russ Roberts: Yes, go ahead.
Ido Hevroni: It is a proem. It is a proem. It’s the invocation of the muse. The poet, which is a human being, presents himself like the prophets presented themselves, as just a tunnel for the godly voice. So, the proem, the beginning, is the introduction, but it is the calling for–it’s a summoning of the muse to come and speak through the thought of the poet to tell the story.
Russ Roberts: And, it’s proem, P-R-O-E-M. Tell me if I have this right. It’s a poetic prologue. Is that a correct–
Ido Hevroni: Right. Pro: it’s before. It’s before the story starts.
Russ Roberts: So, it’s fun to read. I have many editions, but as I said before, we’re going to read the translation of Robert Fagles, which I find particularly grand, and I enjoy very much. I left my hard copy at home, so I am now scrolling through my Kindle version, which is hard to find, by the way. If you want to read The Iliad on your Kindle, if you go to the Fagles paperback or hardcover and you go to the Kindle version, it’s not always the actual Fagles translation on the Kindle version. So, we will put a link up to the Kindle version of the Fagles translation. But, here’s how The Iliad starts.
And, I just would remind listeners that Peleus, as you mentioned, is the husband of Thetis. Thetis is a goddess. Peleus is a mortal who is her husband, because that way their child will not be that dangerous; and that’s going to be Achilles.
So, let me just say one other thing. Like the Bible, there are many times in Homer where people are identified by their parents–typically their father. Zeus is often called the son of Cronus. Achilles is called the son of Peleus. Agamemnon and Menelaus are brothers. Their father is, I think, Atreides.
Ido Hevroni: Atreus. They are Atreides because they are the sons of Atreus.
Russ Roberts: So, again, if you’re reading this for the first time, it’s a little bewildering. You just keep reading, folks, and eventually it straightens out. The Fagles edition, by the way, has an enormous glossary, very frightening. How many people are in the glossary, roughly?
Ido Hevroni: I don’t remember in the glossary, but in the book itself, there are more than a thousand private [?proper?] names.
Russ Roberts: But, most of them–
Ido Hevroni: I think the glossary doesn’t mention all of them.
Russ Roberts: So, don’t be alarmed by that, but it does have a bit of the Russian-novel problem: that at first, not only are people sometimes identified by their father’s name–which is also very Russian, by the way, their patronymic–but they have multiple names. But, it’s not that complicated. You figure it out pretty quickly. And, I’ll just mention this now to have it. The Greeks are called the Achaeans. They’re called the Argives. They’re called the Danaans. They’re all the same. They’re the people besieging Troy trying to get Helen back from having been stolen, kidnapped, and taken by Paris.
Okay. Now here’s the opening.
Rage–Goddess, sing the rage of Peleus’ son Achilles,murderous, doomed, that cost the Achaeans countless losses,hurling down to the House of Death so many sturdy souls,great fighters’ souls, but made their bodies carrion,feasts for the dogs and birds,and the will of Zeus was moving toward its end.Begin, Muse, when the two first broke and clashed,Agamemnon lord of men and brilliant Achilles.[Homer’s Iliad, Book 1]
End of quote.
Why is that important, that opening?
Ido Hevroni: I assume that for the original audience, the background is known. The story is known. And, it’s very important for the bard–for the singer, for the person who is enacting right now the poem–because it was a tradition of enacting it in front of audiences and, of course, remembering it by heart, but also putting modifications into it when it’s not one bard who sings like the other. So, it starts with telling us exactly what is he going to focus on. And, this is a small part, as you said, from the whole big story. So, the background is a background.
The Trojan War is the background of the story itself, but here we are going to focus, and the focus is the first word, ‘Rage.’ This book is going to deal with rage, and a specific rage: the rage of Achilles. This is the beginning, and the whole book is about what happens, how it starts, and how it ends, and what happens during the time that Achilles is angry.
And, we know from the beginning what happened: a lot of people were killed–his brothers. He doesn’t speak about the Trojans which are dying because of his anger. It is about his brothers-in-arms who are dying because of his anger. So, it’s more about what happens within the Greek army when one of the most important fellows is going out because he’s very angry. What happens to them and especially what happens to him; again, what breaks the anger, and what would eventually bring him back to fight with his partners, but again, not until the end. The end doesn’t matter in this book. How it ends, you will have to read The Odyssey, which would recount backwards what happened before Odysseus went to his journey home.
37:56
Russ Roberts: Before we talk a little bit more about his rage–and this is a very outdated concept, but you cannot understand the book without it, you and I having talked about it elsewhere. The role of women in this culture–it’s a warrior culture. It’s very hard for us to understand, but you can’t really understand the book without understanding their role. There is love, there’s lust, women have power; but they also play a role as objects that’s very, very uncomfortable for the modern readers. So, talk about that.
Ido Hevroni: Women are part of the trophies. When you sack a city, you’re taking everything therein, right? You will kill the combatants–the men–because they are a threat to you. But you will use the women as slaves, sometimes even sex slaves. So, it’s very hard for us to understand. But, this is at the heart of the quarrel that initiates–ignites–the whole book, the whole plot of this book.
Russ Roberts: So, I want to take us one step forward with another plot development. I hope this isn’t too complicated for listeners, but basically in a previous engagement, Achilles has–remember, he’s a superhero. He’s Greek, he’s on the Greek side. He’s in a war. He takes a woman, Briseis.
Now Briseis–Achilles kills her husband, kills her brothers, takes her as a war prize. So when the story opens, Briseis belongs to Achilles. And Agamemnon–this we don’t have to go into–but he has a war prize also, and he has to give her up. So, he decides because he deserves it–he’s the King–he takes Briseis from Achilles. And this is what causes Achilles to be angry.
And strangely–perhaps, as we’ll see when we look at some other decisions people make–he refuses to fight. And more than that: he watches his comrades be slaughtered by Hector, sometimes by the gods in their intervention. The gods intervene constantly in pursuit of their own political economy goals.
I want to read the passage where Agamemnon justifies stealing Achilles’ compensation. He says the following about Briseis–no, excuse me–about the woman he lost.
Russ Roberts: Chryseis, the woman he lost. This is going to be a very costly speech for him. You’re going to talk about it. He says the following:
“… I prefer her by far, the girl herself.I want her mine in my own house! I rank her higherthan Clytemnestra, my wedded wife–she’s nothing lessn build or breeding, in mind or works of hand.But, I am willing to give her back, even so,if that is best for all. What I really wantis to keep my people safe, not see them dying.But, fetch me another prize, and straight off too,else I alone of the Argives go without my honor.That would be a disgrace. You are all witness,look–my prize is snatched away!”[Book 1. Italics in original–Econlib Ed.]
So, he’s basically saying, ‘I’m an altruist. Sure, I want to do the right thing, but surely I deserve what I’m entitled to.’ And then, Homer continues, which is an unbelievable speech from an economist’s point of view.
He says, “But, the swift runner,” and this is a common adjective for Achilles. He’s often called the swift runner.
But, the swift runnerAchilles answered him at once, “Just how, Agamemnon,great field marshal… most grasping man alive,how can the generous Argives give you prizes now?I know of no troves of treasure, piled, lying idle,anywhere. Whatever we dragged from towns we plundered,all’s been portioned out. But collect it, call it backfrom the rank and file? That would be the disgrace.So return the girl to the god, at least for now.We Achaeans will pay you back, three, four times over,if Zeus will grant us the gift, somehow, someday,to raze Troy’s massive ramparts to the ground.”[Book 1. Italics and ellipsis in original–Econlib Ed.]
So, this is a scene. And we’re going to see another version of it a little bit later that I hope we’ll get to today. It’s a negotiation. Basically Agamemnon is saying, ‘I’m sorry this woman I got is causing so much trouble. I’ll give her back, but you got to compensate me, and I want what you’ve got, Achilles.’ And, Achilles, he says, ‘You’ll get something else.’ He says, ‘Well, where am I going to get that from? Where’s the stuff laying around that hasn’t been handed out yet? Everything’s been parceled out, baby. We’ve already handed out all the booty, so that’s not going to work. You’ll get yours someday if we win. There’ll be other spoils down the road.’ So, that’s where they’re at in the negotiation, but of course, Agamemnon does not find that persuasive. And, talk about what happens.
Ido Hevroni: Achilles doesn’t find it persuasive–
Russ Roberts: Yeah; sorry.
Ido Hevroni: So, just one remark about the dirty talk of Agamemnon, which might be a dirty talk of soldiers, of course, about women. You can hear soldiers speaking about wives and women in this way, but again, this is not the major topic.
The major issue is that this is not a writing society. They do not write. The only way to understand who is more important than the other is to watch–and again, this is the same as today. If you’re going to visit a high-tech company and you enter through the garage, the common garage, you would immediately know where the head of the company parks, right? It would be nearest to the elevator, of course; and he will have the newest model of whatever car they give the workers. So, it is still very, very important. This is hierarchy, and we still think through hierarchy, and still hierarchy is very important.
Let’s think right now that the head of the company has a leaking roof in his beautiful office, and he has to evacuate the office. So, do you think he’s going to sit in the kitchen? He’s not going to sit in the kitchen, right? He’s going to evacuate the next in line from his office in order to have the best office available right now.
So, if you think about it like that, you understand that this is very rational. And, as you talked about it, Agamemnon knows how to present his case, right? He raises the price of what he’s giving up on in order to convince the others that he’s really justified that he will take another one instead as long as his was taken from him. So, it’s still, I think, important even today.
Russ Roberts: So, just bring in my favorite Smith quote, ‘Man naturally desires not only to be loved, but to be lovely.’ And to be loved is to be honored, respected, admired. And, in this society, the beauty of your wife is the sign that you are a high achiever and that you are loved by people who look up to you and want to know what you’re thinking and what you’re doing. Agamemnon wants the best one.
Ido Hevroni: And Agamemnon is a kind of an insecure leader because, again, he’s not the king of all the others. He was just chosen to lead this battle. So, he’s basically first among equals. And he’s insecure, and he’s very much afraid of the fact that he will give up on his very, very important prize or car or an office. People would look at him and will see that Achilles or Odysseus or Ajax or all the other important commanders has better women in their tents than him, and they will disrespect him. So, he’s very much afraid of the way people are treating him, and this is very important when you are part of war.
47:10
Russ Roberts: I just want to read, just because this is another incredible moment of economic thinking. We spent a lot of time in economics talking about rationality, and people acting in their own self-interest, and cost-benefit analysis. And as I’ve gotten older, I’m a little more tolerant of imperfection. So, almost halfway through the book, through the story of The Iliad, the Greeks are taking a terrible beating. Hector is leading the Trojans, and people are dying, and it looks like they might have to head home with total failure and humiliation. So, Agamemnon finally decides he’s got to get Achilles into the fight. Now it’s Book 10, I think, so, or 9, and there’s 24–
Russ Roberts: So, we’re pretty sure it’s not going to work because then the story will be pretty much over. But, it’s hard to imagine how it’s not going to work. So, I’m going to read what Agamemnon says and what he’s going to offer Achilles to get him back into the fight–and appearingly, appears to offer a submissive offer.
Agamemnon concedes that he was wrong. He says the following:
Mad, blind I was!Not even I would deny it.Why look, that man is worth an entire army,the fighter Zeus holds dear with all his heart–how he exalts him now and mauls Achaea’s forces!But, since I was blinded, lost in my own inhuman rage,now, at last, I am bent on setting things to rights:I’ll give a priceless ransom paid for friendship.[Book 9. Italics in original–Econlib Ed.]
And pausing here, I just want to mention: this is what he’s going to give Achilles to get him to forgive him for stealing his woman and to get it back in the fight.
Here,before you all, I’ll name in full the splendid gifts I offer.Seven tripods never touched by fire, ten bars of gold,twenty burnished cauldrons, a dozen massive stallions,racers who earned me trophies with their speed.He is no poor man who owns what they have won,not strapped for goods with all that lovely gold–what trophies those high-strung horses carried off for me!Seven women I’ll give him, flawless, skilled in crafts,women of Lesbos–the ones I chose, my privilege,that day he captured the Lesbos citadel himself:they outclassed the tribes of women in their beauty.These I will give, and along with them will gothe one I took away at first, Briseus’ daughter,and I will swear a solemn, binding oath in the bargain:I never mounted her bed, never once made love with her–the natural thing for mankind, men and women joined.Now all these gifts will be handed him at once.[Book 9.]
And it goes on and on. At the end, he says he offers him special land with sheep and cattle. He says that he
will honor him like a godwith hoards of gifts and beneath his scepter’s swaylive out his laws in sleek and shining peace.All this–I would extend to him if he will end his anger.[Book 9.]
So, you’re reading this; you think: Well, this is the ultimate offer you cannot refuse. It’s everything you were–it’s compensation. You get back what I took plus an unimaginable cornucopia of women, wealth, cattle, cities, his own daughter.
And Achilles turns it down. Why?
Ido Hevroni: Let’s just make clear what happened in the beginning. Again, after Agamemnon decided to take the prize, Briseis, from Achilles, then he swore that he won’t come back to war, and he’s going to ask his mother to ask Zeus to help the Trojans win the war in order for his friends come upon their knees to ask for his return. Right? He feels that they dishonor him. Nobody is coming to help him against Agamemnon, so he feels alone. All the promises, everything he believed in is broken right now. That’s a crisis for a person who were trained only for this moment–were trained to be the best, to be the best warrior in order to get the best honor. And now, even though he was the best warrior, he doesn’t get the best honor because politics is sometimes even stronger than war. But he’s not a good politician. Right? He is just a warrior. He thought that would be enough.
So that’s the plan of Zeus that was mentioned in the proem. The plan of Zeus is, of course, to have the Trojans–but not because he thinks the Trojans should win the war, but in order to make the Achaeans come to ask Achilles and to compensate him like we see here. And, that happens at the night after the second battle day.
The whole book deals with four days of battle. The first one at the end is pretty equal, both sides. But the second one is very, very dramatic. It flips the powers. It’s the first time where the Achaeans are sleeping behind the wall near the ships and the Trojans are parking outside, which they have never done for the last nine years. So, this is very dramatic.
And, when Agamemnon sees that–and he understands that he disappoints the whole army, because he promised them to win the war. He led them to this war. He promised them. It’s not enough that nine years have passed, and they are away from home, away from their wives and their property, etc. And, now he made Achilles retreat, and they are losing the war like they have never lost.
That, I think, explains how far he is willing to go in order to persuade Achilles to return. So, it’s worth a lot. It was much more than what it took from him.
And of course, this is a lesson for any manager or a leader: Sometimes you will have to compensate so much for a very small mistake you have done in the past, which is connected straight to your ego. So, this is very important.
Achilles says No. And that’s, of course, a great surprise to everyone. Because that’s exactly what he was asking for. But he asked for it a week ago–something like a week ago–because some time passed between the days of battle.
But, what we learn now when we see how he reacts to this offer–very, very generous offer–is that he has been changed. And, this is, again, something we know today, especially again in combat: When you’re in a combat, you have to trust and believe the structure. Right? You have a set of beliefs that drives you to be willing to risk your life for.
But, sometimes, if you take a break out–a time out–and you’re going out–and we know it from our soldiers, one of our students told me that while in Gaza, they could be there for weeks together and nobody would break down, but when they would go out for a vacation, even sometimes for a weekend, a few people would not return. Because, the moment you’re going back and you’re looking about it, you can say, ‘For what? Why should I do it?’
And that’s a moment which is very, very important for us as readers and both for the society within the book. Because, Achilles, for the first time, is looking from the outside about the basic values that motivates his society, and he says, ‘Well, there are alternatives. We don’t have just to be here involved in war, killed or kill, and get the honor. We might have a different life. We might go,’ I tell you usually, ‘to Australia and live in a caravan where nobody will ever know about us. We won’t have honor. We won’t have huge property. But we can live in peace.’ And, that’s–you know, that’s amazing. That’s a huge surprise for all the others or for the last 10 years we’re totally invested in war.
56:01
Russ Roberts: So, one of our students told me that when he came out of Gaza and he walked into Tel Aviv, and he sees people sitting, drinking coffee, having wine, and he’s thinking, ‘What the hell are they doing?’ I mean: ‘What is this life?’ It’s so simple. It’s so different. It’s so alien to him. He couldn’t relate to it. He said, ‘I couldn’t process it.’
And then, the way he processed it was, he said, ‘Well, that’s why I’m fighting, so people can sit and drink coffee and have conversations and connect with each other.’
But, the gap between the warrior’s life and the home front is–it can’t be thought about. And when it is thought about it, all of a sudden you’re thinking, ‘What am I doing? This is too painful. I’m doing things and seeing things I don’t want to do.’ Even at the same time that they’re proud to serve their country and they want to be next to their comrades and to their brothers in arms. But war is insane. There’s no way around it.
So, here’s the thing: Achilles comes across–you just made a nice defense of him. I like that. But, to me, as the first-time reader, he seems a bit petty. He seems a bit self-absorbed. Do you respect him? Do you like him? Who do you like in this book, if anyone? We’re watching human beings under–as you say, they’re enmeshed in a system, a war machine that is unforgiving and chews them up. And, this one extraordinary warrior gets to step out and sit in his tent for a while and think about it a little bit for the first time and realize, the way you’ve at least portrayed it. But, he doesn’t come across that admirably. Is there anybody in this book you respect or that we respect as readers or you think Homer wants us to respect?
Ido Hevroni: First of all, a great work of art is not judgmental. It gives you a lot of material to be the judge yourself. This is why it is a great training for a moral judgment. We can watch, we can understand the characters.
More than that, what’s beautiful with Homer and polytheism, it’s not split into darkness and lightness–and light. It’s not that the Trojans are all bad and the Greeks are all good. We see now Achilles, which is not so admirable.
For many years before the war, our students hated Achilles, I think, more than any other character in the book. But since the beginning of the war, they think about it differently because the breakdown of the soldier–and, again, his commander betrayed him. His commander, the person he should have walked with closed eyes behind his back, knowing that he can fully trust this person to bring him into war and to take him out of war–this person betrayed his trust. This person broke down all the rules. Everything he believed, every respect he had was lost because of the ego of Agamemnon.
So you can understand him. I don’t say identify. I don’t say admire him. But I think we can understand him.
I learned a lot about it, and I learned to understand Achilles better from the book that was written by Jonathan Shay. Jonathan Shay–he wrote a book called Achilles in Vietnam. He’s a psychiatrist who worked for many years with veterans of Vietnam, and he reads The Iliad through the perspective of the soldier. And, that’s very important to say because, again, one can approach The Iliad and The Odyssey as classics, right? As something which is interesting but very foreign from us. But, Jonathan Shay and the real experience I had here taught me to treat it as real human beings, like human beings like me and you and the situations, to think about them not as classical, operatic–even though sometimes it is very operatic the way it is written–but as real actual life situations.
And, Achilles is losing every trust he had. He’s young. He’s young; he’s very good, he’s young, and he’s betrayed. His trust is broken. So, I think we can understand him. I don’t think we can identify. I wish I would act in a different way if I were instead of him in his place, but I think we can understand him.
Russ Roberts: But, are you arguing that Achilles’ refusal of Agamemnon’s incredibly generous offer–which I took in my quick first-time reading to be ego and pride–you think it’s more than that?
Ido Hevroni: Again, I think he lost the trust in the cause, right? The morale of the soldiers is falling down when they lose trust. And, we see it in every war: Usually, it starts well. The soldiers are enthusiastic. They truly believe. They follow their commanders. But, with time passing, with being in the trenches, in the mud, in Vietnam, and having more friends killed or wounded, you’re losing it. You’re losing it, you’re losing trust. And, it happened in Vietnam. Right? Most of the soldiers–and the public in America–lost trust in the leadership. And, when you’re losing trust in your leadership, it’s very, very hard to fight for it and to be willing to sacrifice your life.
1:02:11
Russ Roberts: Well then let’s talk, maybe in closing, about Hector. So, Hector is the superhero on the Trojan side. He’s also Paris’s half brother. They share a father, which is the King of Troy, Priam. And he despises Paris, Hector does. He is constantly blaming him for the war because he stole Helen from Menelaus. And worse than that, he is critiquing his courage, his honor. He treats him with disdain and says so. And Paris often agrees with him, which is also, incredibly, one aspect of how people respond to that kind of criticism. But Hector sees his duty through. Talk about Hector.
Ido Hevroni: Hector is probably the most tragic and beloved character of the book. And again, this is the genius of Homer: Even though Homer is on the side of the Greeks, he can describe a wonderful character on the other side, which is not all darkness. And, it might be that the tragic aspect of Hector is exactly the source of his power. His power–his source of power–is his loyalty. He is loyal. He’s loyal to the laws of the city. He’s loyal to his father, the King, and he will follow the orders of his father even though he does not believe in the cause of the war.
He would give Helen back because he thinks that’s not right to do. But, his father–which is a weak leader: he’s old, he’s weak–and he’s following Paris, his father. It’s a kind of maybe Jacob and Joseph, right? The beautiful youngest son who moves his father and he causes his father to lose his understanding about the situation, the whole situation, and his loyalty to the others.
So, Priam is following Paris, and Paris is following–let’s not mention here what exactly he’s following, but it’s not his brain. And, Hector is angry, and he’s critical about it. But he will continue fulfilling his duty. He will never break. He will fulfill his duty until his tragic end.
Russ Roberts: And, there’s an extraordinary scene–you’ve written about it, and we’ve talked about it–where he’s on a mission, takes him back to Troy away from the battle for a bit, and he takes the opportunity to visit his wife, Andromache, and his infant son. And his wife says, basically, ‘Don’t go back. Stay here. There’s no reason to go back. You’re going to be killed. What’s the point that you’re going to be killed?’ And of course, she’s right. He’s going to be killed. So, why does Hector go back?
Ido Hevroni: He answers her. He starts with saying, ‘I identify with you. I totally understand you. I think like you,’ which is again amazing because she gives him strategic options where to stand in order to be more protected, where he can see and command the army without being in danger. Again, that’s not for a woman to say; but he accepts it. He does not disagree with her. But he says, ‘I could not look into the eyes of the other women, which I send their husbands and sons and fathers to war. And, I am loyal. I was raised to take this position. This is my position. I am the commander in chief of the army. I have my duties. I am loyal to the laws of the city even in the cost of losing my life and losing you and my son, Astyanax,’ which is present in this amazing scene.
Russ Roberts: It’s a fascinating reason. He doesn’t say the standard brothers-in-arms argument: ‘I can’t let my comrades down.’ He says, ‘I couldn’t respect my–‘–the way I take it, tell me if you agree, you know better than I do–‘I couldn’t respect myself. If I walked through this town and saw the wives of the men that I abandoned to their death and took the easy way out.’
Ido Hevroni: Right. And, the continuation of this amazing scene when he speaks with her, he’s fully armored, especially with the helmet, which covers half of his face. And then he speaks like he should speak. But then he moves to say goodbye to his son, his little son. And, the boy is, of course, afraid of this appearance. Again, a story I heard again and again from our students when they would come–return home, right?–and would go to visit their young niece or nephew. They would, you know, run away from this person who now looks like a stranger after not being at home for a month or two months. And, the face is a little bit changed by the war and the look of the battle dress.
Then he removes the helmet, and he smiles at the baby, and then the baby smiles back, and then he speaks in another, in different way.
He speaks in a more hopeful way. And that’s, again, a very, very deep moment, because Homer can depict this very complicated situation where Hector is torn from within. He decides–he knows exactly what to do. But that doesn’t say that he’s not a robot. He’s not a blind follower of the laws. He decides to follow the laws, because he believes that this is the right way to do it. He’s a great father. He is a man of his family. He loves his family. He loves civilian life. He would not choose to be a soldier. He was raised to be a soldier in order to protect the city. And, now, when duty calls, he will go, even though he knows the price he pays for it. But, Homer have this ability to picture this in a very complicated and very touching-to-the-heart in a way.
Russ Roberts: I hope everyone will join us in reading this book, and we’ll have some additional episodes down the road with some different guests with their take. My guest today has been Ido Hevroni. Ido, thanks for being part of EconTalk.
Ido Hevroni: Thank you very much.
