Timé And Areté In the Iliad

In book nine of the Iliad, Odysseus emphasizes to Akhilleos the two paramount values of the Grecian warrior society, Areté and Timé, and Akhilleos affirms these values as important to their culture but also states (most clearly in the Fitzgerald version, correlating with lines 400-403 in the Lattimore) that “No riches can compare with being alive”; That in his mind, the greatest way to save face concerning his dishonour is not to die owning a great amount of material goods and social respects, but rather to return home and not fight in a battle where he only stands to lose all that which he gains.

So, Odysseus comes to Akhilleos’s tent bringing a list of compensations Agammemnon is willing to give the warrior if he will only forget his past transgressions. The particular gifts described by Laertes’s son serve to illustrate what is most valuable to the Grecians, which are usually placed into two categories- Timé and areté, defined loosely in English as honour and excellence. However, these two concepts are much more complex than just those words, as we can deduce from the three page long account.

Of these two values, timé is the most easily understood concept to non-Grecians because it comes in concrete form: material goods won in war, which define one’s prowess as a soldier. It comes in all sorts of forms- anything from tripods, to horses, even women of skill, including Briseis, the girl who was taken from Akhilleos in the beginning of the Iliad. Also if he were to destroy Hektor and win the war, he could take as many spoils of war as he liked, as well as go back to Greece as the adopted son of Agammemnon, an honour of lineage rather than material goods. (Lattimore, 9.260-299) Their importance to the Grecian feudal society is proven by not only the sheer volume of goods Odysseus enumerates, as well as the language used about them (I.E. some land promised, in which live men “rich in cattle and rich in sheep flocks,” (9.296) ) but also by the apparent understanding that such things will ensure Akhilleos’s return to the battlefield.

Areté, however, is both harder to pin down in the text and to pin down as a value. There are several other passages in Odysseus’s plea, describing mostly things of honour as we know it in the English language, rather than the Greek timé, but also filial piety and comradeship. In nearly all of these non-material based passages there is even a feeling of guilt tripping, most especially when Laertides reminds Akhilleos of his father Peleus’s warning before he left home for Troy:

“My child, for the matter of strength, Athene and Hera will give it
If it be their will, but it be yours to hold fast in your bosom
The anger of the proud heart, for consideration is better.
Keep from the bad complication of quarrel, and all the more for this
The Argives will honour you, both their younger men and their elders.
So the old man advised, but you have forgotten. Yet even now
Stop, and give way from the anger that hurts the heart.’ (9.254-260)

So because one can be blamed for not following through with it, it must be a matter of pride to upkeep. Therefore, according to the texts, Areté must be excellence: excellence as a soldier, as a son, a comrade, a subject of the king, and possibly most of all, as a Greek citizen upholding the honour of his nation. Odysseus pleads these points of honour to Akhilleos because not just material rewards motivate people if they are stubborn as Akhilleos- the self-inflicted punishment of guilt is also a highly motivating factor. If Akhilleos doesn’t fight, his comrades will die, he will have let down his father, and he will die in obscurity, or worse, forever known as having run from battle with his tail between his legs. Because of the nature of ancient warrior-centric cultures such as the Mycenaean, men had to be raised valuing comradeship, valour, filial piety and being dutiful towards one’s leader: Otherwise entire nations would fall apart, destroyed by their enemies as well as being ripped apart from within by civil wars. Therefore, areté was important because it motivated men towards the correct moral path for the well being of their society, and timé was important because it helped to this effect by promising rewards for them.

Akhilleos recognizes these values, certainly, even as he argues to leave- he is after all, the greatest of the Akhaians. The language he uses as he refutes shows a deeply ingrained understanding of their worth, especially on the matter of timé: For example, even though he has been offered in marriage one of Agammemnon’s daughters, which means an unbreakable tie to the noblest of families in Greece, he says ” not if she challenged Aphrodite the golden for loveliness,/ not if she matched the work of her hands with grey-eyed Athene;/ not even so will I marry her” (9.389-391). Not even if the gifts Atreus’s were to give him numbered into the infinite, not even if he was returned Briseis, whose taking by Atreides being the source of his anger, would he consider returning to battle. But these are the greatest rewards he can be given- how could he repudiate them so easily?

He has two reasons. The first is a matter of conditioning. All throughout the war, Akhilleos states, he and others fought tirelessly for their king, who skulked behind by the ships; and when they returned with the spoils of war, he kept nearly all for himself, distributing only a little bit out and mostly to the greater/more loyal princes. From Akhilleos himself the son of Atreus took the prize he had won by his spear, the girl Briseis. “Let him try me no more.” He says; “[Let him] swindle some other Danaan…” (9.345, 371). Plus, if he were to go home, he wouldn’t have lost everything entirely: “Rich possessions are there I left behind, when I was mad enough to come here: now I take home gold and ruddy bronze, and women belted luxuriously, and hoary iron, all that came to me here. [… And also] the great estate my father had acquired.” (Fitzgerald, 9.445-449, 489) Such is his first argument against the values Odysseus tries to win him over with, that his timé would be greater would he to return home than if he were to stay.

His second argument however, holds much more meaning to Akhilleos. As has been already stated, lines 489 to 491 in the Fitzgerald translation, “Now I think no riches can compare with being alive, not even those they say this well built Ilion stored up in peace before the Akhaians came.” Akhilleos stands with a fated sword of Damascus hanging over his head: We are told that if he stays to fight in Ilion, he will die very soon- a very glorious death, for sure, but like they say, you can’t take it with you. If he were to return home, his name would be forgotten by men, but he could live to enjoy the “rich possessions” that he stands to keep. From his perspective, continuing to live fulfills more greatly what he believes to be his areté, his timé. He could marry an Akhaian, and live out his days in peace and happiness with her, fulfilling his duty as a member of society and as a fruitful son to his father, rather than as a dead warrior remembered forever in the annals of Greece. Besides:

“A man may come by cattle and sheep in raids,
Tripods he buys, and tawny headed horses;
But his life’s breath cannot be hunted back
Or be recaptured once it pass his lips.” (Fitzgerald, 9.495-498)

Akhilleos realizes all men must die: and he passes beyond the culturally inflicted ideals of areté and timé, in hopes that he may enjoy his life and the gifts given to him, even if they are few, rather than win the game by dying with the most stuff. In this way he saves his honour, by turning to his material honour, the timé he knows he cannot lose, and the areté of being a good son, a good husband, and a good leader of living men, rather than of the Underworld. Akhilleos represents a growth from a purely honour based society to a more humble, peaceable society, in which honour is not merely defined by situations in battle but rather by how one lives one’s life: And his reasoning would turn anyone’s hearts from war to thoughts of home. Even Odysseus, he of clever words, relinquishes his argument and goes silent, perhaps thinking of his beloved son Telemakhos. So above all, certainly the son of Peleus understands the topmost values of his culture, but he becomes more human, and more truly honourable, when he turns their meanings around to fit the values of a more peaceable time.

Reference:

• Homer, The Iliad