The War that Killed Achilles

The War that Killed Achilles
By Caroline Alexander
Faber £20, 320 pages
FT Bookshop price: £16

Homer’s Iliad is the most renowned and lasting martial epic of all, a stirring story of the deeds of great warriors, such as Achilles and Hector, during the legendary siege of Troy. Because it is often remembered only in vague, filmic highlights from childhood reading, and is frequently referenced for the manly ideals of its heroes, one would be forgiven for thinking of it as a celebration of war.

As this invigorating new work shows, however, nothing could be further from the truth: The War that Killed Achilles gives us an Iliad that is in essence a powerful piece of anti-war literature, savage in its condemnation of the folly and cost of war, and brutal in its depiction of the human consequences.

Caroline Alexander is a classicist and polymath from the US with a notably adventurous career behind her: the establishment of the Classics Department at the University of Malawi is one of her varied achievements. Her worldly experience clearly informs this excellent book, bringing a pragmatic philosophy to bear on her examination of the actions of the mortals and gods of the Iliad, as well as supplying a deep knowledge of the historical background. Alexander’s approach is to provide a lively account of the full story of the great work, and accompany it with trenchant analysis and fascinating explanatory evidence from archaeology and other works of literature.

It is a welcome retelling of the epic, and is certain to inspire many readers – not least this reviewer – to revisit the original work.

The anti-war theme emerges early in the book, with the angry denunciation by Achilles of Agamemnon, his king, as a war-mongering mercenary. The famed soldier is thus shown to have surprisingly pacific sentiments, and his tired recognition that they have fought a long war for a misguided purpose (the trivial squabble over Helen of Troy) becomes the epic’s principal dynamic.

Achilles withdraws himself from the campaign, declaring that his life is worth too much to risk in a pointless conflict. Only when his close companion Patroclus is killed by the Trojan Hector does he return to the war, with terrifying vengeance. Alexander forcefully summarises the Iliad’s unambiguous take on conflict:

“The Iliad is ever mindful that war is about men killing or men killed. In the entire epic, no warrior, whether hero or obscure man of the ranks, dies happily or well. No reward awaits the soldier’s valour; no heaven will receive him. The Iliad’s words and phrases for the process of death make clear that this is something baneful: dark night covers the dying warrior, hateful darkness claims him; he is robbed of sweet life, his soul goes down to Hades bewailing its fate. Again and again, relentlessly, the Iliad hammers this fact: the death of any warrior is tragic and full of horror. Even in war, death is regrettable.”

Alexander invests this timeless outlook with a contemporary edge by drawing parallels with the wars in our own time and with those of the 20th century. For example, she links mothers campaigning for body armour for their sons fighting in Iraq with Thetis, the mother of Achilles, pleading for divine armour to protect her son in battle before Troy. Elsewhere, she recalls the Christmas Day truce in the trenches of the first world war when discussing the psychology of a ceasefire during the epic. Resisting what must have been a temptation to belabour this angle for marketing purposes, however, she does this with great subtlety and it serves as an effective way of placing the ancient epic into a modern context.

The War that Killed Achilles is an original and stimulating reintroduction to an enduring work, and valuably recasts the ancient story for our own age. Muscular and thoughtful, it is a fitting companion to the great epic it celebrates.

Paddy Docherty is the author of ‘The Khyber Pass: A History of Empire and Invasion’ (Faber)