Iliad by Homer - Double Ajax Summary Book 5

Book 5 – Diomedes – Ok, my name is Diomedes, I’m on the Greek side and this is about get confusing so here’s a quick review. We’re battling the Trojans and for a series of strange reasons, the gods start to take sides in this battle. Each one has his or her own motive, but maybe they just got tired of sitting up there on Mount Olympus waiting for someone to squeeze up some more nectar. So here it is: Aphrodite, Ares and Apollo are fighting for the Trojans. Aphrodite because Paris picked her way back in that wedding fiasco and Ares because he likes war, I guess, and Aphrodite is his mom. Apollo’s involved because of that whole booty girl controversy above. Hera and Athena are fighting for the Greeks because Paris (a Trojan) didn’t pick them in the wedding bet and of course, they are the main gods of the Greeks. Zeus is trying to stay out of trouble but not doing a good job of it. To be very clear: the Greeks and the Trojans would not be fighting at all if it weren’t for the gods. Zeus started it with the whole Helen/Menelaus/Paris/Aphrodite/Hera/Athena “who’s the fairest” mess and then kept it alive with by allowing Athena and Hera to intervene to keep the action going. Repeatedly. So the crafty Pandarus wounds me in the battle, I pray to Athena who is all too ready to pitch in. She endows me with superhuman strength and I start to lay waste to the Trojan army, but she says I can only confront Aphrodite among the gods on the battlefield. That’s fine at first as I blast Aeneus, Aphrodite’s son. She comes to stop me from finishing him off so I spear her in the wrist. This sends her back to the Olympus ER but then Apollo jumps in the mix and I go after him. Athena gets pissed at me for forgetting my vow to only go after Aphrodite, but it doesn’t really matter since Apollo eats my lunch anyway. Hector and Ares on the Trojan side start to gel a bit and we are put on the defensive.  Odysseus steps up and starts to drop numerous Trojans. Next thing I know both Hera and Athena are on the battlefield fighting for the Greeks and gearing us up. Athena retracts the Only-Aphrodite rule and she and I jump into a chariot and blow up Ares, who also is forced to retreat to the Olympus ER, where in the waiting room he is made fun of by Zeus for getting wounded by a mortal. Me! Ha ha ho ho! [Don’t mention the fact that I had been given superhuman cheat codes by Athena.]

Iliad by Homer - Double Ajax Summary Book 4

Book 4 – Menelaus – I won that duel fair and square. I should be on my ship headed home with Helen, my beautiful, if not “well-traveled”, wife by my side, enjoying a cocktail and high fiving my boys. But no, the gods intervened. This time that tricky vixen Aphrodite. Where does she get off? Hold on, don’t ask. So anyway, Zeus was going to back me and let me have the victory as is, but that was not enough for his crazy wife Hera. She wanted Troy destroyed completely. So she convinces him to restart the war, which he does by asking his overachieving daughter Athena to do. Athena achieves this by convincing some young randy archer on the Trojan side to fire an arrow at me!!! The kid was a wonderful arrowsman and would have drilled me but Athena quickly flew over and deflected the arrow so that it hit me in my armor in the “hip region” penetrating the skin just enough to cause pain, blood and a reason to get back to the fighting. These gods sometimes have plans that doesn’t always seem airtight at conception but that’s how they played it. Despite me calling for calm, war breaks out and heads start to roll. They banned Ulysses, Catcher in the Rye and even Huck Finn for a while, but this book with its “he hit Leucus…gouging his groin as the man hauled off a corpse…Enraged at his friends death, Odysseus sprang in fury…plowed through the front…hurled his spear…speared him straight through one temple and out the other punched the sharp bronze point and the dark [this mean blood] cam swirling thick across his eyes.” Seems more like snuff porn to me. I had to go read me some Lolita to clear my head after that one!

Iliad by Homer - Double Ajax Summary Book 3

Book 3 – Helen – So Agamemnon and his Greeks show up to confront the Trojan army. My new “husband” Paris, the one that Aphrodite gifted me to after he chose her over Athena and Hera during the drunken wedding bet, starts strutting around in front of his Trojan buddies talking about how many Greeks he’s gonna beat up, etc, but then my old, or “real” husband, Menelaus shows up and says: “Hey pal! Why don’t we settle this once and for all! You started this whole thing when you took my wife (me) at that wedding! If I win, the Greeks win and you pay us a huge ransom and if I lose, you guys win the war. By the way it’s a fight to the death!” Mind you, I happen to know that my old husband Menelaus is a much bigger and braver dude that Paris and, well, Paris knows this too. So Paris decides to wimp out and make a run for it. His big brother Hector catches him, calls him out for being a pansy and pushes him back into the one-on-one mortal combat with Menelaus which everyone knows he can’t win. They bring me out to watch because, why not, I have a vested interest in the outcome here since I’m sorta the trophy. They battle some, then Menelaus overcomes Paris and starts dragging him around by the helmet, but then Aphrodite (her again!!) intervenes, frees Paris just before he’s about to bite it and drops him back in his palace. Menelaus is pissed because he feels like he’s just won the war for everyone based on the deal he made with Paris (he did, but the gods intervened) and where the heck is Paris? He’s with me. I yell at him, taunt him a bit about wimping out in front of my old husband. Then we make love. It’s a Trojan thing, you wouldn’t understand.

Iliad by Homer - Double Ajax Summary Book 2

Book 2 – Zeus – So my big idea after Achilles' mom convinced me to rally the Trojans to make Achilles' comeback all that more sweet (I know, seems like a long shot, but it pissed off Hera, which was kinda my plan all along), was to insert a dream in Agamemnon’s head about how he should invade the Trojans. He decides to spin that the next morning into telling his troops that they can go home now and they don’t really have to fight. This was intended to make them show their resolve and bravery and say no sir we’d really like to fight. Welp, that plan backfired as they all shouted for joy and ran to their ships. Only after my resident tricky badass Odysseys ran down to the ships and started inspiring them to fight instead, mostly by calling them stuff like fools, deserters and rank cowards. It worked.

Iliad by Homer - Double Ajax Summary Book 1

Iliad – Book Summary as recounted by the main characters in the action

Backstory – Hector – For me this whole story is a tragedy, because none of it would have happened if not for those meddling gods or if Paris had any brains whatsoever.  It all begins with Zeus hosting a party for Achilles parents in which he intentionally did not invite Eris (goddess of strife and discord, I smell Hera at work here). Eris shows up anyway and tosses in an apple with an inscription that says: For The Fairest. Needless to say, the goddesses Hera, Athena and Aphrodite each lay claim to the apple. Zeus is asked to mediate. Not wanting to make a choice that will get him in even more trouble than he normally is in with his family, Zeus punts the decision to the Trojan mortal Paris. Competition ensues. Hera offers Paris all of Asia if he chooses her. Athena offers wisdom and prowess in battle. Aphrodite promises the most beautiful woman in the world. They all get naked and pose in a garden for Renaissance painters.  Now here’s where it gets stupid. In this “judgement” there really is only once choice. Hera. Saying the boss’ wife is the fairest at a party is like complementing her earrings. Just say: it’s you Hera, and you can keep Asia. Everyone would have chuckled, Zeus and his wife would have been pleased and the other gals would have just accused you of being a suck up. But no, Paris gets talked into thinking with his @#$% by Aphrodite (not the first guy in history to do that in her presence) and chooses her, thus getting a shot at the most beautiful woman in the world. When he got back, I had a hard few questions for him. If Helen was the most beautiful, doesn’t that make her the de facto winner of the fairest contest to? How old is Achilles? If we’ve been fighting for 9 years since that party, is my main rival, the guy who will ultimately kill me in this story a 9 year old? On the Helen thing, can she cook?

Book 1 – Achilles – Look, everyone knows Agamemnon was asking for it when he took as his booty the favorite daughter of one of Apollo’s priests. Once Apollo found out about Chrysies’ abduction he dropped arrow bombs all over our Greek behinds. I had no idea what was happening but I know this soothsayer who ended up telling me that Apollo was behind the plagues so I confronted Agamemnon who told me to stick it and we got in a bit of a scrap when resulted in him returning Chrysies and thus quieting Apollo but then he decided to take my pretty abductee Briseis in her stead. I then flew into a rage, called him a few names (was “dog-face” excessive?), then started crying, then went and found my mom, who by the way is owed a few favors by Zeus, who convinces Zeus to punish the Greeks (my own army by the way) for this action. Zeus agrees, but ends up getting in a snit with his wife Hera, who doesn’t want to help the Trojans because of Paris didn’t choose her at the wedding. Their relationship is complicated to say the least. I decide to withhold my legendary battle skills and await a bat signal moment because that would make me feel much better.