Gods Throwing Dice: Cleromancy In The Trojan War
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.
Any movie or television series about the Bronze Age Trojan War conjures up battle scenes of thousands of Achaean and Trojan hoplites squaring up and facing each other on the Troad plains outside the famed walls of the city of Troy, or Wilusa as it was known to the Hittites. On the Dardanelles Strait the Achaeans had beached their ‘thousand ships’ and set up their camps to accommodate their army. The army must have been massive, supported by quartermasters dispensing logistical supplies, camp followers, chariot builders, squires, horse handlers, blacksmiths, doctors and a host of auxiliary services. The opening lines of Homer’s Iliad speak of countless losses, great fighters’ souls made carrion for the dogs. Taking into account that according to Homer, this war waged for ten years, surely the wounded, aged, crippled and dead had to be replaced by new recruits.
Iliad, Book VIII, lines 245–53, Greek manuscript, late fifth, early sixth centuries AD. (Public Domain)
