September 16 Entry

Friday September 10 Journal

Some new things that I learned through our class discussion were:

Rhetoric: the art of persuasion (later used in Chapter 9; seen as one of Odysseus strengths)

Lamentation: a dramatization of your life/ demise

Philos means friend and anthropic means human. This is where we get terms such as philanthropic meaning literally be a friend to humankind.

Prosopopoeia- putting words into the mouth of someone more credible than you “face making”. (also a tactic used my Odysseus in the Embassy to Achilles)

If you want to change someone’s mind, what emotions do you try to arouse in them?

I would employ empathy. I feel like the best way to changed anyone’s mind is to get them thinking about how the situation would affect them and try to get them to imagine how it would make them feel. For the people who are more self-centered, I would totally guilt trip by “attacking their ego”. How would doing or not doing something effect your reputation or the way you would view yourself?

What emotions do Odysseus, Phoenix, and Ajax try to arouse in Achilles?

They used a combination of many different emotions to try and get Achilles to join the war again. The ones that I feel were the most prominent were shamed and fear. We see the shame angle when Odysseus talks to him. He employs Prosopopoeia and speaks of his father and his hometown. Odysseus asks Achilles to think about how his father and people back home would think of him is they lost the war on his account. He also talks about Achilles’ time and shows him the negative ways that his long-lasting honor would be affected if he did not participate.

The other emotion they tried to use was fear. They tried to paint a picture of what kind of horrible things would happen if the trojans won the war. They talked about how their ships would be destroyed thus allowing them no way back home and how their treasure would be looted and how shamed would also fall on all the people who fought the war. The use of tactics that appealed to Achilles’ emotion are called pathos (a faction of rhetoric).

What other ways (other than the emotions) do they try to persuade him to return to the battle?

Aside from emotions they also try to bribe Achilles. Agamemnon offers him women, land, and power. It was important to note that he offered him enough to make it seem like a worthwhile deal but not enough that it would cast a shadow of the same things that Agamemnon possessed.

Wednesday September 14 Journal

Some new things I learned in discussion:

Blood price: ex: brother’s death of child’s death. The slayer “stays in the country” and the victim essentially has to get over it. This takes place after the elders decide how much to “pay” in treasure the victim for the life lost.

Aidōs- sense of shame/ reverence. A feeling that warriors had that was used to remind them of who the represented and why they were fighting.

a fortion- from the stronger

In what ways could Agamemnon be criticized as a leader in Books 1–2 of the Iliad (re-read to refresh your memory)?

Agamemnon was a very self-centered and greedy leaders. He also had a lack of confidence in the warriors around him and these qualities seemed to reveal themselves in greater qualities the longer Achilles wasn’t participating in the war. The whole reason that Achilles is not fighting is due to his own stubbornness. Although he doesn’t really seem to believe or trust in his troops, he does have the quality of stirring up certain emotions in them. When talking to the warriors he would call them cowards and say that they weren’t living up to the legacy left by their fathers and also saying they brought no glory to him as a King or themselves as representatives of him. Now this tactic can be seen as bad or good(normal) depending on who you ask. As someone who played sports this type of talk was common in one way or another. When my mile split was two high, or my leaps were too low, and we were close to competition words and phrases such as these would be thrown around to the entire team. Some would say this is bad but to me this seems like activity that’s normal not necessarily good although in my case it did lead to better performance in whichever space. Seeing as they still needed Achilles to advance enough to defeat the Trojans you could say that Agamemnon use of this tactic isn’t useful or productive.

What does Agamemnon do to lead the Greek army in Books 9–11?

Agamemnon seemingly does a 180 turn around. First, he is genuinely apologetic to Achilles for hurting him and once again asks him to return to battle and admits they wouldn’t be able to win without him. He also showed his soldiers a change. He stayed awake and came up with a battle plan for fear of attack and also fought on the front lines of the battle. His altruism here could be questioned because in this particular battle they didn’t need the help of Agamemnon, and his demise would certainly mean failure for the Greeks and leave a city without a King or a clear new leader.

How would you advise him to improve his leadership at this point?

Again I would ask him to employ empathy. He needs to put himself in the situation that he is putting others in and evaluate how he feels about it. He needs to look at his and Achilles’ relationship and really try to understand where he is coming from. He also needs to put himself in the shoes of his warriors. I would also ask to lead by example; if he wants his fighters to fight with grit, and no mercy he should do the same. If he wanted Achilles to stop being selfish and stubborn he should give his girl back and apologize.

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