ABSTRACT
Obsession with reconciliation, with settling disputes in a way that does as little damage as possible to the two parties' honour, drives the very earliest Greek literature. The Iliad, although often thought of as a poem about the Trojan war, is in fact a poem about the quarrel between Achilles and Agamemnon and their eventual reconciliation. Agamemnon, forced by divine intervention in the form of plague to give back the trophy woman he had been awarded following a Greek sacking of a town, used his higher status to take for himself the trophy woman who had been awarded to Achilles. Achilles responded by withdrawing from the war effort, and no amount of promised gifts would persuade him to return to the fighting until his comrade Patroclos was killed in battle. Achilles then sought to avenge Patroclos' death by re-entering the fighting and killing the Trojan king's son, Hector, who had been responsible for Patroclos' death. The poem ends with reconciliation as Achilles agrees to return Hector's body to his father in return for a great ransom.
