You – I hate you most of all the warlords
loved by the gods. Always dear to your heart,
strife, yes, and battles, the bloody grind of war.
What if you are a great soldier? That’s just a gift of god.
Go home with your ships and comrades, lord it over
your Myrmidons!
You are nothing to me – you and your overweening anger!
– Homer
The Iliad, Book 1, lines 208-213. As his conflict with Achilles comes to a head, Agamemnon delivers this hostile speech to Achilles. Acknowledging that Achilles is a great warrior who has fought many battles, he tells him that this is only so because the gods have helped him. And on Achilles’s threat to quit the war, Agamemnon tells him to go home with his ships and soldiers, that Achilles and his anger are nothing to him.