[Author’s Name]
[Institution’s Name]
Essay on Shield
Homer devotes the final passages of Book 18 of The Iliad to the description of the shield of Achilles. Only a quarter of the description concerns warfare, the essential grist of the epic. Instead, the bulk of the description presents a peaceful society and rural idylls, a curious choice for the most ferocious warrior of the Greeks, and an odd thing for both armies to fear. A narrative emerges from the scenes of the shield, and it is this that fits Achilles and repulses everyone else.
We expect Achilles’ shield to unsettle his adversaries—that is, after all, one of the objectives of a shield. Indeed, Achilles returns to battle "shining in all his armour, a man like the murderous war god" (Iliad 20.46).
We need not wonder, then, when Priam and Hecuba supplicate Hektor to return to Troy in the face of this practically cosmic onslaught. But what is unusual is that Achilles’ own men avoid the shield: "None had the courage / to look straight at it. They were afraid of it" (19.14-15). Here even the narration relies on the pronoun "it" instead of explicitly identifying the shield as the source of the Myrmidons’ fear, as if dwelling on it would be an act of profanity.
Why is Achilles’ shield so frightening? After all, Agamemnon’s shield has "the blank-eyed face of the Gorgon / with her stare of horror, and Fear [is] inscribed upon it, and Terror" (11.36-37). As a final touch, the strap is a three-headed snake. And from Athena’s aegis, "Terror hangs like a garland, / and Hatred is there, and Battle Strength, and heart-freezing Onslaught / and thereon is set the head of the grim gigantic Gorgon, / a thing of fear and horror, portent of Zeus and the aegis" (5.739-742). These shields intend to intimidate, for both mortal and immortal owners......
