As a war epic, the Iliad is crowded with battle scenes, and these with many repeated elements which could make the scenes seem undiscernible among themselves. In reality the battle scenes are first articulated by four battle-days. And secondly there a ...
As a war epic, the Iliad is crowded with battle scenes, and these with many repeated elements which could make the scenes seem undiscernible among themselves. In reality the battle scenes are first articulated by four battle-days. And secondly there are two kinds of detailed equipment to reveal the structure of battle scenes: battle-tides and duels.
The first battle-day seems to represent last nine years, showing somewhat unfavorable to Trojans but anyhow balanced situation. The other three days expose another balance; on the second battle-day Trojan party enjoys an utter victory, while on the fourth day one Greek hero overwhelms the opposite. In the middle, the third day witnesses three times processions and recessions of each army.
Roughly speaking, to these ebbs and tides correspond the results of the duels, especially of those on the first battle-day. Both at the beginning and at the end of this day there happen two similar looking duels; in both the Greeks prove to be victorious. In addition to these there are three more duels in the course of battle on this day; first a Greek, then a Trojan, and again a Greek wins. Therefore the five duels of the first battle-day give a well-formed balance: the winners are, in turn, Greek - Greek - Trojan - Greek - Greek.
On the second battle-day, there is no duel; instead one can find an 'unfolded' duel: Teukros tries to hit Hektor with his arrows, but after a couple of attempts and failures he himself gets wounded by the opponent. This result reflects the day's fortune of the Greeks.
On the third battle-day, the tides of the battle fluctuate six times, but there are only four duels, among which the fourth between Menelaos and Euphorbos seems to have no relation to the trend of the whole battle. The other three duels go parallel with the whole battle situation. The 'lack' of single combats can be supplemented with Hektor's wounds (books 11, 14) and recovery (book 15), located at turning points.
On the fourth battle-day, no feats are reported except those of Achilleus, the invincible hero. But the six duels of his don't show a straightforword rising to the highst glory; rather they reveal his failures and frustrations. These six duels can be coupled by twos; one longer scene with deeper structure, one shorter with poor structure. In the first two duels he fails to win glory, on account of the interventions of gods. In the third he gets a wound, though trivial, and in the fourth he narrowly escapes death with gods' help. His failure is repeated in the fifth. But at last in the sixth duel he succeeds. These duels do not reflect the structure of the battle tide of this day, but rather make a structure by themselves and frame this day's battle scenes with it. This day each of three battle scenes has at least one symbolic victim, which makes the scene parallel with the duel scene located just before or after it.
First three days' duels, supplemented as above and reckoned by days, can be accounted as miniatures of each day's battle situations. But last day's duels function differently; they represent the failure and success of Achilleus in the Iliad. The first three days' are related to the generic subject of the Iliad, the last day's to the specific subject of it. But among the first day's duels which seem to perfectly reflect the generic subject, we can find one relating to the specific subject: the last duel between Aias and Hektor, on condition that the fallen body should be given back.