{78|79} At the beginning of this study, I suggested that kótos was identified in Calchas’s definition both by the length of time that it lasts and by the social status of the angered party. We have seen that the use of télos, metópisthen, and other related terminology gives kótos a sense of extraordinary duration. The issue of the term’s relation to social status now demands attention.

Calchas’s definition focuses on Agamemnon’s potential kótos against the prophet as the rancor of a superior, a basileús in this case, against a social inferior (Il. 1.80-83). That kótos characterizes especially the anger of kings suggests that kótos may apply also to relationships between different categories of superiors and subordinates.

The following scheme classifies kótos with reference to Homeric social hierarchies.

In each of these cases, a god or gods has kótos against (or in reference to) a mortal.

Gods against other gods:

Mortals against mortals of subordinate status:

Mortals against mortals of comparable status:

In a number of these cases, the interpretation of kótos depends on the weight attached to Calchas’s assertion that kótos implies antagonism across social strata. In particular, structuralist method provides one approach to understanding this data. In the cultural code of aggression, kótos can play a particular role, namely, to mediate conflict between the cultural categories of divine and mortal, master and slave, man and woman. Within each of these categories kótos involves conflict between rivals, especially in cases where cultural categories are crossed or where rivalries derive from loyalties within categories.

Of all the circumstances in which kótos is used, only five are clear instances of kótos between equals (gods: Il. 14.191, Il. 10.517; mortals: Il. 1.181, Il. 3.345, and Il. 13.517). All of these examples relate directly to the fundamental questions of the Iliad: four instances point directly to the central conflict of the Trojan War (Il. 3.345, Il. 10.517, Il. 13.517, Il. 14.191, while the fifth (Il. 1.181) relates to the quarrel between Achilles and Agamemnon. A brief review of these instances will show how central this kind of anger is to the story of the Iliad.

In Il. 3.345, Paris and Menelaus engage in single combat. This single combat alludes to a fundamental source of conflict in Greek epic narrative, the {80|81} abduction of Helen by Paris. The anger here described is kótos, not khólos, because, as we have seen, it is motivated by an event outside the immediate context. As I have shown, in the narrative neither Menelaus nor Paris has done anything to the other on the battlefield, so that no immediate motivation exists for either to be angry with the other. In this way, kótos can extend over time in order to reach a télos (“conclusion”), so that it is possible to find oneself facing one’s opponent over an issue that happened elsewhere in time and space. [1] In this sense, Paris and Menelaus can be said to have kótos against one another.

The kótos between Deiphobus and Idomeneus has its origin in their rivalry over Helen (as in Il. 13.517 ff.); so too does the kótos of Athena and Diomedes in Il. 10.517 and Il. 23.391. Structurally, kótos in the passages just reviewed describes a wrath between individuals who may be viewed as equals (for example, a god vs. a god, a warrior vs. a warrior). But the origin of this wrath is not any particular and immediate grievance between the characters. Rather some founding moment, often but not always involving members of another social stratum, must be unearthed in order to understand kótos. Table 3.1 displays the way the conflict between and within social strata provides motivation for kótos in such cases.

Some important features emerge to amplify our view of kótos. In Il. 14.19092 Hera prepares for the seduction of Zeus by seeking Aphrodite’s assistance:

Here, as in Hermes’ warning to Calypso, a god is styled as having kótos, potentially, against another god; indeed we have observed divine kótos working against mortals in those cases that concern violations on the human level. Here it is a god’s kótos that is rooted in the all-too-human Trojan War (Il. 14.192): hoúnek ’ egṑ Danaoîsi, sù dè Trṓessin arḗgeis (“that I help the Greeks and you the Trojans”).

The change in emphasis from a god’s kótos against a mortal to a god’s kótos against another god because of mortal concerns is marked by a change in phrasing. Each instance of kotessámenos in the Iliad is accompanied by a dative object immediately preceding, at the trochaic caesura, or following kotessámenos. But here the cause of the kótos is specified and expanded upon in the next line (Il. 14.192).

Here, the kótos is not merely Aphrodite’s against Hera; rather, her kótos is due to the separation and opposition of the two mortal groups. The Trojan War makes it possible for Aphrodite to deny Hera’s request because of conflicting loyalties across social segments. That is to say that the kótos alluded to in Iliad 14 finds its genesis in the origins of the Trojan War, since Aphrodite possesses kótos because of the loyalties of the subordinate groups, here groups of mortals (the Trojans and the Greeks). Moreover, the kótos that may prevent Aphrodite from helping Hera is the very anger alluded to in Il. 24.27, which arose because of Paris’ átē (“moral blindness”) in regard to makhlosúnē (“lust”). Thus kótos has as its source something outside the immediate context, especially in reference to foundational experiences, the greatest one being the neîkos that leads to the Trojan War.

In many cases, kótos involves characters from the same social level, with conflict occurring at the same time on another social level. For example, when Hera warns Zeus that he would be challenging fate by saving Sarpedon, the kótos she refers to is that of the immortals against men:

This kótos is comparable to that at Il. 14.191 and Il. 10.517 because it emerges from an alliance of gods and warriors. In addition, when Hera sees the gods enraged at Zeus because the gods’ sons have died in battle, she presents a figure analogous to that of Agamemnon imagining the kótos of an Achilles returned to Phthia (Il. 1.181), an image that Agamemnon, in a fit of bravura, dismisses out of hand. Kótos is used in such passages as a kind of a fortiori argument because of its long duration and its intrinsic need to reach a télos, as well as the implication (made explicit in Il. 16.449) that the anger is not that of an individual but of a social group. Kótos is the most dangerous thing to be feared when considering another’s anger because it may involve much more than a personal grievance. In effect, what Hera is telling Zeus here is that his actions might precipitate a feud among the gods.

When Agamemnon fantasizes about Achilles’ kótos (as discussed above), he does so because of loyalties relating to subordinates (here the Myrmidons) in the context of Achilles as their sovereign:

Now, it may be said that the structural relationship is the same in this as in the previous examples: kótos between two equals over a conflict concerning a subordinate. Just as the gods’ kótos against one another concerns mortals, so Agamemnon and Achilles can potentially have kótos against each other because of their captives.

As to Thersites, these lines remain problematic:

In the light of Calchas’s information, the anger appropriate to the Achaeans and their feelings toward Thersites [2] can be styled kótos because their hatred is based {83|84} on Thersites’ quarrels with kings (Il. 2.214: erizémenai basielûsin). In this scene, his conflict is with Agamemnon (Il. 2.221-23: tót’ aût’ Agamémnoni díōi /oxéa keklḗgōn lég’ oneídea (“Then in turn with a sharp cry he reproached Agamemnon”). Thus, the Achaean warriors have kótos against one of their own because of their superiors, namely, the basilêes mentioned in 214 (cf. 220) and, specifically, Achilles, Odysseus, and Agamemnon. [3]

Moreover, the kótos that Thersites inspires in the Achaeans is related to the éris he causes the basilêes and to the neîkos involving Agamemnon, Achilles, and Odysseus. [4]

The series of imperfects here emphasizes the longevity of kótos, that persistance being highlighted by the frequentative in -sk- (of neikeie-sk-e) and by kotéonto, which is based on an old iterative-intensive formation. [5] Finally, note that Odysseus, involved as he is in kótos with respect to the Cyclops, Melantho, Melanthius, and the rest of the suitors, goes after Thersites with a similar streak of violence, and with an emphasis on Thersites’ subordinate status:

These are statements of principle because they refer beyond the particulars of the offensive speech that Thersites has just made. In this regard, Odysseus’s comments {84|85} resemble the remarks he will make to Melantho in the Odyssey. Finally, the display of violence against Thersites clearly shows us why Calchas has asked for protection against a king’s kótos.

Odysseus enforces the kótos that the body of Achaeans feels against Thersites. [6] So too Odysseus enforces kótos in the Odyssey. Since (1) Odysseus plays the role of enforcer in the Thersites episode by providing a theory of kingship (Il. 2.246-64) and the enactment of violence that it justifies (Il. 2.265-69); since (2) Antenor remarks on his demeanor as being zákotos “very angry”; and since (3) his oîkos “household” caps the violence in Odysseus’s homestead kekotēóti thumôi “with an angry heart” (Od. 22.477), I suggest that Odysseus is the hero of kótos—the anger of feud—in contradistinction to Achilles, whom Agamemnon can only imagine as having kótos in the future, of course, in his own oîkos among the Myrmidons. [7]

Achilles, thus, is only in a peripheral sense denoted by kótos in the Iliad. His anger is both mênis and khólos, while kótos is reserved to the background of the Iliad, where it has special reference to the beginning and the end of the war. We have already seen that Achilles is only once referred to as having kótos (Il. 1.178-81). [8] This reference is part of Agamemnon’s view of Achilles, coming as it does at the height of the quarrel, when Agamemnon’s insult almost drives Achilles to murder. Agamemnon might well fear Achilles’ kótos, especially if Achilles takes his place as a basileús (“king”) after a nóstos (“return”) to Phthia. In this case, Achilles’ status as a basileús is clearly involved in Agamemnon’s dismissal, a fortiori, of kótos.

Furthermore, Agamemnon needs to dismiss Achilles’ kótos, precisely because of the substance of the threat he has just made. For not only is Agamemnon contemplating Achilles as a returned king; in addition, he is about to rob him in full view of those over whom Agamemnon holds sway. Thus, the entire process of dealing with Achilles’ anger depends upon the hierarchical structure of Achaean society as represented in Greek epic, from the king in battle with his army to the successful return-hero, now at home and in power. Moreover, in so far as both the plot of the warrior-hero and that of his returning counterpart effectively involve contractual relationships among the Achaeans, abrogation of those relationships constitutes a kind of crooked thémis (“judgment”), and hence potentially a locale for kótos. [9] Finally, in this threat, Agamemnon ranks Achilles below himself:

{85|86} One of the most important features of kótos is called into play here, namely, a superior’s anger against an inferior. And in projecting Achilles’ kingship to a time after his imagined nóstos to Phthia, Agamemnon assumes, rightly, that any kótos resulting from his public violation of Achilles’ due could be protracted in its devastating consequences.

But Achilles has no nóstos (“return”) and no future, apart from the kléos (“fame”) provided by song. Hence, kótos will never again be referred to when the subject of Achilles’ anger comes up. Rather, as in the Iliad‘s proem, his anger is mênis, or, most often, as we will soon see, khólos. In fact, in the very next scene, Achilles is about to kill Agamemnon when Athena comes down and restrains him. Here his anger is khólos (Il. 1.192, 1.217) and oú pō lêge khóloio (Il. 1.224) “and he did not yet let go of his khólos (‘anger’).”

Before we turn to the wrath of Achilles, our pursuit of Calchas’s definition provides us with questions that need to be answered comparatively, in two senses. First, from the point of view of comparative historical linguistics, I will provide a history of kótos. Second, with the comparative insights provided from the ethnography of the feud, I will demonstrate the typological foundation for this kind of anger. {86|87}