Pity In The Iliad

In Homer’s Iliad and Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War, those in power did not have the luxury of expressing any form of pity, as long as they wanted to maintain their statuses in the eyes of others. The focus is always on one’s self-interest, whether it be through the maintenance of pride and honor, as seen in Homer’s Achilles, or for the security of a state’s position of power over others, as demonstrated by Thucydides’ Athenians. Unfortunately, as seen in both texts, a loss of pity in order to protect one’s self-interest always yields the same fatal result: the demise of the party lacking pity and those around them.

Within Homer’s Iliad, Achilles lives, eats, and breathes war. As a respected warrior, he relies on maintaining

They refuse to give up a military expedition in the Spartan colony of Melos as “[their] subjects would regard that as a sign of weakness” (HPW 5.95). Even when the Melians argue that they will remain a neutral city, the Athenians uncaringly refuse to let up as they fear it will present the Melians as strong, and they themselves as weak or “afraid” (HPW 5.97). Obsessed with preserving their own empire, the Athenians prove brutally honest with the Melians, revealing that nothing the Melians say or do will change their position. Ever power-hungry, the Athenians see the Melos colony as a necessary step to “increase not only the size but the security of [their] empire” (HPW 5.97). The Melian people simply represent the collateral damage that comes with achieving a heightened power status for their empire. The Athenians can only see the profit they will gain from this expedition, with no care for others involved. They unfeelingly rationalize their actions under the belief that “the strong do what they have the power to do and the weak accept what they have to accept” (HPW 5.89). Since the Athenians find themselves stronger in this situation, they see their treatment of the Melians as just. In short, the suffering of the weak is aloofly dismissed as something that just comes with their position. The Athenian

Through hunting to destroy Hector and all other Trojans for the self-benefit of revenge, Achilles ironically paves the path to his own death as well. After each murder of a Trojan, Achilles moves closer and closer to Hector, causing his mother to step in. She reminds him that “Hector’s death means [his],” (Il. 18.101) but Achilles exhibits tunnel vision and continues pursuing Hector in order to achieve his revenge and also selfishly “win glory,” (Il. 18.130) the desire that caused the death of Patroclus and so many other Greeks in the first place. Hector also warns Achilles of the consequences of a lack of pity as he lays dying. He compares Achilles’ heart to “a lump/Of iron,” (Il. 22.396-397) after Achilles refuses to let the Trojans take Hector’s body. According to Hector, Achilles will die because of this heartlessness. Just the same, the cold, calculating views on preserving an empire fail the Athenians in the end: “their losses were, as they say, total; army, navy, everything was destroyed, and, out of many, only few returned” (HPW 7.87). From the all-powerful empire Athens once symbolized, it miserably lost everything, similar to how the “weak” colony of Melos fell under the hands of the Athenians themselves. Furthermore, as the Athenian army weakened “all discipline was at an end. Every man wanted to be the first to get across…they