On Knowing How to Think Forward and Backward at the Same Time: Agonistic Temporal
Framing in Iliad 1

Marcel A. Widzisz (Rice University)

This paper addresses a curious phrase of Homeric Greek: at Il. 1.343 Achilles says of Agamemnon, “οὐδέ τι οἶδε νοῆσαι ἅμα πρόσσω καὶ ὀπίσσω.” Should we understand, “he does not know at all how to think about the immediate future and the more distant consequences,” (Willcock 1978, ad loc.) or, “he does not know at all how to perceive both forward and back at the same time?” Even when affirming the latter, however, commentators wonder whether the particularly dense formulation of the line might not be due to rhapsodic expansion (Kirk 1985, ad loc.). Yet this statement is the last one on the quarrel Achilles offers, to any mortal interlocutor at least, until the embassy speeches of Il. 9. I submit that “perceiving forward and backward at the same time” is not only the correct translation but also refers succinctly to a sustained form of argument developed between Achilles and Agamemnon during their quarrel.

This form of argument is determined by temporal parameters: it consists of a presentation by one party of a point in the past (an analeptic move) and a point in the future (a proleptic move). The rejoinder offered by the second party seeks to undermine the opponent’s argument by proposing different points in the past and future Thus Achilles argues, at 1.158ff., that he came to Troy to do Agamemnon honor, although the Trojans never harmed him before. Achilles then threatens to return home. Agamemnon responds by directly expanding the temporal frame of reference. He undercuts Achilles’ position about the past by stating that it is ever in Achilles’ nature to quarrel and seek after war (1.177); even his superiority in war is due to the prior fact that a god has granted him such an advantage (1.178), an allusion to Achilles’ birth from a goddess. Agamemnon uses prolepsis when he tells Achilles to return home since others will honor him (1. 174-5). Restrained from mutinous slaughter by Athena, Achilles resorts to an oath upon the temporally-charged scepter of kings, to encompass Agamemnon’s riposte both analeptically and proleptically. Just as the scepter safeguards the past tradition of the laws so will it now seal the future frame of the oath: longing for Achilles will come and the men who were to do Agamemnon honor will die in droves (1.240-41). After Nestor’s intervention, Agamemnon again brings up Achilles’ divine background but, crucially, does not try to outdo Achilles’ last temporal frame or even acknowledge it. Achilles can thus conclude that the king does not know how to think forward and back at the same time as well as he can.

I term this type of discourse “Agonistic Temporal Framing;” among other examples are the assembly speeches of Odyssey 2 and Plato’s Laws (888b-c), where just such a strategy is suggested in confronting atheists, who are to be told that, 1) they will change their minds when older and, 2) they are not the first to have such notions. In Homer, however, agonistic temporal framing is largely limited to contentious, public debate and Achilles defines the temporal parameters of such debate quite concisely.