Yehoann

FAVOURITE SLIDE IS FATHERS GRAVE, WHOLE SLIDE HAD ME GIGGLING

The lunatic of Ilium

I finally got around to making a proper version of this old sketch of Andromache sitting in the Greek camp, following the fall of Troy.

Penelope as Goddess of Marriage or Good Governance (there's actually a really good article on Penelope's role of Regent in Ithaca/showing in comparison to her contemporaries who did not hold such political power). I wouldn't say weaving but I suppose that too.

With Odysseus, you could go with God of Journeys – which would flow well considering he's Hermes' great-grandson too – or God of Strategy, considering his exploits but also because he receives Athena’s patronage.

It would also go well with Odysseus being the god of journeys and homecoming.

Leda gives birth to the daughter of Zeus, and everyone says she is the most adorable baby they have ever seen. But no one can agree on the color of her hair or the shape of her features. When the young Helen looks in the mirror, she thinks she looks just like her big sister, the most beautiful woman she can imagine. But when she says as much to Clytemnestra, her sister is confused. Helen is unlike any woman she has seen in Sparta, she says, with forest-green eyes and hair like sunlight on wood.

Helen starts training with the other girls, and she sees less and less of Clytemnestra in her reflection. Instead, she sees the warm brown eyes of the visiting prince who smiled at her across the table, the square jaw of the girl who pinned her in wrestling practice and shot her a wink before she rose. The sons of Atreus come to stay in Sparta, and after a few conversations with the younger brother, Helen finds that her hair has turned his exact shade of red. It stays that way for months after he leaves, and so when scores of suitors arrive hoping to claim the woman of their dreams, he is the one she picks. And they rule together, and laugh together, and lie together, and he tells her that he loves her. But in the long hours of the night, she can't help but wonder if he would still say so if her face wasn't perfectly tailored to his desires.

She is the woman of every man's dreams, and so of course she is the perfect prize for the goddess of beauty to promise the Prince of Troy. With Paris, it is never a question of whether or not he loves her- if she were not a perfect beauty in his eyes, he would have stayed with his first wife, with whom Helen is certain he had more to talk about. In Troy, she is never just Helen. The women look at her and they see the sister that was taken in a raid, the husband that was killed on the battlefield, and they despise her.

And are the Greeks any better? Her unnatural beauty called them to the shores of Sparta all those years ago, drove them to make a pact that only one of them stood to gain from. They have been at war for ten years because of her, they mutter, and so they despise her too. But when they have her in their clutches at last and they gather together to stone her to death, she lifts her veil, and the stones drop from their hands. She bears the face of the wife they have spent ten years yearning for, the lover they lost to a Trojan blade, and not one of them can bring themself to kill her.

You want to know who started all this? Who started to “make Odysseus look nice” in the first place?

It’s Homer. It’s nobody else but Homer himself.

A non-Homeric Odysseus would try to murder people out of his own interests. He’d murder Palamedes without remorse (and we’d be cheering over this but it’s a murder after all), he’d attempt to murder Diomedes just to get the Palladium himself, he’d volunteer to kill Astyanax…meanwhile you wouldn’t find any mention of either Palamedes or Nauplius in Homer’s poems, neither did he mention anything abt the Palladium heist (and Diomedes necessity did not happen until Conon’s version), the death of Astyanax, the distribution of war prizes, etc. And all the details in the Odyssey seemed to deny the existence of Nauplius’s vengeance at all, so Odysseus would not take any of the blame.

A non-Homeric Odysseus would be depicted as “cruel, treacherous”, meanwhile in book 10 of the Iliad Odysseus was not mentioned to have killed anyone during the marauding, neither did he promise Dolan anything at all. The negative interpretations are denied by these details subtly put by Homer.

A non-Homeric Odysseus would be widely known as a “coward” for only shooting arrows from afar. But Homer gave him a spear and had him absolutely slaying in both the Iliad and the Odyssey. That part of Ajax’s speech was invalid already.

Most importantly—a non-Homeric Odysseus would be having kids everywhere else, and the loyalty to his own wife as seen in the Odyssey is no where to be found. Meanwhile his lineage was a single-son line made by Zeus in the Odyssey, and his love for Penelope was one of his main drives, especially seen in book 5 of the Odyssey. He loved his family as a loving parent—something you don’t get to see in most of the non-Homeric writings—for most of the time they followed a different tradition indeed, in which Odysseus wasn’t half as nice as in the Odyssey.

I HAVE DELIVERED

After months of dragging my feet, I finally fished it! (in 4 hours holy shit) and I'm kinda proud of it, but this is probably also the product of my excessive overthinking, but with not further ado, let's begin!

Let’s start with the basics: Tydeus was known for being a wild, out-of-control warrior. His rage was legendary. Diomedes? On paper, he’s the golden child: loyal, calm, respectful, chosen by Athena herself.

But that image of diomedes comes crashing down the moment you dig deeper into his character

On the surface, Diomedes is framed as the “better” version of his father, Tydeus: more disciplined, more strategic, favored by Athena instead of punished by her as stated previously. The Achaeans respect him (not so much leave the poor boy alone let him have his moment instead of comparing him to his father), the gods empower him, and Homer seems to elevate him as the model warrior.

But as i said, when you dig into the text, really look at what Diomedes does, how he fights, how he speaks, you start to see something much deeper and darker: he's not all that different from Tydeus at all when you think about it.

Reading the iliad but focusing on diomedes character its as if he’s constantly on the edge, just barely containing something

he’s a machine of destruction. He slaughters Trojans left and right, wounds Aphrodite without hesitation, and goes after Ares, the literal god of war. He only stops when Apollo himself tells him to back off—and even then, he makes a move again before finally being shut down.

That kind of divine defiance? That’s Tydeus-level rage. It’s just masked under a sheen of Athena’s wisdom and a more calculated cool. Diomedes may wear the face of the perfect Homeric hero, but there’s a savage streak that echoes his father’s madness, just barely held in check.

In the iliad book 10 dio and ody sneak in trojan teritory they catch dolon a trojan spie

Odysseus promises to spare him if he gives them info about the trojans and man sure does he spill

After that? Diomedes decapitates him.

He doesn’t just kill Dolon (after promising to spare him,) he slaughters him, strips him, and then goes on a joyride of death through the enemy camp. When they find Rhesus and his Thracians, Diomedes doesn’t blink—he kills twelve men in their sleep. And then he wants to keep going, like it’s not enough. It’s only when Athena, again, steps in and essentially says, “Okay, calm down now,” that he stops. In this book with Rhesus and the Thracians, Diomedes is already done. He’s already got what he came for. But instead of retreating, he chooses to kill—because it’s not about necessity. It’s about the desire to keep going.

And what’s so chilling about this is how pointless it is, tactically. After Dolon gives them all the info, they don’t need to go murder a dozen men. Diomedes chooses to. He gets no kleos, no divine reward. he doesn’t need a prize. The violence is the prize. He just does it. Because he can.

it’s explicit in the language Homer uses. Diomedes is in full battle ecstasy mode. described as moving like a lion among sheep, grinning and glorying in the chaos. he doesn’t just kill efficiently.

He revels in it.

He likes it, he thrives on the battlefield, and he enjoys bloodshed

"And the son of Tydeus, Diomedes, was glad in his heart as he struck down the men." Iliad book 5

"Glad in his heart" That phrase ("χαῖρε δὲ θυμῷ") pops up in a moments of sheer war ecstasy. It’s not just duty or valor—it’s joy. And when you see it describing Diomedes mid-slaying spree? That’s not your clean-cut hero. That’s a man dancing on the edge of madness.

it’s not just duty. It’s pleasure.

This illustrates how Diomedes isn’t just acting out of obligation not out of practicality, not out of necessity he’s relishing in the kill. It’s not just about the heroics or strategy; there’s an almost primal enjoyment in the violence itself.

The fact that he “was glad in his heart” tells you how far this man is from just being a noble warrior. He’s got that bloodlust burning inside him, and there’s an undeniable thrill in the destruction. It's scary how much he enjoys others suffering.

It’s clear that Diomedes, despite his noble status and divine favor, has that same chaotic, destructive edge his father Tydeus had—it’s just barely held in check.

That bloodlust? That JUST SCREAMS tydeus the difference?: Diomedes knows how to leash it. He’s not the monster his father was; he’s the tamer of that monster within himself. That restraint is what elevates him from being another brutal warrior into something greater: a true hero who chooses to remain in control, even when the thrill of violence is right there.

In fact, the only real difference is that Diomedes is simply better at pretending he’s in control. He puts on the face of the noble hero, but underneath, that same wildfire of rage, that same lust for blood, is burning—just like it was in Tydeus.

Diomedes doesn’t just embody the traits of a Homeric hero—he tests their limits. He walks a razor-thin line between earning immortal kleos and crossing into the kind of reckless savagery the gods despise. The same rage that drives his heroism threatens to tip him into hubris at any moment; and he gets away with it every time.

What makes Diomedes so compelling and so chilling is not that he lacks the ferocity of his father but that he’s better at hiding it. Tydeus is obvious in his rage; he makes no effort to conceal the monster he is. Diomedes, on the other hand, knows how to perform the role of the ideal hero: the noble warrior, the obedient champion of Athena

He’s not more virtuous—he’s just more strategic. He doesn’t kill less, or more cleanly, or even more justly. He kills with the same savage delight, but with the awareness to pull back just before he crosses a line that would cost him divine favor or mortal admiration. This ability to pretend, to wear a hero’s mask while feeding the same destructive instincts as Tydeus hiding the underlying madness behind that mask, makes Diomedes the more dangerous figure. Tydeus may have lost control; but Diomedes hides his control so well, it’s easy to forget what he’s controlling in the first place.

What makes this ironic is that Diomedes, despite all his bloodlust and near-madness, still (in some versions), gets the immortality that was denied to his father. Tydeus, who couldn’t contain his violent nature, ended up punished by the gods; he was denied the eternal glory he craved. Diomedes, on the other hand, dances on the edge of divine retribution, right there with him, and yet, he walks away with not just divine favor but immortality itself.

He’s not Tydeus 2.0.

He’s Tydeus 2.0 with better self-control

And honestly,