MACHIAVELLI AND HOMER ON THE LION AND THE FOX

What of Homer? Does Homer, through his presentation of his greatest hero as the pupil of the centaur Chiron, covertly teach princes that they need to recognize that they are in a state of combat with their subjects and friends, and that in order to acquire power over, and honor from, their subjects and friends, they need to imitate the beasts, the lion and the fox, and hence resort to ruthless cruelty and deception? In the Iliad, Homer repeatedly compares warriors to beasts, 84 times in all, and thereby highlights the ways in which men at war resemble beasts in their ferocity and treat each other as pitilessly as beasts.^[573] Moreover, Achilles declares - in response to Hector’s request that they swear an oath to return each other’s corpse to their companions should the other be slain in combat - “[a]s there are no trustworthy oaths for lions and men, nor can wolves and lambs have a spirit that is like-minded, but continuously they devise evils against one another; nor will there be oaths for us two, before one of us falls to glut Ares with his blood, the tough warrior” (22.262-267).

Homer refers to Chiron four times in his poems, all in the Iliad. First, the healer Machaon treats the wound of Menelaus and “he knowledge­ably sprinkled mild drugs on it, that Chiron once gave, with friendly disposition, to his father” Asclepius (4.218-219). Later, the wounded warrior Eurypylos asks Achilles’ friend Patroclus to treat his wound: “[S]prinkle mild drugs on it, noble ones, which they say you have been taught of by Achilles, whom Chiron, the most just of centaurs, taught” (11.830-832).

What is most immediately striking about Homer’s treatment of Chiron in the light of the emphasis Machiavelli places on Chiron is how muted it is. In the entire Iliad or Odyssey, Chiron is only mentioned four times, only three times in connection with Achilles, and only once explicitly as a teacher of Achilles. Homer gives much greater emphasis to other influ­ences over Achilles: his father Peleus (9.252-259, 9.393-400, 19.321-325); his divine mother Thetis (1.393-406, 18.86-93, 19.34-36, 24.128-142); his older friend Patroclus, who was sent by his father Menoitius to Troy to advise and guide Achilles (11.782-790); and Phoenix, who declares that Peleus sent him to accompany Achilles to Troy “to teach” him how to wage war and address assemblies, “to be a speaker of words and a doer of deeds” (9.438-44). Furthermore, Chiron is identified as a teacher of the healing arts as often (twice) as he is identified as one who provides a weapon, and perhaps also training, for combat (twice). Finally, the only time in Homer Chiron (or anyone else) is identified as a centaur, he is identified, by Eurypylus, as “the most just of centaurs” (11.832). In all of these ways, Homer emphasizes - overtly - that Achilles was instructed by humans (and a goddess) to be the best and most virtuous of the Achaians and that even the centaur Chiron taught him how to alleviate suffering (through “mild drugs”) and to be just.

On the other hand, Homer may well, as Machiavelli suggests, mean covertly to underscore the significance of the centaur Chiron’s instruction of Achilles. For Achilles is clearly the most ferocious warrior in the Homeric poems.

However, if we consider Homer's Achilles in the light of Machiavelli's full elaboration of Homer's purported teaching concerning the need to “use the beast” we must conclude that Homer's Achilles falls short. For, as Machiavelli explains that teaching, a prince must imitate the deceitful­ness of the fox as well as the ferocity of the lion in order to acquire the honor he seeks. Now, in Chapter 18, Machiavelli presents Achilles as one who understands the need to imitate the beast, both the cunning of the fox and the fierceness of the lion, in order to acquire the ends he seeks, his state and his reputation.

Strike, fellows, strike; this is the man I seek

On, Myrmidons, and cry you all amain: “Achilles hath the mighty Hector slain.” (Troilus and Cressida 5.8.10, 13-14)

But the Achilles of Machiavelli (and Shakespeare) is clearly not Homer's Achilles. For Homer's Achilles emphatically shuns deception of any kind, as he declares to Odysseus in particular: “For that man is just as hateful to me as the gates of Hades, who conceals one thing in his mind, but says another” (9.312-313; see also 9.375). To be sure, by angrily declaring to Agamemnon, “nor have you endured in your spirit to go on an ambush [λoχονδ'] with the best of the Achaians” (1.227-228), Achilles does indicate that he regards such deceptive tactics against enemies as ambushes - as, for example, Odysseus's use of the Trojan Horse as an “ambush [λoχον]" against the Trojans after Achilles' death^[575] - as at least

Homer and Machiavelli on Education and Human Excellence 233 compatible with virtue and implies that he has used such tactics himself.^[576] On the other hand, Achilles only mentions such deceptive tactics once in the entire poem, even there he does not suggest that it is positively virtuous to use such tactics, and Homer never presents Achilles as ambushing the Trojans. Indeed, Homer concludes the Iliad by presenting Priam, in the very last speech of the poem, as declaring to the Trojans that, thanks to the promise of Achilles, they need fear no Achaian “ambush” as they gather wood for the funeral of Hector (24.778-781).

This question is underscored by the fact that there is a Homeric hero who does possess, to a superlative degree, the capacity and the willingness to deceive, the hero of Homer’s other great poem: Odysseus. It is Odysseus who coolly deceives and kills a Trojan spy, undertakes a daring night mission to slaughter sleeping enemy warriors, and ventures into Troy in disguise as a beggar, to gather information and slay unsuspecting enemy soldiers (Iliad 10.382-502, especially 475-481; Odyssey 4.240-258). It is Odysseus who finally leads the Achaians, after ten years of war, to conquer and destroy Troy, through his stratagem of the Trojan

Horse (8.492-520). Odysseus is the hero who brilliantly overcomes the might of the monstrous Cyclops through ingenious tricks and lies (9.273-472). And it is in part thanks to Odysseus’s cunning and guile that he is able to vanquish the 108 suitors who besiege his wife and home in Ithaca. Odysseus is a master deceiver, one willing to deceive his family and friends as well as his enemies. As Athena remarks to him: “Hard one, thoughtful in varied ways, never tired of tricks, you would not, even being in your own land, desist from deception and thievish speeches, which are wholly beloved by you” (13.293-295).

Furthermore, Odysseus is a lover of glory and he uses his guile, in some measure, in order to attain glory. After he has left Ogygia, the isle of Calypso, and Poseidon has destroyed his raft, and Odysseus believes that “now my towering destruction is certain,” he gives voice to what is apparently the deepest desire of his heart:

Three times blessed were the Danaans, and four times, who perished then in wide Troy, bringing favor to the sons of Atreus, as I wish I too had died and followed my destiny on the day when most of the Trojans hurled their bronze-fitted spears at me over the dead son of Peleus.

At the critical moment when Odysseus faces certain death, his deepest regret is not that his death will deprive him of his homecoming or that he rejected the offer of an immortal, ageless existence with the goddess Calypso but rather that an ignominious death in a sea storm will deprive him of the glory that death in battle would have given him. Moreover, Odysseus’s love of glory is evident in a number of ways throughout the Odyssey. When Odysseus requests that the Phaiacian Demodocus sing, he asks him to sing of his most glorious stratagem, the wooden horse, filled with men, who sacked Troy (8.492-495). When he reveals his identity to the Phaiacians, he declares: “I am Odysseus, the son of Laertes, who concern all human beings through my stratagems, and my glory reaches the heaven” (9.19-20).^[578] Odysseus suggests here both that his glory defines him as much as his craftiness and that his craftiness is a means to the acquisition of glory. When Odysseus makes the fateful mistake of revealing his name to the Cyclops, he does so, in part, for the sake of spreading his fame: “Cyclops, if someone of mortal humans should ask about the hideous blinding of your eye, tell him that Odysseus, the sacker

Homer and Machiavelli on Education and Human Excellence 235 of cities, the son of Laertes, who has his home in Ithaca, did the blinding” (9.502-505).^[579] Even Odysseus’s praise of marriage to Nausicaa is couched in terms of fame as well as love: “Nothing is mightier than this, nor better, than when a man and woman have a home, like-minded in their thoughts: a thing that brings many woes to their enemies, joy to those who wish them well, and they themselves especially are renowned” (6.182-186).^[580] Finally, Odysseus’s concern for his own glory is manifest, in a general way, in his account of his adventures to his Phaiacian hosts. For Odysseus’s narration of his adventures to the Phaiacians artfully and deceptively obscures his mistakes - his defeats at the hands of Ciconians and especially the Lastygonians - while highlighting what he at least perceives to be his glorious successes - over the Cyclops and Circe.^[581]

In addition to displaying the cunning of the fox, Odysseus also might seem to exhibit the ferocity of a lion. He pitilessly kills, or arranges the killing of, helpless, sleeping Trojans, the 108 suitors of his wife Penelope, along with 8 male servants, and 12 disloyal maidservants (Iliad 10.475-502; Odyssey 22.1-392, 22.435-476). Odysseus even tries to slaughter “all” the vengeful relatives of the suitors he has slain and is only stopped by the intervention of Zeus (24.528-545). In contrast, while Achilles is capable of great harshness and even cruelty, he is also capable of great mercy. He has evidently shown considerable mercy to “many” of the Trojans and their allies - for example to a son of Priam, and the mother of Andromache - in the course of the war (21.100-105, 21.34-48, 6.414-428; see also 11.101-112). And he does eventually show tremendous compassion to Priam and all the Trojans by freely granting them, entirely on his own initiative, a 12-day truce so that they may bury their beloved Hector in peace (24.512-551, 24.648-672). Even though Achilles displays ferocious anger, unlike Odysseus, he seems eventually to rise above his anger.^[582] Achilles consequently might seem, on the whole, less ferocious than Odysseus. Homer compares Odysseus to

a lion more frequently (four times) than he does Achilles (three times).^[583] Indeed, it is noteworthy that Homer compares Hector (seven times),^[584] Ajax (four times),^[585] Diomedes (four times),^[586] Agamemnon (four times),^[587] and Menelaus (four times)^[588] more frequently to lions than he does Achilles, and Patroclus as frequently.^[589] And in the three lion similes Homer applies to Achilles, only one is a typical Homeric lion simile that invokes leonine ferocity (20.163-175): One compares Achilles, as he groans in mourning for his beloved Patroclus, to a lion who groans because his cubs have been stolen, and another compares Achilles, as he moves suddenly to prepare the corpse of Hector for his return to Priam, to a lion (18.314-342, 24.572-591).^[590] One might therefore be tempted to conclude that Odysseus successfully combines foxlike cunning with leo­nine ferocity and hence that, in the light of Machiavelli’s account of virtue, Odysseus should be the principal hero of the Homeric poems.

And yet, in Homer’s account, Odysseus clearly lacks the outstanding courage of an Achilles, a courage that Machiavelli seems to characterize as “fierce and spirited” as opposed to “effeminate and pusillanimous” (P 15.62) and seems to identify with “the greatness of spirit [la grandezza dello animo]” (P 8.35; see also D 2.2.2) that enables one to endure “a thousand hardships and dangers” (P 8.35) and hence with the lion who can confront “wolves” (18.69). When Agamemnon’s foolish desire to keep the daughter of Apollo’s priest as his mistress provokes Apollo’s deadly wrath and threatens the Achaian army with destruction, it is only Achilles - not Odysseus - who musters the courage to stand up to the powerful king and save the Army from annihilation. Moreover, Odysseus excels on the battlefield - and in athletic games - only in the absence of the vastly stronger and more spirited Achilles. Finally, even though Odysseus

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Homer and Machiavelli on Education and Human Excellence 237 does effectively vanquish his enemies in his homeland, he is far from single-minded in his determination to return home and recover his home and kingdom: He forgets Ithaca for the year he spends with the beautiful goddess Circe and he forgets Ithaca for a portion of his eight years with the beautiful goddess Calypso (10.467-472, 5.153). There is something diffuse in the character of Odysseus, the man of many ways, who seeks glory but also sensual pleasure and sheer adventure. It is therefore not surprising that the virtuous prince Alexander the Great (D 1.20) models himself on Achilles rather than Odysseus.

If one considers Machiavelli’s account of Achilles in Chapter 18 in the light of Homer’s poems as a whole, it might seem, then, that it is Achilles who knows best how to imitate the ferocity of the lion and Odysseus who knows best how to imitate the astuteness of the fox. Machiavelli might seem to suggest, then, that, just as the ancient writer Homer taught covertly to princes - by presenting Achilles as the pupil of the centaur Chiron - that “it is necessary for a prince to know well how to use the beast and the man” - so Homer taught covertly to princes - by presenting as outstanding heroes both the courageous Achilles and the wily Odysseus - that it is necessary for a prince to know “how to use the persons of the fox and the lion”, to “imitate” their “natures,” and to be “a very fierce lion and a very astute fox” (P 69-70, 78-79). In this way, Machiavelli might seem to suggest that Homer taught covertly what he, Machiavelli, teaches overtly: that a prince must excel at courage and deception in order to attain the greatest power and glory, as, for example, Severus, Cyrus, and Romulus did (P 78-79, 22-24; D 1.10.4, 1.10.6, 2.13.1).

And yet Homer clearly does not teach overtly or, it seems, covertly, that one ought to embrace deception as Odysseus does in order to attain power and honor. For, however admiring Homer is of Odysseus, Homer, as even Alexander the Great understood, clearly presents Achilles as the greater model of human excellence.^[591] More broadly, even though Homer clearly understands, as Machiavelli suggests he does, the utility of deception and ferocity to achieve political success - to achieve power and honor - Homer does not embrace the equation that Machiavelli appears to make between such political success and happiness. Homer does not regard “the honor of the world” as “the highest good” (D 2.2.2).

In order to understand this point, let us consider Achilles' denunciation of deception within the larger context of Achilles' desire for honor.

Achilles is a lover of honor. He therefore complains bitterly that Agamemnon and the Achaians do not honor him as “the best of the Achaians ” (1.244, 1.355-356, 1.407-412). But what precisely does Achilles seek in having honor? Achilles seeks, in the first place, a just recognition and confirmation that he is worthy of honor, that, as the most virtuous of the Achaians, he deserves to be recognized as such. In Book IX, when the Achaians are on the brink of destruction and desperately want Achilles to return to battle to save them, Agamemnon promises Achilles seven Argive cities in which the men “will honor you as a god” and Odysseus adds that the Achaians themselves “will honor you as a god” (9.297, 9.302-303; see also 9.603). But, in contrast with Hector, who declares twice, “I would be honored as Athena and Apollo are honored,” Achilles does not seek such flattery (8.540, 13.825-827). Precisely inasmuch as Achilles seeks honor as a confirmation of his true merit, he does not seek to be honored beyond his true merit.^[592] Accordingly, Achilles does not seek to be honored as a god or as the greatest human being, but quite specifically as “the best of the Achaians.” Furthermore, Achilles seeks a truthful recognition of his virtue from those who are capable of recognizing his virtue and hence from those who are virtuous themselves. Therefore, in contrast with Hector, who seeks praise from Trojan men and women as a whole and from anonymous human beings in the future (6.440-442, 22.99-110, 7.87-91), indeed universal and eternal praise - “my glory will never perish” (7.91); “ [i]f only I were immortal and ageless for all my days and were honored as Athena and Apollo are honored” (8.538-541, 13.825-827) - and in contrast with Odysseus, who also seeks praise from human beings as a whole (Odyssey 9.19-20), Achilles seeks honor only from those who are worthy of giving him honor. He consequently does not seek praise from inferiors, from “those of no account” (1.231), and hates Thersites, even though Thersites does evidently praise him (2.220, 2.239-242). On the other hand, the men Achilles loves the most are among the most virtuous Achaians and the ones who criticize him most powerfully: Odysseus, Phoenix, Ajax, and Patroclus (9.198, 9.204, 18.79-82; see 9.300-306, 9.496-523, 9.624-642, 9.678, 16.29-35). For insofar as they are both most virtuous and most truthful, they are most capable of recognizing and confirming

Homer and Machiavelli on Education and Human Excellence 239 his own virtue. Now, given what Achilles seeks from honor, it would be unreasonable for him to acquire honor through deception of those from whom he seeks it. He seeks honor for what he truly is, not for what he seems to be, from those who truly know him and are worthy judges of him, not from those who are ignorant and self-serving. Given what he seeks from honor, then, Achilles could never be satisfied with the honor won by the “great pretender and dissembler” acclaimed by Machiavelli (P 18.70).

But is what Achilles seeks from honor reasonable? When the Achaians side with Agamemnon against him and fail to confer on him the honor that he expects - a failure that reflects their own selfishness and cowardice and hence their lack of virtue - Achilles expects that, once they suffer at the hands of the murderous Trojans in his absence, they will at last honor him for his virtue (1.239-244,1.407-412). But Achilles comes to see that this expectation is problematic. For inasmuch as the Achaians honor him in exchange for his return to battle, their honor does not reflect their honest estimation of his virtue but rather their selfish desire for survival and victory. Accordingly, Achilles rejects their offers to bestow immeas­urable honors on him if only he returns to the war: “I do not think that the son of Atreus, Agamemnon, will persuade me, nor that the rest of the Danaans will do so, since there was no gratitude for fighting unceasingly, always, against enemy men” (9.315-316). He sees that those from whom he seeks honor for his self-denying virtue are themselves hopelessly selfish. They therefore confer honor in a self-serving and even arbitrary manner rather than justly: “There is an equal portion for the one who stays back and if someone fights hard. The evil one and the noble one are held in single honor” (9.317-318). Achilles comes to see, then, that his belief in honor as a just reward for his noble devotion to others is unreasonable, and consequently calls into question the reasonableness of his dedication to virtue: “He still goes down to death, the man who has done no deeds and the one who has done many. Nothing more is laid up for me, once I suffered pains in my spirit, always risking my soul by fighting” (9.320-322).

At this point, a follower of Machiavelli might argue that, precisely insofar as it is unreasonable to expect a just honor and gratitude for one’s virtuous devotion to others - “ [f]or one can say this generally of men: that they are ungrateful, fickle, pretenders and dissemblers, evaders of danger, eager for gain” (P 17.66) - precisely insofar as honor is inevitably con­ferred by selfish human beings, one should understand virtue as the effective pursuit of one’s own good and seek to acquire “the highest

good,” praise from one and all, “the honor of the world,” by all means necessary, including most emphatically by deception (D 2.2.2). In this way, a follower of Machiavelli might argue that Achilles should have lowered his expectations, both from others and from himself, and should have focused on acquiring universal and lasting praise for himself rather than focusing on rendering himself as noble as possible, in the hope that such virtue would be rewarded with the honor it deserves. Now insofar as Homer’s Achilles himself comes to doubt the reasonableness of his dedi­cation to virtue in the hope of genuine honor, Homer suggests that such dedication is indeed unreasonable. And yet Homer might suggest that Achilles is more reasonable than the follower of Machiavelli in one crucial respect: Achilles sees that, inasmuch as honor is inevitably self­serving, honor, even the “honor of the world,” falls far short of being “the highest good” (D 2.2.2). One may say that the virtuous human being is unreasonable insofar as such a human being strives at once to be selfless and fulfilled, self-sacrificing and happy. But the virtuous human being is reasonable insofar as such a human being seeks for a good more fulfilling than mere security and honor. Achilles’ understanding of virtue is problematic and self-contradictory, but his attraction to virtue reflects his reasonable divination that there must be a more fulfilling good for a soul such as his own than mere power and praise. That insight points to the fulfillment represented by the contemplative singer, Homer himself.

The contemplative life of Homer is not apolitical. The composer of the Iliad and Odyssey is clearly one who, like Machiavelli, is fascinated by politics and war, whose mind and imagination are engaged by the doings of commanders and warriors, and who is acutely aware that politics and war are in some sense inescapable. Nevertheless, the core of Homer’s activity is reflection rather than action, delighting his mind by contem­plating the drama of political life and the larger world within which that drama takes place.