Book 11

In this book, we finally get an image of Agamemnon in battle. In seemingly every other book, Agamemnon's ability to lead an army in any capacity was questioned, especially in the numerous occasions where Achilles expressed his anger at how Agamemnon always stayed back during battles. Specifically, I thought back to Book 9.330-332"From all these we took forth treasures, goodly and numerous, and we would bring them back, and give them to Agamemnon, Atreus' son, while he, waiting back besides the swift ships, would take them..." Based off this quote, and several other times where Achilles expressed his anger at Agamemnon never participating in battles, I got the idea that Agamemnon never actually engaged in battles, and only let his armies do all of this work. This book, however, clearly shows Agamemnon bravely leading his army into battle. This seems to be the first time that Agamemnon is shown in a good light, as opposed to constantly being shown as someone that is incompetent and incapable of handling highly stressful situations. It was interesting to get another perspective of how effective of a warrior Agamemnon truly was, rather than just hearing the issues that Achilles had with him.