M³ Tactics Over Brutality

            So, on one level, we have Diomedes kicking ass, and we’ll get back to the main man after this, but first we have to deal with a subtler battle. Who is the better god of war? In the red corner, we have Ares, God of War. In the gold corner, we have Athena Goddess of Wisdom (and war, and crafts, and a few other things).

            Since Ares only has one specialty, it would be easy to think that he’d naturally be better at it, and he’s quite good at laying waste to people on the battlefield. But the Greeks are also commenting on the nature of warfare when it comes to the Iliad. Ares has no finesse, he’s waded onto the battle field and killing the enemy, indiscriminately.

Athena, however, is much more precise in her targets. She wants Diomedes to keep an eye out for Aphrodite and take her out. After that, it’s all about Ares. This is good tactical sense, using her best resources against the enemy’s strongest warriors. Before Diomedes confronts Ares, the Greeks “always backward / gave way, as they saw how Ares went with the Trojans” (V 700-701). The god is just too much to stand against and will eventually demoralize the Greeks to the point of full retreat if left unchecked. Areas must be dealt with, and it will take the best the Greeks can send against him, which is Diomedes. Not Achilles.

Diomedes could have done the same thing, waded into the fight in a different place to simply massacre the Trojans, but this would be tactically unsound. Though battle lines fluctuate back and forth, they don’t often bubble. Armies give ground as a whole because bubbles can be cut off from the rest of the group and destroyed (what should have happened to Jon Snow, don’t get me started).

In order to win, Ares must be dealt with so that the entire army can progress. Athena’s choice is clear. Zeus even knows this as he “set[s] against [Ares] the spoiler Athene, / who beyond all others is the one to visit harsh pains upon him” (V 764-765). With just these few words, it’s clear that the better god of war is the goddess Athena. Ares makes war through the use of overwhelming force in either raw ability or numbers. There is no finesse to his fighting.

As the goddess of wisdom, Athena’s game is nothing but finesse. She could have chosen to do like Ares. She could have taken the guise of some Greek warrior and led a direct battle against Ares, but this was not her way. Instead, she stood by Diomedes and let him bet the one to challenge and dispatch Ares.

I don’t know if she could have taken on Ares directly because that’s not her way of war, it’s his. As the goddess of wisdom, she is deliberate in her actions, which are often not direct. She confronts him in her way, indirectly, wisely, and with the best warrior the Greeks can offer, whose only talents for direct battle are enough (with a little lean-in from Athena) to drive Ares away.

In a very real sense, this is an evaluation by the Greeks that tactics and strategy in battle will always win out over blind force. This will later be borne out as the Greek victory comes from the deception of the Trojan Horse, an indirect strategy as opposed to open warfare.

Athena is, by far, the more deadly of the gods of war. Superior tactics and strategy will overcome even armies of greater numbers and strength. Diomedes’s defeat of Ares on the battlefield demonstrates this understanding.

M³ Ares v Diomedes

            In the case of Ares v Diomedes, Athena represents the butt-kicker, err, the defendant. The plaintiff contends that because he is a god, he will automatically win any battle with a mortal. Furthermore, he seeks to provide evidence of this with his willful slaughter of many, many Greeks on the field of battle outside of Troy.

            For the Defendant, Athena seeks to prove that Ares is a blundering idiot who only knows how to swing a sword or jab a spear while invisible to the eyes of the Greeks, and that a hero of sufficient courage can defeat the god.

            Sorry, no, Zeus is not presiding over this case, we’re doing this old-school, trial by combat.

            Ares takes to the battlefield and just starts slaughtering Greeks wholesale, and they have no idea who or what is doing this because all they can see is that soldiers are getting cut down by something they can’t see. They just try to avoid the area, but Ares keeps wading into them. Well, everyone avoids him, even Diomedes.

            No, he’s not afraid, Athena told him point-blank that he was only allowed to go after Aphrodite. But now she rescinds that order. In fact, she hops into the chariot with him and aims for Ares. Somehow, she also has gotten the helmet of Hades, and makes herself completely invisible to Ares.

            Ares, though, sees Diomedes, and likewise charges him. They’re both going full-tilt at each other. Ares stabs out, and Athena deflects the blow. Diomedes stabs, and Athena helps by leaning into it. And boom, “Ares the brazen bellowed with a sound as great as nine thousand men make, or ten thousand” (V 859-860).

            And then he’s gone. He doesn’t stick around. The god of war is unused to being injured and can likewise not handle it. Yes, Athena helped a little more this time, but, really, Diomedes could’ve done the job himself. She only leaned into the blow. What’s truly impressive is the fortitude of human beings vs that of the gods. Two gods can only take one injury before they go running back to Olympus.

Diomedes is not a perfect warrior. Before Athena found him again, he had been “cooling the wound that Pandaros made with the cast of his arrow . . . and wiped the dark blot of blood away” (794, 797), but he did so with style, not really noticing anything other than an entire day’s exhaustion from fighting the Trojans, Aphrodite, and Apollo. He’s just taking five and doesn’t hesitate to answer Athena’s call to do battle with Ares. He’s all in.