What is chiefly noticeable in this passage is the grand scale upon which the anger of Achilles is displayed. He is not content with taunting Agamemnon, but he includes all the princes in his scorn-- #dêmoboros basileus, epei outidanoisin anasseis.# We may also notice the interference of Athene. The Athene of the _Iliad_ is a different goddess from the Athene of the Parthenon. In strength she is more than a match for Ares. Her cunning she subordinates to great and masculine ends, not to the arts of beauty or to study. She is the saint of the valiant and wary soldier. While checking Achilles, she does not advise him to avoid strife in any meek and gentle spirit. She simply reminds him that if he gets to blows with Agamemnon, he will put himself in the wrong; whereas, by contenting himself with sharp words and with secession from the war, he will reduce the haughty king to sue him with gifts and submission. Athene in this place acts like all the other deities in Homer when they come into direct contact with the heroes. She is exterior to Achilles, and at the same time a part of his soul. She is the expression of both thought and passion deeply seated in his nature, the force of his own character developed by circumstance, the god within his breast externalized and rendered visible to him alone. What Athene is to the son of Peleus, Até is to Agamemnon. The next passage in which Achilles appears in the forefront of the scene is in the ninth book (307-429). Worn out with the losses of the war, Agamemnon has at last humbled his pride, and sent the wisest of the chiefs, silver-tongued Odysseus, and Phoenix, the old guardian of the son of Peleus, to beg Achilles to receive back Briseis and to take great gifts if only he will relax his wrath. But Achilles remains inflexible. In order to maintain the firmness of his character, to justify the righteousness of his indignation, Homer cannot suffer him to abandon his resentment at the first entreaty. Some more potent influence must break his resolution than the mere offer to restore Briseis. Homer has the death of Patroclus in the background. He means to show the iron heart of Peleides at last softened by his sorrow and his love. Therefore, for the time, he must protract the situation in which Achilles is still haughty, still implacable towards his repentant injurer. In this interview with the ambassadors we have to observe how confident Achilles abides in the justice of his cause and in his own prowess. It is he with his valiant bands who has sacked the Trojan cities; it is he who kept Hector from the ships; and now in his absence the Achaians have had to build a wall in self-defence. And for whom has he done this? For the sons of Atreus and for Helen. And what has he received as guerdon? Nothing but dishonor. These arguments might seem to savor too much of egotism and want of feeling for the dangers of the host. But at the end come those great lines upon the vanity of gifts