Here Grote and his followers appear to forget that, from the very first, in Book i., the heart of Achilles was set on _revenge_, and on one definitely stated form of revenge, and _not_ on atonement. On this point Grote had not Book i. present in _his_ mind: he says that Achilles asks no more from Thetis, nor Thetis anything more from Zeus, than that "the Greeks may be brought to know the wrong they have done, and be humbled in the dust in expiation of it." This is an egregiously absurd misstatement! It seems that the great historian forgot to verify his reference, with the usual result, a misstatement of fact as the basis of a charge of discrepancy. What Achilles bids Thetis ask from Zeus is, "_hem the Achaeans among their ships' sterns about the bay_, that they may make trial of their king...."[10] Achilles does desire the humiliation of Agamemnon, but that humiliation must arise from a massacre of the Greeks _among their ships' sterns_; and from their prospect of annihilation. Already, to Agamemnon, during the quarrel in Book i., Achilles had said that his day will come "when multitudes fall dying before manslaying Hector."[11] In the state of affairs in Book ix. no great multitudes have fallen before Hector. Zeus again, in Book viii., promises to fulfil the desire of Achilles to the letter. "Headlong Hector shall not refrain from battle till that Peleus' son shall have arisen beside the ships, on that day _when these shall fight amid the sterns in most grievous stress around Patroclus fallen. Such is the doom of heaven_."[12] Achilles cannot be reconciled and take arms till the doom is fulfilled. Not only does Homer keep the prayer of Achilles in Book i. constantly in view till it is accomplished in Book xv., but after its accomplishment he returns to and insists on the fulfilment by Zeus of this rash prayer. The whole burden of the _Iliad_ rests on this prayer of Book i., and in its disastrous consequences not only to the host, but to Achilles. In Book xvi. 97-100, a part of the _genuine kernel_, Homer makes the last words that Achilles ever spoke to Patroclus express a fury of revenge which Nemesis could not pardon. "Would, O Father Zeus, and Athene, and Apollo, would that not one of all the Trojans might escape death, nor one of the Argives, but that we twain might avoid destruction, that alone we might undo the sacred coronal of Troy." This is the very extreme of pride and passion, an extreme which Greek thought regarded as entailing its own inevitable punishment. Achilles, when the news of the death of Patroclus reaches him, recognises this. Thetis says, "My child, why weepest thou?... One thing at least hath been accomplished of Zeus according to the prayer thou madest ... that the sons of the Achaeans should all be pent in at the ships, through lack of thee, and should suffer hateful things."