Diomedes

Athena fills Diomedes with strength and lets him see the gods on the battlefield. He kills a series of Trojan leaders, wounds Aeneas, and then strikes Aphrodite as she carries her son away. When Apollo warns him off, he obeys; when Ares enters the battle, Athena directs him to strike the war-god himself, and his spear makes Ares bellow like ten thousand men.

The episode is comic and terrifying at once. A mortal wounds the gods, and the gods complain like injured athletes. But the poem is careful: Diomedes succeeds only because Athena permits it, and his glory is framed as a demonstration of divine favour rather than human self-sufficiency.

Diomedes is the opposite of Achilles in temperament. He does not nurse a grievance, he respects Agamemnon’s authority, and he accepts the limits the gods set. In Book IX he is the one who urges the Achaeans to fight on after Agamemnon proposes retreat, and his speech is blunt and effective. In Book X he chooses Odysseus as his companion for the night raid, and the two men work well together.

Later tradition gives him a difficult return: his wife Aegialeia is unfaithful, and he leaves Argos for Italy. The Iliad does not tell this. In the poem he is the reliable fighter whose excellence makes the Achaean cause credible while Achilles is absent.