Idomeneus

The leader who turns back towards the fighting

Idomeneus has left the battle only long enough to send a wounded companion to the ships. Poseidon meets him on the way back, disguised as the Aetolian leader Thoas, and asks what has become of the Achaeans’ threats against Troy. The question is a challenge, not a request for news.

Idomeneus answers that no warrior is holding back through fear. He believes Zeus may intend the Achaeans to die far from home, but he still urges the disguised god to encourage anyone whose effort fails. Poseidon tells him to arm. Idomeneus reaches his shelter, takes up two spears and runs back towards the field.

The encounter establishes what his long battle in Book 13 will test. Idomeneus is old enough for Homer to mention his grey hair, yet he refuses the safety of age or command. How far can experience carry him when strength begins to fail?

The eighty ships from Crete

The Catalogue of Ships places Idomeneus before the Cretan force. Knossos comes first, followed by Gortyn, Lyctus, Miletus, Lycastus, Phaestus and Rhytium, as well as the other settlements of Crete’s hundred cities. Idomeneus and Meriones command them in eighty ships.

Apollodorus places him inside the island’s ruling family. Minos fathers Deucalion, and Deucalion fathers Idomeneus. Homer does not stop to describe a throne at Knossos, but the catalogue ties this descendant of Minos to a force drawn across Crete and names the city first.

The scale matters when the poem returns to Idomeneus as an individual. He came with eighty ships, but Book 13 does not present command as a position behind the line. His proof of leadership is stored against the wall of his shelter.

Why Meriones needs another spear

Meriones meets Idomeneus near the ships because his spear has broken against the shield of Deiphobus. Idomeneus offers him one or twenty. He says the captured weapons stand inside his shelter because he fights the enemy at close range rather than keeping safely apart.

The inventory includes spears, shields, helmets and armour taken from Trojans he has killed. It is a boast, but one Meriones can inspect. The younger man chooses a strong bronze spear, and the two Cretan commanders return together.

Their exchange makes companionship practical. Idomeneus supplies what Meriones has lost; Meriones then follows him into the part of the battle where age becomes impossible to ignore. Neither man is reduced to an attendant of the other. The Cretan command moves as a pair.

What happens when Aeneas advances

After Idomeneus kills Alcathous, Deiphobus brings Aeneas against him. Idomeneus does not retreat. Homer compares him to a wild boar standing at bay, but the warrior also calls Ascalaphus, Aphareus, Deipyrus, Meriones and Antilochus to his side.

He explains why. Aeneas is in the full strength of youth, while Idomeneus no longer is. If they were the same age, he says, one of them would quickly win. The admission does not diminish the older warrior. It shows that he knows the difference between holding ground and pretending he can stand alone.

The companions form around him. Idomeneus avoids Aeneas’s spear and kills Oenomaus, but cannot strip the body under the rain of weapons. His limbs are no longer quick enough for repeated charges or retreats. Meriones covers him when Deiphobus throws, then kills Adamas after the Trojan misses.

The return Homer gives him

Nestor later tells Telemachus what became of the leaders who left Troy. Diomedes reaches Argos on the fourth day. Menelaus is separated from his brother. Idomeneus, by contrast, brings all his surviving company to Crete, and the sea takes none of them.

The Odyssey gives no storm, shipwreck or loss to complicate that sentence. The old commander who called for companions when Aeneas approached does not return alone. Homer first counts his Cretan force in eighty ships and last measures his success by the men the sea did not take.