“warrior hero such as Ajax, Hector or Achilles must be willing to fight in hand-to-hand combat day after day. He must be able, physically and psychologically, to plunge a sword into the body of another human being, and to risk having a sword plunged into his own. He must be brutal and ready to risk brutality. At the same time, he must be gentle to his friends and allies, and able to join with them in group activities both military and peaceful.

Plato was well aware of the problem these opposing demands create, both in the soul of the warrior and in the society he inhabits: ‘Where,’ he asks, ‘are we to find a character that is both gentle and big-tempered [megalothumon] at the same time? After all, a gentle nature is the opposite of an angry one.’ When, in the opening line of the Iliad, Homer asks the goddess to sing ‘the anger of Peleus’ son Achilles’, a large part of what he is asking her to do is to explore this opposition, its sources and effects.”