Wilson examines the nature of compensation-ransom and revenge-in the liad, offering a fundamentally new reading of the quarrel between Agamemnon and Achilles. She presents a detailed anthropology of compensation in Homer, located in the wider context of agonistic exchange, to demonstrate how the struggle over definitions is a central feature of elite competition for status in the zero-sum and fluid ranking system of Homeric society. The study thus asserts the integral role of compensation in the traditional, cultural and poetic matrix of this foundational epic. | Ransom Revenge and Heroic Identity in The Iliad by Donna F. Wilson, Hardcover | Indigo Chapters