Homer's Iliad and the Problem of Force

Charles H. Stocking
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C LASSICS IN TH EORY

General Editors
Brooke A. Holmes
Miriam Leonard
Tim Whitmarsh
 C LASSICS IN TH EORY
Classics in Theory explores the new directions for classical
scholarship opened up by critical theory. Inherently interdisciplinary,
the series creates a forum for the exchange of ideas between
classics, anthropology, modern literature, philosophy, psychoanalysis,
politics, and other related fields. Invigorating and agenda-setting
volumes analyze the cross-fertilizations between theory and classical
scholarship and set out a vision for future work on the productive
intersections between the ancient world and contemporary thought.
Homer’s Iliad and the
Problem of Force
Charles H. Stocking
 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP, United Kingdom
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the
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© Charles H. Stocking 2023
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Acknowledgments

Special thanks are owed to a great number of people for their

support in bringing this work to completion. I am especially grateful
to the editors Miriam Leonard, Tim Whitmarsh, and Brooke Holmes
for their constant support and for their efforts in general with the
truly unique series Classics in Theory. I am also extremely grateful to
the reviewers, who were challenging but ultimately made the book
better. Chapter 4 was a direct result of their influence. Greatest
thanks are owed to Cléo Carastro for inviting me to present the
earliest stages of this work at the École des hautes études en
sciences sociales in Paris over a series of lectures in the spring of
2019. It was in that lecture series that the book first took shape. The
audience members of the EHESS and ANHIMA, including Manon
Brouillet, Paulin Ismard, Vincent Azoulay, and Stella Geourgoudi,
among others, provided excellent feedback and criticism. I am
especially grateful to Pierre Judet de la Combe, Pietro Pucci, and
Claude Calame, who were extremely generous with their time and
expertise during my stay. And I received tremendous support from
my colleagues at Western, Aara Suksi and Lawrence De Looze, who
attended every one of my talks in Paris and continued to provide
great feedback afterwards. Chapter 2 was presented at Cambridge
University, and Renaud Gagné and Simon Goldhill offered excellent
points of critique and valuable feedback. Sections of this book were
also presented at my home institution, Western University, as well as
at the University of Toronto, the University of Chicago, and for the
Political Theory workshop at UCLA. The responses of friends and
colleagues at each of these institutions made the manuscript better.
A section of this book was presented in a panel for the Society of
Classical Studies 2020 Annual Meeting titled “Foucault and Antiquity,
beyond Sexuality.” Thanks to the panel members, Marcus Folch,
Miriam Leonard, Brooke Holmes, and Allen Miller, and to the
audience of the SCS, who provided a lively and memorable
discussion. I owe the deepest debt to Allen Miller in particular, who
has long been a mentor and role model for thinking seriously about
antiquity and its impact on the “history of the present.” Thanks also
to Richard Martin, Chris Faraone, Kendall Sharpe, and Jim Porter,
who read and commented on sections of the book—all for the better.
Thanks also to Joseph Leivdal, who helped prepare and edit major
sections of the appendix. Lastly, I would like to thank my family. My
brother Damian Stocking not only taught me ancient Greek, but in
many ways, this book is a continuation of his own dissertation on
Homeric ontology. And above all, I am deeply grateful to my wife,
Catherine Pratt. It was during the writing of this book that our
daughter Stella was born, and she has been the most beautiful
reminder there are forces in this world beyond our own will and
agency.
Contents

Introduction: The Homeric Problem of Force, between

Philology and Philosophy
Homer and the Philosophy of Force, between Language and the Subject
Homer and the Philology of Force, between the Human and Divine

1. “Stronger”: Performative Speech and the Force of

Achilles
The Homeric Scepter: Speech and the Source of Authority
A Performative Intervention: Nestor’s Scale of Superiority in Iliad 1
Force, Speech, and the Genealogy of Achilles
The Force of Zeus and Its Performative Limits
Conclusion

2. Kratos before Democracy: Force, Politics, and

Signification in the Iliad
Towards a Political Theology of Force in Homer and Hesiod
The Alterity of Kratos: Philological and Mythopoetic Interventions
Misinterpreting Kratos: Zeus’ Deception of Agamemnon
Reinterpreting Kratos: Diomedes’ Rebuke
Conclusion

3. Force and Discourse in the Funeral Games of Patroclus

The Problem of Force in the Funeral Games: Nestor’s Advice to Antilochus
Foucault and the Funeral Games: Menelaus’ Quarrel with Antilochus
Reversals in the “Regime of Truth”: Eumelus and Ajax
Resolution through Discourse: Achilles’ Interventions and the End of the
Agōn
Conclusion

4. The “Force that Kills”: Simone Weil and the Problem of

Agency in the Iliad
 Simone Weil on Force and the Subject in Homer and History
Subjects of Force in the Iliad
Force, Fate, and Death: Sarpedon, Patroclus, and Hector
Conclusion: Achilles’ Awareness

Conclusion: Homeric Forces and Human Subjects

Reconsidered

Appendix: Force in Early Greek Hexameter

Kratos, Alkē, Biē, Menos, Sthenos, (W)is, Dynamis, Damazō/damnēmi

References
Index Locorum
Index
Introduction
The Homeric Problem of Force, between Philology
and Philosophy

The idea of “force” has taken on an all-pervasive significance in

Homeric poetry ever since Simone Weil proclaimed it as such in her
famous essay “L’Iliade ou le poème de la force.”1 According to Weil,
force is uniform in character, a universal process with profound
implications for human existence. Weil explains:

Force is that which makes a thing of whoever submits to it. Exercised to the
extreme, it makes the human being a thing quite literally, that is, a dead
body. Someone was there and, the next moment, no one.
(Weil 2003: 45)

Much of her essay goes on to describe the many ways in which the
Iliad gives expression to this impersonal and depersonalizing
process. For Weil, and for so many readers of the Iliad after her,
Homeric poetry stands as a transhistorical monument to the
singularity of force, which transforms the human subject into an
object.2
Soon after Simone Weil’s essay was first published, however, the
Classical scholar Bruno Snell published an equally influential and
controversial work, Die Entdeckung des Geistes, in which Snell
observed not one, but multiple forms of force in Homeric poetry.3 He
states:

Mental and spiritual acts are due to the impact of external factors, and man
is the open target of a great many forces which impinge on him and
 penetrate his very core. That is the reason why Homer has so much to say
about forces, why, in fact, he has so many words for our term “force”
[kraft]: menos, sthenos, bie, kikus, is, kratos, alkē, dynamis. The meaning
of each of these words is precise, concrete, and full of implications; so far
from serving as abstract symbols of force…Homer’s words refer to specific
functions and particular provinces of experience.
(Snell, 1953: 20)

Like Weil, Snell observed force in Homer as that which is external to

the human and acts upon him or her. But unlike Weil, Snell gives
more attention to linguistic expression in order to argue for multiple
forms of force at work in Homeric poetry. At first glance, Snell’s
observation suggests a method based in a basic principle of
“linguistic relativity” wherein culture affects thought and experience
of the world by means of language.4 Yet Snell employs a distinctly
German version of linguistic relativity based on an evolutionary
model of culture, wherein human thought and perception are
believed to have moved from primitivism to enlightenment.5 Snell’s
observation on the plurality of forces parallels his other observations
on the plurality of sight and cognition.6 All such pluralities, in Snell’s
view, are symptomatic of a “primitive” form of “sense-
consciousness” which is not yet capable of unifying, “self-conscious”
thought.7 The plurality of forces, in other words, plays a critical role
in Snell’s overall argument that “Homeric man” is incapable of
understanding himself as a single, unified individual, neither in body
nor in mind.8
Thus between Simone Weil and Bruno Snell, two highly influential
and controversial figures, we are presented with a basic problem of
interpretation that every reader of Homer must face: Is “force” in
Homer to be understood in the singular or plural? Is it a universal
and transhistorical process or one that is linguistically and culturally
determined? As the arguments of Weil and Snell have already
indicated, this seemingly simple question on the meaning of “force”
in Homer is ultimately inseparable from the much larger problem of
what it means to be a human subject, both for the ancient Greeks
and for us.
 Despite the large implications in this basic interpretive problem,
the topic of force in Homer is often assumed and seldom analyzed
directly by Classical scholars. The first to directly address the topic
since Weil and Snell was the linguist Émile Benveniste. In his
foundational work, Le vocabulaire des institutions indo-européennes,
first published in 1969, Benveniste states the following under the
heading of kratos:

The translation [of kratos] which is everywhere accepted as “force” is in our

view unsatisfactory…That kratos cannot simply signify “force” emerges from
the fact that at least six other Homeric terms have this sense: bia, is,
iskhus, sthenos, alkē, dynamis. This profusion creates many difficulties for
translators. But the choice of equivalents can only be guided by exact
definitions, that is, an exact idea of the differences between these seven
ways of designating “force.”
(Benveniste 2016: 362, italics in original)9

On one level, Benveniste’s linguistic approach to kratos parallels

Snell’s observation on the plurality of forces in Homer. Both
acknowledge the fact of multiple terms as a significant indication
that each term presents a different meaning and aspect to the idea
of force. Yet Benveniste differs from Snell in his ultimate objectives
and methodological presuppositions. Snell, working out of the
German philosophical tradition, is concerned with the development
of the autonomous and self-conscious individual, whereas
Benveniste, following in the French sociological tradition, is more
interested in how language contributes to the construction of
political ideologies and social institutions.10 For Snell, force in Homer
is a starting point for explaining the modern human subject in
isolation qua individual. For Benveniste, it is an endpoint for
analyzing the human subject in relation to early Greek society and its
prehistory. Furthermore, Benveniste’s approach is understandably
more linguistic, based on a principle known as the “semantic set” or
“lexical field,” wherein synonyms retain differences in meaning by
virtue of the fact that they are grouped together under a single
broad category.11 Hence, Benveniste does not use the fact of a
plurality of terms for force as a symptom of “primitive thought” in
the same manner as Snell. Rather, his approach implies that such
plurality is in fact a regular feature of all language use, while the
plurality of “forces” in Homer is more specifically indicative of
complex social and political thought in Greek prehistory.
Benveniste serves as an important starting point for revisiting the
question of force in Homer from a more philological perspective. And
yet Benveniste himself did not actually offer a comprehensive
account of the seven different terms for force he outlines, having
dealt in detail only with kratos. Since Benveniste’s work, several
scholars have treated terms for force in Homer on a case-by-case
basis. Gregory Nagy’s Best of the Achaeans remains the most
extensive discussion thus far on various terms for force in Homer,
with a primary focus on their oral-poetic implications.12 In Immortal
Armor, Derek Collins offers an in-depth study of alkē in Homer, and
Michael Clarke offers various expositions of terms for embodiment,
especially menos.13 Gregory Nagy and Egbert Bakker also discuss in
detail the semantics and etymological significance of menos in
Homer.14 Furthermore, one might expect that the entries in the
Lexikon des frühgriechischen Epos, originally directed by Snell,
would serve as an occasion to distinguish between these different
Homeric force terms. Yet the entries for each of the force terms in
the lexicon are never treated as the semantic set originally proposed
by Snell.15 While each of these studies has made vital contributions,
thus far no work has taken up a comprehensive view of Homeric
force.
This book, Homer’s Iliad and the Problem of Force, therefore
offers the first full-scale treatment of the topic of force in Homer,
with a view to the distinct interactions between philology and
philosophy. In terms of philology, this work confirms that each word
for force does indeed present a fairly distinct sphere of usage.16 In
particular, one will find that each term implies a different mode of
force, defined by different relationships between self and other,
where the category of “other” includes humans, gods, ancestors,
animals, and other nonhuman meta-persons. Furthermore, as we
shall see, these relations are primarily conceptualized as objects of
exchange in a more general embodied economy shared between the
human and nonhuman. As such, from a more philosophic
perspective, the philology of force has significant implications for
Homeric subjectivity. Rather than treat force strictly as a negation of
the self, in Weil’s sense, or as an indication of the deficiency of
awareness of the self in Snell’s view, the study of force presented
here serves as a further occasion for rethinking the Homeric self
beyond the unitary subject.
When analyzed in light of the topic of force, the Homeric subject
appears to be founded on a double layer of contingency. On the one
hand, there are several ways in which the concept of force is shown
to be a defining feature of the Homeric warrior’s subjective
identity.17 On the other hand, no form of force is understood to be
an attribute of the person as individual. Instead, different types of
force in Homer are presented as coming from outside the person,
primarily given from the gods. Thus, the various terms for force in
Homer serve as points of relation that operate from both inside and
outside of the human subject. If we take this internal/external
relationality of Homeric force at face value then the vocabulary of
force presents an entirely different kind of subjectivity, compared
with the models of Weil, Snell, and others. That is to say, Homeric
subjectivity is founded on a principle of interactive interdependence
rather than independent autonomy. What Homeric subjectivity
presents is an alternative to the ideology of the individual. In Homer,
the forces that come to define oneself do not emanate strictly from
one’s own will, intentions, or actions, but from gods and other
nonhuman agents. And because the gods themselves are also in
conflict, there is no single god, not even Zeus, who controls the
operation of all forces for all humans at any given time.
As we shall see in the course of this book, the topic of force in its
various Homeric forms becomes a means of expressing the very
limits of human agency and identity in the Iliad. In this regard, the
inherent contingency and multiplicity of Homeric forces renders the
very topic of force a problem of interpretation not just for modern
scholars but also for characters within the poem itself. Weil, Snell,
and Benveniste each had their own agenda in their discussion of
Homeric force, and none was particularly interested in how the
different types of Homeric force contributed to the overall narrative
of the Iliad. But if we approach the Homeric vocabulary of force with
regard to its poetic contexts, a distinct thematic pattern emerges.
First and foremost, the majority of terms for force occur in speech
rather than narrative. Such contexts introduce a striking and
problematic feature of Homeric force—the very terms in the Iliad
meant to designate different modes of embodied physicality and
presence are often presented at one level removed from any type of
purely material expression. One might assume that we would see
force “in action,” but the enactment of what modern readers would
consider “force” in Homer is seldom described as such in the
poem.18 Instead, readers have access to the notion of force only
indirectly, by way of the characters’ own interpretations. Even when
the enactment of force appears in its most final and physical form, in
the act of killing, the verbal expressions of “force” are invoked
primarily by the speakers who praise and blame such acts. In this
regard, the conceptualization of different types of force in Homer
appears to play a more important role in the self-fashioning of
speakers’ subjective identity through speech rather than in the
objective action of the poem per se. Second, we can add to this fact
an even more surprising trend concerning the problematic of force in
the Iliad. On almost every occasion in which a speaker makes an
appeal to a certain relation of force, that very claim is contradicted
almost immediately by other speakers or by the narrative events of
the poem. One is able to observe this contradiction in the claims to
force expressed by nearly all characters, including Achilles. The
narrative of the Iliad itself reflects different levels at which this
contradiction plays out. The contradiction appears in the faulty
assessment of the significance of Achilles’ force at the outset of the
poem by both Agamemnon and Nestor (Chapter 1). A similar
contradiction occurs in reference to the false significance attributed
to Agamemnon’s political force in the first half of the poem by
Odysseus and others (Chapter 2). It further applies to the general
assessment of each of the characters in their agonistic ability as an
expression of social hierarchy or aretē in the funeral games of
Patroclus (Chapter 3). And finally, it applies even to the false
attributions of human agency in the act of killing itself in the Iliad
(Chapter 4). Whenever a certain mode of force is invoked in the
Iliad, one is thus able to observe a double action. On the one hand,
nearly every utterance pertaining to force in the Iliad is used in the
service of self-identification or in the characterization of others. On
the other hand, every assertion of force in the Iliad presents the
possibility of undoing those very identities.

Homer and the Philosophy of Force, between

Language and the Subject
When taken together, the terms for force in Homer all point to a
more general view on force and human subjectivity distinct from
modern assumptions. As Bruno Snell observed early on:

We believe that a man advances from an earlier situation by an act of his

own will, through his own power. If Homer, on the other hand, wants to
explain the source of an increase in strength, he has no course but to say
that the responsibility lies with a god.
(Snell 1953: 20)

And Snell further explains that Homeric forces are viewed as a

“fitting donation from the gods.” (Snell 1953: 21). Simone Weil had
also observed this fact but dismissed the Homeric perspective on the
gods as a way to explain away the more general irrationality of force
and war in which all humans participate (Weil 1955: 67). Through a
careful study of the Homeric vocabulary of force, however, one can
observe that not all forms of force in Homer are conceptualized as
“donations from the gods” in the manner asserted by Snell. Two
specific terms, (w)is and dynamis, are not described as a gift from
the gods.19 Thus, careful attention to the philology of force reveals
that the Homeric view is in fact more complicated than Weil or Snell
had believed. That humans can enact force of their own accord
separate from the gods is feasible according to Homeric vocabulary,
but that feasibility is largely understood only as a negative
possibility. For the noun dynamis and the verb dynamai, which give
expression to human potential, are predominantly expressed in the
negative in the Iliad.20 In other words, the different relations of force
do more than present a picture of force distinct from the modern
notion of the self-determined individual. Rather, those terms in the
Iliad actively problematize the status of humans by giving expression
to the limits of agency as such.21
This problematization of human subjectivity and agency in the
Iliad is further underscored by the fact that most terms for force are
invoked in speech rather than narrative. That is to say, the problem
of force and the human subject in the Iliad is inseparable from the
problem of what it means to be a speaking subject. Because speech
turns out to be so critical for framing the very analysis of force and
the Homeric subject, it is useful to return to the “linguistic turn” and
to the problem of the relationship between language and the subject
first inaugurated by the intellectual movement broadly known as
“structuralism.”22 In recent years, scholars such as Miriam Leonard
and Paul Allen Miller have called attention to the important role
antiquity played for theorizing the subject from different perspectives
within the structuralist tradition, especially in reference to Classical
Greek genres of tragedy and philosophy.23 For the most part, the
close connection between antiquity and structuralism is
acknowledged to have developed out of a sustained engagement
with these Classical genres. Yet Homeric and Hesiodic poetry have
also played a significant role in structuralist thought.24 In fact,
Homer’s Iliad has factored directly into the works of Pierre Bourdieu,
Jacques Derrida, and Michel Foucault in important but largely
unacknowledged ways. Thus, in Language and Symbolic Power,
Pierre Bourdieu uses the case of the Homeric scepter in order to
argue that the “illocutionary force” of speech acts does not come
from speaking but from the objective conditions of power in which
the speaker participates. In Rogues (2005), one of Derrida’s last
major publications, Derrida quotes the “one king” speech of
Odysseus from Iliad Book 2 in order to offer an account of political
force, which in turn serves as the basis for his deconstruction of
democracy. And finally, in a more recently published lecture series,
Wrong-Doing, Truth Telling (2014), Michel Foucault offers an
extensive analysis of the funeral games of Patroclus in order to
explore how individuals are tied to hierarchical relations of “force”
and “truth” which are exerted over them by others and by their own
speech. For each of these figures, the topic of force in Homeric
poetry plays a critical role in articulating the larger problem of
language and the human subject in society. As I shall argue in the
course of this book, these lesser-known engagements with Homer
presented in the works of Bourdieu, Derrida, and Foucault will in fact
prove useful for more fully appreciating the distinct types of force
and their roles in the Iliad.
Of course, one could well argue that there is little need to invoke
such thinkers for the sake of interpreting Homeric poetry because
structuralism and its aftermath are now considered passé. But I
believe there are at least three reasons why one should avoid such a
dismissal. The first reason is supplied by Jacques Derrida himself. As
early as 1967, when structuralism was still on the rise, Derrida
anticipated its future fall and offered the following response in his
essay “Force and Signification”:

If it recedes one day, leaving behind its works and signs on the shores of
our civilization, the structuralist invasion might become a question for the
historian of ideas, or perhaps even an object. But the historian would be
deceived if he came to this pass: by the very act of considering the
structuralist invasion as an object he would forget its meaning and would
forget that what is at stake, first of all, is an adventure of vision, a
conversion of the way of putting questions to any object posed before us, to
historical objects—his own—in particular.
(Derrida 1978: 1)

According to Derrida, to treat the intellectual movement of

structuralism solely as a historical object is to dismiss the object of
structuralism itself, namely the very process of signification. As
Derrida goes on to state: “It is certain that the question of the sign
is itself more or less, or in any event something other than a sign of
the times.”25 In other words, to suggest that structuralism is passé is
to suggest that the problem of meaning itself is passé. The problem
of meaning and how it is produced, however, can never be irrelevant
or unfashionable.
The second reason we should not dismiss these “structuralist”
discussions of Homer out of hand is because Bourdieu, Derrida, and
Foucault all present a deep engagement with the linguistic problem
of force in the study of antiquity. Although ancient Greece is a well-
acknowledged topos of French thought, none of the thinkers
discussed here ever presented a particular proclivity towards
Homeric poetry. In fact, their discussions of Homer are relegated
almost entirely to the works mentioned above.26 Why then do all
three figures discuss Homer specifically in light of the topic of force?
On a general level, their engagements with Homeric force are
certainly indebted to the popularity of Simone Weil’s essay. But at a
more detailed level, the discussions of Homer by Bourdieu, Derrida,
and Foucault all seem to be directly indebted to the work of two
highly influential Indo-Europeanists, Émile Benveniste and George
Dumézil. Bourdieu’s discussion of the Homeric scepter and his more
general discussion of the function of persuasion is a direct result of
Benveniste’s study of sovereignty and obedience from his work on
Indo-European language and society. Likewise, Derrida’s discussion
of kratos and politics in Rogues as well as in his last major seminar,
The Beast and the Sovereign, also relies heavily on Benveniste’s
etymologies from his Indo-European dictionary. And finally, Michel
Foucault cites George Dumézil on a number of occasions as a major
source for his inquiry into the relationship between power and truth,
beginning with Homer and Hesiod. Hence, the structuralist problem
of force, language, and the subject appears to be largely founded on
the linguistic prehistory of ancient Greece itself.
Such an intimate interaction between continental philosophy and
Classical philology would indeed seem strange to anglophone
audiences, especially in North America. As Allen Miller has
commented:

The kind of profound classical culture that makes a figure like the great
comparative Indo-Europeanist scholar George Dumézil easily cited and
appreciated by figures as diverse as Foucault, Derrida, and Kristeva is simply
not available to most Anglophone scholars. The notion of Jonathan Culler,
Richard Rorty, or Hillis Miller having the same easy familiarity with the works
of such American Indo-Europeanists as Calvert Watkins or Jaan Puhvel is all
but inconceivable. Consequently, an entire idiom of thought, which these
French thinkers simply assume, often remains opaque even to their most
ardent enthusiasts.
(Miller 2007: 4)

By taking up the problem of the meaning of force, which is common

to Indo-Europeanists, Classical scholars, and continental
philosophers, this book may therefore help gain access to that
particular “idiom of thought” on force and the subject within
structuralist discourse, the “roots” of which have hitherto gone
unappreciated.
Lastly, it should be noted that taking up structuralist thinkers’ use
of Homer on force is not the same as a structuralist reading of
Homeric force. Indeed, one of the greatest problems in the reception
of structuralist thought more generally is the confusion between
theory and method.27 Such confusion stems in large part from the
popularity of Claude Lévi-Strauss’s appropriation of linguistic
structuralism in order to develop what he considered to be a
universal method of analysis.28 One should certainly be wary of any
universalizing will-to-system that would reduce to a single
mathematical formula a vast array of different materials, from
Oedipus to the Zuni emergence myth.29 Indeed, if there is any unity
to structuralist thought in postwar France, it might be best
summarized by Foucault, when he was asked to define himself as a
“poststructuralist.” Foucault denied the category of
“poststructuralism” and responded as follows:
 Behind what was known as structuralism, there was a certain problem—
broadly speaking, that of the subject and the recasting of the subject. [Yet
I] do not see what kind of problem is common to those referred to the
people we call “postmodern” or “poststructuralist.”
(Foucault 1998: 448)

As we have seen from the earlier arguments of Weil, Snell, and

Benveniste, the question of Homeric force centers precisely on the
problem of the subject, and it is for this reason as well that
Bourdieu, Derrida, and Foucault also take up the question of force in
Homeric poetry. As will be made clear in the following chapters, the
work of each is in many respects an extension of the projects
initiated by Weil, Snell, and Benveniste.30 Because Bourdieu,
Derrida, and Foucault take up different approaches to the problem of
Homeric force, each treatment opens up new avenues of inquiry into
the study of Homeric poetry proper. Pierre Bourdieu offers an
occasion for us to reconsider the relationship between force and the
speaking subject in Homer. Jacques Derrida allows us to investigate
more deeply the relationship between force and the political subject
in the Iliad. And Michel Foucault invites us to rethink the relationship
between force and truth in the Homeric agōn within the broader
context of the relational human subject. Each of these thinkers’
engagement with Homeric force thus offer the opportunity to
investigate and ultimately deconstruct the very idea of the human
subject as a self-contained, autonomous individual within the realms
of speech, politics, and competition more generally.
This book therefore presents readings of Homeric poetry on force
in dialogue with these structuralist thinkers in order to address the
much larger problem of subjectivity in the Homeric poems. As I
make clear, however, the treatments of Homer by Bourdieu, Derrida,
and Foucault should by no means be adopted wholesale. Thus, each
approach requires what I term “philological interventions” in their
more philosophical treatments. Such interventions come about
largely through a detailed study of the force terms in context using
oral-poetic methods for analyzing Homeric poetry. When coming to
terms with the meaning of each term related to “force,” basic
methodology in lexical semantics requires that one take into account
all occurrences of such terms. In Homer, however, those occurrences
themselves are often found within formulaic contexts. Hence the
semantics of lexical items in Homer are inseparable from more
pragmatic questions regarding issues of formula and theme.31 And
even though the origins of oral-formulaic analysis, beginning with
Milman Parry, seemed to work against the ability of Homeric poetry
to express unique modes of meaning, the most recent advances
suggest that formulas provide the opportunity to generate even
more meaning and nuance than would otherwise be possible.32 A
more rigorous, oral-poetic approach to Homeric force will therefore
supplement and improve upon the arguments proposed by Bourdieu,
Derrida, and Foucault. And it thereby serves as a further occasion to
revisit the early arguments of Weil and Snell.

Homer and the Philology of Force, between

the Human and Divine
In order to fully explore the problem of force and the subject in
Iliadic narrative, it is important to first detail the different terms and
semantic roles of force, which were briefly mentioned but never fully
developed by Snell and Benveniste. Each of the terms, their uses,
and contexts are presented in full in the appendix and those results
are summarized here.33

Kratos

According to both Snell and Benveniste, the central and most

significant term for force in Homer is kratos, which conveys a basic
meaning of “superiority.”34 As Benveniste noted, the term always
implies a contest, where kratos is presented as the factor which
ultimately accounts for the result of the contest. In this respect, the
contrary of kratos may be achos or “grief” within the epic tradition.35
Furthermore, kratos as superiority seems to operate as a central,
organizing principle for other forms of force and may function as the
basis for other comparative terms designating superior force.36
Furthermore, it is predominantly described as something given by
the gods.37 It is Zeus who most often gives kratos because, as Zeus
himself asserts, he has the most kratos of all the gods (Iliad 8.17).
But because kratos is given and not understood as a permanent
attribute of any single figure, human or divine, one should not
confuse the notion of “superiority” with “sovereignty.” Instead, as I
argue in Chapter 2, kratos encapsulates a notion of “agonistic
alterity,” where the force of kratos requires supremacy over others
and also must come from an other. Indeed, when kratos is invoked
as a gift from the gods, most contexts ultimately emphasize the
divine contingency of events turning out in a way contrary to human
expectation.

Alkē

Another external notion of force is alkē, which may be understood as

a type of “fighting force” specific to the contexts of defense and
attack in battle.38 What makes alkē unique compared to other terms
for force is its conceptualization as a type of outer layer which the
warrior wears, reflected in its use with verbs such as “putting on”
(duō) and “clothed in” (epiennumi).39 According to Derek Collins, it
may therefore function as a type of “immortal armor” that further
reflects a unique form of divine possession.40 At the same time, I
would note that alkē is not entirely external to the human subject
since it can be roused and suppressed specifically through mental
processes of remembering and forgetting respectively.41 Thus, alkē
reflects the ways in which internally conceptualized human
operations of thought interact with external factors established by
the gods.
Menos

The externalized notions of kratos and alkē, however, may be

contrasted with menos, which is better understood as a type of “life
force” which animates the limbs, is associated with the living person
(zōos), drives a human to action, and leaves the body upon death
together with the psychē. It is especially related to embodied
action.42 Unlike other terms, however, the force of menos may also
be “breathed” into the warrior by a god, further underscoring its
relationship to human vitality.43 But like alkē, it too has a mental
component, reflected in its etymological root *men-.44 And yet, even
though menos is more directly a feature of the internal aspects of
the human body in Homer, nevertheless it too can be supplemented
and increased by the intervention of the gods. Menos is given to one
hero over another in order to explain the aristeia of a particular
person in battle, as with Athena’s aid of Diomedes in Iliad Book 5
(Iliad 5.1–2, 125), the divine favor and intervention of the gods as
the Trojans and Greeks battle (especially as it applies to Hector and
Aeneas) (Iliad 15.59–60, 262; Iliad 20.79–80), and also when two
humans compete who are favored by two different divinities, as seen
in the chariot race of the funeral games of Patroclus (Iliad 23.390,
399–400).45 In sum, when menos is given to a human and enters
their physical body, it is a reflection of the political intrigue among
the gods and their contrasting desires in the Trojan war. Lastly, the
operation of menos as a vital force in acts of war reflects an
inherently tragic view of the Homeric warrior’s undertaking and the
involvement of the gods.46 Thus, at the outset of the Iliad, Athena
appears to stop the menos of Achilles when he is about to kill
Agamemnon (Iliad 1.207). And yet that cessation of menos, to save
the life of Agamemnon, will in turn precipitate the death of countless
Greeks, including Patroclus and Achilles himself. Similarly, in the case
of Hector, Zeus supplies Hector with additional menos in battle (Iliad
15.232) as well as kratos (Iliad 17.206–7) in part as recompense for
the fact that Hector will eventually die at the hands of Achilles.47
And Andromache herself comments on the tragic irony of Hector’s
menos, when she tells Hector, “Your own menos will cause your
demise” (φθίσει σε τὸ σὸν μένος) (Iliad 6.407). That is to say, it is
Hector’s own “ life force,” his menos, supplemented by Zeus, which
will cause Hector’s own life to decay (phthinein).48

Sthenos

The term sthenos seems to imply a more general quality of force or

“strength” that is neither event-specific as with kratos and alkē, nor
is it strictly internal as with menos. This general quality is conveyed
by the fact that sthenos is often paired with other terms for force,
and can also be seen in the formula σθένος οὐκ ἀλαπαδνόν,
“his/her/their force is not weak/small,” indicating there are degrees
of sthenos a person may display.49 Sthenos is also described as
being placed in humans by gods, but only on three occasions.50 As I
argue in Chapter 1, both menos and sthenos may also convey a
sense of strength from a perspective that combines “nature” and
“culture.”51 Menos, typically associated with the vital force of human
embodiment, can be associated with one’s ancestors, but it can also
apply to environmental elements, predominantly fire, and
occasionally applies to animals. Sthenos also often applies to
environmental forces, specifically Orion, Ocean, and rivers, and it
may also apply to animals who “exult in their strength.”52 Most
importantly, as I argue in Chapter 1, sthenos plays a key role when
Achilles attempts to make distinctions in force relations between
himself and Asteropaeus through a comparison of kinship and
genealogy, his claimed from Zeus, Asteropaeus’ from a river (Iliad
21.184–91). The ways in which genealogy itself crosses the human-
nonhuman threshold in terms of force relations thus reflects how the
concept of force entangles the human subject with the environment.
At the same time, environmental features, whether rivers, winds,
fire, or Ocean, are also divine beings and so the fluid interchange
between humans and the nonhuman environment is also an
interchange between the human and divine.
Biē

In contrast to these four other terms, biē may be understood to

convey physical, violent action.53 And as I suggest in Chapter 3, it is
this term which is most strongly associated with human subjectivity
since the “naming formula,” biē + name of a warrior in the genitive
or adjectival form, functions as a periphrasis for the person in
question, most often applied to Heracles.54 To be sure, the naming
formula also occurs with other terms for force, specifically menos,
sthenos, and (w)is, yet those occurrences are far less frequent and
can be contextually explained in ways beyond metri causa.55 The
naming formula with menos in the Iliad occurs in contexts related to
a warrior’s life force and it occurs strictly with Alcinous in the
Odyssey.56 In particular, the naming formula shows how biē is
critical to the subjective identity of ancient Greek warriors and
Heracles, above all others.57 Furthermore, as Gregory Nagy has
noted, the biē naming formula occurs often with heroes whose
names are built with the epic theme of reputation or kleos.58 Thus,
as Nagy explains, “The heroic resource of biē then has a distinctly
positive aspect as a key to the hero’s kleos.”59 Such an association is
further underscored by the other formulaic uses of biē as it applies
to a warrior who is “confident in his force,” peith- + biēphi, and it is
also a primary means by which one warrior is determined to be
better, pherteros, than another.60 At the same time, although the
naming formula might provide a type of grammatical key to Homeric
identity, it also presents a complication since it is not by the hero’s
agency alone that a warrior determines kleos and epic identity. Even
though biē may constitute the identity of a hero, it should also be
noted that biē, like other forms of force, is also explicitly given by
the gods.61 Herein lies the dilemma of Homeric subjectivity. A
Homeric warrior’s identity is determined largely through the
enactment of violent force, while even the enactment of violent force
itself is not strictly a function of the autonomous will and agency of
that warrior.
(W)is

Unlike these first five terms, however, there are two terms for force
which are never described as objects given by the gods. The first is
(w)is, which occurs predominantly with the instrumental formulas
iphi machesthai “to fight with force” and iphi anassein “to rule with
force.” Those usages therefore parallel the use of the verb kratein in
so far as Homeric force expresses some ambivalence with regard to
distinctions between the physical and political realms of action.62 It
applies once to non-anthropomorphic wind in the Iliad and several
times in the Odyssey. Although this term for strength has a different
etymology from is, inos referring to tendons in the body, there may
be some general association between the two in the Homeric
epics.63 Overall, (w)is does convey a sense of innate bodily force
that may be contrasted with the other types involved with divine
intervention.

Dynamis

The last term Benveniste and Snell suggest connotes “force” is the
noun dynamis and related verb dynamai. Dynamis in early Greek
hexameter clearly conveys a sense of physical potential. This
potential, however, is never described as something that is given by
the gods, but it is relative to specific agents, and it is also
understood to be inherently limited. The relative and limited nature
of dynamis as potential is reflected in formulas such as ὅση δύναμίς
γε πάρεστι, “however much power/potential is present [for me],” i.e.
“as much as I am able.”64 This inherently limited perspective on
potential becomes especially clear if we take a macroscopic view of
the lexical occurrences of dynamis. Of the fifty-two occurrences of
the noun dynamis and the verb dynamai in the Iliad, it is used in the
negative forty-three times. In Homer, Hesiod, and the Hymns, the
negative of terms related to dynamis are used a total of eighty times
in the negative out of 114 total occurrences, and only twenty-four
times in a purely positive context, primarily in relationship to the
gods. Thus, in early Greek epic, and especially in the Iliad, human
potential is an overwhelmingly negative concept.

Damazō/Damnēmi

Lastly, there is one term which I include in the semantic set of force
terms not mentioned by Snell or Benveniste, namely the verb
damazō and its cognates.65 This verb takes on a basic meaning of
“subjugation” that occurs within a semantic sphere that covers both
male and female, human and nonhuman.66 In particular, the verb
takes on three distinct objects and its meaning changes slightly with
each. With animals as the object, the verb means to “tame.” With
women, it means to subjugate in marriage or also to “enslave.” The
use of this verbal root thus speaks to the problematic sexual politics
of Archaic Greece that often equates women and animals.67 And
finally, when men are the object of this verb, the notion of
“subjugation” takes on its most final form as the act of killing. Thus,
the verb presents three levels at which force is enacted relative to
different objects. Furthermore, the deployment of this verb,
especially in the act of killing, speaks directly to the problem of
human-divine relations in the enactment of force. For the verb
appears predominantly in the passive form, with humans as the
subject-object of force. And when the verb does take on an active
form, it is most often a god rather than a human who is the active,
nominative subject of the verb, and any human agency is expressed
primarily in the instrumental form. Thus, for instance, Zeus famously
asks, “Or will I kill [Sarpedon] at the hands of the son of Menoetius”
(ἦ ἤδη ὑπὸ χερσὶ Μενοιτιάδαο δαμάσσω) (Iliad 16.433–8). Similarly,
in his threat to Hector, Achilles announces, “But Athena will kill you
with my spear” (ἄφαρ δέ σε Παλλὰς Ἀθήνη/ἔγχει ἐμῷ δαμάᾳ) (Iliad
22. 270–1). Of all the terms for force, therefore, it is the verb
damazō and related forms that give expression to Simone Weil’s
argument for the subject-object status of humans created by the
enactment of force. At the same time, as I shall argue in Chapter 4,
this particular verb for the enactment of force departs from Weil’s
argument. For it also fully captures the unique co-agency between
human and divine in Homeric poetry, which Weil failed to properly
acknowledge.
Ultimately, therefore, a detailed study of the types of Homeric
force and their roles in the Iliadic narrative allows us to rethink the
notion of Homeric subjectivity beyond the individual. Indeed, in
recent years, there has developed a rich body of “post-Snell”
literature dedicated to rethinking Homeric subjectivity.68 This book’s
treatment of the vocabulary of force may be seen as an extension of
that endeavor. Relying on recent posthumanist work and its
anthropological precedents, this book concludes by recasting the
Homeric subject as an intersubjective dividual.69 What the
vocabulary of force reveals is a notion of the Homeric self that is
never self-contained, but defined instead by a human-divine
symbiosis. Such a model of symbiotic subjectivity, however, does far
more than reduce the Homeric self to yet another static
anthropological category. As I aim to show throughout each of the
individual chapters, that very interdependence between human and
divine remains a point of contention and frustration for human
agents themselves throughout the poem. As we shall see, such
frustration is made most apparent with the poem’s main protagonist,
Achilles—from Athena’s prevention of Achilles’ murder of
Agamemnon in Iliad 1 to Achilles’ vain attempts at mutilating the
corpse of Hector in Iliad 24.

Homer’s Iliad and the Problem of Force. Charles H. Stocking, Oxford University
Press. © Charles H. Stocking 2023. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780192862877.003.0001

1 Weil’s essay was first published in 1940 and 1941 in Cahiers du Sud under
the pseudonym Émile Novis and republished under Weil’s name in Cahiers du Sud
in 1947. An English translation appeared in the journal Politics in 1945.
2
Despite the great influence Weil’s essay has exerted and its own merits as a
literary work, there remain significant difficulties as far as the interpretation of
Homeric poetry is concerned. On the heavily Christianizing influence in her essay,
see Ferber 1981: 66; Summers 1981: 87–9; Fraisse 1989: 304–9; Benfey 2005:
vii–xi, xv–xvi. For further treatment of her essay and its reception within Classical
Studies, see Schein 1984: 82–3; Holoka 2002; Holoka 2003; Hammer and Kicey
2010; Holmes 2015: 29–30; Purves 2015: 75–8; Thalmann 2015; and Schein
2016: 149–70, who sees an anachronism in Weil’s essay based primarily on the
imposition of the “soul” and an assumption of the singular “human spirit” in her
reading of Homer (Schein 2016: 154). See further Porter 2021: 212–14 on Weil in
the context of modern disenchanted readings of Homer and the problem of war.
3 Die Entdeckung des Geistes includes a number of articles previously

published dating back to 1929 and was published as a monograph in 1946. The
English edition, under the title The Discovery of the Mind, appeared in 1953,
translated by T. G. Rosenmeyer. The first chapter, “Homer’s View of Man,”
appeared as the article “Die Sprache Homers als Ausdruk siener Gedankenwelt” in
Neue Jahrbuche für Antike und deutsche Bildung in 1939 (Snell 1939a).
4
On the history and ongoing controversy of the principle of linguistic relativity,
see, among others, Gumperz and Levinson 1996; Niemeier and Dirven 2000; Pütz
and Verspoor 2000; Reines and Prinz 2009; Leavitt 2011; Everett 2013.
5 Snell’s approach to language can be traced directly to the work of Wilhelm

von Humboldt, whom he cites briefly as the basis for his approach in Poetry and
Society (Snell 1961: 11). See further Snell 1939b, “Vom Übersetzen aus den alten
Sprache.” For Humboldt’s more general influence on the study of antiquity, see
Porter 2000: 186–91; Matthiessen 2003; Rebenich 2011. For further exposition of
Humboldt’s theory of linguistic relativity and its development in German thought,
see R. L. Brown 1967; R. L. Miller 1968; Penn 1972; Trabant 2000; Mühlhäusler
2000. The reception of Snell, especially in North America, was largely associated
with the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis of linguistic relativity (see for instance Pelliccia
1995: 17n.12). But the Humboldtian model presents a stark contrast with the
development of linguistic relativity in North America, most popularly associated
with Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. It should be further noted that neither Sapir nor
Whorf presented their arguments on linguistic relativity as a single “hypothesis” as
such. For the history of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, see esp. Koerner 2000. For
criticism of Snell’s teleological model of language from a comparative perspective,
see Burkert 2004, esp. p. 180.
6
Snell 1953: 1–4, 8–15.
7 As Snell himself asserts (Snell 1930: 157–8), his historical analysis of Greek

literature as a history of the development of consciousness is heavily influenced by

Hegel. See further N. Austin 1975: 81–5; MacCary 1982: 3–15; Gill 1996: 35–6;
Lohse 1997: 1–2.
8
Snell’s argument thus parallels Hermann Fränkel’s observation that Homeric
man was a “Kraftfeld,” a “field of force/energy” (Fränkel 1975: 80). For further
critical discussion of Snell’s view on the non-unified self and body, see Adkins
1970: 13–48; N. Austin 1975: 81–129; Renehan 1979; Williams 1993: 21–49;
Pelliccia 1995: 17–27; Gill 1996: 1–40; Clarke 1999: 37–49; Bolens 2000: 19–59;
Porter and Buchan 2004: 1–19; Burkert 2004; Holmes 2010: 1–40; Gavrylenko
2012; Purves 2015: 76–8; Holmes 2020. Most discussion of Snell has focused
almost entirely on his observations regarding psychē and sōma, with no discussion
to date on the issue “force.” It should also be noted that Snell uses the same
German word, “Kraft,” for “force” throughout, whereas Rosenmeyer translates
“Kraft” variously in English as “force” and “powers.” For further discussion of
distinctions in the many terms for “force” and “power”—Kraft, Macht, etc.—in
German political thought and its relationship to the ancient world, see Meier 1972.
9 The English translation is from the Elizabeth Palmer translation, which was

republished in 2016, but I have made slight modifications in order to more

accurately reflect the French. To be precise, Palmer’s translation is symptomatic of
Benveniste’s own point on the problem of synonyms for “force” since Palmer used
various terms—“strength,” “force,” “power”—when Benveniste uses only one in
French, namely “force.” See the previous note for similar problems with
translations of “Kraft” in Snell.
10
The more abstract nature of Benveniste’s enterprise is made evident in the
preface to Le vocabulaire, when he explains that his project “is of a wholly
different nature” compared to other attempts at studying Indo-European culture,
which typically involve compiling lists of common expressions in Indo-European
languages in order to uncover aspects of a common culture (Benveniste 2016:
xxii). In studying what Benveniste terms “institutions” he takes up the study of
institutions proper, such as government, law, etc., as well as what he considers
more abstract institutions, ways of life, and social relationships. Benveniste’s
method also begins with the vocabulary within specific, individual languages and
so many of his observations may remain valid for individual cultures, even if one
does not subscribe to the more general assumptions regarding the status of a
common Indo-European culture.
11 For a summary of the theory and history of the lexical field theory in

semantics, see Geeraerts 2010: 47–69.

12
See esp. Nagy 1979: 88–93, 317–45.
13 Collins 1998; Clarke 1999: 110–11.
14
Nagy 1974: 266–9; Bakker 2008; Bakker 2013.
15 For a history of the LfgrE and Snell’s involvement, see esp. Schmidt 2012.
16
The relationship of the Iliadic language of force compared with the role of
force in the Odyssey will be addressed in the conclusion of the book. Details on
the specifics for each term and its relationship to other terms are presented in the
appendix.
17 The clearest example of the close connection between force and identity

occurs in phrases such as biē + name of warrior in the genitive, such as biē
Heraklēos “force of Heracles,” as a means of naming the warrior, on which see
Nagy 1979: 317–19; D. Stocking 2007: 63–4; and further discussion in Chapter 3
of this book.
 18 To be sure, this feature may be a function of the fact that speech constitutes
45 percent of the verses in the Iliad (on which see Griffin 1986). For the broader
significance of speech presentation in the Iliad, see esp. Griffin 1986; Martin 1989;
Beck 2012; Knudsen 2014. Nevertheless, because the topic of “force” is so much
about physicality, and the Iliad itself is so replete with violence, one would still
expect a more even distribution between speech and narrative for such terms for
force.
19
These exceptions are described later in this introduction and more
completely in the appendix.
20 It occurs in the negative forty-three times out of fifty-two total occurrences

in the Iliad. See full citations in the appendix.

21
This problematization of force therefore parallels Porter’s more general
observation on war in the Iliad: “It would, in any event, be a mistake to claim that
either poem celebrates war. On the contrary, they problematize war, the Iliad
above all, since war is its theme” (Porter 2021: 201).
22 Under the category of structuralism, I include those thinkers classified in

North America as “poststructuralists,” including Bourdieu, Derrida, and Foucault

discussed below. On the categorization of twentieth-century French thinkers and
their reception in the anglophone world, see Cusset 2008. Equally useful is the
monograph by Angermüller 2015 appropriately titled Why There Is No
Poststructuralism in France. A full discussion of the history of language and the
subject in structuralism is beyond the scope of this book, but key aspects of that
history will be addressed in separate chapters. For an overview and defense of
structuralism’s central focus on subjectivity, see esp. Balibar 2003. For criticism of
the use of linguistics as a model in structuralist discourse, see Pavel 2001.
23
See Miller 1998; Leonard 2000; Leonard 2005; Miller 2007; Leonard 2010a;
Miller 2010; Miller 2015a; Miller 2015b.
24 On the influence that Hesiodic poetry played in structuralism, see Stocking

2017b; Stocking 2020.

25
Derrida 1978: 2.
26 Bourdieu is perhaps less well known for a sustained engagement with

antiquity in his publications, and yet Bourdieu regularly attended the seminars of
Jean Bollack (personal communication from Pierre Judet de la Combe).
Derrida’s use of the Classical past is almost entirely relegated to philosophy and
tragedy. Foucault seems to present a more wide-ranging engagement with ancient
Greek and Latin texts. In addition to Wrong-Doing, Truth-Telling, Foucault
discusses Homer and the funeral games of Patroclus in his inaugural lecture series
at the Collège de France, delivered in 1970–1, Lectures on the Will to Know
(Foucault 2013), and in a lecture in Brazil delivered in 1973, “Truth and Juridical
Forms” (Foucault 2000). In part, such engagement with Archaic Greek poetry is no
doubt a result of the influence of the so-called “Paris School” of French Classical
scholars, which included Jean-Pierre Vernant, Marcel Detienne, Pierre Vidal-
Naquet, and Nicole Loraux, among others, on which see Loraux, Nagy, and Slatkin
2001 and Stocking 2020.
27 See esp. Miller 2003.
28
See esp. Lévi-Strauss 1963: 206–31.
29 In Structural Anthropology, Lévi-Strauss does indeed apply the following

mathematical formula to explain his technique of myth analysis: Fx(a): Fy (b) ≃

Fx(b):Fa-1(Y) (Lévi-Strauss 1963: 228). Lévi-Strauss’s methods proposed in
Structural Anthropology were controversial from the outset. An entire conference,
Entretiens sur les notions de genèse et structure, was quickly organized in Cerisy-
la-Salle France in 1959, soon after publication of Structural Anthropology. The
major purpose of the conference was to question the type of synchronic and
universal methods proposed by Lévi-Strauss. For the significance of the Genesis
and Structure conference in the history of structuralist thought, see Dosse 1997a:
175–80; Stocking 2017b: 387–93. For the great debates around Lévi-Strauss’s
structural method, especially as it was applied to the Oedipus myth, see Leonard
2005: 38–68.
30 On Weil’s influence on Derrida, see Bennington 1999: 325–36. Snell’s

influence may be more indirect, and perhaps a function of the influence of Jean-
Pierre Vernant, who viewed his own work in part as a continuation of Snell’s
project (on which see Vernant 1991: 159 and the essays of both Detienne and
Vernant in Meyerson 1973). Benveniste, on the other hand, is quoted extensively
in the works of all three figures, as explained below.
31
The unique requirements of Homeric lexical semantics are clearly established
by Leonard Muellner in his important work on the verb euchomai (Muellner 1976,
esp. 12–13). Such method has been further exemplified and expanded upon by
Richard Martin on the distinction between muthos and epos, where Martin
explains, “We must rewrite the dictionaries, by looking afresh at the exact
contexts, associations, and disjunctions in which these words play a part. When
we do pay attention to context, synonymity recedes” (Martin 1989: 14). Further
exemplary models of oral poetic approaches to Homeric vocabulary include Wilson
2002 on poinē and apoina, as well as Walsh 2005 on cholos and kotos. This book’s
treatment of Homeric force may therefore be considered yet one more effort to
“rewrite the dictionary” of Homeric language.
32 For a concise summary of debates on the Homeric formula in the twentieth

century beginning with Milman Parry, see Russo 1997. Most recently, Egbert
Bakker has offered a programmatic solution to the problem of meaning and the
Homeric formula through a model which he terms “the scale of interformularity”
(Bakker 2013: 157–69). There appears to be a high degree of “interformularity”
when it comes to the language of force in Homer, and so Bakker’s model and its
implications will be discussed in greater detail with regard to specific formulas in
each chapter.
 33 From Snell’s original list, kikus has been omitted because it only appears
once in the Odyssey (11.393). From Benveniste’s list, ischus has been omitted
because it appears in Hesiod but does not appear in the Homeric epics.
34
Snell 1953: 21. Benveniste 2016: 365; s.v. Nordheider’s entry under kratos,
kartos in LfgrE, pp. 1527–30.
35 Nagy 1979: 85–90.
36
Benveniste 2016: 364; 367–71.
37 See appendix under kratos, II–IV.
38
Snell 1953: 21; Benveniste 2016: 363; Collins 1998; s.v. alkē in LfgrE.
39 See appendix under alkē, II and III.
40
See Collins 1998: 15–45.
41 See appendix under alkē, IV, V, VI. On the relationship between notions of

“force” and memory as a specifically epic phenomenon, see Nagy 1974: 266–9;
Collins 1998: 111–12; Bakker 2008; Bakker 2013: 143–50.
42
See Clarke 1999: 112–13.
43 See Appendix under menos, VII.
44 Nagy 1974: 266–8; Collins 1998: 111–12; Bakker 2008: 67–73; Chantraine

2009: 703; Beekes 2010: 930–1.

45
For further examples, see the appendix.
46 Menos therefore may contribute to the problematization of the warrior

mentality that may be implicit in the Iliad, on which see Graziosi and Haubold
2003.
47
On the problematic nature of this recompense from Zeus, see Wilson 2002:
163; Pucci 2018: 68–71.
48 See Chapter 4 for further discussion of the tragic aspects of menos in the

Iliad.
49
See appendix under sthenos, II.
50 By Eris at Iliad 11.11, by Poseidon at Iliad 14.151, by Athena at Iliad 21.304.
51
It may therefore be referred to as “natureculture,” on which see Haraway
2003 and Holmes 2015.
52 See appendix under sthenos, III.
53
Chantraine 2009: 174; Beekes 2010: 312. s.v. biē in LfgrE.
54 Snell 1953: 19–20; Schmitt 1967: 109–11; Nagy 1979: 318–19; Chantraine

2009: 174.
55 See appendix for further discussion.
56
See appendix under menos, XXVII. Indeed, the naming formula applied to
Alcinous creates a figura etymologica, since the root of menos relates to mental
capacity, *men-, while Alcinous’ name captures the double sense of force (alkē)
and mind (noos). See appendix for citations.
57 See appendix under biē, I. See further D. Stocking 2007: 63: “‘Force’ and

‘power’ are treated as the real ‘subjects’ of those actions and passions which we
would normally ascribe to the ‘whole person.’ It is ‘force’ that speaks, falls, hears,
feels, and so forth. And in a way, this is precisely the point. The ‘person’ in Homer
is clearly interchangeable with the idea of ‘force’ and ‘might,’ and the genitive in
these phrases denotes not possession, but predication.”
58 See Nagy 1979: 318–19. The biē naming formula occurs specifically with

Eteokles (Iliad 4.386), Iphicles (Odyssey 11.290, 296), and Patroclus (Iliad 17.187,
22.323).
59
Nagy 1979: 319. Nagy goes on to demonstrate the negative aspects also
associated with biē in Homeric epic.
60 See items III, VI under biē in the appendix.
61
See, for instance, Iliad 7.205, when men pray to give biē and kudos to both
Hector and Ajax, or Iliad 17.569, when Athena places biē in the shoulders and
knees of Menelaus after he prays to her.
62 See the appendix for further discussion.
63
See Chantraine 2009: 469; Beekes 2010: 599.
64 Iliad 8.294, 13.787.
65
On the relationship of the Homeric verbal forms damazō and damnēmi from
the root *demh2-, see Beekes 2010: 301; Chantraine 2009: 251; Chantraine 1948:
301.
66
It should be noted, however, that the English verb “dominate,” from Latin
dominus, is actually derived from the IE root *domh2-o-, different from the root
*demh2, on which see Benveniste 2016: 239–50. Nevertheless, our English term
“dominate” does capture the range of meanings for the root *demh2 in Homeric
Greek.
67 See further discussion in Chapter 4.
68
For criticism of Snell as well as similar arguments made by Adkins 1970, see
Gill 1996. For the anachronistic categories of “mind” and “body” as it pertains to
native Homeric vocabulary, see Clarke 1999. For further reanalysis of Homeric
embodiment and subjectivity, see esp. Holmes 2010; Holmes 2015; Holmes 2017.
And for a rethinking of Snell in light of the Homeric body in movement, see Purves
2019. Indeed, there is a way in which the post-Snell treatment of the Homeric
subject is fully in accord with a more general posthumanist approach to Classics.
As Bianchi, Brill, and Holmes explain in the introduction to Antiquities beyond
Humanism, “Classical thinking displaces and complicates the modern notion of
subjectivity and finds movement and life inherently at work in both organic and
inorganic phenomena” (Bianchi, Brill, Holmes 2019: 3).
69 On this concept see Haraway 2016 as well as Dumont 1980; Dumont 1986;

Dumont 1994; and Strathern 1988.

1
“Stronger”
Performative Speech and the Force of Achilles

Simone Weil famously asserted that “the true hero, the true subject,
the center of the Iliad is force.”1 Yet it could quite easily be argued
that the entire narrative of the Iliad is set in motion not through the
enactment of force, but through its denial and deferral. In Iliad 1,
after the conflict between Agamemnon and Achilles has begun,
Achilles contemplates whether he should cut the conversation short
through the use of his sword (Iliad 1.188–92). In Weil’s terms, he
considers whether or not to transform Agamemnon into a thing, a
dead body. At this critical juncture, the goddess Athena intervenes in
a unique epiphanic moment.2 The significance of Athena’s physical
presence has been hotly debated regarding the psychology of the
Homeric self.3 It is Athena’s words to Achilles, however, which are
perhaps more important.4 When Achilles faces the goddess and asks
why she has appeared to him, she states her intentions clearly: “I
have come to stop your menos, should you obey” (ἦλθον ἐγὼ
παύσουσα τὸ σὸν μένος, αἴ κε πίθηαι) (Iliad 1.207).
In her opening statement to Achilles, Athena invokes a unique
form of Homeric force. In general terms, menos is conceptualized as
a substance that is contained within the body, it is roused to action,
it is uniquely associated with the living body, and is said to leave the
body upon death.5 In short, menos may be understood, above all
other terms, as a type of “life force.” In Athena’s statement, we
further see how this particular type of force is understood as a
property specific to Achilles’ own person, indicated by the possessive
adjective (Iliad 1.207: to son menos).6 Her use of the possessive in
reference to Achilles is all the more striking since menos is often
treated as an object “given by the gods,” especially by Athena
herself.7 Yet here, Athena sets her own actions in opposition to the
force of Achilles.8 That menos belongs specifically to Achilles at this
point in the narrative may be explained by virtue of its etymology.
Derived from the Proto Indo-European root *men-, menos may be
cognate with the very first word of the Iliad describing the anger of
Achilles: mēnis.9 And as Pietro Pucci has noted, it is in fact Athena’s
appearance to Achilles that sets the main narrative theme of the
Iliad in motion: “As he slowly draws his sword, Athena arrives and
without elaborate explanations exhorts him to replace it in its
scabbard. The story of mēnis has begun.”10 One must add to this
formulation that the story of mēnis begins only at the precise
moment when the menos of Achilles has come to a halt.
Yet Athena does not request a complete abandonment of Achilles’
force. Rather, she suggests that it be redirected through speech
against Agamemnon. She further promises that the use of reproach
will result in three times more gifts for Achilles on account of
Agamemnon’s own act of hubris. She states:
ἀλλ’ ἄγε λῆγ’ ἔριδος, μηδὲ ξίφος ἕλκεο χειρί
ἀλλ’ ἤτοι ἔπεσιν μὲν ὀνείδισον ὡς ἔσεταί περ
ὧδε γὰρ ἐξερέω, τὸ δὲ καὶ τετελεσμένον ἔσται
καί ποτέ τοι τρὶς τόσσα παρέσσεται ἀγλαὰ δῶρα
ὕβριος εἵνεκα τῆσδε· σὺ δ’ ἴσχεο, πείθεο δ’ ἡμῖν.
Iliad 1.210–14

Come, leave off from strife and do not seize your sword with your hand
but reproach him with words [telling] how it will be.
For I will say this, and it will be accomplished
at some point for you there will be three times as many glorious gifts
on account of this hubris. But you hold back and obey me.
According to Athena’s own logic, it is speech itself which may
function as a replacement for the execution of physical force. And it
is this very different mode of attack through speech that is
purported to add to the recognition of Achilles’ own status and
superiority. Hence, the story of the anger of Achilles begins not only
when Achilles’ own force is suspended, but also when it is
supplemented with speech.
This divine intervention on the part of Athena, which prevents a
premature end to the Iliadic narrative, speaks to a more general
correlation between physical force and speech, which runs
throughout the poem. Indeed, the ideal Homeric warrior is often
defined as a “speaker of words and doer of deeds.” As Richard
Martin (1989: 27) explains: “We must remember that the heroic
ideal of speaking and fighting virtuosity is always being propounded
in the poem. ‘Word and Deed’ become a merismus, expressing an
ideal totality by reference to the extremes which shape it.”
Throughout the Iliad, certain modes of speech, especially words of
reproach, are understood as the verbal equivalent to physical
fighting.11 In this regard, Athena’s request is consistent with the
traditional modes of heroic speech in the Iliad. At the same time,
however, there remains a certain discomfort with Athena’s directive
and Achilles’ decision. If the correlation between force and speech
were complete and absolute, then Achilles would have successfully
brought to an end his quarrel with Agamemnon through his words,
just as easily as he could have killed him. Yet this does not happen.
Indeed, Achilles’ use of speech rather than actions does not end the
quarrel but prolongs it and ultimately leads to a fundamental
misrecognition of the significance of Achilles’ own force. And even
though Achilles will eventually receive even more than what Athena
promises, it comes at the cost of many Greek lives, including the life
of Achilles’ companion Patroclus, and eventually Achilles’ own.12 Far
from offering a solution to Achilles’ dilemma, Athena’s intervention
actually calls attention to the many ways in which the relationship
between force and speech remains problematic, especially for the
figure of Achilles. In light of the narrative events of the poem,
Athena’s epiphany compels us to consider whether speech is indeed
an effective supplement to physical force for Achilles and other
characters within the poem.
Of course, the relationship between force and speech is not only
relevant to the Iliad, but it has been a major topic of modern inquiry
ever since J. L. Austin’s How to Do Things with Words. In that work,
Austin sought to account for a particular category of speech, defined
as “performatives,” which do not have a referential function, but the
act of speaking itself is equivalent to the doing of an action. Austin’s
theory of performatives has in turn been fruitfully applied to Homeric
poetry by Richard Martin in his seminal work The Language of
Heroes. In particular, Martin demonstrated that certain modes of
Homeric speech, including boasts, threats, and commands, all
indicated by the term muthos, functioned in a manner equivalent to
Austin’s notion of the performative.13 The Homeric muthoi such as
threats, boasts, and commands are modes of speech that do far
more than convey information. They are acts in themselseves,
intended to produce an effect, and that effect itself is dependent on
the ability and authority of the speaker to enact that effect on his or
her given addressee. In the context of speech act theory, the action
conveyed by Homeric muthoi would be referred to as its
“illocutionary force,” where this unspoken “force” of the speech act is
meant to contrast with the more typical role of speech to simply
convey “meaning.”14
But how, we might ask, does the Homeric muthos and its
“illocutionary force” as a speech act relate to the physical force of
the speakers within the poem? As I shall argue in this chapter, the
correlation between Homeric performatives and physical force is not
as straightforward as Athena originally suggests to Achilles in the
opening of the Iliad. Indeed, one specific verbal strategy used within
Homeric muthoi is to invoke the very language of physical force
within those very performatives, which are meant to supplement
acts of force. That is to say, force is not only an inherent feature of
performative speech, but overt mention of the speaker’s physical
“force” also functions as a self-justifying strategy of performative
speech throughout the Iliad. As far as Homeric poetry is concerned,
the “illocutionary force” of speech depends largely on the very
elocution of force as such.
In order to fully explore how pronouncements of force function as
a performative strategy in the Iliad, I focus in particular on the use
of comparative terms for physical force, where one speaker claims to
be “stronger” than another. Analysis of the use of comparatives
allows us to appreciate how the relative asymmetries between
speakers in the Iliad do not exist in absolute, objective terms.
Instead, those asymmetries are tied to the moment of speech itself.
In this respect, I give special attention to the figure of Achilles.
Indeed, Achilles, above all other warriors, is generally acknowledged
to be the character with superlative force and status as “best of the
Achaeans.”15 And yet, as I argue in this chapter, from the moment
when Athena suppresses his force at the outset of the poem, he
himself experiences constant misassessments of his own superiority,
and his force is often framed in negative comparative terms. Such
misassessment of Achilles by various characters, I suggest, is largely
dependent on a misunderstanding of the cosmic significance of
Achilles’ own genealogy. This chapter will therefore give special
attention to the performance of force as it relates to kinship and
genealogy.
Through close reading of key speeches concerning Achilles and
his genealogy, specifically the speeches of Nestor (Iliad 1.247–84),
Apollo (Iliad 20.104–9), Aeneas (Iliad 20.200–9), Poseidon (Iliad
20.332–4), and Achilles himself (Iliad 21.184–91), we may see how
the force inherited by way of genealogy is often invoked as though it
were a function of external, objectively determined conditions. But
upon closer examination, the larger narrative context of these
speeches reveals that the supposedly inherited force determined by
genealogy is itself forged through performative speech. That is to
say, performative speech does not simply supplement force in the
Iliad. Rather, Homeric characters actively attempt to construct the
very relations of physical force upon which their speech acts rely. But
what is most intriguing is that the poem itself often reveals these
relations of physical force conveyed in speech to be false constructs.
For the narrative of the poem calls into question or directly
contradicts the assertions of force made by and for characters, even
Achilles himself.

The Homeric Scepter: Speech and the Source

of Authority
The very status and functional value of performative speech as a
replacement for force seems to be called into question already in
Iliad 1, very soon after Athena had advised Achilles to replace the
act of violence with violent words. At the climax of Achilles’ quarrel
with Agamemnon, Achilles attempts to put an end to the exchange
of threats by swearing a great oath on a scepter, promising that the
Greeks will regret not giving Achilles his due share of honor (Iliad
1.234–45). In Achilles’ oath, he first describes it as an object
transformed from the vegetal world, as “that which will never again
grow leaves and roots” (τὸ μὲν οὔ ποτε φύλλα καὶ ὄζους/ φύσει)
(Iliad 1.234–5).16 He then proceeds to describe its current social
function: “Now the sons of Achaeans hold it in their hands, as
conveyors of justice, who speak forth rights of judgement on behalf
of Zeus” (νῦν αὖτέ μιν υἷες Ἀχαιῶν/ ἐν παλάμῃς φορέουσι
δικασπόλοι, οἵ τε θέμιστας/ πρὸς Διὸς εἰρύαται·) (Iliad 1.237–9).
Emile Benveniste described the function of the scepter in Homer
as follows:

In Homer, the skēptron is the attribute of the king, of heralds, messengers,

judges, and all persons who, whether of their own nature or because of a
particular occasion, are invested with authority.
(Benveniste 2016: 325)

Benveniste further notes that the etymology of the scepter is based

on the verb skēpto, “to lean on,” which, according to Benveniste,
implies that the scepter was most likely first understood as a walking
stick. From there Benveniste posits that the walking stick must have
been originally associated with messengers and then later took on
the specialized association with kingship.17 Benveniste continues his
line of reasoning on the history of the scepter as follows:

From the fact that it is necessary to the bringer of a message the skēptron
becomes a symbol of his function and a mystic sign of his credentials.
Henceforward it is an attribute of the person who brings a message, a
sacred personage whose mission it is to transmit the message of authority.
This is why the skēptron starts with Zeus from whom, by a succession of
holders, it descends to Agamemnon. Zeus gives it a kind of credential to
those whom he designates to speak in his name.
(Benveniste 2016: 327)

According to Benveniste, the scepter was first associated with official

forms of heraldic speech. But in the course of history, the scepter
developed additional levels of involvement with authority, where
speech itself became associated with the authority of the king, and
that royal authority in turn was understood to be legitimated by the
authority of Zeus, as Achilles himself asserts.18
But immediately after describing its relationship to authority and
speech, Achilles throws the scepter to the ground (Iliad 1.245). At
first, one might see this gesture as a simple and petulant expression
of Achilles’ anger. Yet the petulance of the act is perhaps more
properly expressed in the parallel gesture of Telemachus’ first public
speech in the Odyssey, where, after throwing the scepter to the
ground, Telemachus bursts into tears (Odyssey 2.80–1).19
Alternatively, one could interpret Achilles’ act in symbolic terms
based on Achilles’ own vegetal description—Achilles has cast back to
earth that which has grown from the earth, and this may parallel
Achilles’ own desire to return to his native Phthia, a place whose
vegetal connotations are implied by the name.20 Lastly, one could
also interpret the gesture in relationship to the social function of the
scepter itself. If the scepter has an authorizing function as a “talking
stick,” which is passed from one speaker to another, then Achilles’
gesture is indicative of his more general effort to have the final say
in the exchange. Rather than pass the scepter either to Agamemnon
or another speaker, he throws it to the ground, thereby symbolizing
his effort to effectively end any further speech exchange.
Of course, Achilles does not have the final say despite his efforts,
and the scepter continues to play a symbolic role with regard to
speech and authority yet again in Iliad Book 2. It is in Iliad Book 2,
after Achilles himself has challenged Agamemnon’s own authority,
where we find the narrative description of the genealogy of
Agamemnon’s scepter:
ἔστη σκῆπτρον ἔχων τὸ μὲν Ἥφαιστος κάμε τεύχων.
Ἥφαιστος μὲν δῶκε Διὶ Κρονίωνι ἄνακτι,
αὐτὰρ ἄρα Ζεὺς δῶκε διακτόρῳ ἀργεϊφόντῃ·
Ἑρμείας δὲ ἄναξ δῶκεν Πέλοπι πληξίππῳ,
αὐτὰρ ὃ αὖτε Πέλοψ δῶκ’ Ἀτρέϊ ποιμένι λαῶν, (105)
Ἀτρεὺς δὲ θνῄσκων ἔλιπεν πολύαρνι Θυέστῃ,
αὐτὰρ ὃ αὖτε Θυέστ’ Ἀγαμέμνονι λεῖπε φορῆναι,
πολλῇσιν νήσοισι καὶ Ἄργεϊ παντὶ ἀνάσσειν.
Iliad 2.101–8

[Agamemnon] stood with the scepter,

which Hephaestus made ready and fashioned.
And Hephaestus gave it to lord Zeus, son of Cronus,
But Zeus gave it to Hermes Diaktoros, slayer of Argos.
And lord Hermes gave it to horse-striking Pelops,
But Pelops gave it in turn to Atreus, shepherd of the people.
But Atreus, after he died, left it to Thyestes, rich in flocks.
But Thyestes in turn left it to Agamemnon to carry,
and to rule over many islands and all of Argos.

This very genealogy of the scepter indicates an exterior basis for

determining one’s status and authority—that one’s authority comes
from an object, which in turn comes from outside the human realm
itself. The genealogy of Agamemnon’s scepter, at least, indicates
that the authority of speech must be granted from another, inherited
rather than self-imposed or self-asserted.
The Homeric scepter, as a source for authoritative speech, was in
fact invoked by the sociologist Pierre Bourdieu in order to criticize J.
L. Austin’s own theory of performative speech. In an essay titled
“Authorized Language: The Social Conditions for the Effectiveness of
Ritual Discourse,” Bourdieu finds fault with Austin’s attempt to
explain and locate illocutionary force within language itself.21 To be
sure, Austin does acknowledge that performatives depend on
external conditions. As Austin states, “There must exist an accepted
conventional procedure having a certain conventional effect, the
procedure to include the uttering of certain words by certain persons
in certain circumstances.”22 Yet, according to Bourdieu, Austin gives
too much attention to the performatives themselves and does not go
far enough in accounting for the conditions of those performatives.
Bourdieu suggests that performatives “seem to possess in
themselves the source of a power which in reality resides in the
institutional conditions of their production and reception.”23 In order
to explain that the source of authority for speech comes from
external conditions of authority, Bourdieu calls to mind the Homeric
scepter as follows:

By trying to understand the power of linguistic manifestations linguistically,

by looking in language for the principle underlying the logic and
effectiveness of the language of institution, one forgets that authority comes
to language from outside, a fact concretely exemplified by the skēptron
that, in Homer, is passed to the orator who is about to speak. Language at
most represents this authority, manifests and symbolizes it.
(Bourdieu 1991: 109)

So, according to Bourdieu, the authority of performative speech

must have a source that is external to the speaker. Such a view on
externalized authority seems to be confirmed by the Iliad’s
description of the scepter, which is not only the external source of
authority for the speaker, but that external authority ultimately rests
outside the human realm itself, that is, with Zeus.
At the same time, it must be pointed out that the description of
the genealogy of Agamemnon’s scepter in Iliad 2 is not without
complications. These complications are coextensive with problems in
Agamemnon’s own genealogical history and ultimately seem to
undermine the very source of Agamemnon’s authority. First, we
should note the act of “giving” is repeated four times in the
description of the transfer of the scepter—from Hephaestus to Zeus,
from Zeus to Hermes, from Hermes to Pelops, and from Pelops to
Atreus (Iliad 2.101–5). And then the verb of transfer dramatically
shifts. As the text states, “When Atreus died, he left it to Thyestes”
(Iliad 2.106) and Thyestes in turn “left it” to Agamemnon (Iliad
2.107). We move from the active verb of “giving” to the more
passive sense of “leaving” precisely at two moments of interfamilial
conflict in the genealogy of Agamemnon. Aristarchus comments that
the poet did not know the tragic story of the house of Atreus, but G.
S. Kirk and Brügger et al. suggest the myth was probably known, as
seen in the Odyssey, and that the verbs for “leaving” the scepter
indicate a glossing over or active suppression of that particular
myth.24 As the bT scholia comment on these lines, “the poet says
‘gave’ as a sign of friendship, but ‘leaving’ as a sign of necessity” (τὸ
μὲν γὰρ δῶκε φιλίας τεκμήριόν φησι, τὸ δὲ καταλιπεῖν ἀνάγκης). In
this regard, the genealogy of the scepter betrays a point of
difference between the perspective of the narrator and that of the
speakers within the Iliad, who make use of the scepter. Speakers
such as Odysseus (Iliad 2.200) and Diomedes (Iliad 9.37) will state
that Zeus “gave” the scepter to Agamemnon, but the narrator offers
a slightly more complex picture.25 Zeus did not actively “give” it to
Agamemnon. Rather, it was “left” to him in the wake of family
tragedy. In other words, the scepter itself, a material manifestation
of royal authority, calls into question the validity of such authority by
its very history. Yes, the genealogy of the scepter creates a material
connection between Zeus and the one in possession of the scepter,
but that connection is by no means rectilinear and without
complications. Instead, the very history of the scepter contains
within it the possibility of the undoing of the authority it is meant to
represent.26 Thus, on the one hand, the genealogy of the scepter of
Agamemnon confirms Bourdieu’s view that the source of
authoritative speech is external to speech, and even external to the
speaker. On the other hand, the very external conditions of such
authority are what also allows for that authority to be questioned.
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 Chapter Four: A Change of Venue
On reaching Swansea French looked up Superintendent Howells
at the police station.
“Glad to see you, Mr. French,” the superintendent greeted him.
“I’ve known your name for a considerable time and since I heard you
were down over this job I’ve been hoping we should meet. That
Neath report any good to you?”
“I think so,” French answered. “It sounds promising, at all events.
On the strength of it I’ve come in to ask for your help.”
“That’s all right. What do you want us to do?”
“I want to trace the lorry your man saw out at Neath. I’ve got his
description of it, and I must say that, seeing he suspected nothing at
the time, he observed it pretty closely. A smart man,
Superintendent.”
“I’m glad you think so, Inspector. Right. I’ll put through a call to all
stations immediately.”
“Splendid. And can you ask Superintendent Griffiths at Llanelly to
advise the Carmarthen men also?”
The necessary circular drafted, the two chatted for some minutes
until French excused himself on the ground that since he was at
Swansea he might as well have a look round the town.
“There’s not much to see in it, Mr. French,” Howells rejoined, “but
Mumbles is worth visiting. I should advise you to take a bus there
and walk round the Head and back by Langland. If you’re fond of a
bit of good coast you’ll enjoy it. You’ll have plenty of time before we
get any replies. Sorry I can’t go with you, but I’m full up here.”
French went out, and after a stroll through some of the principal
streets got on board a bus for Mumbles. There he took the walk
Superintendent Howells had recommended. He enjoyed every
minute of it. As he left the houses behind and the road began to rise
up the side of the cliff he felt he was having one of the
compensations of a country case. He walked up through the long
rock cutting until at the top the wide expanse of the Bristol Channel
came into view, with the islands and lighthouse off the Head in the
foreground. There was some wind and the deep blue of the sea was
flecked with white. He stood and watched three outward-bound
steamers pitching gently in the swell, the smoke from their stacks
trailing away east. Then he took the footpath round the cliffs, rising
high round Rams Tor and dropping again to Langland Bay, from
which another road led across the neck of the peninsula back into
Mumbles. It was getting on towards five when he returned to the
police station.
“You’ve come at the right time, Inspector,” Superintendent
Howells greeted him. “I’ve just had two pieces of news. Your lorry
was seen twice. About five o’clock on Monday evening, 22nd August,
the evening in question, it was seen by one of our men passing
through Morriston. Morriston is a town some two miles north of
Swansea; indeed, it is really a suburb. The lorry came from the
Swansea direction and turned east at Morriston towards Neath. It
was then carrying the tarpaulin-covered object.”
“Then it started from Swansea?”
“Looks like it. And it looks as if it finished up at Swansea also. It
was seen again on the following morning. About ten o’clock a patrol
saw a breakdown lorry coming towards Swansea along the
Pontardulais road. It corresponded with the description in every
respect except that it was carrying the tarpaulin only.”
“By Jove! Superintendent, that’s good. It won’t be long till we run
it to earth. I take it there are not many breakdown lorries in
Swansea.”
“Give you a list in half an hour.” He touched a bell. “Here,
Thomas, start in and ring up all the local garages and find out how
many have repair lorries. You know what I mean, fitted with cranes.
And see here. You needn’t worry about any with fixed jibs—only
those that can be raised and lowered. Got that?”
The constable saluted smartly and withdrew. Howells turned to
French and was beginning a remark, when his desk telephone rang.
“Yes. Superintendent Howells speaking. . . . Yes. . . .
Gorseinon. . . . Yes. . . . What time was that? . . . Very good, I’ve got
you.” He rang off. “There’s another, Mr. French. I think you’re all right
this time. At half past twelve that same Monday night a patrol found
your lorry in another lane, also hidden by trees. It was a mile or so
east of a little place called Gorseinon: that’s about five miles
northeast of Loughor. It was standing in the lane and the driver was
working at his engine. Our men stopped and spoke, and the driver
said he had been on a job out beyond Llandilo and was returning to
Swansea. The description matches and the crate was then on the
lorry.”
“Fine!” French exclaimed. “That settles it. He was evidently going
round killing time until it was late enough to throw in the crate. Could
we fix his course from all those places you mentioned?”
“Pretty nearly, I think. Here is a map of the district. He seems to
have just made a circle from Swansea to Loughor via Morriston,
Neath, Pontardawe and Gorseinon: say twenty-five miles altogether.
Goodness knows how he returned, but it may have been through
Bynea and Pontardulais. We may take it he made another détour,
anyhow.”
“He made a blunder going with the lorry in that open way,” French
said, grimly.
“I don’t see what else he could have done. But I bet he wasn’t
worrying much about being seen. He was banking on the crate not
being found.”
“You’re right, and on odds he was justified. It was by a pretty thin
chance that it was discovered. I was saying that to Nield—how the
one unlikely chance that a man overlooks or discounts is the one
that gets him.”
“That’s a fact, Inspector, and it’s lucky for us it is so. I remember
once when——”
But French was not destined to hear the superintendent’s
reminiscence. The telephone bell once again rang stridently.
“Got it in one,” Howells observed after listening to the message.
“There is only one lorry in Swansea fitted with a movable crane, and
it is owned by Messrs. Llewellyn of Fisher Street. Moreover, it was
hired about four o’clock on the afternoon of that Monday, twenty-
second August, and returned next morning. Will you see them now?
If so, I’ll come along and show you the place.”
 They soon reached Fisher Street, where was a large garage
bearing the name, “The Stepney Motor Car Co.” The superintendent,
entering, asked for Mr. Llewellyn.
The proprietor looked thrilled when he learned French’s business.
“By Jove! You don’t say that that crate was carried on my lorry!”
he exclaimed. “I read about its discovery, and a dam’ good tale it
made. How did you find out so much?”
“I’ve not proved anything,” French replied. “The whole thing is
pure suspicion. But you may lead me to certainty. I’d be obliged if
you would tell me what took place.”
“Surely. I’ll tell you all I can, but it won’t be much.” He opened a
daybook and ran down the items. “The 22nd of August,” he went on.
“Yes, here it is. We hired out the lorry on that date. But it was
ordered beforehand. We got a letter several days before from
London from one of the big hotels, signed Stewart, asking if we had
a breakdown lorry for hire, and if so, at what rate. It particularised
one with a movable jib which would pick up a load from the ground
and set it on the lorry table. The machine would be wanted on the
afternoon of the 22nd for one day only. If we agreed, the writer’s man
would call for it about four on that afternoon and would return it
before midday on the 23rd. As the writer was a stranger, he would be
willing to deposit whatever sum we thought fair as a guaranty. The
lorry was wanted to pick up a special machine which the writer was
expecting by sea from London, and carry it to his place in Brecknock,
where it was to be lowered on to a foundation. As it was part of an
invention he was perfecting, he didn’t want any strangers about. He
made it a condition, therefore, that his man would drive.
“It wasn’t a very usual request, but it seemed reasonable enough,
and of course it was none of my business what he wanted the
machine for. At first I wasn’t very keen on letting it go, but I thought if
he would pay a deposit of three hundred pounds and five pounds for
the hire, I should be safely covered. It was only a Ford ton truck with
the crane added. I wrote him the conditions and he replied agreeing
to the figures and asking that the lorry should be ready at the hour
mentioned.
“At the time stated a man came in and said he had been sent for
the machine by his employer, Mr. Stewart. He produced the three
hundred pounds and I gave him a receipt. Then he drove away.
“Next day about ten-thirty he came back and said he had got
done earlier than he expected. I had the lorry examined, and when I
found it was all right I paid him back two hundred and ninety-five
pounds. He returned me my receipt and went out, and that was all
about it.”
“It’s a pleasure to get a clear statement like that, Mr. Llewellyn,”
French said, with his friendly smile, “and it’s surprising how seldom
one does get it. There are just one or two further points I should like
information on. Have you got those letters from the London hotel?”
“No, I’m afraid they’re destroyed. They were kept until the
transaction was finished and then burned.”
“But you have the address?”
“Mr. John F. Stewart, St. Pancras Hotel, London.”
“You might give me the dates of the correspondence.”
This also the owner was able to do, and French added them to
his notes.
“Can you describe the hand they were written in?”
“They were typewritten.”
“Purple or black ribbon?”
Mr. Llewellyn hesitated.
“Black, I think, but I couldn’t be sure.”
“Now about the driver. Can you describe him?”
“He was a middling tall man, middling stout also. His hair was red
and his complexion fresh, and he wore glasses.”
“His dress?”
“I could hardly describe it. He was dressed like a well-to-do
labourer or a small jobbing contractor or something of that sort. He
was untidy and I remember thinking that he wanted a shave pretty
badly. I took him for a gardener or general man about a country
place.”
“You couldn’t guess where he had come from by his accent?”
“No, I couldn’t tell. He wasn’t local, but that’s all I could say.”
“The same man came back next day?”
“Yes.”
“Had you any conversation with him on either occasion?”
 “No, except that he explained about lowering the machine on to
the foundation, same as in the letter.”
This seemed to French to be all he could get, and after some
further talk he and the superintendent took their leave.
“He’s loaded up the crate here in Swansea, at all events,” French
exclaimed when they were in the street. “That seems to postulate
docks and stations. I wonder if I can trespass still further on your
good nature, Superintendent?”
“Of course. I’ll send men round first thing to-morrow. It’s too late
to-night; all the places would be shut.”
“Thanks. Then I’ll turn up early in the morning.”
At the nearest telegraph office French sent a message to the
Yard to have enquiries made at the St. Pancras Hotel as to the
mysterious Mr. John F. Stewart. Then, tired from his exertions, he
returned to his hotel at Burry Port.
Early next morning he was back in Swansea. It was decided that
with a constable who knew the docks he, French, was to apply at the
various steamship offices, while other men were to try the railway
stations and road transport agencies. If these failed, the local firms
and manufacturers who usually sent out their products in crates were
to be called on. French did not believe that the search would be
protracted.
This view speedily proved correct. He had visited only three
offices when a constable arrived with a message. News of the crate
had been obtained at the Morriston Road Goods Station.
Fifteen minutes later French reached the place. He was met at
the gate by Sergeant Jefferies, who had made the discovery.
“I asked in the goods office first, sir,” the sergeant explained, “but
they didn’t remember anything there. Then I came out to the yard
and began enquiring from the porters. At the fifth shot I found a man
who remembered loading the crate. I didn’t question him further, but
sent you word.”
“That was right, Sergeant. We shall soon get what we want. This
the man?”
“Yes, sir.”
French turned to a thick set man in the uniform of a goods porter,
who was standing expectantly by.
 “Good day,” he said, pleasantly. “I want to know what you can tell
me about that crate that was loaded upon a crane lorry about six
weeks ago.”
“I can’t tell you nothing about it except that I helped for to get it
loaded up,” the porter answered. “I was trucking here when Mr.
Evans came up; he’s one o’ the clerks, you understand. Well, he
came up and handed me a waybill and sez: ‘Get out that crate,’ he
sez, ‘an’ get it loaded up on this lorry,’ he sez. So I calls two or three
o’ the boys to give me a hand and we gets it loaded up. An’ that’s all
I knows about it.”
“That’s all right. Now just take me along to Mr. Evans, will you?”
The man led the way across the yard to the office. Mr. Evans was
only a junior, but this fact did not prevent French from treating him
with his usual courtesy. He explained that the youth had it in his
power to give him valuable help for which he would be very grateful.
The result was that Evans instantly became his eager ally, willing to
take any trouble to find out what was required.
The youth remembered the details of the case. It appeared that
shortly after four o’clock one afternoon some five or six weeks
previously a man called for a crate. He was of rather above medium
height and build, with reddish hair and a high colour and wore
glasses. He sounded to Evans like a Londoner. At all events, he was
not a native. Evans had looked up the waybills and had found that a
package had been invoiced to some one of the name given. The
crate answered the man’s description, and was carriage paid and
addressed, “To be called for.” Evans had, therefore, no hesitation in
letting him have it. Unfortunately, he could not remember the
stranger’s name, but he would search for it through the old waybills.
He vanished for a few minutes, then returned with a bulky volume
which he set down triumphantly before French.
“There you are,” he exclaimed, pointing to an item. “ ‘Mr. James
S. Stephenson, Great Western Railway Goods Station, Morriston
Road, Swansea. To be called for.’ ‘Stephenson’ was the name. I
remember it now.”
This was good enough as far as it went, but Evans’s next answer
was the one that really mattered.
 “Who was the sender?” French asked, with thinly veiled
eagerness.
“ ‘The Veda Office Equipment Manufacturing Co., Ltd., Ashburton,
South Devon,’ ” read Evans.
The name seemed dimly familiar to French, but he could not
remember where he had heard it. Evans went on to say that the
crate was invoiced from Ashburton on Tuesday, 16th August, and
had reached Swansea on Saturday, 20th. Carriage had been paid by
the Veda Company and the whole transaction had been conducted
in a perfectly ordinary and regular way.
French left the goods office, and at the nearest telephone call
office rang up the police station in Ashburton. After a considerable
delay he got through. Would the sergeant enquire for him whether
the Veda Company had sent out a crate on the 16th August last,
addressed to the Morriston Road Goods Station, Swansea, to be
called for, and if so, what was in this crate and who had ordered it.
For nearly three hours he hung about the police station before
being recalled to the telephone. The Ashburton sergeant reported
that he had been to the Veda Works and that the manager confirmed
the sending out of the crate. It contained a large duplicator, a
specialty of the firm’s. The machine had been ordered by letter from
the Euston Hotel by a Mr. James S. Stephenson. He enclosed the
money, £62.10.0, stating that they were to send it to the Morriston
Road Goods Station in Swansea, labelled, “To be kept till called for.”
It was to be there not later than on the 20th August, and he would
call for it when the ship by which he intended to despatch it was
ready to sail.
The news did not seem very hopeful to French as over a belated
lunch he discussed it with Howells.
“This opens a second line of enquiry at Ashburton,” he began,
“but I do not think, somehow, that we shall get much from it. I believe
the real scent lies here.”
“Why so? I should have said it depended on what was in the
crate when it reached Swansea. And that’s just what we don’t know.”
“I agree. But to me that sergeant’s report sounds as if things at
Ashburton were O.K. If so, it follows that the body was put in
sometime during that lorry run from Swansea to Loughor. But that
doesn’t rule out enquiries at Ashburton. Even if I am right, something
may be learned from the order for the machine.”
“Quite. Both ends will have to be worked. And how do you
propose to do it?”
“Can’t you guess?” French said, blandly. “Surely there can be but
one answer. I couldn’t hope to do it without the able and
distinguished help of Superintendent Howells.”
The other laughed.
“I thought it was shaping to that. Well, what do you want me to
do?”
“Trace the run, Superintendent. You can do it in a way I couldn’t
attempt. I would suggest that with a map we work out the area which
could have been visited during that night, allowing time for unpacking
the duplicating machine and putting the body in its place. Then I
think this area should be combed. If murder has taken place, you’ll
hear of it.”
“And you?”
“I shall go to Ashburton, learn what I can from the order, and, if it
seems worth while, follow it up to London. Then I’ll come back here
and join forces with you. Of course we shall have to get
Superintendent Griffiths on the job also.”
After some further discussion this program was agreed to.
French, with the superintendent’s help, was to estimate the area to
be covered and to organise the search. To-morrow was Sunday, and
if by Monday evening nothing had come of it he was to leave
Howells to carry on while he paid his visits to Ashburton and if
necessary to London.
The longest unknown period of the lorry’s operations being from
8.30 to 12.30 at night, this was taken as being the ruling factor in the
case. During these four hours the machine had travelled from Neath
to Gorseinon, a distance of about twenty-five miles. About two hours
would be accounted for by the journey and the changing of the
contents of the crate, leaving two or more hours for additional
running—an hour out and an hour back. This meant a radius of
about twenty-five miles. The problem, therefore, was to make an
intensive search of the country within, say, thirty miles of Swansea.
 This was a large area and the work involved the coöperation of a
good many men. However, with Superintendent Howells’s help it was
arranged, and by that evening operations were everywhere in
progress.
During the whole of the next two days French remained on the
job, working out possible routes for the lorry and making special
enquiries along them. But no further information was obtained, and
when Monday evening came without result he decided that unless
he heard something next morning he would start for Ashburton.
But next morning news had come in which made a visit there
essential. It appeared that about 9.30 on the evening in question the
lorry had been seen standing in the same lane at Gorseinon in
which, three hours later, the police patrol had found it. A labourer
reported that he had passed it on his way home. As he approached,
the driver was sitting on the step, but, on seeing him, the man had
jumped up and busied himself with the engine. The labourer had
passed on out of sight, but, his way taking him along a path at right
angles to the lane, he had looked back across country and noticed
the driver again seated on the step and lighting a cigarette. The
position of the lorry was the same then as three hours later, and the
conclusion that it had not moved during the whole period seemed
unavoidable.
But if so, it made it much less likely that the body had been put
into the crate during the motor drive. The time available would have
been so short that the area in which the change could have been
made would have been very small indeed. The chances of a
disappearance remaining unknown to the police would, therefore,
have been correspondingly reduced. For the first time French began
to consider seriously the possibility that the body had come from
Devonshire.
While, therefore, Superintendent Howells in no way relaxed his
efforts, French took an early train south. He was in a thoughtful
mood as they pulled out of the station. This, it was evident, was
going to be one of those troublesome cases in which an ingenious
criminal had enveloped his evil deeds in a network of false clues and
irrelevant circumstances to mislead the unfortunate detective officer
to whom an investigation into them might afterward be assigned.
Confound it all! It was not long since he had got rid of that terribly
involved affair at Starvel in Yorkshire, and here was another that
bade fair to be as bad. However, such was life, and worrying
wouldn’t alter it. He was starting on an interesting journey and he
might as well forget his case and make the most of the scenery.
 Chapter Five: Messrs. Berlyn and
Pyke
Shortly before six o’clock that evening French stepped out of the
train at the little terminus of Ashburton.
He had enjoyed his run, particularly the latter portion through the
charming South Devonshire scenery, along the coast under the red
cliffs of Dawlish and Teignmouth, and then inland through the well-
wooded hills of Newton Abbot and Totnes. He was pleased, too, with
the appearance of Ashburton, a town T-shaped in plan and
squeezed down into the narrow valleys between three hills. He
admired its old world air and its pleasant situation as he walked up
the street to the Silver Tiger, the hotel to which he had been
recommended.
After a leisurely dinner he went out for a stroll, ending up shortly
after dark at the police station. Sergeant Daw had gone home, but a
constable was despatched for him and presently he turned up.
“I went to the works at once, sir,” he explained in answer to
French’s question. “They’re out at the end of North Street. A big
place for so small a town. They employ a hundred or more men and
a lot of women and girls. A great benefit to the town, sir.”
“And whom did you see?”
“I saw Mr. Fogden, the sales manager. He turned up the
information without delay. The duplicator was ordered from London
and he showed me the letter. You can see it if you go up to-morrow.
There was nothing out of the way about the transaction. They
packed the machine and sent it off, and that was all they could tell
me.”
Suspiciously like a wild-goose chase, thought French as he
chatted pleasantly with the sergeant. Like his confrère at Burry Port,
the man seemed more intelligent and better educated than most
rural policemen. They discussed the weather and the country for
some time and then French said:
“By the way, Sergeant, the name of this Veda Works seemed
vaguely familiar when you telephoned it. Has it been in the papers
lately or can you explain how I should know it?”
“No doubt, sir, you read of the sad accident we had here about
six weeks ago—a tragedy, if I may put it so. Two of the gentlemen
belonging to the works—Mr. Berlyn, the junior partner, and Mr. Pyke,
the travelling representative—lost their lives on the moor. Perhaps
you recall it, sir?”
Of course! The affair now came back to French. So far as he
could recall the circumstances, the two men had been driving across
Dartmoor at night, and while still several miles from home their car
had broken down. They had attempted to reach the house of a friend
by crossing a bit of the moor, but in the dark they had missed their
way, and getting into one of the soft “mires,” had been sucked down
and lost.
“I read of it, yes. Very sad thing. Unusual, too, was it not?”
“Yes, sir, for those who live about here know the danger and they
don’t go near these doubtful places at night. But animals sometimes
get caught. I’ve seen a pony go down myself, and I can tell you, sir, I
don’t wish to see another. It was a slow business, and the worse the
creature struggled the tighter it got held. But when it comes to
human beings it’s a thing you don’t like to think about.”
“That’s a fact, Sergeant. By the way, it’s like a dream to me that I
once met those two gentlemen. I wish you’d describe them.”
“They were not unlike so far as figure and build were concerned;
about five feet nine or five feet ten in height, I should say, though Mr.
Berlyn was slightly the bigger man. But their colouring was different.
Mr. Berlyn had a high colour and blue eyes and reddish hair, while
Mr. Pyke was sallow, with brown eyes and hair.”
“Did Mr. Berlyn wear glasses?” French asked, with difficulty
keeping the eagerness out of his voice.
“No, sir. Neither of them did that.”
“I don’t think they can be the men I met. Well, I’ll go up and see
this Mr. Fogden in the morning. Good night, Sergeant.”
 “Good night, sir. If there’s anything I can do I take it you’ll let me
know.”
But French next morning did not go to the office equipment
works. Instead he took an early bus to Torquay, and calling at the
local office of the Western Morning News, asked to see their recent
files. These he looked over, finally buying all the papers which
contained any reference to the tragic deaths of Messrs. Berlyn and
Pyke.
He had no suspicions in the matter except that here was a
disappearance of two persons about the time of the murder, one of
whom answered to the description of the man who had called for the
crate. No one appeared to doubt their death on the moor, but—their
bodies had not been found. French wished to know what was to be
known about the affair before going to the works, simply to be on the
safe side.
He retired to the smoking room of the nearest hotel and began to
read up his papers. At once he discovered a fact which he thought
deeply significant. The tragedy had taken place on the night of
Monday, the 15th August. And it was on the following day, Tuesday,
the 16th, that the crate had been despatched from Ashburton.
The case was exhaustively reported, and after half an hour’s
reading French knew all that the reporters had gleaned. Briefly, the
circumstances were as follow:
Charles Berlyn, as has been said, was junior partner of the firm.
He was a man of about forty and he looked after the commercial side
of the undertaking. Stanley Pyke was an engineer who acted as
technical travelling representative, a younger man, not more than
five and thirty. Each had a high reputation for character and business
efficiency.
It happened that for some time previous to the date in question
the Urban District Council of Tavistock had been in communication
with the Veda Works relative to the purchase of filing cabinets and
other office appliances for their clerk. There had been a hitch in the
negotiations and Mr. Berlyn had arranged to attend the next meeting
of the council in the hope of settling the matter. As some of the
council members were farmers, busy during that season in the
daytime, the meeting was held in the evening. Mr. Berlyn arranged to
motor over, Mr. Pyke accompanying him.
The two men left the works at half past five, their usual hour.
Each dined early and they set out in Mr. Berlyn’s car about seven.
They expected to reach Tavistock at eight, at which hour the meeting
was to begin. After their business was finished they intended to call
on a mill owner just outside Tavistock in connection with a set of
loose-leaf forms he had ordered. The mill owner was a personal
friend of Mr. Berlyn’s and they intended to spend the evening with
him, leaving about eleven and reaching home about midnight.
This program they carried out faithfully, at least in its earlier
stages. They reached Tavistock just as the meeting of the Urban
Council was beginning, and settled the business of the office
appliances. Then they went on to the mill owner’s, arranged about
the loose-leaf forms, and sat chatting over cigars and drinks until
shortly before eleven. At precisely ten-fifty they set off on their return
journey, everything connected with them being perfectly normal and
in order.
They were never seen again.
Mrs. Berlyn went to bed at her ordinary time, but, waking up
shortly before three and finding that Mr. Berlyn had not returned, she
immediately grew anxious. It was so unlike him to fail to carry out his
plans that his absence suggested disaster. She hastily put on some
clothes and went out to the garage, and on finding that the car was
not there she woke the servant and said she was going to the police.
Without waiting for the girl to dress, she went out and knocked up
Sergeant Daw at his little cottage.
Though the sergeant did his best to reassure her, he was by no
means easy in his own mind. The road from Tavistock to Ashburton
is far from safe, especially for night motoring. It is terribly hilly and
winding and at night extraordinarily deserted. An accident might
easily happen and in such lonely country, hours might pass before its
discovery.
The sergeant at once called a colleague and the two men started
off on motor bicycles to investigate. About eight miles out on the
moor they came to Mr. Berlyn’s car standing close up to the side of
the road, as if drawn out of the way of passing traffic. It was heavily
coated with dew and looked as if it had been there for hours. The
engine and radiator were cold and there was no sign of either of its
occupants.
At the side of the road was a patch of gravelly soil mixed with
peat, and across it, leading from the road out over the moor, were
two lines of footsteps. The prints were not sufficiently sharp to give
detailed impressions, but the sergeant had no doubt as to whom
they belonged. He tried to follow them over the moor, but the grass
was too rough to allow of this.
But he soon realised what had happened. Three-quarters of a
mile across the moor, in the direction in which the footsteps pointed,
lived the senior partner of the Veda Company, Colonel Domlio. His
was the only house in the neighbourhood, and it was, therefore,
natural that if from a breakdown of the car or other reason the
travellers had got into difficulties, they should go to him for help. But
the house was not approached from the road on which they were
travelling. The drive started from that which diverged at Two Bridges
and led northwards to Moretonhampstead. To have gone round by
the road would, therefore, have meant a walk of nearly five miles,
whereas fifteen minutes would have taken them across the moor. It
was evident that they had adopted the latter course.
And therein lay their fate. Some quarter of a mile from the road
were a number of those treacherous, vivid green areas of quagmire,
to stumble into which is to run the risk of a horrible death. They were
not quite in the direct line to the house, but in one of the mists which
come up so frequently and unexpectedly it would not have been
difficult for the men to lose their way. The sergeant at once knocked
up Colonel Domlio, only to learn that he had not seen or heard of
either.
When the car was examined, the cause of the stoppage was
discovered. A short circuit had developed in the magneto, which
interfered with the sparking to such an extent that the cylinder
charges could not be ignited.
French was a good deal disappointed by the account. He had
hoped that he was onto the solution of his problem, but now he
doubted it. That Berlyn had murdered Pyke and sent off his body in
the crate had seemed at first sight a promising theory. But French
could see no evidence of foul play in the story. It read merely as a
straightforward narrative of an unfortunate mishap.
At the same time the coincidence of the dates was remarkable
and French felt that he could not dismiss the matter from his mind
until he had satisfied himself that it really was the accident for which
it had been taken.
He wondered if any tests were possible, and gradually four
considerations occurred to him.
First, there was the breakdown of the car. If the breakdown had
been an accident the whole affair was almost certainly an accident,
for he did not think it possible that advantage could have been taken
of an unexpected incident to commit the murder. The details of the
disposal of the crate had been too well worked out to have been
improvised. But if the breakdown had been faked it meant foul play.
Secondly, a valuable check in all such investigations was the
making of a time-table. French felt sure that if murder had been
committed the car must have gone from Tavistock to the works and
back to where it was found. If not, he did not see how the body could
have been taken to the works. Probably, also, it had waited at the
works while the murderer was substituting the body for the
duplicator. Then the radiator must have been hot when the car was
abandoned, and it was cold when Sergeant Daw arrived on the
scene. If French could find out how long all these operations would
have taken he might find that they could not have been carried out in
the time available.
Thirdly, French wondered if in a place of the size of the Veda
Works there was no night watchman, and if there was, how the
contents of the crate could have been changed without his
knowledge.
Lastly, there was the question of the disposal of the duplicator.
Assuming that murder had been done, it was extremely probable
that the murderer had found the duplicator packed in the crate. How
could he have got rid of so heavy and cumbrous an object?
If these four points were investigated French thought he would
obtain sufficient information to settle the main question. It was,
therefore, with a second line of enquiries in his mind that he returned
to Ashburton and walked out to the Veda Works.
 These stood a short distance beyond the town at the end of North
Street, and formed a rather imposing collection of buildings, small
but modern and well designed. The principal block was of five
stories, showing narrow pilasters of cream-coloured concrete
separating wide glazed panels. The remaining buildings were single-
storey sheds. The place seemed spotlessly clean and tidy.
French entered a door labelled “Office,” and sending in his
private card, asked for Mr. Fogden. He was shown into a comfortably
furnished room in which a youngish man with a pleasant face sat at
a table desk.
“Good afternoon, Mr. French. Won’t you sit down? What can I do
for you, sir?”
“I should explain first who I am, Mr. Fogden.” French handed over
his official card. “I have called on business which has already been
brought to your notice by the local sergeant. It is about the crate
which was sent by your firm to Mr. James B. Stephenson at the G.
W. Goods Station at Swansea.”
“I saw the sergeant when he called,” Mr. Fogden answered, a
trifle shortly. “That was yesterday, and I gave him all the information
at my disposal.”
“So he told me, sir.” French’s manner was very suave. “My
troubling you on the same business, therefore, requires a little
explanation. I must ask you, however, to consider what I have to tell
you confidential. That crate which you sent to Swansea was duly
called for. It eventually reached Burry Port. There it was opened—by
the police. And do you know what was found in it?”
Mr. Fogden stared at the other with a rapidly growing interest.
“Good Heavens!” he cried. “You surely don’t mean to say that it
contained that body that we have been reading so much about in the
papers recently?”
French nodded.
“That’s it, Mr. Fogden. So you will see now that it’s not idle
curiosity which brings me here. The matter is so serious that I must
go into it personally. I shall have to investigate the entire history of
that crate.”
“By Jove! I should think so. You don’t imagine, I take it, that the
body was in it when it left the works?”
 “I don’t, but of course I can’t be sure. I must investigate all the
possibilities.”
“That is reasonable.” Mr. Fogden paused, then continued: “Now
tell me what you want me to do and I will carry out your wishes as
well as I can. I have already explained to the sergeant that the crate
contained a Veda Number Three duplicator, a special product of the
firm’s, and that it was ordered by this Mr. Stephenson in a letter
written from the Euston Hotel. I can turn up the letter for you.”
“Thank you, I should like to see the letter, but as a matter of fact I
should like a good deal more. I am afraid I must follow the whole
transaction right through and interview everyone who dealt with it.”
“I get you. Right. I’ll arrange it. Now first as to the letter.”
He touched the bell and ordered a certain file to be brought him.
From this he took out a letter and passed it to French.
 Chapter Six: The Despatch of the
Crate
The letter was written on a single sheet of cream-laid, court-sized
paper and bore the legend “Euston Hotel, London. N. W. 1.” in blue
type on its right corner. It was typed in black, and French could see
that the machine used was not new and that some of the letters were
defective and out of place. It was signed “James S. Stephenson” in a
hand which French instinctively felt was disguised, with blue-black
ink apparently of the fountain-pen type. It read:

12 August.
Messrs. The Veda Office Equipment Manufacturing Co.
Ltd.,
Ashburton,
South Devon.
Dear Sirs,
I should be obliged if you would kindly forward to Mr. James
S. Stephenson, Great Western Railway Goods Station,
Morriston Road, Swansea, marked “To be kept till called for,”
one of your patent Veda electric duplicators, No. 3, to take brief
size. The motor to be wound for 220 volts D.C. and to have a
flexible cord to plug into the main.
Please have the machine delivered at Swansea not later
than 19th inst., as I wish to ship it from there on the following
day.
I enclose herewith money order value £62.10.0, the price,
less discount, as given in your catalogue. Please advise receipt
of money and despatch of duplicator to this hotel.
Yours faithfully,
James S. Stephenson.