Chersidamas, “hurtling to the dust,” lays flat and bleeds out on the ground. When Chersidamas jumps out of his chariot for an aerial attack, Odysseus sticks him right in the family jewels with his spear mid-leap. Ready to die rather than surrender, Odysseus goes on an epic killing spree to fight his way out of the ambush, laying Trojans flat left and right. Odysseus (who later gets his own sequel), gets abandoned deep in Trojan territory in book 11 when all his pals lose their nerve.
The head full-on goes flying “far away, helmet and all,” while the body stays tottering where it is spewing marrow and gunk from the spine. The gnarliest is Deucalion, whose head he severs with a single blow. Blind with rage, the Greek champion hacks his way through wave upon wave of fighters, splitting necks open, stabbing livers, and slicing faces in half. Achilles.īefore he gets his revenge on Hector, Achilles lays some serious hurt down on the Trojans for cutting up his best friend. But it’s not enough: Achilles shoves a rope through the tendons of Hector’s ankles, ties them to a chariot, and drags his mangled corpse around Troy in a gruesome victory lap. At the climax of the poem, Achilles strips Hector naked, watches him blubber for mercy, calls him a dog, and guts him. And you sure the hell do not gloat over slaughtering his best pal, as the Trojan prince Hector did. Achilles briefly considers the tears and snot pouring down Lycaon’s face, then cleaves him from shoulder to sternum, “and the black blood gushed out and drenched the ground.” And that is a literal translation.
In book 21, the Trojan Lycaon sees Achilles and falls to his knees, squealing, “don’t hurt me! My daddy’s rich! He’ll pay you just PLEASE DON’T HURT ME” (not a literal translation but pretty close). Homer’s heroes may be musclebound giants, but Achilles is the Chuck Norris of them all, meaning grown men pee their pants and snivel for their lives when he’s around. Instead he gores poor little “Leucus, Odysseus’ buddy.” Homer doesn’t dwell on it, but he says Leucus gets shafted right in the βουβών, a word that means “groin” or worse, “glands.” That’s gotta hurt. In the chaos, the Trojan prince Antiphos misses the mark when he throws his spear at the Greek hero, Ajax. Book 4 is a no-holds-barred bloodbath - Hera, who’s insatiably thirsty for Trojan blood, sends her fellow-goddess Athena to earth to bring the pain, and a lawless mêlée erupts. With Achilles sulking over his girlfriend, the Trojan war goes pretty FUBAR for a while. “Unholy shrieking rose from them as they died,” Homer says, “and the ground ran red with their blood.” It’s a low blow, but it gets the job done: while the Trojans are cuddled up all snug, the two Greeks eviscerate twelve of them, spilling their guts on the ground. In desperation, they send two undercover operatives, Diomedes and Odysseus, to slaughter the Trojans in their sleep. When the Greeks lose their star fighter, Achilles, they’re playing at a serious handicap. The fact that this is the least gory item on this list should tell you something about the upcoming mayhem.
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