I argue that the scenes featuring Briseis and Xanthus in Iliad 19 are closely parallel. Each features a speech from an unexpected source, previously constructed in the epic not as a character but as a valued possession. The audience’s brief access to their fresh perspectives is soon curtailed by the recentring of Achilles’ corresponding speech and familiar point of view, and the enslaved woman and the horse are subsequently relegated to their former object status. These scenes form part of a broader pattern as a private counterpart to the public exchanges that constitute the Greek assembly. Together, the paired speeches throughout Book 19 produce a significant accumulation of unresolved tensions that underlie the superficial consensus of action and mark the limitations of Achilles’ reintegration into the community. It is this dynamic, I suggest, that unifies the book and defines its primary function in the epic.
Florence Yoon (Tue,) studied this question.