Zeus Gives Agamemnon False Hope

Everyone sleeps but Zeus, who can not stop thinking about how to bring honour to Achilles. He decides to send the god of Dreams down to Agamemnon and set his plan in motion.
But what plan did Zeus have, you may ask? Well, Dream finds Agamemnon in his camps and takes on the guise of old man Nestor to speak to the king of Mycenae. He enters Agamemnon’s subconscious and basically says that any man with his kind of responsibility should not be sleeping so soundly. He continues, saying that he’s a messenger of Zeus, and admits that it is Zeus who advises Agamemnon to prepare his troops for battle immediately. If Agamemnon is to rally his army and launch a full-scale attack soon, then they will successfully take Troy. Dream then leaves.
Agamemnon wakes up and this is where we — as the audience — realise Zeus’ plan: the king of Mycenae wrongly thinks he’s going to defeat the Trojans that day because Dream has planted that idea in his head. Given that we’re only in book 2, we know that he won’t succeed and that this is all laying the groundwork to show the Greeks just how much they need Achilles … but obviously, the characters don’t know this. Got it? Got it. Anyways, since it is now dawn, Agamemnon gets ready for the day and demands that the Greek princes attend his assembly so that he can tell them of this plan.
Once the most important men have gathered by Nestor’s ships, Agamemnon tells them that Dream has visited him in the form of Nestor (I always wonder how Nestor feels about this?) and relays that the gods have decided that today is the day for Troy to face its suffering. Feeling incredibly special, Agamemnon sits down to let the news sink in.
Nestor rises to speak, saying that if anyone else had said what Agamemnon just said they would have thought he was crazy. However, considering Agamemnon is the “best of the Greeks” (Homer's words, not mine), the men believe him wholeheartedly. The old man then demands that the rest of the army should be gathered into a larger assembly so that they can hear this news, too.

Assembly is Called

Rumour personified helps to gather the rest of the army into a bigger meeting. Nine heralds also announce the gathering.
Agamemnon gets up in front of the men while holding the sceptre of Hephaestus. In case you were wondering (no one is ever wondering), we do get a background of the sceptre: Hephaestus gave it to Zeus, who in turn gave it to Hermes. Hermes then gave it to Pelops, who gave it to Atreus. Atreus then dies before personally handing the sceptre to anyone, however does leave it for Thyestes, who then left it to Agamemnon … and that’s how Agamemnon has come into possession of said sceptre. You’re welcome.
Anyways, Agamemnon leans on this sceptre to talk to the entire Greek army. He basically reiterates what Dream told him, but interestingly follows this by stating how many more Greeks soldiers there are in comparison to Trojan soldiers. Agamemnon claims that if the Greeks were split into groups of ten and each group was to be given one Trojan to pour wine for them, then many groups would be left without a wine steward. I don’t think anyone reading this was asking for such details, but I think that’s interesting to gauge just how much larger the Greek army is at this point in the fighting!
Regardless of numbers, Agamemnon follows this up by testing the Greek army and their loyalty to their mission. He states that he is tired of fighting for nine long years, and so advises the army to go home and see their families. Just abandon battle and leave Helen — it’s not worth it anymore! Unsurprisingly, to his dismay, all the men clamour in approval and start moving out.
The action briefly moves to the gods, who are watching this completely backfire and go into panic mode. Hera tells Athena that the Greeks are being ridiculous and that Athena herself must go to the army to make sure they don’t actually leave the shores of Troy.
Athena runs down to the men and finds Odysseus, instructing him to talk to the rest of the Greeks about staying at Troy. Odysseus stands up and tells Agamemnon that he’s a coward, while also encouraging the army to stay where they are.
Thersites is the man who rebuttals Odysseus, but before we actually hear what he says, Homer tells us that he is the ugliest man to go to Troy. It is also noted that he is hated by both Achilles and Odysseus — so that’s the man that we’re dealing with, in case you wanted a profile of Thersites. So Thersites stands up to tell Agamemnon off, but he gets a bit carried away with the attention. He also calls all the men in the meeting “women”, along with demanding that the army return home and leave Agamemnon to fend for himself.
As Thersites sits down, Odysseus gets up. He basically says that if Thersites were to pull a stunt like this again, Odysseus will strip him naked and whip him until he runs away from the assembly (I kid you not). He then goes one step further than this, whacking Thersites on the back with a sceptre so hard that he makes Thersites bleed! In response, all the men laugh, and Thersites sits back down.
Odysseus makes his way to the front of the army with Athena by his side (who is not actually visible to anyone, but she’s there). He tells everyone that he understands why they’re eager to go home, but advises them to stay as they have already been at Troy for so long. He reminds the army of the prophecy Kalchas gave to them before they set sail for Troy: the word from the gods came in the form of a serpent, slithering around an altar. Nearby were eight baby sparrows, plus the mum making a total of nine birds. The snake was seen to eat all the baby sparrows and then coiled itself around the mum sparrow, eating her, too. Kalchas had claimed that this represented the years of fighting that the Greeks would have to endure at Troy before they could finally take the city. Odysseus sits down to the sound of the army cheering in approval.
Nestor then gets up to speak in front of the Greeks. In true old-man fashion, he calls them all children. He reminds them that they all took an oath which binds them to the Trojan war (meaning that they can’t leave without being socially disgraced), but further than that, Zeus has already shown them favour on the battlefield. Nestor defiantly declares that no one should leave until the Greeks get what they came for, which is for Helen to be reunited with Menelaus.
While Nestor is sitting, Agamemnon rises. In his speech, he takes zero accountability for his fight with Achilles, going so far as to claim that Zeus put bitterness in his body which is the only reason why he got mad in the first place. He agrees that they are all going to go back and fight on the battlefield, stressing that any man who tries to get out of it will be torn apart by dogs and eaten by vultures. Again, the army cheers in approval.
Agamemnon, Nestor, both Ajax’s (big and little), Diomedes, Odysseus and Menelaus sacrifice an ox to Zeus. Agamemnon asks the god that he be the one to kill Hector and set fire to Priam’s palace … but Zeus obviously ignores this (not that the men are aware of this detail, but we, as the reader, are). The men then eat after the sacrifice.
The last part of the action involves Nestor telling all the men to go back to their ships.

The Greek Army

The narrative then launches into the famous Catalogue of Ships. I’ve decided that just writing this section as a list is probably easier to read, so here you go! The details in the poem also discuss who led these boats and the history of each place (if there is any), but it’s really just important to know how large the army was. Anyways, the Catalogue of Ships is as follows:

Boiotians — 50 ships, each with 120 men

Aspledon & Minyan Orchomenos — 30 ships

Phocians — 40 ships

Locrians — 40 ships

Euboia — 40 ships

Athens — 50 ships

Salamis — Big Ajax (Ajax Telamon) — 12 ships

Argos and the Argolid — Diomedes — 80 ships

Mycenae & Corinth —100 ships

Lacedaemon (Sparta area) — Menelaus — 60 ships

Pylos & that sort of area — Nestor — 90 ships

Arcadia — 60 ships

Bouprasion & Elis — 40 ships

Doulichion & sacred islands of Echinai — 40 ships

Kephallenia & Ithaca — 12 ships

Aetolians — 40 ships

Cretans — Idomeneus — 80 ships

Rhodes — 9 ships

Syme — 3 ships

Kalydnai Islands — 30 ships

Pelasgian Argos & Phthia — Achilles — 50 ships, each had 50 men

Phylake and Pyrasos — 40 ships

Pherai and all those places — 11 ships

Methone & Thaumakia — 7 ships, each had 50 rowers

Trikke — 30 ships

Ormenion & Asterion — 40 ships

Agrissa & Gerytone — 40 ships

Kyphos — 22 ships

Magnesia — 40 ships

… and that’s how the book ends!

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Book 2: The Longest List of Names You’ll Ever Read

Zeus Gives Agamemnon False Hope

Assembly is Called

The Greek Army

Book 1: Achilles Gets Mad Because Agamemnon is a Child

Book 3: Paris Runs Away In Battle, Aphrodite Makes Helen Hang Out With Him