38 Ancient Ideals
and idealistic considerations in favor of techniques to solve the
problems at hand. Pragmatism is not about maintaining honor or
creating the perfect work of art or living entirely for others: prag-
matism is about getting the job done. We might say that Nestor is
one of the fi rst pragmatists in Western lit erature, though it is Odys-
seus who embodies the type most thoroughly.
In both The Iliad and The Odyssey, Odysseus is the man who
does what he has to do in order to survive and win. No piece of cun-
ning is too low, so long as it achieves the desired results: he tricks
Polyphemus, tricks Circe, tricks the suitors. There is nothing he
favors less, it sometimes seems, than fair and open fi ght. He is, as
Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno suggest in Dialectic of
Enlightenment, the precursor of middle- class man. The true hero is
an essentialist: he believes in eternal values— the value of honor pre-
eminent among them. The pragmatist believes in getting what he
wants. When Achilles hears the plan, he stops thinking as an es-
sentialist and he becomes pragmatic—he tries to solve the prob lem
at hand, rather than trying to live up to enduring standards.
Achilles warns Patroclus to save the ships from being set on fi re
by the Trojans but not to push his advantage too far. Patroclus must
not try to force Hector and his troops back to the walls of Troy. But
in battle, wearing the armor of Achilles, Patroclus clearly begins to
think that he is Achilles. He fi ghts gloriously. He saves the Greeks
and rallies them, and at the critical moment, he cannot pull back.
He leads the Greeks in a furious counterattack against the Trojans
and pushes them toward the walls of the city. But then the temper
of battle shifts. The god Apollo slams Patroclus with the fl at of his
massive hand; the Trojan Euphorbus wounds him with a spear
thrust. Finally Hector comes on to fi nish him. He strikes Patroclus
down and jeers at the fallen hero. “The vultures will eat your body
raw” (XVI, 976), he cries. But Patroclus has a fi nal word to say. You
think you’ve won a great victory, he tells Hector. But you only de-