This workshop has been designed and implemented in the framework of teaching Homer’s Iliad to Year
2, Junior High School pupils in Ellinogermaniki Agogi. Students worked extensively with the device of
still images.
The focus is the conflict between Achilles and Agamemnon, concerning Chryseis’ return to her father.
In the first book of the Iliad, during the distribution of the booty brought by Achilles, she
was given to Agamemnon by unanimous decision in view of his kingly office. As a war prize,
Agamemnon who admitted that she was finer than his own wife Clytemnestra, enslaved
Chryseis and refused to allow her father to ransom her even though the priest of Apollo offered
the Mycenaean king gifts of gold and silver. Apollo then sent a plague sweeping through the
Greek armies and Agamemnon was forced to give Chryseis back in order to end it. He sent
Odysseus to return the maiden to Chryses. Agamemnon compensated himself for this loss by
taking Briseis from Achilles, an act that offended Achilles who refused to take further part in
the Trojan War (2019).