Nota sull’estetica del caso nell’Iliade (in margine a Il. XI 604)

In the Iliad, Book XI, Achilles sends Patroclus to Nestor’s tent to find out the identity of the wounded warrior who has just been taken out of the battlefield. It is a scene that would go completely unnoticed, were it not for the fact that, in v. 604, it is stated that this was the beginning of Patroclus’ ruin (κακοῦ δ' ἄρα οἱ πέλεν ἀρχή). In fact, as is known, it is Nestor himself the one eventually telling Patroclus that he should enter battle wearing Achilles' weapons. It is interesting to observe that the dynamic that leads to Patroclus’ κακοῦ ἀρχή consists in a concatenation of random events: the way in which the scene is constructed produces in the reader/listener a strong perception of the role of chance in human affairs and of the fact that many of the actions that men perform in life are also due to chance. This is perhaps the first time that such a perception of chance emerges forcefully in Western literature.