Source Verification: Diomedes

How does Diomedes wound the goddess Aphrodite in the Iliad?

As Aphrodite carries her wounded son Aeneas away from the fighting, Diomedes pursues her through the crowd and thrusts his spear into her wrist, drawing the immortal blood the gods call ichor. She drops her son in pain and cries out, and Diomedes shouts after her to keep away from war and stick to beguiling weak women.

Source: Homer, Iliad 5.330-352

Does Diomedes really fight a god face to face?

Yes. With Athene driving his chariot and deflecting the god's first spear-throw, Diomedes drives his own spear into Ares's belly. The war god bellows as loudly as nine or ten thousand men shouting in battle, and both armies tremble at the sound before Ares withdraws to Olympus.

Source: Homer, Iliad 5.846-863

What did Diomedes say when Agamemnon proposed abandoning the siege?

After a disastrous night of fighting, Agamemnon tells the assembled Greeks that Zeus has doomed the expedition and urges them to flee home by ship. Diomedes answers first, reminding Agamemnon that he once mocked Diomedes's courage, and tells the king to leave alone if he wishes: Diomedes and his companion Sthenelus, he says, will stay and fight until Troy falls even without him.

Source: Homer, Iliad 9.32-49

How large a force did Diomedes lead to Troy?

Homer's catalogue of the Greek forces gives Diomedes command of eighty ships from Argos, Tiryns, and several nearby towns, sharing leadership with Sthenelus and Euryalus but named as chief over them all. Only Agamemnon, with a hundred ships from Mycenae, leads a larger contingent.

Source: Homer, Iliad 2.559-568

Did Diomedes or Odysseus actually steal the Palladium from Troy?

Apollodorus's own account credits Odysseus with the leading role, sneaking into Troy disguised as a beggar and later returning with Diomedes to carry the sacred image out. But the same passage records a rival tradition it calls more prevalent, in which Diomedes was the one who physically bore the Palladium away.

Source: Apollodorus, Epitome 5.13

Why is the phrase 'Diomedes's necessity' used as a Greek proverb?

In the fuller version of the Palladium theft, Odysseus supposedly plotted to murder Diomedes on the way back to the ships so he could claim the prize alone, but moonlight flashing off his raised sword gave him away. Diomedes turned on him, drove him back at swordpoint, and forced him to keep walking, which is where the proverb for doing something only because one is compelled to comes from.

Source: Apollodorus, Epitome 5.13

• Homer, Iliad 2.559-568
• Homer, Iliad 5.330-352
• Homer, Iliad 5.846-863
• Homer, Iliad 9.32-49
• Apollodorus, Epitome 5.13

• Timothy Gantz, Early Greek Myth (1993)