Awesome / The Iliad

• Automedon's charging the Trojan lines and then going head to head with Hector for a brief time, and coming out alive.
• Menelaus, who is described as being the weakest warrior of the Greek kings and yet pulls off some of the most courageous actions. He curbstomps Paris and later saves Patroclus' body.
• Diomedes goes on a rampage through the Trojan army, killing everyone he comes across, wounding Aphrodite and Ares, forcing the God of War to flee from him. The Trojans fear him more than ACHILLES (though the fact that he stayed in his tent for 90% of the poem probably factored into that), the only person who he couldn't defeat was Hector, the greatest Trojan warrior, and that was because Zeus himself sent a thunderbolt to tell Diomedes to not fight him. Even more so when you realize that Diomedes, unlike Achilles, is fully mortal. Here is what Helenus, Hector's brother and a seer says about him:
  He fights with fury and fills men's souls with panic. I hold him mightiest of them all; we did not fear even their great champion Achilles, son of an immortal though he be, as we do this man: his rage is beyond all bounds, and there is none can vie with him in prowess.
• Patroclus taking Achilles' armour, rousing the Greeks, chasing back the Trojans who were starting to burn the Greek ships, killing Sarpedon (the son of Zeus!), and almost scaling the walls of Troy until Apollo intervenes and Patroclus is killed by Hector.
• The first thing Achilles does when he gets out of his tent? He lets out three war cries, one after another, and kills twelve Trojans by doing so, and single-handedly pushes back the entire Trojan army, including Hector, back to the wall.
• Asteropiaos, a minor grandson of a river god. He is the only warrior who made Achilles bleed. Granted it was only an elbow scratch. But still not even Hector can do that!
• The only major warrior on both sides never shown to receive help from a god is Agamemnon.
• Helen standing up to Aphrodite. Even if Aphrodite threatens her into submission immediately after, it's nice to see someone in Greek mythology tell a god what a jerk she is.
• Hector fighting Achilles. The best-known duel in all of Western literature.
• Another slightly less epic duel (And belonging more to the Trojan Cycle as a whole really) , that of The Ethiopian king Memnon and Achilles wherein the two battle it out in armor forged by Hephaestus, and Zeus himself makes them tireless and huge so all others can watch them battle like demigods.
• Agamemnon! Contrary to some post-Homeric portrayals, in Book 2, he's said to have the:
  Head and eyes of Zeus, chest like Poseidon, waist like Ares.
  • In Book 3, King Priam stares at him from the walls and asks Helen:
  Who is this huge warrior, this Achaean so great and strong? Many others are taller by a head but my eyes have never beheld one so handsome or noble. That man must be a king!
  • In Book 7, he's the first to volunteer to fight Hector after Nestor's speech and along with Diomedes and Great Ajax is one of the three most wished for:
  Father Zeus grant that the lot fall to (Great) Ajax or to the son of Tydeus (Diomedes) or to the king himself of all Mycenae's gold (Agamemnon).
  • In Book 11, Agamemnon has his aristeia or day of glory and is killing Trojans left and right like a killing machine, forcing them all to flee, and his day of glory is most similar to Achilles' in style and structure, even Hector is told to stay away by Zeus.
• When Achilles is being battered by the river God Scamander, Hera sends Hephaestus to intervene with his flame. His flames burn everything upon the plains and boils the river Scamander, the God declaring: "Hephaistos, not one of the gods could stand up against you. I for one could not fight the flame of a fire like this one." Crippled he may be, Hephaestus' power is no idle thing.
• Ajax the Great has his title for a reason. Possessed of strength, courage, and a cunning mind, he was the only warrior in the entire Iliad to not even be wounded, and while he was one of the deadliest heroes in the poem, all of his actions were purely defensive and in response to the enemy's advances. He often held the line singlehandedly, with Book 15 being of special note as he leapt from ship to ship wielding a spear.

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