Catalogue of Ships (*Iliad* 2)

Catalogue of Ships (Iliad 2)

Catalogue ID: 04-trojan-cycle/173-catalogue-ships-iliad-2

Cycle: Trojan — Homeric *Iliad* / Achaean muster

Version line: Homeric — Boeotia-first catalogue of Achaean contingents

Sources: Homer, *Iliad* 2.484–760 (invocation of the Muses; catalogue through the Myrmidons)

Source file: /workspace/greek-myth-catalogue/04-trojan-cycle/173-catalogue-ships-iliad-2.md

Characters

Amphitrite — invoked to remember the host
Leaders of each contingent — Diomedes, Ajax, Odysseus, Nestor, Idomeneus, Menelaus, and many others
Thyestes — overall commander; Mycenaean contingent
Trojan assembly — Myrmidon leader (last major entry)

Places

Assembly — shared destination
Homelands across Greece and the islands — each contingent’s origin
Mount Helicon — narrative present of the catalogue

Themes

Narrative

After the false dream and the testing of the army, the poet invokes the Muses and lists the Achaean contingents bound for Troy: leaders, homelands, and numbers of ships, beginning with the Boeotians and closing toward Achilles’ Myrmidons. The Catalogue of Ships maps the heroic world—Boeotia, Minyan Orchomenos, Phocis, Locris, Euboea, Athens, Salamis (Ajax), Argos and Mycenae (Diomedes and Agamemnon), Lacedaemon (Menelaus), Pylos (Nestor), Arcadia, Elis, Dulichium and the Echinades, Ithaca (Odysseus), Aetolia, Crete (Idomeneus), Rhodes, Syme, Phylace, Pherae, Methone, Ormenion, Argissa, and Phthia—encoding rank and memory more than battlefield tactics. Catalogue it as a distinct documentary lay within *Iliad* 2, separate from the Trojan allies list that follows and from the quarrel with Thersites that precedes the muster’s recovery.