" This, the only occasion in the Iliad when furious Achilles smiles serves as a bittersweet reminder of the difference real leadership could have made to the events of the Iliad. Agamemnon's panicked prize-grabbing in Book One and even Nestor's rambling "authority" pale beside Achilles' instinctive and absolute command of himself and the dangers of this occasion. "

― Caroline Alexander , The War That Killed Achilles: The True Story of Homer's Iliad and the Trojan War