Iliad 11: Healing, Healers, Nestor, and Medea

Abstract

Iliad 11’s series of wounded Greek chiefs sends the doomed Patroklos to Nestor’s tent, where Heka-mede has just given Neleus’s son and the wounded healer Makhaon a restorative potion and shortly afterward will give Makhaon a bath. Nestor delivers a lengthy account, a Pylian epic, which briefly mentions Aga-mede, who knows all the pharmaka the earth grows. Together these details suggest two meanings for Nestor’s surprising longevity. Within the Iliad it serves as a vector to pre-Homeric epic but also alludes to Medea’s rejuvenation of Aison and to related episodes in her larger myth.