ἔνδυνε περὶ στήθεσσι χιτῶνα
Here begins the first dressing scene of the book, which, as we have argued above (see “The Poetics of Ambush”), signals to the audience an entry into the narrative world of the night raid/ambush. The animal skins and other unusual items that the heroes put on seem to be special features of this type of story, and serve a practical purpose as well. The skins and leather caps are the equivalent of camouflage, a necessary precaution in warfare of this type. (See also below on κυνέην, 10.257.) We can compare what Agamemnon puts on here to his dressing scene in Iliad 2.42–46, where, of course, no night raid will take place:
… μαλακὸν δ᾽ ἔνδυνε χιτῶνα
καλὸν νηγάτεον, περὶ δὲ μέγα βάλλετο φᾶρος·
ποσσὶ δ᾽ ὑπὸ λιπαροῖσιν ἐδήσατο καλὰ πέδιλα,
ἀμφὶ δ᾽ ἄρ᾽ ὤμοισιν βάλετο ξίφος ἀργυρόηλον·
εἵλετο δὲ σκῆπτρον πατρώϊον ἄφθιτον αἰεὶ
Iliad 2.42–46
He put on a soft khiton,
fine and newly made, and put around himself a great cloak.
Under his shining feet he fastened fine sandals
and around his shoulders he placed a silver-studded sword.
He took up the ancestral scepter which is always unwilting.
In Iliad 2, Agamemnon dresses for an assembly; in Iliad 10, he dresses for a night raid. Of course, ultimately it will be Diomedes and Odysseus who go on the raid, but this first dressing scene and those that follow set the stage for what is to come, signaling to the audience our entry into the narrative world of the night raid. (See also on 10.254–272.)
In this book, each hero dresses for a night raid, and each hero has his own particular outfit with no doubt its own particular associations in the tradition. (See Reinhardt 1961:247.) Each subsequent dressing scene (there are five) builds our anticipation for the expedition to come. Agamemnon here fittingly puts on the red-gold skin of a large lion, and it seems that, even apart from the resonance of so many lion similes in epic, Agamemnon and Mycenae were especially linked with lions. Several artifacts featuring lions, including the monumental gateway to the citadel, grave steles, seals, and ceremonial daggers, have been excavated at Mycenae. From the Classical period, we can compare the rich lion imagery and metaphors in Aeschylus’ Oresteia (see e.g. Agamemnon 716–736, 821–828, 1223–1226, 1258–1260, Libation Bearers 935–938). Nevertheless, other heroes do wear lion skins, including, in this book, Diomedes (10.177), but also, most famously, Herakles, who wears the skin of the Nemean lion obtained during the traditional first of his twelve labors.