Diomedes has to choose among the volunteers who are willing to accompany him on his nighttime spying mission. Agamemnon addresses Diomedes at this point, urging him to choose the hero who is truly most qualified, truly aristos ‘best’, I.10.236, and not to defer to someone who is superior in social status but inferior in heroic status, I.10.237–238. Agamemnon fears for the life of his brother, Menelaos, who is one of the volunteers, I.10.240. Evidently, Agamemnon fears that at least one of the other volunteers in fact superior to Menelaos. But the wording of Agamemnon betrays his own potential inferiority: he says explicitly to Diomedes that he should not chose a hero just because that hero may be basileuteros ‘more kingly’, I.10.239. The same wording, ironically, is used by Agamemnon in another context, where he claims superiority to Achilles himself on the grounds that he, Agamemnon, is basileuteros ‘more kingly’, Ι.09.160. In the present context, Agamemnon neglects to think of himself as a potential referent, since he was not one of the heroes who volunteered for the nighttime mission. See also I.09.392, where Achilles sarcastically uses the same word in rejecting the offer of Agamemnon: let the over-king choose as his son-in-law someone who is basileuteros ‘more kingly’ that I am.