Beheading the enemy, as gruesome or repulsive as it may seem to a modern audience, does occur several times in the Homeric epics, either as the method of killing or as an act carried out after killing, and in most cases, it is the Achaeans who do it. In Iliad 13, the two Ajaxes take the corpse of the Trojan Imbrios, a husband of one of Priam’s illegitimate daughters. They strip the corpse of his armor, and Ajax, son of Oileus, cuts off Imbrios’ head and throws it so that it ends up at Hektor’s feet (Iliad 13.201–205). Oilean Ajax, the rapist of Kassandra, is known to commit war atrocities during the sack of Troy, but this beheading happens during the course of regular, daytime battle. Achilles beheads Deukalion at Iliad 20.481–483 after pinning his arm with a spear (in other words, Deukalion cannot fight back at that moment). Although Achilles is acting beyond normal human boundaries at this point in his story, he is also depicted in two sixth-century vase paintings as beheading Troilos (see Gantz 1993:600), an incident much earlier in the war, and one that also involves ambush. Agamemnon beheads Köon over the body of his brother Iphidamas (τοῖο δ’ ἐπ’ Ἰφιδάμαντι κάρη ἀπέκοψε παραστάς, Iliad 11.261) without hesitation. Hektor plans to behead Patroklos’ corpse after he strips it (Iliad 17.126). In a series of back-and-forth killings with vaunting afterwards, Penelos kills Ilioneus, a Trojan introduced as he dies as the beloved of Hermes and an only child of a wealthy man. Penelos’ spear hits Ilioneus in the eyesocket, and then Penelos cuts off Ilioneus’ head with his sword and holds it up, helmet still on and spear still in eyesocket, to show it to the Trojans (Iliad 14.493–507). All of these examples come from the battle that rages on the day following this night, when the fighting is most intense and the stakes at their highest for the Achaeans.
The closest parallel to the beheading of Dolon in terms of language and situation, however, occurs during Odysseus’ ambush of the suitors. During the slaughter in Odysseus’ home, Leiodes supplicates Odysseus, but Odysseus kills him anyway (Odyssey 22.310–329). In both cases, then, there is an attempted supplication, and a verbal response followed by a swift beheading. As Odysseus responds to Leiodes’ arguments for why he should be spared, Odysseus gives him the same fierce look (Odyssey 22.320) that Diomedes gives Dolon here (see 10.446). In both cases the killer drives a sword through the victim’s neck (αὐχένα μέσσον ἔλασσε, Iliad 10.455, Odyssey 22.328), and the graphic detail of the victim’s head still talking as it mixes with the dust is included (Iliad 10.457 = Odyssey 22.329). We may certainly question how these actions inform the character of the killers and the action of the episode, but we must also recognize that beheading is “Homeric” in the sense that the Iliad and Odyssey represent it as happening in the intensity of battle and of ambush.