The following is epitomized from H24H 1§36. Agamemnon, who is the high king among all the kings of the Achaean warriors participating in the war at Troy, is speaking here in a public assembly of the Achaeans. Strangely, he speaks to his fellow warriors while remaining in a seated position, I.19.077, saying that it is a good thing to listen to a man who speaks in a standing position and that it is hard for even a good speaker to hupoballein (ὑββάλλειν) him, I.19.080. So, what does this mean? Achilles had just spoken to the assembly at verses I.19.056–073, and it is made explicit at I.19.055 that he was standing. In the Greek-English dictionary of Liddell, Scott, and Jones (LSJ), hupoballein is interpreted as ‘interrupt’ in the context of I.19.080 here. A related context is the adverb hupoblēdēn (ὑποβλήδην) at I.01. 292, where Achilles is responding to Agamemnon in the course of their famous quarrel. Some translate that adverb as ‘interruptingly’ (details in PR 20). Instead, I interpret hupoballein and hupoblēdēn as ‘speak in relay [after someone]’ and ‘speaking in relay’ respectively, and I argue that the concept of relay speaking is a characteristic of competitive speech-making (PR 21–22). As Richard Martin has shown, the Iliad can dramatize Agamemnon and Achilles in the act of competing with each other as speakers, not only as warriors and leaders, and Achilles is consistently portrayed as the better speaker by far (Martin 1989:117; also 63, 69–70, 98, 113, 117, 119, 133, 202, 219, 223, 228). At I.01.292, where I interpret hupoblēdēn as ‘speaking in relay’, Achilles engages in verbal combat with Agamemnon not so much by way of ‘interrupting’ but by picking up the train of thought exactly where his opponent left off—and out-performing him in the process. So, here at I.19.080, Agamemnon backs off from verbal combat with Achilles, using as an excuse the fact that he is wounded: I can’t stand up, and therefore I can’t compete by picking up the train of thought where Achilles left off—and therefore I can’t out-perform him (and perhaps I don’t anymore have the stomach even to try to do so). The successful performer remains standing, and the unsuccessful performer fails to stand up and compete by taking his turn, choosing instead to sit it out. He will still speak to Achilles, but he will speak without offering any more competition (PR 22).