How does Zeus manipulate Hera in the opening scene?

Pandaros, the Lycian bowman, breaks the truce and wounds Menelaos. It is perhaps appropriate that a bowman commit the treachery, because the Greeks viewed the bow with some disdain because of its ability to strike from beyond the reach of retaliation. (They did not hold the weapon in such disdain, however, that they refused to wield it.) Later, when Agamemnon exhorts his army, he speaks disparagingly to one group that hangs back and shoots arrows.

Agamemnon fears that his brother is dead, but his reaction is curious. He declares his confidence that the gods eventually will punish the Trojans for their treachery, but then says that the Achaeans will depart Troy without taking the city. Yet honor would seem to demand that he avenge his brother's death.

As it happens, Menelaos is not dead. He is attended by Machaon, son of Asklepios, who uses a cream supplied by Cheiron.

Agamemnon harangues his troops into battle, but does not lead them. Those warriors of great ability and self-confidence, men such as Diomedes and Odysseus, take umbrage.

Homer gives the audience the first descriptions of battle. It is not romanticized -- here or anywhere else in the Iliad. Death is ugly, painful, and swift (or worse, slow). Again he contrasts the silent Achaeans with the noisy Trojans, this time explaining that the Trojans have so many foreign-speaking allies that the air is filled with multiple languages.

Here and throughout the poem, Homer's descriptions of combat are somewhat anachronistic. The tradition of the poetry provides certain elements of Mycenaean Age battle that he faithfully employs. Men fight with bronze weapons, ride to battle in chariots (although the norm is to dismount and fight on foot), and occasionally carry the figure-eight or full-length leaf shield. Conversely, some elements are characteristic of hoplite warfare that was developing in the latter eighth century of Homer and would become the standard in Classical Greece. Homer sometimes describes a round shield -- the hoplon that would give the hoplites their name. Central to hoplite warfare was the phalanx, an interlocked unit of spearmen. Nestor's arrangement of his forces reflects hoplite combat -- seasoned fighters in front, least experienced next, and the meanest, toughest men in the rear to drive the unit forward. The phalanx relied on mass and forward momentum; sandwiching those most likely to break rank and run (an act that meant almost certain death) increased the safety of the entire unit.

Homer describes the battle in a series of vignettes. Individuals fall, comrades try to protect and rescue the body while foes attempt to drag it off and take the armor as booty.