Thus we have two men in awkward positions which in a confrontation that could form dangerous effects.
Achilles" physical strength, conveyed in Agamemnon's adjective "mighty", cannot prevail over Agamemnon's collective domain. Dangerously, therefore, Agamemnon can lay to supreme political strength; Achilles to preeminent individual physical strength (Zanker, 76). Once we see this, we realize we have two powerful men, in two very different positions, which could provide lethal results.
Agamemnon felt in his conflict with Achilles a need to humiliate Achilles to put him in his place, or, as he puts it, "so that you may know well how much mightier I am than you, an others as well might shrink from claiming equality to me and from putting themselves on the same level as me in open opposition(185-187)" (Zanker, 76). Agamemnon stated his claim to superiority. Now in turn, Achilles felt the need to escalate the situation by coming back at Agamemnon. Achilles had spoken and acted thoughtlessly: as always, he saw a point and went straight for it, felt an emotion and gave way to it immediately. Agamemnon behaved badly in a more culpable way, in that his wrong-doing was more that a response to the situation; he did wrong in an attempt to deal with the situation. Achilles" anger was more spontaneous, Agamemnon's more systematic (Redfield Essays, 90). Agamemnon was acting in response to a situation he was in. Achilles did not like this response and made his opinion clear. He made up his mind to kill Agamemnon (Essays, 90). Achilles was acting out in anger when he should have been acting in a more reserved, calculating manner. He did not consider what he was about to do. He acted before he thought.
Achilles began his story of the wrath, which he tells to Thetis, a narrative within the text, by tracing the origin of his anger to the sack of the city of Thebe, an event that occurred much earlier in the Trojan War.