[Phantasm]

Originally Posted by jason taylor

I can just see it in a court-martial,"Your honor, my client deserted because he was mad at the commander for taking the woman he wanted to kidnap."

Correction: the woman he had kidnapped. :)

As it is, though, Achilles didn't exactly desert; they knew where he was the entire time he refused to fight: on his ship or in his tent. He was the general of his own troops who he had brought with him (50 ships full of troops, according to The Iliad), not beholden to Agamemnon or Menelaus except through promises, promises which Agamemnon had broken. It'd be more like the head Russian general refusing an order from Ike during WWII; Ike could grumble about it, but he really couldn't do a thing without losing coordination efforts between the various Allied forces.

Remember, the forces arrayed both for and against Troy were loose coalitions, not a unified army. Neither side was anywhere near united under a single banner; it was Sparta (Menelaus) allied with Syracuse (Odysseus) allied with the Myrmidons (Achilles) allied with the etc.; and Troy allied with the Amazons allied with various Hittite cities allied with another etc.

So given that, Achilles was treating Agamemnon as an equal, as was his right, not as his superior. Agamemnon clearly thought differently, but egos were big on all sides of the conflict.