Achilles refuses to fight because Agamemnon dishonored him before the whole army. In Book I, the Greek leader is forced to return the captive Chryseis to her father and demands another prize in exchange, "so that I am not left alone among the Argives without a prize." He takes Briseis, Achilles' prize. Achilles reminds them that he did not come to Troy to bring a complaint against the Trojans, "since they have done me no wrong," and that he bears the greater weight of the war to receive the smaller share.
In Book IX, Agamemnon admits his error and offers enormous gifts and Briseis back. Odysseus, Ajax, and Phoenix go to Achilles' tent, and he refuses. His argument: "the coward and the brave share the same honor; the idle man dies just as the one who did much dies." For him, nothing compensates for life: "nothing is worth as much to me as life."
Achilles says he loved Briseis as every good man loves his own wife, though she was won with the spear, and he repeats what his mother told him: stay and have imperishable glory without a return home, or go back and live long without glory. He even says he will sail in the morning, but the refusal shrinks: in the end he answers that he will not take part in the war "before the son of wise Priam, the godlike Hector, reaches the tents and the ships of the Myrmidons," that is, he will fight only when Hector reaches his own ships.
There are two readings. In one, Achilles defends a principle of honor, and repairing the wrong with objects does not restore what was dishonored. In the other, the refusal carries out the request he made to Zeus in Book I, and those who pay are his companions; Ajax tells him that he does not yield even to seven captive women offered in place of one.