The problems in Homer’s Iliad stem from its opening word, μῆνιν [mēnin], “wrath” or “anger.” While Homer’s vocabulary of anger is large and varied (perhaps more on that another time), this particular word is significant: In the poem, it is only used of Achilles and the gods, and thus links the wrath of Achilles to something terrifyingly divine.

Jason, the central character of the Argonautika of Apollonius of Rhodes, on the other hand, is often described as an antihero. There’s some truth to that. But it’s not the whole truth. Where Achilles is self-focused and proud with destructive effect, Jason is considerate, diplomatic, and unwilling to hold a grudge. He is, more briefly, a political hero, a hero suited to the polis (in which one must work with others), in a way that Achilles was not and never could be.

We see some evidence of this in Argonautika 1, where Apollonius “corrects” the quarrel between Agamemnon and Achilles in Iliad 1 through a similar quarrel between Telamon (the father of the Homeric Greater Ajax) and Jason. After the heroes of the Argo accidentally left behind Herakles, their most fearsome fellow-sailor on the quest for the Golden Fleece, Telamon had reacted in rage against Jason. But the divine Glaucus appears out of the water and explains that it was the will of Zeus that Herakles not accompany them to Colchis. After this, Telamon apologizes–and Jason accepts. He says:

"You certainly accused me, dear old friend,
of dirty dealing when you claimed, in public,
I had betrayed a man that loved me well.
Still, I shall foster bitter wrath against you
no longer, grossly slandered though I was,
since it was not for wealth or flocks of sheep
that you succumbed to rage, but for a man,
your comrade. No, no, I sincerely hope
that you would fight like that on my behalf,
should such a thing befall me in the future."[1]) 

The word used for “wrath” here is–you guessed it–μῆνιν [mēnin], the first word of the Iliad. Where Achilles refuses reconciliation after Agamemnon’s offense, Jason, though recognizing the wrong done to him, acquiesces. By doing so, he makes the Argonautika to become a different poem from the Iliad: He makes it, in other words, a Homerically non-Homeric epic.