I'm excited personally - never got this far in the Iliad before, and now we've come to a point where someone's gotten a great idea - but it's not their great idea, but the gods that inspired them with it.
The Iliad - The Duel of Hector and Ajax
The chapter starts with a conversation between the gods - Minerva and Apollo:
"When now Minerva saw her Argives slain,
From vast Olympus to the gleaming plain
Fierce she descends: Apollo marked her flight,
Nor shot less swift from Ilion’s towery height.
Radiant they met, beneath the beechen shade;
When thus Apollo to the blue-eyed maid:
“What cause, O daughter of Almighty Jove!
Thus wings thy progress from the realms above?
Once more impetuous dost thou bend thy way,
To give to Greece the long divided day?..."
To which Minerva replies, and Apollo gets a bright idea:
"To whom the progeny of Jove replies:
“I left, for this, the council of the skies:
But who shall bid conflicting hosts forbear,
What art shall calm the furious sons of war?”
To her the god: “Great Hector’s soul incite
To dare the boldest Greek to single fight,
Till Greece, provoked, from all her numbers show
A warrior worthy to be Hector’s foe.""
From there, Hector is given the idea, and he challenges the Greeks to send forward a champion to end their quarrel, man to man.
Ajax is selected and Hector and Ajax go at it, and they fight for three days with no end in sight.
The Bible - Abraham and Lot
Obviously, a battle between two warriors that decides a war has a clear echo in the Bible story of David and Goliath, but there is another, more subtle conflict that deserves exploration - the story of Abraham and Lot.
Abram had two brothers - one brother had a son, Lot. His brother Haran, Lot's father, shortly after died. When Abram married Sarai, and she could not have children, Abram made his brother's son, his nephew Lot, part of his household, and Lot acted as his heir for a time.
But when they and their households moved to Canaan, they couldn't stay because of a famine, so they moved to Egypt for a time. When they moved back towards Canaan, both men had prospered so much, and their households grown so great, that there started to be conflict for resources.
Instead of allowing a battle between their servants, Abram and Lot met with each other, each as champions of each their own side. But the battle looked very different indeed:
And Abram said unto Lot, Let there be no strife, I pray thee, between me and thee,
and between my herdmen and thy herdmen; for we be brethren.
Is not the whole land before thee? separate thyself, I pray thee, from me:
if thou wilt take the left hand, then I will go to the right;
or if thou depart to the right hand, then I will go to the left.
And Lot lifted up his eyes, and beheld all the plain of Jordan,
that it was well watered every where...even as the garden of the Lord,
like the land of Egypt...
Then Lot chose him all the plain of Jordan; and Lot journeyed east:
and they separated themselves the one from the other.
Abram dwelled in the land of Canaan, and Lot dwelled in the cities of the plain...
Abram was once more without someone to act as his son and heir, and took voluntarily the lesser fertile land, in order to preserve peace between them both. Family was more important than land or wealth. The Lord had promised Abram very great blessings, and he trusted the Lord, even though he couldn't see those blessings immediately in his life yet.
Comparatively Speaking...
In both stories, the decisions of mortals were guided by divine authority, one by fate, without their knowledge, and one by assent and a willingness to submit his will to God.
In both stories, there was a willingness on both sides to let one person speak or act for all, in order to facilitate the ending of any further conflict.
Separately, the Greeks and Trojans battled their greatest warriors in order to save many others, and Abram and Lot worked out their differences without letting words come to blows. Abram was able to be generous to his nephew, because of his faith in God and His promises, and to be patient for those promises to be fulfilled.
Eventually, it became clear that Abram's choice was very much the better one, but that's another story...
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