Oh, I don't know about that. See below.
> but it's reasonably common to read of a
> hero dying because he got careless over a mundane detail. The
> one that comes to mind is Falco's brother in Lindsey
> Davis's series, a mititary hero who died because he forgot to
> tighten the chinstrap on his helmet.
>
> Or for a mundane failure in preparing a magical defence - Achilles
> Heel.
On the subject of Akhilleus, I distinctly remember a long section in the Illiad discribing how his mother got Hephaestos to forge his new rig, after Patroklus lost his old set. I remember it as going into detail about the (fairly mundane) materials used in its construction.
There is the also an story, "For want of a nail, the shoe was lost. For want of a shoe, the horse was lost. For want of a horse, the rider was lost. For want of a rider, the battle was lost."
I wouldn't assume that mundane equipment is not important, just because the public version of RW myths, known to every passing bard, did not mention equipment failure, without ephemising it (Hector died because a goddess took the place of his spear bearer, and suddenly disappeared, not because the chucklehead took too few javelins, and/or a cowardly servant who ran away when things got hot. Yeah, that's the ticket).
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