Achilles

"Achilleus" redirects here. For the emperor with this name, see Achilleus (emperor). For other uses, see Achilles (disambiguation).
Achilles and the Nereid Cymothoe: Attic red-figure kantharos from Volci (Cabinet des Médailles, Bibliothèque nationale, Paris)
Head of Achilles depicted on a 4th-century BC coin from Kremaste, Phthia. Reverse: Thetis, wearing chiton and holding shield of Achilles with his AX monogram.

In Greek mythology, Achilles (/əˈkɪliːz/; Ancient Greek: Ἀχιλλεύς, Akhilleus, pronounced [akʰilːéu̯s]) was a Greek hero of the Trojan War and the central character and greatest warrior of Homer's Iliad. His mother was the nymph Thetis, and his father, Peleus, was the king of the Myrmidons.

Achilles’ most notable feat during the Trojan War was the slaying of the Trojan hero Hector outside the gates of Troy. Although the death of Achilles is not presented in the Iliad, other sources concur that he was killed near the end of the Trojan War by Paris, who shot him in the heel with an arrow. Later legends (beginning with a poem by Statius in the 1st century AD) state that Achilles was invulnerable in all of his body except for his heel. Because of his death from a small wound in the heel, the term Achilles' heel has come to mean a person's point of weakness.

Etymology

Achilles' name can be analyzed as a combination of ἄχος (akhos) "grief" and λαός (laos) "a people, tribe, nation." In other words, Achilles is an embodiment of the grief of the people, grief being a theme raised numerous times in the Iliad (frequently by Achilles). Achilles' role as the hero of grief forms an ironic juxtaposition with the conventional view of Achilles as the hero of κλέος kleos ("glory", usually glory in war).

Laos has been construed by Gregory Nagy,[1] following Leonard Palmer, to mean "a corps of soldiers", a muster. With this derivation, the name would have a double meaning in the poem: when the hero is functioning rightly, his men bring grief to the enemy, but when wrongly, his men get the grief of war. The poem is in part about the misdirection of anger on the part of leadership.

R. S. P. Beekes has suggested a Pre-Greek origin of the name.[2]

The name Achilleus was a common and attested name among the Greeks soon after the 7th century BC.[3] It was also turned into the female form Ἀχιλλεία (Achilleía) attested in Attica in the 4th century BC (IG II² 1617) and, in the form Achillia, on a stele in Halicarnassus as the name of a female gladiator fighting an "Amazon".

Birth

Thetis Dipping the Infant Achilles into the River Styx (ca. 1625), Peter Paul Rubens

Achilles was the son of the Nereid Thetis and Peleus, the king of the Myrmidons. Zeus and Poseidon had been rivals for the hand of Thetis until Prometheus, the fore-thinker, warned Zeus of a prophecy that Thetis would bear a son greater than his father. For this reason, the two gods withdrew their pursuit, and had her wed Peleus.[4]

There is a tale which offers an alternative version of these events: in Argonautica (iv.760) Zeus' sister and wife Hera alludes to Thetis' chaste resistance to the advances of Zeus, that Thetis was so loyal to Hera's marriage bond that she coolly rejected him. Thetis, although a daughter of the sea-god Nereus, was also brought up by Hera, further explaining her resistance to the advances of Zeus.

The Education of Achilles (ca. 1772), by James Barry

According to the Achilleid, written by Statius in the 1st century AD, and to no surviving previous sources, when Achilles was born Thetis tried to make him immortal, by dipping him in the river Styx. However, he was left vulnerable at the part of the body by which she held him, his heel[5] (see Achilles heel, Achilles' tendon). It is not clear if this version of events was known earlier. In another version of this story, Thetis anointed the boy in ambrosia and put him on top of a fire, to burn away the mortal parts of his body. She was interrupted by Peleus and abandoned both father and son in a rage.[6]

However, none of the sources before Statius makes any reference to this general invulnerability. To the contrary, in the Iliad Homer mentions Achilles being wounded: in Book 21 the Paeonian hero Asteropaeus, son of Pelagon, challenged Achilles by the river Scamander. He cast two spears at once, one grazed Achilles' elbow, "drawing a spurt of blood".

Also, in the fragmentary poems of the Epic Cycle in which we can find description of the hero's death, Cypria (unknown author), Aithiopis by Arctinus of Miletus, Little Iliad by Lesche of Mytilene, Iliou persis by Arctinus of Miletus, there is no trace of any reference to his general invulnerability or his famous weakness (heel); in the later vase paintings presenting Achilles' death, the arrow (or in many cases, arrows) hit his body.

Peleus entrusted Achilles to Chiron the Centaur, on Mt. Pelion, to be reared.[7]

Achilles in the Trojan War

The Rage of Achilles, by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo

The first two lines of the Iliad read:

μῆνιν ἄειδε θεὰ Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος
οὐλομένην, ἣ μυρί' Ἀχαιοῖς ἄλγε' ἔθηκεν,
Sing, Goddess, of the rage of Peleus' son Achilles,
the accursed rage that brought great suffering to the Achaeans.

Achilles' consuming rage is at times wavering, but at other times he cannot be cooled.

Thetis foretold that her son's fate was either to gain glory and die young, or to live a long but uneventful life in obscurity. Achilles chose the former, and decided to take part in the Trojan war.[8] According to the Iliad, Achilles arrived at Troy with 50 ships, each carrying 50 Myrmidons (Book 2). He appointed five leaders (each leader commanding 500 Myrmidons): Menesthius, Eudorus, Peisander, Phoenix and Alcimedon (Book 16).

Telephus

When the Greeks left for the Trojan War, they accidentally stopped in Mysia, ruled by King Telephus. In the resulting battle, Achilles gave Telephus a wound that would not heal; Telephus consulted an oracle, who stated that "he that wounded shall heal". Guided by the oracle, he arrived at Argos, where Achilles healed him in order that he might become their guide for the voyage to Troy.[9]

According to other reports in Euripides' lost play about Telephus, he went to Aulis pretending to be a beggar and asked Achilles to heal his wound. Achilles refused, claiming to have no medical knowledge. Alternatively, Telephus held Orestes for ransom, the ransom being Achilles' aid in healing the wound. Odysseus reasoned that the spear had inflicted the wound; therefore, the spear must be able to heal it. Pieces of the spear were scraped off onto the wound and Telephus was healed.[9]

Troilus

According to the Cypria (the part of the Epic Cycle that tells the events of the Trojan War before Achilles' Wrath), when the Achaeans desired to return home, they were restrained by Achilles, who afterwards attacked the cattle of Aeneas, sacked neighboring cities and killed Troilus.[10]

In Dares Phrygius' Account of the Destruction of Troy,[11] the Latin summary through which the story of Achilles was transmitted to medieval Europe, Troilus was a young Trojan prince, the youngest of King Priam's (or sometimes Apollo) and Hecuba's five legitimate sons. Despite his youth, he was one of the main Trojan war leaders. Prophecies linked Troilus' fate to that of Troy and so he was ambushed in an attempt to capture him. Yet Achilles, struck by the beauty of both Troilus and his sister Polyxena, and overcome with lust, directed his sexual attentions on the youth – who, refusing to yield, instead found himself decapitated upon an altar-omphalos of Apollo. Later versions of the story suggested Troilus was accidentally killed by Achilles in an over-ardent lovers' embrace. In this version of the myth, Achilles' death therefore came in retribution for this sacrilege.[12] Ancient writers treated Troilus as the epitome of a dead child mourned by his parents. Had Troilus lived to adulthood, the First Vatican Mythographer claimed, Troy would have been invincible.

Achilles in the Iliad

Main article: Iliad
Achilles sacrificing to Zeus, from the Ambrosian Iliad, a 5th-century illuminated manuscript

Homer's Iliad is the most famous narrative of Achilles' deeds in the Trojan War. Achilles' wrath is the central theme of the poem. The Homeric epic only covers a few weeks of the war, and does not narrate Achilles' death. It begins with Achilles' withdrawal from battle after he is dishonored by Agamemnon, the commander of the Achaean forces. Agamemnon had taken a woman named Chryseis as his slave. Her father Chryses, a priest of Apollo, begs Agamemnon to return her to him. Agamemnon refuses and Apollo sends a plague amongst the Greeks. The prophet Calchas correctly determines the source of the troubles but will not speak unless Achilles vows to protect him. Achilles does so and Calchas declares Chryseis must be returned to her father. Agamemnon consents, but then commands that Achilles' battle prize Briseis be brought to him to replace Chryseis. Angry at the dishonor of having his plunder and glory taken away (and as he says later, because he loved Briseis),[13] with the urging of his mother Thetis, Achilles refuses to fight or lead his troops alongside the other Greek forces. At this same time, burning with rage over Agamemnon's theft, Achilles prays to Thetis to convince Zeus to help the Trojans gain ground in the war, so that he may regain his honor.

As the battle turns against the Greeks, thanks to the influence of Zeus, Nestor declares that the Trojans are winning because Agamemnon has angered Achilles, and urges the king to appease the warrior. Agamemnon agrees and sends Odysseus and two other chieftains, Ajax and Phoenix, to Achilles with the offer of the return of Briseis and other gifts. Achilles rejects all Agamemnon offers him, and simply urges the Greeks to sail home as he was planning to do.

The Trojans, led by Hector, subsequently push the Greek army back toward the beaches and assault the Greek ships. With the Greek forces on the verge of absolute destruction, Patroclus leads the Myrmidons into battle wearing Achilles' armor, though Achilles remains at his camp. Patroclus succeeds in pushing the Trojans back from the beaches, but is killed by Hector before he can lead a proper assault on the city of Troy.

Triumphant Achilles dragging Hector's lifeless body in front of the Gates of Troy (from a panoramic fresco on the upper level of the main hall of the Achilleion).

After receiving the news of the death of Patroclus from Antilochus, the son of Nestor, Achilles grieves over his beloved companion's death. His mother Thetis comes to comfort the distraught Achilles. She persuades Hephaestus to make new armor for him, in place of the armor that Patroclus had been wearing which was taken by Hector. The new armor includes the Shield of Achilles, described in great detail in the poem.

Enraged over the death of Patroclus, Achilles ends his refusal to fight and takes the field killing many men in his rage but always seeking out Hector. Achilles even engages in battle with the river god Scamander who becomes angry that Achilles is choking his waters with all the men he has killed. The god tries to drown Achilles but is stopped by Hera and Hephaestus. Zeus himself takes note of Achilles' rage and sends the gods to restrain him so that he will not go on to sack Troy itself before the time allotted for its destruction, seeming to show that the unhindered rage of Achilles can defy fate itself. Finally, Achilles finds his prey. Achilles chases Hector around the wall of Troy three times before Athena, in the form of Hector's favorite and dearest brother, Deiphobus, persuades Hector to stop running and fight Achilles face to face. After Hector realizes the trick, he knows the battle is inevitable. Wanting to go down fighting, he charges at Achilles with his only weapon, his sword, but misses. Accepting his fate, Hector begs Achilles, not to spare his life, but to treat his body with respect after killing him. Achilles tells Hector it is hopeless to expect that of him, declaring that "my rage, my fury would drive me now to hack your flesh away and eat you raw – such agonies you have caused me".[14] Achilles then kills Hector and drags his corpse by its heels behind his chariot. After having a dream where Patroclus begs Achilles hold his funeral, Achilles hosts a series of funeral games in his honor.[15] With the assistance of the god Hermes, Hector's father, Priam, goes to Achilles' tent to plead with Achilles for the return of Hector's body so that he can be buried. Achilles relents and promises a truce for the duration of the funeral. The poem ends with a description of Hector's funeral, with the doom of Troy and Achilles himself still to come.

Penthesilea

Achilles, after his temporary truce with Priam, fought and killed the Amazonian warrior queen Penthesilea, but later grieved over her death. At first, he was so distracted by her beauty, he did not fight as intensely as usual. Once he realized that his distraction was endangering his life, he refocused and killed her.

Memnon, and the fall of Achilles

Achilles dying in the gardens of the Achilleion in Corfu

Following the death of Patroclus, Achilles' closest companion was Nestor's son Antilochus. When Memnon, king of Ethiopia slew Antilochus, Achilles once more obtained revenge on the battlefield, killing Memnon. The fight between Achilles and Memnon over Antilochus echoes that of Achilles and Hector over Patroclus, except that Memnon (unlike Hector) was also the son of a goddess.

Many Homeric scholars argued that episode inspired many details in the Iliad's description of the death of Patroclus and Achilles' reaction to it. The episode then formed the basis of the cyclic epic Aethiopis, which was composed after the Iliad, possibly in the 7th century B.C. The Aethiopis is now lost, except for scattered fragments quoted by later authors.

The death of Achilles, as predicted by Hector with his dying breath, was brought about by Paris with an arrow (to the heel according to Statius). In some versions, the god Apollo guided Paris' arrow. Some retellings also state that Achilles was scaling the gates of Troy and was hit with a poisoned arrow.

Ajax carries off the body of Achilles: Attic black-figure lekythos, ca. 510 BC, from Sicily (Staatliche Antikensammlungen, Munich)

All of these versions deny Paris any sort of valor, owing to the common conception that Paris was a coward and not the man his brother Hector was, and Achilles remained undefeated on the battlefield. His bones were mingled with those of Patroclus, and funeral games were held. He was represented in the Aethiopis as living after his death in the island of Leuke at the mouth of the river Danube.

Another version of Achilles' death is that he fell deeply in love with one of the Trojan princesses, Polyxena. Achilles asks Priam for Polyxena's hand in marriage. Priam is willing because it would mean the end of the war and an alliance with the world's greatest warrior. But while Priam is overseeing the private marriage of Polyxena and Achilles, Paris, who would have to give up Helen if Achilles married his sister, hides in the bushes and shoots Achilles with a divine arrow, killing him.

In the Odyssey, Agamemnon informs Achilles of his burial mound while they are receiving the dead suitors in Hades. He claims they built a massive burial mound on the beach of Ilion that could be seen by anyone approaching from the Ocean.[16] Achilles was cremated and his ashes buried in the same urn as those of Patroclus.[17]

Paris was later killed by Philoctetes using the enormous bow of Heracles.

Fate of Achilles' armor

Achilles' armor was the object of a feud between Odysseus and Telamonian Ajax (Ajax the greater). They competed for it by giving speeches on why they were the bravest after Achilles to their Trojan prisoners, who after considering both men came to a consensus in favor of Odysseus. Furious, Ajax cursed Odysseus, which earned the ire of Athena. Athena temporarily made Ajax so mad with grief and anguish that he began killing sheep, thinking them his comrades. After a while, when Athena lifted his madness and Ajax realized that he had actually been killing sheep, Ajax was left so ashamed that he committed suicide. Odysseus eventually gave the armor to Neoptolemus, the son of Achilles.

A relic claimed to be Achilles' bronze-headed spear was for centuries preserved in the temple of Athena on the acropolis of Phaselis, Lycia, a port on the Pamphylian Gulf. The city was visited in 333 BC by Alexander the Great, who envisioned himself as the new Achilles and carried the Iliad with him, but his court biographers do not mention the spear.[18] However, it was shown in the time of Pausanias in the 2nd century AD.[19]

Achilles and Ajax playing the board game Petteia. (Black-figure Attic lekythos, ca. 500 BC)

Achilles, Ajax and a game of petteia

Numerous paintings on pottery have suggested a tale not mentioned in the literary traditions. At some point in the war, Achilles and Ajax were playing a board game (petteia).[20][21] They were absorbed in the game and oblivious to the surrounding battle.[22] The Trojans attacked and reached the heroes, who were saved only by an intervention of Athena.[23]

Achilles and Patroclus

The exact nature of Achilles' relationship with Patroclus has been a subject of dispute in both the classical period and modern times. In the Iliad, it appears to be the model of a deep and loyal friendship. Homer does not suggest that Achilles and his close friend Patroclus were lovers.[24][25] Despite there being no direct evidence in the text of the Iliad that Achilles and Patroclus were lovers, this theory was expressed by some later authors.[25] Commentators from classical antiquity to the present have often interpreted the relationship through the lens of their own cultures. In 5th-century BC Athens, the intense bond was often viewed in light of the Greek custom of paiderasteia. In Plato's Symposium, the participants in a dialogue about love assume that Achilles and Patroclus were a couple; Phaedrus argues that Achilles was the younger and more beautiful one so he was the beloved and Patroclus was the lover.[26] But ancient Greek had no words to distinguish heterosexual and homosexual,[27] and it was assumed that a man could both desire handsome young men and have sex with women.

Worship of Achilles in antiquity

Achilles and Briseis
Penthesilea brought her Amazon warriors to help the Trojans defend their city but was killed in combat by Achilles. Here, Achilles looms above her as she sinks to the ground.

There was an archaic heroic cult of Achilles on the White Island, Leuce, in the Black Sea off the modern coasts of Romania and Ukraine, with a temple and an oracle which survived into the Roman period.[28]

In the lost epic Aithiopis, a continuation of the Iliad attributed to Arktinus of Miletos, Achilles’ mother Thetis returned to mourn him and removed his ashes from the pyre and took them to Leuce at the mouths of the Danube. There the Achaeans raised a tumulus for him and celebrated funeral games.

Pliny's Natural History[29] mentions a tumulus that is no longer evident (Insula Akchillis tumulo eius viri clara), on the island consecrated to him, located at a distance of fifty Roman miles from Peuce by the Danube Delta, and the temple there. Pausanias has been told that the island is "covered with forests and full of animals, some wild, some tame. In this island there is also Achilles’ temple and his statue".[30] Ruins of a square temple 30 meters to a side, possibly that dedicated to Achilles, were discovered by Captain Kritzikly in 1823, but there has been no modern archeological work done on the island.

Pomponius Mela tells that Achilles is buried in the island named Achillea, between Boristhene and Ister.[31] The Greek geographer Dionysius Periegetus of Bithynia, who lived at the time of Domitian, writes that the island was called Leuce "because the wild animals which live there are white. It is said that there, in Leuce island, reside the souls of Achilles and other heroes, and that they wander through the uninhabited valleys of this island; this is how Jove rewarded the men who had distinguished themselves through their virtues, because through virtue they had acquired everlasting honor".[32]

The Periplus of the Euxine Sea gives the following details: "It is said that the goddess Thetis raised this island from the sea, for her son Achilles, who dwells there. Here is his temple and his statue, an archaic work. This island is not inhabited, and goats graze on it, not many, which the people who happen to arrive here with their ships, sacrifice to Achilles. In this temple are also deposited a great many holy gifts, craters, rings and precious stones, offered to Achilles in gratitude. One can still read inscriptions in Greek and Latin, in which Achilles is praised and celebrated. Some of these are worded in Patroclus’ honor, because those who wish to be favored by Achilles, honor Patroclus at the same time. There are also in this island countless numbers of sea birds, which look after Achilles’ temple. Every morning they fly out to sea, wet their wings with water, and return quickly to the temple and sprinkle it. And after they finish the sprinkling, they clean the hearth of the temple with their wings. Other people say still more, that some of the men who reach this island, come here intentionally. They bring animals in their ships, destined to be sacrificed. Some of these animals they slaughter, others they set free on the island, in Achilles’ honor. But there are others, who are forced to come to this island by sea storms. As they have no sacrificial animals, but wish to get them from the god of the island himself, they consult Achilles’ oracle. They ask permission to slaughter the victims chosen from among the animals that graze freely on the island, and to deposit in exchange the price which they consider fair. But in case the oracle denies them permission, because there is an oracle here, they add something to the price offered, and if the oracle refuses again, they add something more, until at last, the oracle agrees that the price is sufficient. And then the victim doesn’t run away any more, but waits willingly to be caught. So, there is a great quantity of silver there, consecrated to the hero, as price for the sacrificial victims. To some of the people who come to this island, Achilles appears in dreams, to others he would appear even during their navigation, if they were not too far away, and would instruct them as to which part of the island they would better anchor their ships". (quoted in Densuşianu)

The heroic cult of Achilles on Leuce island was widespread in antiquity, not only along the sea lanes of the Pontic Sea but also in maritime cities whose economic interests were tightly connected to the riches of the Black Sea.

Achilles from Leuce island was venerated as Pontarches the lord and master of the Pontic Sea, the protector of sailors and navigation. Sailors went out of their way to offer sacrifice. To Achilles of Leuce were dedicated a number of important commercial port cities of the Greek waters: Achilleion in Messenia (Stephanus Byzantinus), Achilleios in Laconia (Pausanias, III.25,4) Nicolae Densuşianu (Densuşianu 1913) even though he recognized Achilles in the name of Aquileia and in the north arm of the Danube delta, the arm of Chilia ("Achileii"), though his conclusion, that Leuce had sovereign rights over Pontos, evokes modern rather than archaic sea-law."

Leuce had also a reputation as a place of healing. Pausanias (III.19,13) reports that the Delphic Pythia sent a lord of Croton to be cured of a chest wound. Ammianus Marcellinus (XXII.8) attributes the healing to waters (aquae) on the island.

Worship of Achilles in modern times: The Achilleion in Corfu

In the region of Gastouri (Γαστούρι) to the south of the city of Corfu Greece, Empress of Austria Elisabeth of Bavaria also known as Sissi built in 1890 a summer palace with Achilles as its central theme and it is a monument to platonic romanticism. The palace, naturally, was named after Achilles: Achilleion (Αχίλλειον). This elegant structure abounds with paintings and statues of Achilles both in the main hall and in the lavish gardens depicting the heroic and tragic scenes of the Trojan war.

Other stories

Achilles as guardian of the palace in the gardens of the Achilleion in Corfu. He gazes northward toward the city. The inscription in Greek reads: ΑΧΙΛΛΕΥΣ i.e. Achilles
Main article: Achilles on Skyros

Some post-Homeric sources claim that in order to keep Achilles safe from the war, Thetis (or, in some versions, Peleus) hides the young man at the court of Lycomedes, king of Skyros. There, Achilles is disguised as a girl and lives among Lycomedes' daughters, perhaps under the name "Pyrrha" (the red-haired girl). With Lycomedes' daughter Deidamia, whom in the account of Statius he rapes, Achilles there fathers a son, Neoptolemus (also called Pyrrhus, after his father's possible alias). According to this story, Odysseus learns from the prophet Calchas that the Achaeans would be unable to capture Troy without Achilles' aid. Odysseus goes to Skyros in the guise of a peddler selling women's clothes and jewelry and places a shield and spear among his goods. When Achilles instantly takes up the spear, Odysseus sees through his disguise and convinces him to join the Greek campaign. In another version of the story, Odysseus arranges for a trumpet alarm to be sounded while he was with Lycomedes' women; while the women flee in panic, Achilles prepares to defend the court, thus giving his identity away.[33]

In book 11 of Homer's Odyssey, Odysseus sails to the underworld and converses with the shades. One of these is Achilles, who when greeted as "blessed in life, blessed in death", responds that he would rather be a slave to the worst of masters than be king of all the dead. But Achilles then asks Odysseus of his son's exploits in the Trojan war, and when Odysseus tells of Neoptolemus' heroic actions, Achilles is filled with satisfaction. This leaves the reader with an ambiguous understanding of how Achilles felt about the heroic life. Achilles was worshipped as a sea-god in many of the Greek colonies on the Black Sea, the location of the mythical "White Island" which he was said to inhabit after his death, together with many other heroes.

The kings of the Epirus claimed to be descended from Achilles through his son, Neoptolemus. Alexander the Great, son of the Epirote princess Olympias, could therefore also claim this descent, and in many ways strove to be like his great ancestor. He is said to have visited the tomb of Achilles at Achilleion while passing Troy.[34] In AD 216 the Roman Emperor Caracalla, while on his way to war against Parthia, emulated Alexander by holding games around Achilles' tumulus.[35]

Achilles fought and killed the Amazon Helene. Some also said he married Medea, and that after both their deaths they were united in the Elysian Fields of Hades – as Hera promised Thetis in Apollonius' Argonautica. In some versions of the myth, Achilles has a relationship with his captive Briseis.

Achilles in Greek tragedy

Main article: Achilleis (trilogy)

The Greek tragedian Aeschylus wrote a trilogy of plays about Achilles, given the title Achilleis by modern scholars. The tragedies relate the deeds of Achilles during the Trojan War, including his defeat of Hector and eventual death when an arrow shot by Paris and guided by Apollo punctures his heel. Extant fragments of the Achilleis and other Aeschylean fragments have been assembled to produce a workable modern play. The first part of the Achilleis trilogy, The Myrmidons, focused on the relationship between Achilles and chorus, who represent the Achaean army and try to convince Achilles to give up his quarrel with Agamemnon; only a few lines survive today.[36] In Plato's Symposium, Phaedrus points out that Aeschylus portrayed Achilles as the lover and Patroclus as the beloved; Phaedrus argues that this is incorrect because Achilles, being the younger and more beautiful of the two, was the beloved, who loved his lover so much that he chose to die to revenge him.[37]

The tragedian Sophocles also wrote The Lovers of Achilles, a play with Achilles as the main character. Only a few fragments survive.[38]

Towards the end of the 5th century BC, a more negative view of Achilles emerges in Greek drama; Euripides refers to Achilles in a bitter or ironic tone in Hecuba, Electra, and Iphigenia in Aulis.[39]

Achilles in Greek philosophy

The philosopher Zeno of Elea centered one of his paradoxes on an imaginary footrace between "swift-footed" Achilles and a tortoise, by which he attempted to show that Achilles could not catch up to a tortoise with a head start, and therefore that motion and change were impossible. As a student of the monist Parmenides and a member of the Eleatic school, Zeno believed time and motion to be illusions.

Achilles in Roman and medieval literature

The Romans, who traditionally traced their lineage to Troy, took a highly negative view of Achilles.[39] Virgil refers to Achilles as a savage and a merciless butcher of men,[40] while Horace portrays Achilles ruthlessly slaying women and children.[41] Other writers, such as Catullus, Propertius, and Ovid, represent a second strand of disparagement, with an emphasis on Achilles' erotic career. This strand continues in Latin accounts of the Trojan War by writers such as Dictys Cretensis and Dares Phrygius and in Benoît de Sainte-Maure's Roman de Troie and Guido delle Colonne's Historia destructionis Troiae, which remained the most widely read and retold versions of the Matter of Troy until the 17th century.

Achilles was described by the Byzantine chronicler Leo the Deacon, not as Hellene, but as Scythian, while according to the Byzantine author John Malalas, his army was made up of a tribe previously known as Myrmidons and later as Bulgars.[42][43]

Popular culture

The Wrath of Achilles, by François-Léon Benouville (1821–1859) (Musée Fabre).

The role of Achilles has been played in film by:

Achilles has frequently been mentioned in music:

Namesakes

Notes

  1. ↑ Nagy, Gregory. "The best of the Achaeans". http://chs.harvard.edu. The Center for Hellenic Studies. Retrieved 19 March 2015. External link in |website= (help)
  2. ↑ R. S. P. Beekes, Etymological Dictionary of Greek, Brill, 2009, pp. 183–4.
  3. ↑ Epigraphical database gives 476 matches for Ἀχιλ-.The earliest ones: Corinth 7th c. BC,Delphi 530 BC, Attica and Elis 5th c. BC.
  4. ↑ Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound 755–768; Pindar, Nemean 5.34–37, Isthmian 8.26–47; Poeticon astronomicon (ii.15)
  5. ↑ Burgess, Jonathan S. (2009). The Death and Afterlife of Achilles. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. p. 9. ISBN 0-8018-9029-2. Retrieved 5 February 2010.
  6. ↑ Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica 4.869–879.
  7. ↑ Hesiod, Catalogue of Women, fr. 204.87–89 MW; Iliad 11.830-32
  8. ↑ Illiad 9.410,&c.
  9. 1 2 Apollodorus. "Library of Mythology Epitome 3.20". theoi.com.
  10. ↑ "Proclus' Summary of the Cypria". Stoa.org. Retrieved 9 March 2010.
  11. ↑ "Dares' account of the destruction of Troy, Greek Mythology Link". Homepage.mac.com. Archived from the original on 29 December 2009. Retrieved 9 March 2010.
  12. ↑ James Davidson, "Zeus Be Nice Now" in London Review of Books; 19 July 2007, access date 23 October 2007
  13. ↑ Iliad 9.334–343.
  14. ↑ "The Iliad", Fagles translation. Penguin Books, 1991, p. 553.
  15. ↑ Lattimore, Richmond (2011). The Illiad of Homer. Chicago: The University of Chicago. ISBN 978-0-226-46937-9.
  16. ↑ Lattimore, Richmond (2007). The Odyssey of Homer. New York: Harper Perennial. p. 347. ISBN 978-0-06-124418-6.
  17. ↑ Hamilton E. Mythology, New York: Penguin Books; 1969
  18. ↑ "Alexander came to rest at Phaselis, a coastal city which was later renowned for the possession of Achilles' original spear." Robin Lane Fox, Alexander the Great 1973.144.
  19. ↑ Pausanias, iii.3.6; see Christian Jacob and Anne Mullen-Hohl, "The Greek Traveler's Areas of Knowledge: Myths and Other Discourses in Pausanias' Description of Greece", Yale French Studies 59: Rethinking History: Time, Myth, and Writing (1980:65–85) esp. p. 81.
  20. ↑ "Petteia".
  21. ↑ "Greek Board Games".
  22. ↑ "Latrunculi".
  23. ↑ Kakridis, I. (1988). Ελληνική Μυθολογία [Greek mythology]. Athens: Ekdotiki Athinon. Vol. 5, p. 92.
  24. ↑ Fox, Robin (2011). The Tribal Imagination: Civilization and the Savage Mind. Harvard University Press. p. 223. ISBN 9780674060944. There is certainly no evidence in the text of the Iliad that Achilles and Patroclus were lovers.
  25. 1 2 Martin, Thomas R (2012). Alexander the Great : the story of an ancient life. Cambridge University Press. pp. 99–100. ISBN 0521148448. The ancient sources do not report, however, what modern scholars have asserted: that Alexander and his very close friend Hephaestion were lovers. Achilles and his equally close friend Patroclus provided the legendary model for this friendship, but Homer in the Iliad never suggested that they had sex with each other. (That came from later authors.) If Alexander and Hephaestion did have a sexual relationship, it would have been transgressive by majority Greek standards...
  26. ↑ Plato, Symposium, 180a; the beauty of Achilles was a topic already broached at Iliad 2.673–4.
  27. ↑ Kenneth Dover, Greek Homosexuality (Harvard University Press, 1978, 1989), p. 1 et passim.
  28. ↑ Guy Hedreen, "The Cult of Achilles in the Euxine" Hesperia 60.3 (July 1991), pp. 313–330.
  29. ↑ IV.27.1
  30. ↑ III.19.11
  31. ↑ De situ orbis, II, 7
  32. ↑ Orbis descriptio, v. 541, quoted in Densuşianu 1913
  33. ↑ Philostratus Junior, Imagines i; Scholiast on Homer's Iliad, xix. 326; Ovid, Metamorphoses 13.162ff., Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca iii. 13. 8, Statius, Achilleid, ii. 167ff.
  34. ↑ Arrian, Anabasis Alexandri 1.12.1, Cicero, Pro Archia Poeta 24.
  35. ↑ Dio Cassius 78.16.7.
  36. ↑ Pantelis Michelakis, Achilles in Greek Tragedy, 2002, p. 22
  37. ↑ Plato, Symposium, translated Benjamin Jowett, Dover Thrift Editions, page 8
  38. ↑ S. Radt. Tragicorum Graecorum fragmenta, vol. 4, (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1977) frr. 149–157a.
  39. 1 2 Latacz 2010
  40. ↑ Aeneid, 2.29; 1.30; 3.87
  41. ↑ Odes, 4.6.17–20
  42. ↑ Ekonomou, Andrew (2007). Byzantine Rome and the Greek Popes. UK: Lexington Books. p. 123. Retrieved 14 September 2015.
  43. ↑ Jeffreys, Elizabeth; Croke, Brian. Studies in John Malalas. Australian Association for Byzantine Studies, Department of Modern Greek, University of Sydney,. p. 206. Retrieved 14 September 2015.

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