Read Mythology of the Iliad and the Odyssey Online
Authors: Karen Bornemann Spies
Achilles answered, “King Agamemnon, do whatever pleases you with these gifts. For now, war calls us.”
The next morning, with this mighty warrior leading them, the Greeks stormed onto the battlefield. Achilles fought like a raging lion, slaughtering many Trojans, including Priam’s beloved son, Polydorus. As the Trojans fled in Achilles’ path, the gates to Troy were flung open, and the Trojan forces sought safety behind their city walls.
Finally, Hector stood alone before the walls of Troy. His parents begged him to come inside the walls, where he would be safe. Yet Hector, as the leader of the Trojans, felt responsible for their losses. He had counseled the Trojans to stay outside the city walls and fight. Hector thought to himself, “It will be more honorable to face Achilles in a duel. Even if I surrender to him, Achilles is filled with such rage that he will kill me anyway.”
Yet when Achilles approached Hector, Hector turned and fled, because he saw Athena at Achilles’ side. Three times, Hector ran around the city, with Achilles chasing him on foot.
Cunning Athena tricked Hector into stopping by appearing to him in the form of his brother, Deiphobus. Hector thought he could defeat Achilles with the help of his brother. However, Hector did not realize that Athena, in the form of Deiphobus, had disappeared.
Then, Hector asked Achilles to agree to giving the body of whichever one of them died in their fight back to his respective family. “Let us swear to the gods that whoever wins our battle will not mutilate the body of the loser. If I win, once I have stripped your marvelous armor from your body, I will return your corpse to your loyal warriors.”
With a dark glance, Achilles refused. “If I win, you will pay for the death of my comrade, Patroclus.”
With that, Achilles hurled his spear at Hector. When it missed, Athena brought it back to Achilles. Hector still could not see Athena. After Hector’s spear hit the shield of Achilles, he turned to his brother to get another spear. But his brother was not there. Hector realized then that he had been tricked. He vowed not to go to his death without a struggle. He charged toward Achilles, but the Greek drove his spear through Hector’s throat.
With his dying breath, Hector begged Achilles to give his body to his father and mother. “Please, allow the Trojans to do me honor once I am dead.”
“Do not beg me for mercy, for I plan to feed you to the dogs,” Achilles answered.
Hector warned Achilles, “Do not mistreat my body, for the gods will bring their wrath down upon you.”
Achilles wrenched his spear from Hector’s body and tore the bloody armor off the corpse. The other Greeks ran forward and stabbed the naked body. Then, Achilles pierced Hector’s feet and threaded thongs through the holes. He tied the thongs to the back of his chariot and dragged Hector’s body around and around the city of Troy. As the Trojans watched from the walls of the city, they were horrified to see the head of their hero dragged behind the chariot.
Achilles and the Myrmidons returned to their camps. They tossed Hector’s body face down in the dirt next to the body of Patroclus. Together, thousands of warriors shared a funeral feast. Achilles refused to wash off the blood and dirt that covered his body until he had placed Patroclus on his funeral pyre, or mound of materials piled high for burning a body.
That night, as Achilles slept, Patroclus appeared to him in a dream. “Do not forget me, mighty Achilles,” he said. “After you have burned my body, save my ashes in a sacred urn. Make arrangements that when you die, our ashes can be mingled together in one urn.”
In the morning, Agamemnon ordered men to cut many trees and pile them into a pyre one hundred feet long and one hundred feet wide and put the body of Patroclus on top of the pyre. Achilles spread fat from slaughtered animal carcasses on the body and arranged the animal skins on top. He set two-handled jars of oil and honey beside Patroclus’ body. Achilles then slaughtered twelve Trojans, threw them on the pyre, and set it on fire.
The fire burned for eleven days. All the while, the Achaeans held races and games in honor of Patroclus, as was the custom of the Greeks. They raced chariots, wrestled, and boxed. They feasted day and night. Finally, the ashes and bones of Patroclus were placed in a golden urn, and the urn was placed under a huge mound.
But the gods were furious that although the Greeks had honored Patroclus, they had dishonored Hector. Whenever he wished, Achilles had dragged Hector’s body three times around Patroclus’ funeral pyre. Zeus summoned Thetis to Mount Olympus. “Go to your son’s camp and tell him that the gods are angry with him. We know that in his grief and fury, he still keeps the body of Hector. But it is time for Hector to have a decent burial.”
Thetis flew down to warn her son about his behavior. “Achilles, Hector was a man who loved and honored the gods. You have treated him with disrespect. Zeus commands you that it is time to give Hector the hero’s burial that he deserves.”
Achilles promised, “I will give him back at once to whomever brings a ransom for his body.”
At the same time, Zeus sent his messenger, Iris, to Priam of Troy. Iris told Priam to go without fear to Achilles and get his son’s body. Hermes, the messenger god, brought Priam safely through the Greek camp by putting the Achaeans to sleep.
When Priam entered Achilles’ tent, he begged, “Mighty Achilles, I pray by your honored father and mother to give me back the body of my own dear son.” Priam brought to Achilles many rich treasures, such as brocaded robes and bars of gold.
Grief and awe filled Achilles, for Priam reminded Achilles of his own father. Achilles called to his serving women. “Wash Hector’s body, and make sure that Priam does not see the terrible wounds on his son’s body. Then, dress Hector’s body in a finely-woven shirt and wrap it in two soft capes.”
When this was done, Achilles gently lifted Hector’s body onto a sturdy wagon. He served a fine meal to Priam. The next day, Priam brought his son’s body back to the city of Troy. For nine days, the fighting stopped while Hector’s family and the people of Troy mourned him. Then, they laid his body on a high funeral pyre and set it afire. When the body had burned away to ashes, the flames were put out with wine. Hector’s ashes were collected in a golden chest, which was wrapped in purple cloths. The chest was buried in a hollow grave and covered with huge stones. The Trojans shared a funeral feast in Hector’s honor in the house of King Priam of Troy. Thus ended the life of Hector. Next, the fate of the city of Troy would be decided.
Q:
With Achilles leading the Greeks, what happened in the fighting?
A:
All the Trojans except Hector fled behind their city walls.
Q:
Why did Hector stay outside the walls?
A:
He felt that the Trojan losses were his fault. He knew that he would die at the hands of the Greeks even if he surrendered, so he chose to fight one-on-one with Achilles.
Q:
What did Hector do when Achilles came near him? Why?
A:
Hector fled because he could see Athena at Achilles’ side, but he stopped when he thought he saw his brother nearby.
Q:
What did Hector ask Achilles to do? How did Achilles answer?
A:
Hector asked Achilles to agree to give the body of the one who died in their fight back to his family. Achilles refused.
Q:
What dishonorable actions did Achilles perform after defeating Hector?
A:
He stripped the armor off Hector’s body, attached the body to the back of his chariot, and dragged it around Troy. He also dragged it around Patroclus’ funeral pyre.
Q:
How did Zeus react to Achilles’ treatment of Hector’s body?
A:
Zeus was furious at this abuse of the dead. He sent Thetis to warn her son to give Hector’s body back to Priam. Zeus also sent his messenger, Iris, to Priam to tell him to go without fear to Achilles to ask for his son’s body.
Q:
How did Achilles respond to Priam’s request?
A:
He was filled with grief and awe at Priam’s action. Achilles’ servants washed Hector’s body, covered it with a fine shirt and soft robes, and gave it to Priam.
According to classicists Mark P. O. Morford and Robert J. Lenardon, Achilles was a complex main character:
Again, when the dying Hector foretells Achilles’ death, Achilles resolutely accepts his fate. Nor is Achilles always violent. At the funeral games for Patroclus, he presides with princely dignity and even makes peace between the hot-tempered competitors. We have also seen how he gave up his anger against Hector and treated Priam with dignity and generosity. Achilles is a splendid and complex hero, incomparably the greatest figure in the Trojan saga.
3
An unusual element of the relationship between Achilles and his mother was that they actually met in person several times. According to classicist Robert Fagles:
Though Achilles and his divine mother Thetis do in fact meet face-to-face (1.422-510, 18.82-162), this is not true of most of the encounters of men and gods in the
Iliad
. Men meet the gods in disguise (in Book 13 Poseidon disguises himself as Calchas) or the god comes to men from behind, as Athena does to Achilles in Book 1 and Apollo to Patroclus in Book 16. In older, legendary times, however, men might entertain the gods in special circumstances; Hera, for example, reminds Apollo (at 24.74-76) that he and all the gods came to the wedding feast for the marriage of Peleus and Thetis.
4
Hephaestus, the blacksmith, who crafted the shining armor for Achilles, was renowned for his skill as a smith. Fagles noted an unusual characteristic of his:
Hephaestus, the smith-god, is lame. This may be a reflection of the fact that in a community where agriculture and war are the predominant features in the life of its men, someone with weak legs and strong arms would probably become a blacksmith. He seems to have been lame from birth: at 18.461-64 he says that his mother, Hera, threw him out of Olympus because of this defect. The fall referred to here was probably a consequence of his attempt to help Hera when Zeus had hung her up from Mount Olympus with a pair of anvils tied to her feet.
5
Most of the details about the sack, or destruction, of Troy were recorded in epics which no longer exist. However, in the
Trojan Women
(415
B.C.
), Greek dramatist Euripides (480?
B.C.
–406
B.C.
) portrayed Troy’s destruction through the eyes of Hecuba, queen of Troy; Cassandra, Trojan prophetess; and Andromache, Hector’s widow. The Roman poet Virgil (70
B.C.
–19
B.C.
) depicted the capture and destruction of Troy in his epic,
Aeneid
(30
B.C.
–19
B.C.
). The
Aeneid
is considered one of the most important pieces of literature produced in ancient Rome.
The Greeks finally captured the city by trickery, using a plan Odysseus suggested, building a wooden horse to smuggle inside the gates of Troy. The horse is not discussed in the
Iliad
, but many details about it are mentioned in both Book 4 and Book 8 in the
Odyssey
, from which this story is taken. In Book 8, the bard, Demodocus, sings of Odysseus’ heroism in planning the creation of the Trojan horse and leading the Greek warriors who were concealed inside. Odysseus himself describes the horse to the ghost of Achilles in the Underworld. He also tells how Achilles’ son, Neoptolemus, was the only Greek warrior who waited fearlessly inside the horse. Details about Achilles’ death and funeral come from Book 24, where Agamemnon’s ghost talks to Achilles’ ghost and Thetis mourns her son.
Thetis held funeral games in honor of her deceased son. Such games were a tradition in ancient Greece when a great warrior or nobleman died. Warriors and princes competed against one another in events such as foot races, chariot races, and wrestling.
Ajax, son of Telamon, is an important character in this story. He was always the last of the Greeks to give ground to the Trojans in any battle. He led the fight to recover the body of Patroclus. But even this courage was not enough to win him the honor he expected from his fellow warriors.
Seeking revenge for the death of Patroclus, Achilles charged the Trojan forces and drove them back toward the city gates. Apollo, who supported the Trojans, warned Achilles. “Watch out, Achilles, for although you are a mighty warrior, you are still just a mortal man.” Achilles ignored Apollo and fought on with savagery.
Atop the safety of the city walls, Paris sat with his bow and arrows. He drew a single feathered arrow from his quiver, or case for carrying arrows, and inserted it in his bow. When Paris let the arrow fly, Apollo, the god of archery, used his great powers to guide the arrow so that it hit Achilles in his heel. This was the one spot on his body where Achilles was vulnerable. Achilles fell back on top of the bodies of many slain warriors. Soon his eyes, too, misted over in death, and he died, just as was fated. Ajax carried his body from the battlefield while mighty Odysseus held back the Trojans.
The body was placed atop a funeral pyre, and the Greeks shaved their heads to show their sadness. Achilles’ mother, Thetis, came up from the sea with her nymphs to mourn Achilles for seventeen days. Many of the Greek heroes paraded around the funeral pyre, adorned in their armor. Achilles’ body was anointed with oil and honey. Then on the eighteenth day, the pyre was set ablaze until Achilles’ body had burned down to ashes.
Thetis mixed the ashes and bones of Achilles in a golden, two-handled urn along with those of his friend Patroclus, just as Patroclus had asked. Over the urn, a noble tomb was built, visible from far out at sea. Then, Thetis held funeral games in honor of her dead son.