The first character I'm going to talk about is Achilles!
Who?
I studied Achilles when reading the Iliad by Homer in my
first year at university. He was a great character, born with the god’s favour,
but always with the foreknowledge that he will die at war, more specifically,
the Trojan War. He is already a conflicted character, but one with great
strength, good looks, and a character flaw, the key aspects of being a Greek
hero. His flaw was menis, excessive anger. This is what leads him in direction
in the text; for his anger first at his Greek leader taking his bride as his
own, caused him to withdraw from the war and refuse to help, leaving the Greeks
and his men to their downfall. After the Embassy where a few of the other Greek
heroes tried to persuade him to come back to war, he goes into a deep
explanation that shows him at crossroads, and perhaps as the most psychoanalytical
and deep-thinking character of the text. He wonders would it be better to die
in glory, and to be immortalized forever in a glorified death in battle, or to
withdraw, live a simple life, and die an old man, in an ordinary death. Of course,
we all know what path he will choose, so despite his conflict, strong passion
that later leads him to kill Hector, but what is crucial to his character is in
that moment where he turns his back on a life of simplicity and embraces his
death in war, marking him a true Greek hero.
Why is he known for?
So in Greek mythology, Achilles was the central character
and greatest warrior of Homer's Iliad. He is also a demigod for his mother was
the nymph Thetis, and his father, Peleus, was the king of the Myrmidons. His
most important feat during the Trojan War was the slaying of the Trojan hero,
Hector, outside the gates of Troy in a one-on-one combat.
While his death doesn’t occur in the Iliad, other sources
state he was killed near the end of the Trojan War by Paris, who shot him in
the heel with an arrow. Later legends had stated 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. This is because Thetis had dipped Achilles as a child into the River Styx
due to try and make him immoral, not realising that she left vulnerable the
part of the body in which she held him – his heel.
Achilles, after his temporary truce with Priam, fought and
killed the Amazonian warrior queen Penthesilea, but later grieved over her death.
He was so distracted by her beauty at the start he did not fight to his
strongest strength but once he realized that his distraction was endangering
his life, he refocused and killed her. As he grieved over the death of such a
rare beauty, a notorious Greek jeerer by the name of Thersites laughed and
mocked the great Achilles.
After the death of Patroclus, Achilles' closest companion
was Nestor's son Antilochus. When Memnon, king of Ethiopia slew Antilochus,
Achilles obtained revenge again on the battlefield, killing Memnon. This fight
has clear parallels to the fight between Achilles and Memon over Antilochus
like with Achilles avenging Patroclus by killing Hector.
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. One other version of Achille’s death is him falling deeply in
love with one of the Trojan princesses, Polyxena. He asks for her hand in
marriage and Priam is willing because it would mean alliance with the world's
greatest warrior and so the end of the war. While Priam is overseeing the marriage,
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.
Achilles was cremated and his ashes buried in the same urn
as those of Patroclus.
Troy, acted by Brad Pitt
Thanks for reading!
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