Achilles

Also known as: Achilles son of Peleus / fleet descendant of Aeacus / son of Aeacus / son of Peleus / son of a goddess · Family: Achaeans · Role: warrior · First appears: BOOK I

🌐 Also appears in: Greek Mythology — A Family Orrery (as Achilles) · The Odyssey (as Achilles) · The Aeneid (as Achilles) · The Metamorphoses of Ovid (as Achilles) · Plutarch's Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans (as Achilles) · Greek Tragedy — The Same Myth, Three Voices (as Achilles) · The Divine Comedy (as Achilles)

In Book I, Achilles quarrels with Agamemnon, who orders Briseis taken from his tent. Achilles releases her to the heralds through Patroclus, then withdraws from the war and returns to his ships, saying he will go back to Phthia. In Book II he keeps the Myrmidons from fighting because Briseis has been taken. In Book VI, he sacks Thebe and kills Eetion; in Book IX, he refuses Agamemnon’s gifts and reconciliation, rejects his marriage offer, and prepares to sail home. Phoenix, whom Achilles’s father Peleus had welcomed in Phthia, joins Ajax son of Telamon and Ulysses in an embassy urging Achilles to return, but Achilles refuses.

In Book XI, Achilles sends Patroclus to ask Nestor who has been wounded. In Book XVI, he allows Patroclus to wear his armour and lead the Myrmidons into battle. When Antilochus brings word in Book XVIII that Patroclus has fallen and Hector has taken the armour, Achilles ends his withdrawal and vows to pursue Hector. After Thetis brings him new armour made by Vulcan, Achilles returns to battle. In Book XIX he puts aside his quarrel with Agamemnon, receives Briseis and the promised gifts, and enters the fighting.

In Books XX and XXI, Achilles fights the Trojans, kills numerous men, and is attacked by the river Scamander before Neptune and Minerva reassure him. In Book XXII, he kills Hector, strips off his armour, and drags his body to the ships; in Book XXIV, he drags it around Patroclus’s tomb. When Priam comes to ransom Hector’s body, Achilles agrees to return it and promises to suspend the fighting while Troy mourns and buries him.