text stringlengths 0 131k |
|---|
Fate of Achilles' armour |
Achilles' armour 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's presentations, decided Odysseus was more deserving of the armour. Furious, A... |
A relic claimed to be Achilles' bronze-headed spear was preserved for centuries in the temple of Athena on the acropolis of Phaselis, Lycia, a port on the Pamphylian Gulf. The city was visited in 333 BCE by Alexander the Great, who envisioned himself as the new Achilles and carried the Iliad with him, but his court bio... |
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). They were absorbed in the game and oblivious to the surrounding battle. The Trojans attacked and reached the heroes, who were saved only by an in... |
Worship and heroic cult |
The tomb of Achilles, extant throughout antiquity in Troad, was venerated by Thessalians, but also by Persian expeditionary forces, as well as by Alexander the Great and the Roman emperor Caracalla. Achilles' cult was also to be found at other places, e. g. on the island of Astypalaea in the Sporades, in Sparta which h... |
The cult of Achilles is illustrated in the 500 BCE Polyxena sarcophagus, which depicts the sacrifice of Polyxena near the tumulus of Achilles. Strabo (13.1.32) also suggested that such a cult of Achilles existed in Troad: |
The spread and intensity of the hero's veneration among the Greeks that had settled on the northern coast of the Pontus Euxinus, today's Black Sea, appears to have been remarkable. An archaic cult is attested for the Milesian colony of Olbia as well as for an island in the middle of the Black Sea, today identified with... |
Pliny the Elder (23–79 AD) in his Natural History mentions a "port of the Achæi" and an "island of Achilles", famous for the tomb of that "man" (), situated somewhat nearby Olbia and the Dnieper-Bug Estuary; furthermore, at 125 Roman miles from this island, he places a peninsula "which stretches forth in the shape of a... |
In the following chapter of his book, Pliny refers to the same island as Achillea and introduces two further names for it: Leuce or Macaron (from Greek [νῆσος] μακαρῶν "island of the blest"). The "present day" measures, he gives at this point, seem to account for an identification of Achillea or Leuce with today's Snak... |
The heroic cult dedicated to Achilles on Leuce seems to go back to an account from the lost epic Aethiopis according to which, after his untimely death, Thetis had snatched her son from the funeral pyre and removed him to a mythical (Leúkē Nêsos "White Island"). Already in the fifth century BC, Pindar had mentioned a ... |
The Periplus of the Euxine Sea (c. 130 AD) gives the following details: |
The Greek geographer Dionysius Periegetes, who likely lived during the first century CE, wrote 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 valley... |
A number of important commercial port cities of the Greek waters were dedicated to Achilles. Herodotus, Pliny the Elder and Strabo reported on the existence of a town Achílleion (Ἀχίλλειον), built by settlers from Mytilene in the sixth century BC, close to the hero's presumed burial mound in the Troad. Later attestatio... |
The kings of 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 T... |
Reception during antiquity |
In Greek tragedy |
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 o... |
The tragedian Sophocles also wrote The Lovers of Achilles, a play with Achilles as the main character. Only a few fragments survive. |
Towards the end of the 5th century BCE, 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. |
In Greek philosophy |
Zeno |
The philosopher Zeno of Elea centred 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 a... |
Plato |
In Hippias Minor, a dialogue attributed to Plato, an arrogant man named Hippias argues with Socrates. The two get into a discussion about lying. They decide that a person who is intentionally false must be "better" than a person who is unintentionally false, on the basis that someone who lies intentionally must underst... |
In Roman and medieval literature |
The Romans, who traditionally traced their lineage to Troy, took a highly negative view of Achilles. Virgil refers to Achilles as a savage and a merciless butcher of men, while Horace portrays Achilles ruthlessly slaying women and children. Other writers, such as Catullus, Propertius, and Ovid, represent a second stran... |
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. |
In modern literature and arts |
Literature |
Achilles appears in Dante's Inferno (composed 1308–1320). He is seen in Hell's second circle, that of lust. |
Achilles is portrayed as a former hero who has become lazy and devoted to the love of Patroclus, in William Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida (1602). |
The French dramatist Thomas Corneille wrote a tragedy La Mort d'Achille (1673). |
Achilles is the subject of the poem Achilleis (1799), a fragment by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. |
In 1899, the Polish playwright, painter and poet Stanisław Wyspiański published a national drama, based on Polish history, named Achilles. |
In 1921, Edward Shanks published The Island of Youth and Other Poems, concerned among others with Achilles. |
The 1983 novel Kassandra by Christa Wolf also treats the death of Achilles. |
Akhilles is killed by a poisoned Kentaur arrow shot by Kassandra in Marion Zimmer Bradley's novel The Firebrand (1987). |
Achilles is one of various 'narrators' in Colleen McCullough's novel The Song of Troy (1998). |
The Death of Achilles (Смерть Ахиллеса, 1998) is an historical detective novel by Russian writer Boris Akunin that alludes to various figures and motifs from the Iliad. |
The character Achilles in Ender's Shadow (1999), by Orson Scott Card, shares his namesake's cunning mind and ruthless attitude. |
Achilles is one of the main characters in Dan Simmons's novels Ilium (2003) and Olympos (2005). |
Achilles is a major supporting character in David Gemmell's Troy series of books (2005–2007). |
Achilles is the main character in David Malouf's novel Ransom (2009). |
The ghost of Achilles appears in Rick Riordan's The Last Olympian (2009). He warns Percy Jackson about the Curse of Achilles and its side effects. |
Achilles is a main character in Terence Hawkins' 2009 novel The Rage of Achilles. |
Achilles is a major character in Madeline Miller's debut novel, The Song of Achilles (2011), which won the 2012 Orange Prize for Fiction. The novel explores the relationship between Patroclus and Achilles from boyhood to the fateful events of the Iliad. |
Achilles appears in the light novel series Fate/Apocrypha (2012–2014) as the Rider of Red. |
Achilles is a main character in Pat Barker's 2018 novel The Silence of the Girls, much of which is narrated by his slave Briseis. |
Visual arts |
Achilles with the Daughters of Lycomedes is a subject treated in paintings by Anthony van Dyck (before 1618; Museo del Prado, Madrid) and Nicolas Poussin (c. 1652; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston) among others. |
Peter Paul Rubens has authored a series of works on the life of Achilles, comprising the titles: Thetis dipping the infant Achilles into the river Styx, Achilles educated by the centaur Chiron, Achilles recognized among the daughters of Lycomedes, The wrath of Achilles, The death of Hector, Thetis receiving the arms o... |
Pieter van Lint, "Achilles Discovered among the Daughters of Lycomedes", 1645, at the Israel Museum, Jerusalem |
Dying Achilles is a sculpture created by Christophe Veyrier (c. 1683; Victoria and Albert Museum, London). |
The Rage of Achilles is a fresco by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (1757, Villa Valmarana Ai Nani, Vicenza). |
Eugène Delacroix painted a version of The Education of Achilles for the ceiling of the Paris Palais Bourbon (1833–1847), one of the seats of the French Parliament. |
created a statue group Achilles and Penthesilea (1895; Vienna). |
Achilleus (1908) is a lithography by Max Slevogt. |
Music |
Achilles has been frequently the subject of operas, ballets and related genres. |
Operas titled Deidamia were composed by Francesco Cavalli (1644) and George Frideric Handel (1739). |
Achille et Polyxène (Paris 1687) is an opera begun by Jean-Baptiste Lully and finished by Pascal Collasse. |
Achille et Déidamie (Paris 1735) is an opera composed by André Campra. |
Achilles (London 1733) is a ballad opera, written by John Gay, parodied by Thomas Arne as Achilles in petticoats in 1773. |
Achille in Sciro is a libretto by Metastasio, composed by Domenico Sarro for the inauguration of the Teatro di San Carlo (Naples, 4 November 1737). An even earlier composition is from Antonio Caldara (Vienna 1736). Later operas on the same libretto were composed by Leonardo Leo (Turin 1739), Niccolò Jommelli (Vienna 1... |
Achille (Vienna 1801) is an opera by Ferdinando Paër on a libretto by Giovanni de Gamerra. |
Achille à Scyros (Paris 1804) is a ballet by Pierre Gardel, composed by Luigi Cherubini. |
Achilles, oder Das zerstörte Troja ("Achilles, or Troy Destroyed", Bonn 1885) is an oratorio by the German composer Max Bruch. |
Achilles auf Skyros (Stuttgart 1926) is a ballet by the Austrian-British composer and musicologist Egon Wellesz. |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.