The Tale Of Achilles : Briseis And Achilles

Many people have heard of Achilles, whether in Greek Mythology or when referring to the tendon in their foot. He is well known in the Iliad as the main force for the Achaeans in the Trojan War, dubbed the “swiftest warrior,” “Achilles dear to Zeus”, and “brilliant runner.” However many do not know the story of Achilles when he walks away from the Achaean campaign over a scuffle of war prizes. His action cripples the Achaean army, costing the lives of many. The story of the Trojan War is one where Achilles ultimately leads the Achaeans to Troy and kills Hector outside Priam’s walls. However, it was Patroclus, Achilles’ brother-in-arms, who should be accredited with the Achaean victories and know for his success against the Trojans in the

     In addition to the previously mentioned character flaws, one could argue that Achilles was also a kidnapper, rapist and murderer. Briseis herself was a love-slave. She was taken as a spoil of war from one of the Greeks previous successful military campaigns. Even if she went willingly and made love to Achilles willingly, it would be absolutely ludicrous to think that all of his other love-slaves (he had many) had such a “good” time. No one likes to be

In Homer’s “The Iliad”, we come across Achilles and Hector. Both characters are seen as brave soldiers of great honor, yet they have very different opposing traits. Hector is a compassionate man, who would do anything possible to fight for his family. While Achilles on the other hand, though he can be compassionate, he is also a man of immense pride who can be selfish and would do anything to protect his honor, even at the cost of others demise or destruction “…Achilles’ rage, Black and murderous, that cost the Greeks Incalculable pain…” (Homer 5). Achilles is more of a loner, only thinks of himself when making decisions, hence hurting people. However, they both have shown other sides to their personality that we are not familiar with like

The first line of the Iliad describes a human emotion that leads to doom and destruction in Homer's poetic tale of the Trojan War. Achilles' rage is a major catalyst in the action in the Iliad. It is his rage that makes him both withdraw from and, later, rejoin the war with a fury. Why is Achilles enraged? Is his rage ignited solely by his human adversaries or do the gods destine him to the experience? Achilles' rage has many facets. His rage is a personal choice and, at times, is created by the gods.

In the letter she pours a lot of emotions and makes it obvious that she have been told that “he

Achilles can be described as a Tragic Hero in many ways. He was brave and had great strength but, he was also prideful and lacked control with his emotions, and in all the label of a tragic hero fits him. A Tragic hero is “a literary character who makes an error of judgment or has a fatal flaw that, combined with fate and external forces, brings on a tragedy” (“Tragic Hero”). To many men Achilles was god-like, and immortal, the epitome of a hero to the Greeks, he was strong, brave in the face of war, and of noble birth because he was the son of a goddess. In the Iliad, Achilles, driven by anger seeks revenge on Hector for killing his “dearest comrade” (“The Heroic Age”), Patroclus, whom he claims to have valued more than his own life. He

An Aspiring Hero In Homer’s The Iliad, Achilles is the Greek’s greatest hero because of his ambition and determination to succeed. For example, when Achilles first hears of Patroclus’s death, he vows to meet the “murderer head-on” to avenge Patroclus, and that there is no use in “hold[ing] [him] back from the fighting” (18.136-149). This shows that Achilles is not afraid to fight for the people he loves or what he believes in.

At the end of book sixteen in the Iliad, one of the best Greek soldiers, Patroklos, was stabbed in the stomach and killed by one of the best Trojan soldiers, Hektor. Hektor wanted Patroklos dead because Patroklos killed one of Hektor’s brothers in battle. Patroklos was wearing his best friend, Achilles', armor when he died.

In The Iliad, the first of many quarrels between Agamemnon and Achilles is ignited by Briseis and Chryseis. Because Agamemnon is forced to relinquish his prize,

The Iliad opens in the predicament of the Greeks who have somehow incurred the wrath of the gods. It is here that Agamemnon, supreme commander of the Grecian army, demand that Achilles give up his “prize” (Briseis) to replace his own “prize” (Chrysies) which he has to give up to appease the gods. Agamemnon has to

I was privy to many discussions and arguments that took place behind the backs of the soldiers’ leadership as to why they should do what they were being commanded to do by them. All too often soldiers begin to become complacent when they feel over taxed by their leadership or taken advantage of and become pathos driven when they cannot see the fruits of their labor coming to fruition during war or even peacekeeping missions; especially long deployments such as Iraq, Afghanistan or Kosovo. Achilles speech in “The Envoys Plead with Achilles” is pathos driven because it exemplifies aspects of emotionally driven complacency experienced in war due to selfish deceitful leadership, length of deployments, and a feeling

One of the major characters who have been altered for the film is Briseis. In the Iliad, readers discover in a passage spoken by Achilles that she was captured by the Achaians when

The first set of major steps that Achilles undergoes is the call to adventure, the refusal to the call to action, and the meeting with the mentor. In Book 1 of the Iliad, Achilles is called to fight against the Trojan’s to reclaim Helen, Menelaus wife. Later in the war, Chryseis and Briseis are taken as prizes from a battle. They are the daughters of a priest of Apollo named Chryses. After Chryses begs for his daughters back, the Greeks decide to give Briseis to him and have Chryseis stay. Chryseis belonged to Achilles as his prize from the battle and Briseis belonged to Agamemnon, a political leader of the Greeks. Agamemnon then humiliate Achilles by taking Chryseis Achilles’s prize, for himself. This angered Achilles greatly and caused him to leave the Greek army, albeit temporary. This serves as Achilles refusal to the call of battle. Achilles’s anger is shown in Book 1 lines 188 to 192, these lines show how much Achilles’s pride affects his actions and how he responds to conflict. In this situation, his pride is hurt greatly, to the point where he almost kill Agamemnon, however Athena stops him. Achilles says

In the battle between Hector and Achilles, there was more on the line than winning the war. Until the end of the poem, it can be argued that both Achilles and Hector fit the role of an epic hero, but there can only be one. The battle represented who would ultimately be determined the epic hero. In Homer’s epic poem, The Iliad, Achilles is crafted into an epic hero throughout the poem by the illustration of the qualities of an epic hero: a great warrior, help from the supernatural, an epic flaw, and an epic journey.

Homer’s The Iliad describes majority of the war that went on between the Greek and Trojan, which included the warriors Achilles and Hector. Throughout the poem the similarities and the differences became evident between the main characters, Achilles and Hector. Although Achilles and Hector are considered two different types of heroes, they had their similarities as much as they had their differences. Both Achilles and Hector were the greatest warriors of their armies, and both are very stubborn when it comes to their honor. The differences between the two of them is that Hector is a family man, while Achilles never married nor had children, and the two are fighting for purely two different reasons, Achilles is fighting for his blood thirst and glory, while Hector fights to defend his people and family.