СТАТЬИ / ARTICLES

ACHILLES’ CHARACTER
AS AN INTERNAL CRITIQUE OF WARMONGERING
IDEALS IN THE ILIAD

MARINA MARREN
United Arab Emirates University
[email protected]

ABSTRACT. In this paper, I show how Achilles’ faults work as a lens through which we more
readily see the problematic nature of ideals that cast war – and especially an aggressive war
of conquest – in a poeticized and desirable light. I argue that in Homer’s Iliad, idealized im-
ages of war, which promise super-human glory, in the end, serve to undo and waste human
life. I do not mean to say that in this archetypal war epic we find an outright critique of war.
However, I argue that the Iliad holds its poeticized images of war in tension with the grue-
some, life-negating violence to which these idealized representations give way.
Keywords: Anger, egotistical self-love, psychology, solipsism, shame.

1. Introduction
To illustrate the fact that the Iliad contains an internal criticism of war aggression,
I examine the character of Achilles and argue that in him we find reflected or sym-
bolized the insidious nature of ideals that glorify war. Achilles draws to himself
powerful poetic images of extraordinary military prowess, victory, and valor. How-
ever, the Iliad problematizes these very same images and the ideals they hold up
for human beings.1 In my analysis, I emphasize the inhumanity of Achilles – his

1
On the philosophical relevance and importance of poetic images in the Iliad, see Ser-
gey Shevtsov 2020, 104–142. Shevtsov argues contra Hegel who “полностью отрицает
философское начало у Гомера, он даже противопоставляет его философии” or “com-
pletely rejects a philosophical foundation in Homer, and even opposes [Homer] to philos-
ophy” (127). Translation by the author. See, also, analyses of the poetic elements in the Iliad
by Shepphard 1922; Hoffmeister 1995; Whallon 1961; Muellner 1990; Becker 1990; Stein 2016;
Schironi 2018, 124–170.

ΣΧΟΛΗ Vol. 17. 2 (2023) © Marina Marren, 2023

classics.nsu.ru/schole DOI:10.25205/1995-4328-2022-17-2-550-565
 Marina Marren /ΣΧΟΛΗ Vol. 17. 2 (2023) 551

unhinged rage, his exceptionalism, and his egotistical self-love – in order to show
how these elements of his character reflect the Iliad’s critique of the life-negating
power of warmongering ideals.
In Part 2, I offer a critique of Achilles’ rage (μῆνις), which both guides his actions
and accompanies his desire for victory and undying fame (κλέος ἄφθιτον, 9.413).2

As far as literature on the Iliad as the work that problematizes ideals of war is con-
cerned, Simone Weil 1965 largely sees the Iliad as a critique of war. However, Gary Wills
1997 in his introduction to Christopher Logue, takes it to be the case that “Weil could not
admit the fierce joy in battle, which means that much of Homer was a closed book to her”
(xvii). I think Wills misses Weil’s point, which is that “the fierce joy in battle,” as Wills puts
it, has an extraordinarily high price. The Iliad attests to the swiftness of the retribution that
falls upon the warriors for their desire to experience such “joy.” Closer to Weil’s take on
the epic, Marion Tait 1943, goes as far as to say that “[t]here could scarcely be a sadder
commentary on human life than that of the last book of the Iliad. The dominant motif is
pessimism, pointed and relieved by irony. Achilles and Priam review the waste and futility
of all high effort and all human anguish over the bodies of Patroclus and Hector” (53).
Markedly, both Weil (who composed her piece in 1940) and Tait (her essay was published
in 1943) who problematize the war-time valor, and expressions of militaristic force in Iliad
are offering their interpretations of the epic during the darkest years of WWII. Also, Peter
Lowe 2014, reflecting on Keith Douglas’ “Iliad” and “the near-mechanised slaughter of the
Western Front” of the WWII, shows how critical Douglas is of the idealized presentations
of war that the Iliad offers. Lowe summarizes Douglas’ position and claims that “[f]or the
twentieth-century war poet, talk of grand ideals, aims, and motives is more likely to draw
out disdain than agreement, accompanied in poetic terms by a distrust of anything that
seeks to make war sound more elevated than it is” (301). See also an earlier work, by Adam
Parry 1966, which questions the cogency of seeing the Iliad as glorifying bellicose ideals.
2
Where the translation of the Iliad differs from Richmond Lattimore’s 2011 or Augustus
T. Murray 1924, it is by the author. On the difference between κλέος and κῦδος, see Émile
Benveniste 1969, II.57–6.9. On κλέος ἄφθιτον, see for example, Finkelberg 1986 and also
Volk 2002. On Achilles’ rage or wrath, see a careful study by Leonard C. Muellner 1996,
complete with etymology of “μῆνις.” The book offers a nuanced view of Achilles’ rage and
documents appearances of “μῆνις” in the Iliad. Specifically, Muellner is clear on the point
that the first victim of Achilles’ μῆνις (and as early as book one) is Achilles himself (137–
138). In regard to the broader relationship between rage and conquest, Muellner thinks
that, for example, “in book I3 of the Iliad (624ff.) Menelaos effectively characterizes the
Achaean expedition against Troy to retrieve Helen as an expression of the mênis of Zeus
Xenios” (47). William V. Harris 2001 concludes that “Homer’s Achilles can sometimes seem
thoroughly unstable” (64). Paul Friedrich and James Redfield 1978 see “a certain theatri-
cality in Achilles' self-presentation [as]; he plays himself to the hilt. He thus becomes the
victim of his own feelings” (277). The Friedrich and Redfield piece is also reprinted in Irene
J. E. de Jong ed. 1998. See also a focused study of madness in relation to Achilles’ psychology
552 Achilles’ Character in the Iliad

Achilles fulfills this desire despite having been warned about the consequences
that the satisfaction of the said desire would have for his life (9.410-15). The anni-
hilation that Achilles’ rage sows in its wake represents the destruction that humans
suffer when their lives become captive to perilous ideals. 3
In Part 3, I argue that Achilles’ megalomaniacal rage covers over the fact that he
is an internally divided character. Achilles’ extraordinary prowess places him in-
commensurably above his fellow comrades, and it instills in Achilles a feeling of
his superiority. However, this same feeling stands in the way of Achilles’ ac-
ceptance of the military rank and conventional chain of command, and in the
words of Dean Hammer, turns him into a “vagabond.”4 I also explain how Achilles’
outcast status causes him to embody certain militaristic ideals, which if they are
taken to the extreme, place the exemplary warrior outside of the very community
on behalf of which he is meant to fight.
In Part 4, I show that even Achilles’ love for Patroclus is a destructive passion,
because in the end, Achilles sees in Patroclus a reflection of himself or more pre-
cisely of his own egotistical self-love. For the sake of precision, in this essay, I will
focus on Achilles. However, by way of a brief, but indicative comparison, Achilles’
egotistic passion can be seen as a fantastical desire that Helen (if not the woman
and person Helen, then “Helen” understood as a symbol of the erotic passion that
men have for war) symbolizes and which she herself presents in a negative light. 5
Helen, seen as the eroticized muse of war, embodies the war-mongering ἔρως.6 This

by Stephen Fineberg 1999. On Achilles’ obstinance as a vehicle of social change, see Elton
Barker 2004.
3
However, see Anthony T. Edwards (1985). Further, and also contrary to my view, Oli-
ver Taplin 1979 thinks that “Iliadic Achilles is the heroic model, and he is at his greatest
when he gives way and feels pity, even for his enemy” (124).
4
See Hammer 1997.
5
On Helen as a symbol of war and her self-proclaimed blameworthiness, see Marella
Nappi 2015, esp. 47; Mary Ebbott 1999; Ruby Blondell 2010; Karol Zieliński 2021; Hanna M.
Roisman 2006; See, also, earlier studies of Helen in the Iliad by Georges Tronquart 1953;
Kenneth Reckford 1964; F. J. Groten Jr. 1968; S. Farron 1979.
6
Michael Davis’s 2011 remarks somewhat cut against my claims about eroticized desire
for war. Davis writes that “in Homeric Greek, erōs may mean something as neutral as de-
sire. Only later does it come to mean exclusively sexual love. The real transformation …
points to a real transformation in the meaning of erotic love” (194). Simon Goldhill 2000
in his review of Claude Calame 1999 also flags the fact that there is an apparent “rarity of
reference to sexual eros in the Iliad and the Odyssey” (359). However, this does not prohibit
us from seeing Helen as symbolizing a hyper-eroticized passion, which transcends an
erotic longing for a single person and manifests as an all-consuming desire for glory and
victory in war. For a detailed study of eros in Greek literature, see Paul W. Ludwig 2002.
 Marina Marren /ΣΧΟΛΗ Vol. 17. 2 (2023) 553

passion is egotistical in so far as it seeks to glorify and elevate the attacking warriors
through conquest (not through a war of self-defense) and at the expense of anni-
hilation of human communities.7 Likewise, Achilles’ passion for Patroclus turns out
to be Achilles’ rageful, menacing desire for himself – or for the glory and immortal
fame of his own superhuman person. In this paper, my goal is not to portray Achil-
les as a despicable person. Instead, I aim to offer an analysis of his character that
will serve as a lens through which we can see the Iliad’s internal criticism of the
life-undermining character of warmongering ideals. To build my case in a focused
manner, I engage with the literature that presents Achilles in the anti-heroic light
in the body of the paper. However, in order to offer a balanced assessment, in the
notes I also discuss authors whose analysis of Achilles runs counter to my view.

2. Achilles’ Rage

In this section, I provide an analysis of the aggressive elements of Achilles’ charac-

ter and show how Achilles’ wrath informs the meaning of the militaristic, glory-
seeking ideals in the epic. It is readily apparent that the Iliad has to do with rage.
The rhapsode proclaims,” “[t]he rage of Achilles, Peleus’ son, sing o Goddess”
(Μῆνιν ἄειδε θεὰ Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος, 1.1), and thus μῆνις – rage – looms large as the
first word of the war epic. By the time that the events of the Iliad are all but said
and done, Homer tells us that “Achilles has destroyed pity, and he cannot experi-
ence any shame [or awe - αἰδὼς]; which harms men greatly but profits them also”
(Ἀχιλεὺς ἔλεον μὲν ἀπώλεσεν, οὐδέ οἱ αἰδὼς γίγνεται, ἥ τ᾽ ἄνδρας μέγα σίνεται ἠδ᾽

See, further, studies of ἔρως in ancient Greek literature and, specifically, in Homer by Janet
Lloyd 1999; Kenneth J. Dover 1978.
7
Thucydides 1876, 1951 will later present this ἔρως of conquest in a critical light in his
account of the Peloponnesian War (History 6.24.3). On Thucydides and the problematic
character of erotic passion that drives the desire for conquest see Gloria Ferrari 2020; Ste-
ven Forde 1986.
554 Achilles’ Character in the Iliad

ὀνίνησι, 24.44-45).8 Pity belongs to human beings, but Achilles being a son of a ne-
reid, Thetis, and a grand-grandson of Zeus,9 was not entirely a mortal man. Alt-
hough, as we see, for example, in his interactions with Patroclus (“seeing him, he –
Achilles, felt pity,” τὸν δὲ ἰδὼν ᾤκτιρε 16.5), Achilles was not altogether incapable of
pity. Nonetheless, he is more readily described in terms that express his heartless-
ness.10 Patroclus puts the incontrovertibleness of Achilles’ inhuman resolve in ac-
cusatory terms when commenting on Achilles’ indifference to the suffering of the
Greeks. Patroclus calls Achilles “ruthless” (νηλεές 16.33) and says that Achilles’ “fa-
ther was not Peleus, the driver of horses, or his mother, Thetis. Rather [he] … was

8
Achilles’ character brings into a stark relief the relationship between humanity and
shame. See James M. Redfield 1994 who discusses “awe” or “shame” (αἰδώς) as “a socializing
emotion, or rather the characteristic emotion of the social” (158) human being. Douglas L.
Cairns 1993 surveys the usages of shame and awe and notes that in the corpus of the lyric
poet, Theognis of Megara (6 century BC), we have “the first instance of the noun aischunē”
(175, fn. 100). The word, αἰσχύνη, appears at line 1272, in the first Book of Theognis’ 1999
Elegiac Poems (368). Cairns 1993 goes on to comment on Theognis’ use of αἰσχύνη and says
that “[h]ere it appears in the objective sense, but later it will also be found in a subjective
sense, as the reaction to or mental picture of disgrace and so as equivalent of aidōs” (175).
Although, it is important to differentiate αἰσχύνη and αἰδώς, we should also be aware of the
fact that the terms, as Cairns 1993 suggests, are capable of expressing interchangeable
meanings. Hence, the context in which a given term appears, should be consulted care-
fully. However, in the context of Iliad 24.44–45, Achilles’ lack of shame points to the mon-
strosity (in passions, views, or ideals) that ultimately destroys human life. We do not find
in Achilles’ character an embodiment of a desire for the kind of life that exhibits the traits
that support and perpetuate community of prudent, thoughtful humans. See, further, Eric
R. Dodds 2004 who presents the Iliad as a testament to the prevalence of shame in Greek
culture. See, also, Bernard Williams’s 1993 examination of shame as it pertains to Achilles.
9
Achilles is a grand grandson of Zeus, grandson of Aeacus, and a son of Peleus.
10
Lucia Prauscello 2010 takes note of Achilles’ pity (200 fn. 8). However, see James A.
Arieti’s 1985 reflections on the reason why Achilles would not have felt pity. As Arieti 1985
sees it, “one is guilty when one violates a code; one feels guilty when one violates a code
that one personally accepts. The code of obligation to a comrade is a new thing in the
poem, first given voice to by Achilles himself in words addressed to Thetis; and Thetis, a
goddess, approves of it. We must not” Arieti goes on “confuse this feeling with pity, which
the Greeks in Homer well knew. Pity is the basis of Nestor's plea to Patroclus. But pity is
what one feels for an inferior” (200). Consider, also, Mary Scott’s 1979 remarks about piti-
less treatment that Achilles gives to Priam and the reason why, according to her, Achilles
finally relents and acquiesces to Priam’s request (7). See, also, Grace M. Ledbetter 1993 who
focuses on showing why it is the case that “Patroclus represents his [Achilles’] compas-
sionate side” (483).
 Marina Marren /ΣΧΟΛΗ Vol. 17. 2 (2023) 555

a child of the gleaming sea and of the towering rocks. Such is [his] … mind –un-
bending” (οὐκ ἄρα σοί γε πατὴρ ἦν ἱππότα Πηλεύς, οὐδὲ Θέτις μήτηρ:
γλαυκὴ δέ σε τίκτε θάλασσα, πέτραι τ᾽ ἠλίβατοι, ὅτι τοι νόος ἐστὶν ἀπηνής 16.33-35). In
his longing for Patroclus, his dead companion, Homer tells us that Achilles was
“like a lion who … goes among the flocks of men, to devour them” (24.41, 43). This
line about the effects of Achilles’ wrath – about the unfulfilled or perhaps implac-
able desire for revenge – is telling.11 Achilles is inconsolable because the Fates “put
in mortal men the heart of endurance” (τλητὸν γὰρ Μοῖραι θυμὸν θέσαν ἀνθρώποισιν,
24.49), but Achilles’ heart does not grow gentler with suffering that weds the com-
mon mortals to their lot. Even (or perhaps especially) after the death of Patroclus,
and as Max Pohlenz puts it, “Achilles is filled only with the drive for revenge, which
snuffs out all pity.”12 The closing moments of Homer’s epic portray the monstrous
wastefulness of such a callous heart when Achilles’ slaughter of the twelve Trojan
youths for Patroclus’ funeral pyre (23.15) stands as a poetic counterpoint to the
slaughter of the sacrificial animals whose flesh will then be eaten by the Achaeans
(23.30). Although Achilles is nearly megalo-maniacal in his single-minded desire
for revenge, his character, nonetheless, presents a consciousness plagued by divi-
sion.

3. Achilles as an Outsider

Achilles is the greatest warrior and yet he refuses to fight. He is more than just human
but he is supposed to act as a subordinate to a human chieftain, Agamemnon. In his
choice of everlasting glory, Achilles exchanges the very condition of earning it – his
life – for the shadows of Hades. Achilles’ character represents an opposition between
ideals and actuality. That which we long for, that which we idealize may guide and
shape our lives, but these ideals cannot be brough into life unproblematically. The
inner dividedness of Achilles’ character represents this problematic relationship be-
tween idealized visions of reality (be they glorified prowess of an extraordinary war-
rior, or the magnificent fame earned through this prowess) and life.
Hammer’s study of Achilles points in the direction of a schism that Achilles rep-
resents.13 Hammer works against the tradition of scholarship that he claims tends
to take “one of two positions: Achilles either remains a part of the Achaian warrior
11
Eric T. Owen 1989 refers to Achilles’ killing spree as “ruthless brutality of his revenge”
(155). See, further, a study of the “lion” simile in the Iliad by Michael Clarke 1995.
12
In the German original, Pohlenz 1956 writes, “ist Achilles nur von dem einen Drang
nach Rache erfulllt, der jeden ἔλεος erstickt”(“Furcht und Mitleid? Ein Nachwort” (54).
Translation by the author.
13
See Hammer 1997.
556 Achilles’ Character in the Iliad

culture, even as he refuses to participate in it, or he is seen as rejecting Achaian

culture and entering some non-cultural, unearthly realm, even as he continues to
occupy earthly space and interact with others.”14 Instead, as Hammer sees it, in
Achilles “Homer presents a challenge to the prevailing conceptions of warrior so-
ciety by inverting best and worst. To Achilles, the best of the Achaians, Homer gives
the voice of the vagabond, a person normally of broken descent without standing
in the community.”15 To a large extent, Achilles’ isolation from the community of
his comrades is self-imposed. Achilles refuses to be placated because of how deeply
he is insulted by the treatment he receives when Agamemnon claims Briseis for his
own.16 Even after Achilles is promised to have her back (9.274) along with many
other precious gifts from Agamemnon, he remains steadfast in his choice not to
join the ranks of those who fight against the Trojans. As James A. Arieti observes,
it is “[a]t the assembly [or], in that most civic of Greek contexts [that], Agamem-
non humiliates him; he not only threatens to take away Achilles' prize, but also he
scorns him, and treats him with contempt. In short, he does not treat him like a
fellow citizen, like a member of their society.”17 Having been excluded in this way,
Achilles does not wish to accept Agamemnon’s word or his superiority as a kingly
chieftain. Achilles does not want to be made subject to the same structure of mili-
tary rank and subordination as the rest of the warriors. Meanwhile, his extraordi-
nary capacity in battle and his partially divine origin already set him apart.18 Thus,
when responding to Odysseus’ request that he resume fighting, Achilles puts his
refusal to do so in terms that question the validity of convention and of his own
place in the chain of command.

14
Hammer 1997, 341.
15
Hammer 1997, 345. However, see Gregory Nagy 1998 who works to uphold Achilles’ heroic
stature and the desirable status of “the extraordinarily renowned kléos of Achilles” (41).
16
This very well known and much discussed moment in the Iliad – Agamemnon’s tak-
ing of Briseis – which provokes Achilles’ anger, is broached, for example, by Waller R. New-
ell 2016. Newell writes “The feud between the younger man and his elder is over who
should rightfully be given the captive Trojan woman Briseis as a trophy of war. Achilles
believes she is his by right because he has been by far the bravest warrior on the Greek
side. But Agamemnon claims her for his own because he is not merely a king, but the King
of Kings, the commander of the entire Greek force including Achilles” (18). I am less inter-
ested in external “causes” or pretexts of Achilles’ outbursts, and more concerned with the
internal psychology of this character, who on my reading, is an epic personification of rage.
On the psychology of Achilles’ anger see, for example, Nicolas Evzonas 2018.
17
Arieti 1986, 12.
18
On Achilles’ exceptionalism, see Elton Barker 2004.
 Marina Marren /ΣΧΟΛΗ Vol. 17. 2 (2023) 557

I will not persuade Agamemnon, nor you the other Danaans, for there is no grace in
fighting battles constantly against men. For the same fortune meets the one who stays
put and the one who would wage great war. And both the bad and the good are hon-
ored. Likewise, both the idle and the man of many deeds perish.

οὔτ᾽ ἔμεγ᾽ Ἀτρεΐδην Ἀγαμέμνονα πεισέμεν οἴω

οὔτ᾽ ἄλλους Δαναούς, ἐπεὶ οὐκ ἄρα τις χάρις ἦεν
μάρνασθαι δηΐοισιν ἐπ᾽ ἀνδράσι νωλεμὲς αἰεί.
ἴση μοῖρα μένοντι καὶ εἰ μάλα τις πολεμίζοι:
ἐν δὲ ἰῇ τιμῇ ἠμὲν κακὸς ἠδὲ καὶ ἐσθλός:
κάτθαν᾽ ὁμῶς ὅ τ᾽ ἀεργὸς ἀνὴρ ὅ τε πολλὰ ἐοργώς.
οὐδέ τί μοι περίκειται, ἐπεὶ πάθον ἄλγεα θυμῷ (9.315-20).

From the absolute point of view – in the fulness of all time – Achilles’ statement
makes sense. In other words, both human actions and human inaction are vastly
insignificant in the face of eternity. However, human life is finite. It is, precisely,
not absolute and not eternal. Therefore, those things which Achilles equates as in-
different (waging war or refraining from going into battle; the good and the bad;
idleness and action) make all the difference. In Achilles’ position, we get a glimpse
of the inhuman nature of ideals that outstrip a merely mortal human life and that
beckon with eternal glory. The call and the draw of such ideals may be powerful,
but it is impossible to manifest them in one’s own life. Thus, even Achilles must
die in order to “live up” to them.
This irresolvable opposition at the heart of Achilles’ character manifests as a
force of destruction; as a power that stamps out human life and disrupts the possi-
bility of its continuation. Hammer also argues that Achilles represents a disruptive
figure within the community of warriors and opposing cultures that the epic por-
trays. He casts this disruptive power in a more positive light than I do and claims,
that “we can identify in Achilles' words and actions in Book 9 … a cultural bias of
autonomy, a set of values that is in reaction to and ultimately destabilizing of the
hierarchical culture of Achaian society as portrayed by Homer.”19 However, on my
view, these contradicting characteristics (i.e., of being an outsider to the ideals of
the militaristic culture, on the one hand, but also being a paragon warrior or even
an embodiment of the very ideals and structures he rejects, on the other) indicate
an insidious duality within Achilles.
Achilles as a warrior – paradoxically – is someone who is infinitely better than
the rest of the Achaeans, and at the same time, he is someone who cannot be un-
problematically included as a rightful member of the community. This feature of

19
Hammer 1997, 341.
558 Achilles’ Character in the Iliad

Achilles’ character highlights the issue with idealizing militaristic prowess, which
if it comes into its own and to fruition, places the one to whom it belongs outside
of the very community that ostensibly is meant to be protected, benefited, and
saved by the exceptional warrior. Or to take it a step further, the idealized, or ex-
traordinary warrior has to commit such actions and be possessed of such a nature,
passions, and views that place this warrior outside of the human community alto-
gether. Thus, the ideals that glorify war and fame that comes with victory in con-
quest hold a vision of life that, in the final analysis, undermines human life.20
In taking this position, I do not seek to impose a pacifist interpretation upon
Homer’s epic. However, I aim to problematize the outright, unexamined, and sim-
plistic acceptance of those ideals, which seek to venerate military conquest, prow-
ess, and the alleged benefits of war. Although the said ideals beckon with all of the
power of poetic genius, this does not mean that the Iliad lacks self-awareness, and
is not critical of the life-negating power of the very ideals it so aptly portrays. The
epic lends itself to being read as a work that shows the terrible beauty of warmon-
gering ideals, and that – simultaneously – plays up their problematic nature. Be-
neath the valorizing and self-aggrandizing veneer, these ideals contain the kind of
wrathful passion that ends up destroying life – not only the lives of those who are
considered to be one’s “enemies,” but also and perhaps even more readily, the lives
of those who hold such ideals dear. Achilles’ character embodies the ruinous, and
yet powerfully seductive, nature of such ideals.

4. Achilles’ Desire for Patroclus as Achilles’ Egotistical Self-Love

As a representation of our longing for idealized images beneath which lies the
gruesome reality of war, Achilles longs for and loves himself. As I will argue in this
section, even Patroclus, whose death unleashes Achilles’ fury, turns out to be only
an occasion for Achilles to achieve his own immortal glory. The path to this fate,
which the gods foretell (18.95-96), ends up being woven out of awful pain, which
Achilles’ anger sows in its wake.21 In the aftermath of Hector’s slaying of Patroclus,
Achilles’ rage feeds on the fear and suffering of those he murders or causes to feel
pain. His wrath does not subside but grows deeper and more terrible. Seth
Benardete paints a stark picture of Achilles isolated by his all-consuming rage,
when he writes that “he becomes his sole object. He no longer has anything beyond

20
Andromache sees this sort of life-negating power in Achilles, who in her eyes embod-
ies the fury of the violent death itself (6.407-439).
21
P. V. Jones 1996 claims that Achilles has foreknowledge of his own death as early as
Book 1 (115).
 Marina Marren /ΣΧΟΛΗ Vol. 17. 2 (2023) 559

himself, on which he can vent his fury, but must always be reminded, and yet re-
main always unsated, by the past. … He can never escape from his own hell.”22 In
book 24, we really have a hellish vision of Achilles tormented by the pangs of his
furious, ghoulish rage. He can’t stop at taking Hector’s life, but he must inflict fur-
ther punishment upon Hector’s body. The scene in which Achilles can’t find peace
in sleep describes him thinking of Patroclus but lashing out against and desecrat-
ing the body of Hector.

Remembering [Patroclus]…, Achilles cried mightily. Lying down now on his side, now
on his back, now with his face down, now springing upright and deeply unsettled he
wondered along the seashore. Neither did the shining dawn escape his notice as she
appeared over the shore. But he yoked his speedy horses and bound Hector to the char-
iot and dragged him about tied behind. When he passed the mound of Menoetius’ dead
son thrice, he would take pause in his tent, but he would suffer Hector to be stretched
out with his face down in the dust.

τῶν μιμνησκόμενος θαλερὸν κατὰ δάκρυον εἶβεν,

10ἄλλοτ᾽ ἐπὶ πλευρὰς κατακείμενος, ἄλλοτε δ᾽ αὖτε
ὕπτιος, ἄλλοτε δὲ πρηνής: τοτὲ δ᾽ ὀρθὸς ἀναστὰς
δινεύεσκ᾽ ἀλύων παρὰ θῖν᾽ ἁλός: οὐδέ μιν ἠὼς
φαινομένη λήθεσκεν ὑπεὶρ ἅλα τ᾽ ἠϊόνας τε.
ἀλλ᾽ ὅ γ᾽ ἐπεὶ ζεύξειεν ὑφ᾽ ἅρμασιν ὠκέας ἵππους,
15Ἕκτορα δ᾽ ἕλκεσθαι δησάσκετο δίφρου ὄπισθεν,
τρὶς δ᾽ ἐρύσας περὶ σῆμα Μενοιτιάδαο θανόντος (24.9-18)

This is the image of Achilles unhinged by his desire for revenge, which Achilles
could not satiate even after he took countless lives and the life of the man who
unbeknownst to himself slew Patroclus. This is an image of implacable fury that
consumes the one who feels it, tightening the solipsistic circle in which Achilles
finds himself to start. Bernard Knox sees Achilles’ character in similar terms. Com-
paring Helen and Achilles, Knox writes that “[a]t the beginning of the Iliad, Helen
has already broken out of the prison of self-absorption, but this is the point at
which Achilles enters it. The Iliad shows us the origin, course and consequences of
his wrath, his imprisonment in a godlike, lonely, heroic fury from which all the rest
of the world is excluded.”23 The Iliad shows the aftermath of Achilles’ murderous

22
Benardete 1955, 2005, 131.
23
Knox 1990, 130. Although Helen, as Knox holds, may have worked her way out of self-
absorption and had an insight into herself as a person, “Helen” as a symbol of conquest
and a cause of war maintains the hold over men and gods of the Iliad. At the end of the
epic (24.25-30), Paris-Alexander’s choice of Aphrodite is directly connected to his desire
560 Achilles’ Character in the Iliad

rage, unmitigated by the abiding spirit of humanity.24 The first word of the Iliad
that invokes Achilles’ μῆνις, and sets the stage for the affective tenor of the epos,
also inscribes an inhuman passion into the fabric of all of the events that transpire
at Ilium. The Iliad, as much as it is about war, that is, about something that humans
pursue ubiquitously, raises sharply the question of inhumanity. Achilles’ implaca-
ble rage is the ground from which this question springs up in the Iliad – the ques-
tion of the proximity between the human and the inhumane.25
Just as Achilles’ fury, also his erotic desire, is totalizing in a sense of being solip-
sistic. Achilles’ eros closes the world of genuine relationships off for him, instead
of opening it up. As Knox argues, with Achilles, it has never really been about Pa-
troclus. It has always only been about Achilles. As Knox sees it, “[c]learly what he
[Achilles] really wishes for is a world containing nothing but himself and his own
glory, for Patroclus, whom he now sends out in his own armor, he regards as a part
of himself. This solipsistic dream of glory” is what defines Achilles’ character and
propels his actions.26 Patroclus’ death is an occasion for Achilles to fulfill his wish,

for Helen, and to the subsequent grievances that Hera, Athena, and Poseidon have against
him and the Trojans. Thus, Helen – to a large extent – remains the symbol of desire, which
breads faction not only among men, but also among gods. Chris J. Mackie 2013 offers a
contextualized reading of “the single reference to the Judgement of Paris within its context
in the final book of the Iliad” (15).
24
On Achilles’ rage, violence of war, and dehumanization as well as and in relation to
pain see Elaine Scarry 1985; Brooke Holmes 2007; Seth L. Schein 1984 (esp., 128–167). For a
thorough study of the problematic heroic psychology in the Iliad, see Christopher Gill
1996.
25
One of the ways in which inhumanity is played up in the epic and tragic literature as
well as in philosophy (e.g., Plato) and myth, is by means of a comparison that is drawn
between a human being and an animal. This is not to say that animals, somehow, are mon-
strous but rather that humans lose critical features of their being when they begin to act
in ways that are characteristic of certain kinds of animals. For example, Christian Wolff
1979 claims that “Achilles, mourning his failure to save Patroklos, is like a lion who has
returned too late to his lair and found his cubs stolen (18.318ff.)” (145). On attributing the
image of a lion to an enraged Achilles, see further, Alessandra Abbattista 2018.
26
Knox 1990, 137. Knox sees the Iliad as containing Achilles’ journey that eventuates in
his “return to human stature” (130). However, from my point of view, Achilles does not
truly reflect on the import and consequences of his actions while being alive. This kind of
reflection only becomes available to Achilles after his death and in Hades. We have a con-
firmation of this transformation that Achilles undergoes in Bk. 11 of the Odyssey. See also
Arieti 1985, whose analysis of Achilles’ character runs counter to my view. Arieti argues
instead that Achilles experiences guilt and that, moreover, it is the inaugural instance of
guilt, which signifies the birth of consciousness in the classical world. In conclusion, Arieti
 Marina Marren /ΣΧΟΛΗ Vol. 17. 2 (2023) 561

which Benardete says is a desire “to be absolute.”27 Furthermore, Benardete contin-

ues, “the loneliness of Achilles’ guilt and the vastness of his grief, … has nothing to
do with the everyday world, but corresponds to the fantasy he himself has made.”28
Especially, when he learns of the death of Patroclus, Achilles exemplifies this de-
scription of being encircled within a self-made, fantastical vision of the world. The
following lines express the self-enclosing character of Achilles’ relationship to the
other – his dearest other – which ends up being just the same as himself:

I held Patroclus above all other comrades and even as dear as my own self. He is the
one I lost. Hector chanced to kill him and strip this mighty, beautiful armor, wondrous
to behold, that the gods gave as splendid gifts to the son of Peleus.

Πάτροκλος, τὸν ἐγὼ περὶ πάντων τῖον ἑταίρων ἶσον ἐμῇ κεφαλῇ; τὸν
ἀπώλεσα, τεύχεα δ᾽ Ἕκτωρ δῃώσας ἀπέδυσε πελώρια θαῦμα ἰδέσθαι καλά:
τὰ μὲν Πηλῆϊ θεοὶ δόσαν ἀγλαὰ δῶρα, 81-85.

Thus, letting Patroclus wear his armor and fight in his stead, Achilles has not
only condemned Patroclus to death (as the rhapsode tells us in line 16.47), but he
also made a choice to die; he already has let go of that person he loved most, that
is, Achilles himself.29
The poetic, imagistic form of the Iliad matches the flight of fantastical passion.
The passion that Achilles represents is a furious, rage-filled desire to outstrip one’s
life and to become larger than life; to substitute one’s mortal self for a self that has
attained to immortal glory. A life in a community with others, a life shared with
friends, a prudent, thoughtful life gives way to a ruinous quest for immortality. Achil-
les is an embodiment of this idealized image of conquest-seeking war. It beckons
with extraordinary hubris. It promises undying fame, but for mortals to fall prey to
this idealized vision of war, means to substitute life for a phantom; it means to agree
to take lives and to lay down one’s life for the sake of an egomaniacal fantasy.30

writes about Achilles that “he alone confronts a higher moral dilemma, a moral dilemma
which raises the poem to a monumental level in the history of humanity, and begins the
search for a morality not based on public opinion, but on individual responsibility” (203).
27
Benardete 1955, 2005, 101.
28
Benardete 1955, 2005, 132.
29
On the death of Patroclus as a substitute for Achilles’ death, see Nadia Van Brock 1959.
30
As Ledbetter 1993 sees it, “[b]eginning with book 16, then, Patroclus can be seen as
the alter ego of Achilles, and ultimately his substitute in death” (482, fn. 2).
562 Achilles’ Character in the Iliad

5. Conclusion

Achilles’ fantastical vision of the world and of himself as well as his rage are the
images that help us see the Iliad’s internal criticism of military ideals that propel
aggressive, conquest-oriented war. When stripped of their allure, these ideals
loosen their hold on our imaginations. We begin to see that not only are they less
than deserving of admiration, but also that while we are enraptured by them, we
are flirting with inhumanity – be it expressed as adoration of eternal glory or as
blind worship of extraordinary military power.31 The Iliad contains this critique of
perilous ideals, while also presenting us with overpoweringly beautiful images that
poeticize war. The epic does not offer a pacifist critique of war. However, it raises
questions about the human propensity to be swayed and inspired by ideals that, in
the final analysis and in earnest, undermine human life. The retribution for the
actions committed in accordance with and for the sake of these ravenous ideals, as
Weil puts it, “has a geometrical rigor, which operates automatically to penalize the
abuse of force.”32 The relationship between retribution and the hubristic exercise
of power was “the main subject of Greek thought” and “[i]t is the soul of the epic.”33
The truth of the warmongering ideals is that if pursued, they lead to terrible
suffering, gruesome violence, and senseless annihilation of life. The idealized, ter-
rible attractiveness of war – in reality – has an ugly side, which the Iliad expresses
in Achilles’ solipsism and his choice to destroy himself through the destruction of
countless others, including the other who he claims to love as himself. The others,
for Achilles, are merely an occasion to exit this life in order to become larger than
life. Likewise, military ideals that celebrate and promote the love of glory earned
through conquest devalue human life. If we act according to these ideals, then we
turn human life into a means of self-aggrandizement and we do so not for the sake
but at the expense of life.

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