Killing as many warriors as possible, stripping their armor, and taking over great cities and their wealth, was the was an individual sought honor and glory and avoided shame in Homer’s The Iliad. Individuals can claim these gifts throughout their li

“Your son is given back to you, aged sir, as you asked it”. (24:599) This is the high point that Achilleus will reach. This part he agrees to give back the body of Hektor to his father, so all the Trojans can give him proper burial and mourn their hero. Achilleus returns Hektor’s body for a ransom that he knows he will never get to enjoy. It is as if he is accepting nothing. He declined Agamemnon’s gifts as a bribe, and now he returns the body of Hektor. The body of the individual who destroyed his most loyal and best friend was the person whom he kept as his greatest war trophy. We know from the foreshadowing that Homer writes that Achilleus is going to die when the war continues. This was his last action in The Iliad and the most honorable moment that he will have ever had.

Achilleus has accomplished his farewell to Patroklos, but this is where he should have stopped and ended his reign of terror. He makes a fool of Hektor by dragging his dead carcass from the back of his chariot. This attempt to glorify himself by use of war is the last attempt he has and seems as an act that only brings him shame. He goes too far and mocks Hektor’s body in the same fashion he gloriously fights against him in the previous battle. Hektor’s wife claims that Achilleus action may have ended Hektor’s pride: “I fear that Achilleus might have cut off bold Hektor / alone, away from the city, and be driving him into the flat land / might put an end to that bitter pride of courage, that always / was on him” (22:454-57)

In Book Twenty Achilleus returns to the battlefield after avoiding war for so long. His guilt and hostility for the death of Patrok

Some topics in this essay:
Myrmidons War, Odysseus Hector, Iliad Individuals, Twenty Achilleus, Homer’s Iliad, Book Nine, Patroklos Achilleus, Achilleus Killing, honor glory, Homeric Age, Ancient Greece, body hektor, gained honor glory, hektor’s body, hero achilleus, gain honor, homer’s iliad, achilleus returns, dragging dead, achilleus action, death patroklos, gain honor glory,