John Paul Benedict B.

Aves Eng 12

I – BA English Studies WFX2 2:30-4

Achilles: Heroism & Nation

The anti-hero is perhaps the most fascinating heroic archetype in fiction. They are heroes

sans the customary attributes of honor and a strong moral compass. Often unwilling to take a role

in battle, they are dragged into the situation by circumstances, not by purpose, but they nevertheless

exhibit heroism by saving the day. In The Iliad, we also confront an unconventional hero. The

Greek hero Achilles might possess the extraordinary strength and superhuman abilities we

associate with a traditionally heroic warrior, but some of his actions and motivations defy such

definition. He is a demigod, born to be one of the greatest warriors, but he threw in the towel amid

the most important battle of his time.

Achilles might not be the quintessential anti-hero, but in most of The Iliad, he appears to

be a reluctant and self-absorbed man with no sense of ethics and respect towards his people and,

to an extent, the idea of nationhood. But, most evidently towards the end, his recognition of

authority and the hierarchical power dynamics of the Greek forces, and profound understanding of

brotherhood, tradition and loyalty did a lot to unify the Greek forces, further their cause and

eventually strengthen that primitive notion of the Greek nation.

Achilles bravely served the Greeks as their most prominent warrior-hero and the leader of

the Myrmidons since the beginning of the campaign against Troy. Even if the entire reason for the

war did not directly affect him or his people, he nevertheless pledged to join the coalition that

single-handedly united the Greeks. Doing so necessitated his recognition of the authority of

Agamemnon, king of Mycenae and leader of all Greek forces. Unfortunately, the exact cause of
such alliance was never elaborated by Homer. For nine years in the war, we can only assume that

Achilles faithfully served the Greek cause as its brave warrior. We can already assess the time that

Achilles battled for the Greek cause as his affirming view of the idea of nationhood in terms of

how the military forms the nation. Even if the cause for war is abstract and at times questionable,

soldiers still choose to honor their code and go to battle in order to defend and protect their nation,

no questions asked. This is crucial in nation-building as it protects not only the physical aspect of

the nation but also its abstract side, which is far more significant in galvanizing nationhood. This

early on, Achilles’ agreement to the coalition of different city-states in Ancient Greece, united not

even by language (scholars also believe that people in Troy also spoke Greek by this time) or

culture per se but by a common geographic position and enemy, can already be considered as his

positive view on the idea of nationhood.

However, that position is challenged after Agamemnon, his superior, went against the

advice of the rest of the Greek leaders and refused to return Achilles’ war-prize concubine Briseis.

Feeling dishonored by his leader, or de facto head of his nation, Achilles removed himself and the

entire Myrmidon force from the war. It only took one man’s egotistical act to wound another one’s

pride, ego and archaic sense of honor enough for him to jeopardize ten years of fighting. Ten years

of shedding blood, suffering loss, enjoying concubines and being away from their homeland

together failed to establish among the Greeks a strong and unifying foundation, an esprit de corps,

that a feud over a war-prize cannot break. For several times, they were even close to giving up the

campaign they fought for ten years in order to return to their homeland immediately. Certainly,

the Greek cause paid the pride for it. Achilles’ departure from this weak union proved fatal to the

Greeks, causing low morale among their ranks and leading them to suffer loss after loss. The split

reveals the fragility of this early nation and the shallowness of Achilles’ connection to that nation.
Nevertheless, there exists a connection as Achilles never really deserted the Greek forces and went

back home. He just left the battlefield and sulked in his ships with his people.

This is where we can start to see Achilles as an anti-hero. A conventional hero would not

have withdrawn from the battle because of such reason. He/she/they would not have done anything

that would divide his/her/their people and disrupt their morale. In his refusal to fight while the rest

of his fellowmen died at the hands of the Trojans, we can see him for what he is – a selfish man

with a troublesome sense of honor, fueled by superhuman rage, bent on bloodshed for individual

glory. He might be their best warrior who knows how crucial his participation is to Greek victory,

but he purposely left the fighting because his ego or sense of honor was hurt. Agamemnon,

Odysseus and the other great Greek heroes even tried to console him with rewards and begged him

to return to battle, but to no avail. Achilles’ rage is indeed central to the story. If before the split,

his rage translated to bloodlust and drove him to butcher Trojan warriors, his rage against

Agamemnon made him stubborn in his egotism.

This rage within Achilles reached its peak with the unexpected death of his cousin and

alleged lover Patroclus at the hands of Trojan hero Hector. It turned the tide of battle as it drew

him back to the war for the singular purpose of seeking revenge. His rage brought him to kill a

great lot of his enemies and fight even the river Scamander. His legendary duel with Hector ended

in his refusal to enter into a pact of honor, as demonstrated by his mutilation of his greatest enemy’s

body and his intention to deprive Troy of their right to give their hero fitting burial rites. This

might be proof of his utter disregard for ethics and lack of integrity, but it is, above all, a supreme

act of brotherhood and loyalty to Patroclus. And these bonds and values are central to the

fortification of a nation. By his actions, Achilles showed that he understood that. He strengthened

those bonds and relationships by making the mourning of Patroclus a significant and public event.
He went the extra mile to emphasize the significance of brotherhood by opening games for the

troops, involving the whole Greek forces in the burial rites and publicly maiming Hector in honor

of Patroclus. This effectively boosted the morale of the fighters. He tapped into those values and

relationships through symbolic pageantries and traditions to rouse comradeship, rally the troops,

unite the coalition and thus advance the idea of nationhood.

The death of Patroclus deeply affected Achilles’ role in the development of that primitive

Greek nation. If he undermined Agamemnon’s authority as his superior in most of The Iliad, after

Patroclus’ death, he respected his place in the hierarchy, relying on the Mycenean king and “chief

of Achaea’s united forces” to unify the troops in honoring Patroclus. He acknowledged the power

structure as he remarked that Agamemnon is “the first the armies will obey.” His feud with

Agamemnon should never be considered as a manifestation of averseness on his part towards

nationhood. One must remember that, much more than being about pride and ego, their conflict

was also about Achilles rebuking Agamemnon for violating the codes of honor and fairness that

warriors must uphold. It might have hurt the Greek campaign, but it did not attack the very idea of

nationhood. If the purpose of challenging one’s leader is to defend the values and principles that

are vital to the nation, then, by all means, Achilles was in the right. The leader might be an integral

element of the nation but the two are not equivalents.

That turning point, more than anything else, formed Achilles’ conception of a nation. He

viewed the coalition of Greek forces as a nation not so much because Agamemnon ruled them all

or because they hailed from the same archipelago. They were a nation not only because they had

shared traditions, cultures and language. As early as then, they were already a nation united by

their shared set of experiences of triumphs, trials and losses in a glorious battle they waged
together. That is why all the Greek forces, not just the Myrmidons, mourned the death of Patroclus

with him.

The death of Patroclus also reminded him of the ideals that are vital to the nation: that

brotherhood, comradeship, family and strong human relationships are the foundation of every

nation, and that tradition and loyalty possess the power to develop some esprit de corps or evoke

a sense of oneness and unity. Achilles’ stubborn and egotistic attitude towards his superior might

paint him as an anti-hero whose selfishness jeopardized the Greek campaign, but he nevertheless,

albeit arrogantly, challenged Agamemnon to protect their code of honor, no matter how archaic it

is. He was not only a uniting figure who brought the greatest pride to his people. His actions also

had a huge role in nurturing that young yet budding Greek nation. Indeed, Achilles recognized

nationhood, what builds it and what keeps it forward.