On Achilles of the Myrmidons and His Significance to Homer's Iliad

Achilles is the son of Thetis, a Nereid (sea-goddess), and Peleus, the king of Thessalian Phthia. Before Achilles was born, and even before his mother met his father, there was already a prophecy about Achilles. It was said that the son Thetis would bear would be princely, would be more powerful than his father, and would wield a weapon more powerful than Zeus’s thunderbolt or Poseidon’s trident. This was a bit dangerous because at that time, both Zeus and Poseidon were pursuing the beautiful Thetis. It was either Themis or Prometheus who told the two gods about this prophecy and the gods, being who they were (beings on whom mortal emotions get multiplied a hundredfold), felt so threatened that they encouraged Thetis to accept Peleus, a mortal king who can’t possibly beget an immortal son, “so that she may see her son die in battle”. Thus, Achilles was prophesied to either die gloriously and young in battle or live a really long life in obscurity.

Thetis, as a mother, can’t accept this fate given to her and her son that she brought her baby to the Underworld’s River Styx and dipped him in its black waters that he may grow invulnerable except for his heel with which she held him by. This was the story behind Achilles’ might and the explanation to the phrase “Achilles’ heel”.

When the Trojan War came about, Achilles was the leader of the Myrmidons, a group of strong and tireless warriors who excelled in battle. Achilles was not to be a part of this war, but Odysseus, after hearing from the prophet Calchas that the Greeks definitely won’t win without Achilles, enlisted the help of the great warrior and his Myrmidons.

When the Greek army first set sail towards Troy (is debated to be Hisarlik, a part of modern-day Turkey), they got lost and landed instead on Mysia where Heracles’ (Hercules) son, Telephus, ruled over. The people of Mysia managed to defend their land when the Greek army started attacking them but their king Telephus was injured by Achilles during the fight. It was said that no one other than Achilles could heal him and the hero agreed to do so in exchange for guidance to Troy. In another stop-over, this time in Aulis, Agamemnon mistakenly kills a deer favoured by the goddess Artemis and the only way to appease her was to offer Agamemnon’s first daughter, Iphigenia. The poor girl was lured to the island by the promise of a marriage to Achilles. When Achilles found out, he was so angry that he tried to go against everyone’s wishes and save the girl but eventually, Iphigenia agreed to being sacrificed so the army can go on its course. Later, when the Greeks were near Troy, they landed at Tenedos and against his mother’s wishes, Achilles actually killed Tenes, the king of that land and the son of Apollo. This explains why Apollo had it in so much for Achilles but these events also tells us that there might not even be a Trojan war if it wasn’t for Achilles!

In the Trojan War’s ninth year, the story goes that the Greeks just recently captured two girls (one for Agamemnon and one for Achilles) but one of them, Chryseis, had a father who was a priest of Apollo and who prayed to the god to help him get the Greeks to return his daughter, so Apollo happily sent down a plague on the army. Agamemnon eventually agreed to give the girl back but he also took Achilles’ own war prize, Briseis, as compensation. Achilles was so enraged and insulted that he vowed not to take part in the war anymore. He even asked his mother to get Zeus to side with the Trojans so the Greeks, and especially Agamemnon, will realize just how much they needed Achilles and that they made a grave mistake by driving him away. These actions of Achilles affected the flow of the war so much that from a status of stalemate, the Trojans actually started getting arrogant from being able to defeat the Greeks in their recent skirmishes (this without Achilles in the war and with Zeus on their side).

Achilles was even starting to pack up and leave: given the choice of having his name etched on the stone of eternity but dying in a war of a king he hated or going home to expire old and forgotten, he’d rather choose the latter. This was before his closest friend, Patroclus, asked to borrow Achilles’ armor, impersonated him in battle to encourage the men (a lame attempt at trying to get back up on their feet), and died by Hector’s sword.

That was the straw that finally made Achilles snap and re-join the battle (much to Agamemnon’s delight) with a shiny, new, Hephaestus-brand, designer armor. From this point on, Achilles knew he was going to die but whatever, right? He was so blinded by the thirst for revenge that he single-handedly brought the newly eager and bloodlust-fuelled Greek army to the gates of Troy itself leaving a wake of Trojan corpses behind them (the Trojan army was camping outside the gates; apparently, they didn’t get the news of Achilles heading straight for them on his chariot).

Not long after, Achilles killed Troy’s greatest warrior and the general of its army, Prince Hector, and even dragged the Prince’s body around the city walls several times as a show of strength and also probably to appease hi angered heart. In any other war, without all the gods intervening, this act would have greatly influenced the course of events (the morale of the dead prince’s troops would sink while the opposite for the enemies). To put it mildly, Achilles started Troy’s losing streak. In words truer for us, Achilles was the personal bane of Troy (along with Odysseus, it would seem, but that is another story for another time); it was not Agamemnon, it was not the Greek army – at the very beginning, it was prophesied they wouldn’t have won without Achilles.

Achilles may have had a hot temper and a proud demeanor but he is not Greece’s greatest hero for nothing! There may not have been a Trojan War in real life, but giant names like Achilles existed to make giant reputations for blind men like Homer and giant epics out of stories like Iliad.

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