Achilles and Hector
Achilles Stop 2 of 3
In brief
- Achilles had sat out most of the war over a quarrel with Agamemnon, until Hector killed his companion Patroclus, who had gone out wearing Achilles' armour.
- He came back to the field in new armour forged by Hephaestus and drove the Trojans inside their walls, where Hector alone stayed outside the gate.
- Hector ran three times around the city before turning to fight; Achilles killed him and dragged the body behind his chariot until Priam came in person to ask for it back.
Achilles had withdrawn from the fighting in the war's ninth year, over an insult from Agamemnon, and the Greeks had been losing ever since. Patroclus, unable to watch it any longer, asked to borrow the armour and lead the Myrmidons out, just to frighten the Trojans back from the ships. It worked, and then it went too far. Hector killed him under the walls and stripped the armour off the body.
Achilles came back for that reason and no other. His mother brought him a new panoply made by Hephaestus overnight, and he went out in it and drove the Trojan army through the plain and in through their own gates. Only Hector stayed outside, against everything his parents called down from the wall.
When Achilles came on he ran. They went around the city three times, past the springs where the women of Troy had washed clothes in peacetime, with the whole army watching. Then Hector turned, believing his brother had come up to stand with him. There was no brother; Athena had taken the shape of one to stop him running. He understood, asked only that his body be given back to his family, and fought.
Achilles refused him even that. He killed him, pierced his ankles, and dragged him behind the chariot in the dust. It ended eleven days later, when Priam crossed the lines alone at night, knelt in the tent of the man who had killed his son, and kissed his hands to ask for the body.
