I’d like to take the extra time I have at my disposal now (desk job with internet acces) to write a new series of articles. The theme of the series will be heroes. But not just heroes, oh no. I have selected 9 indivduals from various eras of history and corners of the Earth that I believe are true shining examples of mankind.

 To illustrate, whenever I am in doubt regarding a future course of action (e.g. Shall I do this or that) I turn to 2 inner resources. First is the wheel. Second is picturing any one of the following heroes in a simular situation and imagining what they would do. After all, there is no shame in imitating greatness. Furthermore it serves as an extra motivation to keep the greatests of history in the back of your head. Because do you honestly think Alexander the Great, who conquered the known world back then was weak and feeble? Do you think Genghis Khan who forged the largest empire ever was shy? Or that Napoleon didn’t know how to get shit done? All of the answers on those question should be a solid no.

 But let us now advance to the main character of today; Achilles, Hero of the Trojan War. Let’s start with the question of his actual existence. Seeing as the entire war supposedly took place around 1000 BC, it is not a great surprise that scholars worldwide disagree wether it is actually real or not. Apparently conflicts concerning the ownership of Troy were rather common, so a big war must have surely taken place one at time or another. Furthermore, ‘Achilles’ was an actual common name during that period (don’t ask me how they know this). Consult the wikipedia page for further reading. For the purpose of this article, I will give my own spin to it and assume there was indeed a war for historic Troy. And in this war fought a son of a Myrmidon king; Achilles. Of course I will cut through all the divine intervention bullshit.

 Biography

First a little something about Achilles. Like mentioned he was the son of the king of the Myrmidons, according to Homer (the author of the Iliad (Trojan war book for the barbarians)) fierce warriors. Achilles was generally regarded as unbeatable. According to the legend he was not only the most pretty boy in town, but also the deadliest and fastest of all the warriors. This of course has to be offset by the fact that he was mentally instable. He was said to experience ‘consuming rage’, what can quite possible be what they called ‘he goes completely insane at times’.

 But let us begin, according to several sources, Achilles was orignally hidden in the court of another king (king Lycomedes for those that care) and disguised as a girl to live amongst the kings daughter, all this to keep him away from essentiallly being drafted for the war. For some odd reason (oracle shit) however Odysseus (another hero) was convinced to that they needed Achilles to win the war. Long story short; he found him and of to Troy they went.

 During the war Achilles was in command of the Myrmidon warriors, one may consider them the elite. Commander of the combined Greek forces (including Achilles and his band) was king Agamemnon. Now it goes without saying that Achilles absolutely devestated the opponents. Up until Agamemnon made a fatal mistake. Namely the Greeks captured an actrative woman called Hippodameia during the war and gave her to Achilles as a price. Of course Achilles fell in love. But then Agamemnon came in and screwed things up for his troops by taking Hippodameia from him to keep as his own.

 Furious Achilles immediately withdraws his troops from the war. This enables the Trojans, under command of their own hero Hector, to fight back succesfully and nearly wiping out the Greeks. When the Greeks were on the verge of defeat, Achilles allowed his friend Patroclus to take a group of myrmidons and save their countrymen. While succesful, Hector slays Patroclus during the fighting. This triggers the Achilles Rage mentioned before and he goes on a glorious killing spree. Eventually Hector and Achilles dual it out in their own epic fight with Achilles as the victor. He then proceeds to famously drag the body of the slain Trojan hero behind his chariot for an extended period of time (some say 9 days, some say 7 times around the city etc.).

 The rest is pretty uneventful, the final part of importance is the fact that Achilles is finally killed by Paris (Trojan prince if I recal correctly) by a poisoned arrow after Troy has already fallen. A final note regards Achilles’ armour. After his death, the two Greek heroes Odysseus and Ajax contested for the priceless piece of metal. The exact nature of the contest varies, ranging from voting to fighting, but in all instances Odysseus wins. Ajax goes insane, slays some cattle and then offs himself.

 Thus concludes the epic of Achilles

 Legacy

No hero is complete without a legacy to boot. Achilles was to enter myth or history (depending on whom you ask) as the greatest hero of the Trojan war and of that age in general. Furthermore he has a freeking body part named after him, the Achilles’ Heel. But the reason I chose him to start of this series is because Achilles was the ultimate badass. He was the greatest warrior of the time, damn well knew it and took full advantage of it. If he didn’t get what he wanted he would simply withdraw from combat (which you can get away with if the victory depends on you). And finally because the fact that he died at all was in that time generally regarded as a personal intervention from the gods.

 All this combined makes Achilles quite awesome and worthy of kicking off this here series.

Next up; Sun Tzu

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 13th, 2008 at 1:14 pm and is filed under Philosophy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.