Troy  Adoni Maropis as Agamemnon's

Directed by Wolfgang Petersen officer.

 Jacob Smith as Messenger boy.
Cast
 Retxed Karpintero as Old Spartan
Greeks fisherman.
 Lucie Barat as Helen's handmaiden.
 Brad Pitt as Achilles - Son
of Peleus and Thetis. Leader of the Trojans
Myrmidons.
 Diane Kruger as Helen - Queen of  Eric Bana as Hector - Prince of Troy
Sparta and wife of Menelaus. Lover of and the best warrior among the Trojans.
Paris. Eldest son of Priam, brother of Paris and

 Sean Bean as Odysseus - King of husband of Andromache.

Ithaca and friend of Achilles. Considered  Orlando Bloom as Paris - Prince of

the wisest among the Greeks. Troy. Youngest son of Priam, brother of

 Brendan Gleeson as Menelaus - King of Hector and lover of Helen.

Sparta and husband of Helen. Brother of  Peter O'Toole as Priam - King of Troy
Agamemnon. and father of Hector and Paris.

 Brian Cox as Agamemnon - King of  Rose Byrne as Briseis - Priestess of

Mycenae. Brother of Menelaus. Apollo and cousin of Hector and Paris.

 Garrett Hedlund as Patroclus - Cousin Lover of Achilles.

and student of Achilles.  Saffron Burrows as Andromache -

 Tyler Mane as Ajax - King of Salamis. Princess of Troy and wife of Hector.

Second to Achilles among the Greeks in  James Cosmo as Glaucus -

terms of fighting skills. Commanding general of the Trojan army.

 John Shrapnel as Nestor - Adviser of  Nigel Terry as Archeptolemus - Trojan

Agamemnon. high priest and adviser of Priam.

 Vincent Regan as Eudoros - Captain of  Trevor Eve as Velior - Trojan priest.

the Myrmidons.  Mark Lewis Jones as Tecton - Captain
 Julie Christie as Thetis - Mother of of the Apollonian Guard.
Achilles.  Owain Yeoman as Lysander - Captain
 Ken Bones as Hippasus - Adviser of of the Trojan army.
Menelaus.  Frankie Fitzgerald as Aeneas - Trojan
 Julian Glover as Triopas - King of youth.
Thessaly.
 Nathan Jones as Boagrius - Thessalian
champion. Plot
 Siri Svegler as Polydora - Spartan
entertainer.
In Sparta, Prince Hector (Eric Bana) and his
young brother Paris (Orlando
negotiate peace between Troy and Sparta.
Paris has fallen in love with Helen (Diane
Kruger), Menelaus' (Brendan Gleeson) wife.
He smuggles her back to Troy with him.
Infuriated, Menelaus vows revenge.
Meanwhile, Agamemnon (Menelaus' brother),
who had for years harbored plans
conquering Troy (which would give him
control of the Aegean Sea), uses this as a
justification to invade
General Nestor (John Shrapnel) asks him to
take Achilles (Brad Pitt), to rally troops to the
cause.
Odysseus (Sean Bean) visits Phtia
persuade Achilles to fight, and finds him
training withPatroclus (Garrett Hedlund), his
cousin.
The Greeks land at Troy and take control of
the beach, landing their ships. Achilles and
theMyrmidons kill many Trojans
desecrate the temple of Apollo. Briseis (Rose
Byrne), a member of the Trojan royal family,
is captured and taken as a prize to the
Greeks, despite Achilles' claim to her.
Achilles and his Myrmidons do not fight the
next day because of Agamemnon's unfair
claim to Briseis. With Greeks surrounding
Troy, Paris challenges Menelaus to a duel to
settle things. Menelaus agrees. Paris is easily
defeated, and wounded, but not
Hector intervenes and kills Menelaus. The
Greeks charge the Trojan lines but are forced
to fall back.
Agamemnon gives Briseis to his men, but
Achilles rescues her. He carries her back to
his tent and tends her wounds. Briseis then
tries to kill Achilles, but realizes that she
Bloom) loves Achilles and the two have sex. The
next day Achilles is readying his men to
leave, much to Patroclus' indignation.
The Trojans launch a surprise attack. As the
Greeks seem to be on the verge of defeat,
Achilles appears with the Myrmidons and
joins the battle, eventually fighting against
for
Hector. All are shocked when Achilles is
beaten by Hector. However, Hector kneels
and pulls Achilles' helmet off revealing it was
Troy.
really Patroclus whom he has mortally
wounded. Both armies agree to end fighting
for the day, and Odysseus informs Hector
who he had killed. Achilles, who had slept
to through the battle, is told by Eudorus of his
cousin's death. The Greeks had also
mistaken Patroclus for Achilles, since he had
put on the same armour, and moved the
same: Achilles furiously vows revenge. Later
that night, Achilles lights Patroclus's funeral
pyre.
and
The next day, Achilles approaches the gates
of Troy alone and demands Hector to come
out and face him. The two fight an evenly
matched duel at the start, but Achilles soon
takes the advantage. In the end Achilles kills
Hector. He then ties the body to the back of
his chariot, dragging it back to the Greek
camp, leaving all the Trojans shocked. That
night, King Priam (Peter O'Toole) visits the
Greek army's camp to retrieve Hector's
killed.
body. After the King makes his plea Achilles
acquiesces to his request and allows him to
take his son to be buried, promising him the
12 days for funerary rites. Achilles lets Priam
take Briseis back as well. He later gives
Eudorus one last order: to take the
Myrmidons home.
 Briseis to join Paris as they escape the city.
Achilles watches the others flee, then dies of
Maquette Trojan Horse, used in Troy film, a his wounds. The soldiers arrive to see the
gift from Brad Pitt to the Turkish fallen Achilles with only a single arrow
townCanakkale. through his heel, as he had removed all the

During the twelve days while Troy mourns others from his chest, fulfilling the myth that

Hector's death, the Greeks plan to enter the Achilles was killed by a single arrow to the

city using a hollowed-out wooden horse, heel. Funeral rituals are performed for him in

devised by Odysseus, desperate to stem the the ruins of Troy the next day. The film ends

slaughter of his own men at the hands of the with a speech from Odysseus; "If they ever

Trojans. The Greeks leave the horse at their tell my story, let them say I walked with

camp, then depart, hiding their ships in a giants. Men rise and fall like the winter

nearby cove. Priam believes his priests that wheat, but these names will never die. Let

the horse is an offering to Poseidonand a gift. them say I lived in the time of Hector, tamer

Assuming victory, the Trojans take the horse of horses. Let them say I lived in the time of

into the city and celebrate. A band of Greeks Achilles."

come out of the horse at night, opening the

gates to the city, allowing the main army to
enter. The unprepared Trojans are
overwhelmed. As the city burns,
Agamemmnon and Odysseus fight their way
with their army to the palace, killing Glaucus
and Priam in the onslaught.

While Troy is sacked, Paris

sees Aeneas together with Andromache and
Helen and many others escaping Troy
through a secret passage and hands him the
sword of Troy, saying, "As long as it remains
in the hands of a Trojan, our people have a
future. Protect them Aeneas; find them a
new home."

Achilles searches desperately for Briseis, who

is being threatened by Agamemnon. She kills
him with a concealed knife, and is saved
from his guards by Achilles. While Achilles is
helping Briseis to her feet, Paris shoots
Achilles in his vulnerable heel, and then
several times in the torso. Briseis runs to
Achilles, surprising Paris. Achilles urges

The Trojan War Story told in the Iliad
The Iliad (meaning a song about Ilium) and
the Odyssey are Greek epic poems,
conventionally attributed to a singularly
talented poet named Homer, who lived in the
east Greek region of Ionia in the 8th century
B.C.E. Most scholars today, however, question
the idea that one singer-poet composed either
or both poems, at least not as we would
imagine a poet composing today. Further, a
growing number of scholars contest the
8thcentury date of composition. There were
multiple Trojan War story traditions developing
at that time; homeric epic is not the earliest
nor did it emerge as especially influential or
important until the 6th century B.C.E. That
much said, in classical antiquity the songs that
became our Iliad andOdyssey did eventually
achieve a unique and honorific status, which
lived on in western European culture and
literature.
People today know the Iliad as a book, usually
printed as lines of poetry and translated from
the ancient Greek into English or another
modern language. They experience it in the
silence and solitude of reading. The first lines
plunge most contemporary readers into the
middle of an unfamiliar story populated by
dozens of equally unfamiliar characters. The
modern-day encounter with the Iliad however,
is unlike that of most Greeks in the ancient
world, especially before the time of Alexander
the Great at the end of the 4th century B.C.E.
Outside of a lettered elite in the historical
period, most ancient Greeks would have read
Homer rarely if at all. Instead, from childhood,
they would have heard Trojan War poetry,
including precursors to our Iliad, sung by poet-
singers in feasting halls and during regional
athletic festivals or musical competitions. The
basic plot and the cast of characters were not
only common knowledge, they were woven
into the fabric of Greek social and cultural life.
In early Greek settlements and cities, largely
isolated by their location on islands or in the
mountainous terrain of the southern Balkan
peninsula, a rich variety of local versions grew
up around the basic plot of the Trojan War
story. The names of Trojan War heroes were
figured into the genealogies of local elites and
memorialized on civic ritual occasions. The
visual world was richly imbued with images of
the Trojan War. In their cities and in regional
sanctuaries, ancient Greeks could have looked
up at Trojan War scenes sculpted into temple

pediments. They poured wine from ceramic
vessels depicting the war's events, sometimes
even identifying characters by name. Further,
those fortunate enough to boast a hero's grave
in their locale believed they enjoyed his special
beneficence and they responded with rituals of
worship at his tomb.
In the 7th and 6th centuries B.C.E. the
development of regional sanctuaries, such as
Olympia and Delphi, occasioned a new
direction in Trojan War epic song; the
development is commonly referred to as
panhellenism ('all Greek'). Regional festivals
brought together Greek singers and audiences
from different cities and districts who
nonethless shared a language and many social,
cultural, and mythic traditions. The need for
singers to perform for audiences gathered from
many regions gave rise to a Trojan War epic
tradition marked less by local allusions and
heroes than by those with wide recognition and
appeal. The result was a broadly diffuse and
increasingly invariable tradition, which became
over time our Iliad andOdyssey. Although the
panhellenic homeric epics eventually
dominated in literature, local traditions lived
on, as is evinced in both poetry and art.
In sum, for generations of ancient Greeks, the
encounter with the Iliad was aural and
iconographic, public, variant, resonant with
vibrant local traditions and, in time, also
panhellenic. How those living oral traditions
evolved into the paperback you hold in your
hand has been the subject of much debate; so
much so that is is usually referred to as the
Homeric Question. Before we take up that very
important question, however, we turn to the
Trojan War story told in the Iliad.
The Iliad day-by-day
The Iliad begins, famously, in medias
res, announcing the theme of the song as the
rage of Achilles resulting from a quarrel with
Agamemnon, a quarrel that occurred in the
10th and final year of the Trojan War. It
concludes not with the end of the war but the
end of Achilles' rage and a return to normalcy,
symbolized by the funeral rites for Hektor.
Although the action takes place over a period
of only 45 days, the poem uses allusion to
earlier events and foreshadowing of later ones
to encompass the entire duration of the war.
Day 1
Book 1: The Iliad opens with the narrator's
appeal to the Muse ('Goddess') to sing the
wrath of Achilles and its dire consequences for
thousands of Achaeans (one of the Homeric
terms for the invading forces, which the poem
never refers to as 'Greeks'). The Muse, now
implicitly the narrator, begins the song with a
quarrel that erupts between Agamemnon and
Achilles after Chryses, a priest of Apollo, had
come to the Greek camp to ransom his captive
daughter Chryseis. When Agamemnon
dismissed the priest out of hand, Chryses
appealed to Apollo, who avenged the insult by
sending a plague into the camp.
On the 10th day of the plague, day 1 of the
poem's action, Achilles convenes an assembly
to discern why Apollo is angry and what must
be done to appease him. The seer Kalchas
pronounces Agamemnon the cause of the
plague and prescribes returning the girl as the
only remedy. Angry over the loss of his war-
prize and the prestige she represents, the
commander agrees to give her up only if the
Achaean kings replace her with one of their
captive women. Achilles denounces
Agamemnon's military leadership as a charade
rooted in greed and his demand for a
replacement prize as outrageous, considering
that the armies had come to Troy to help him
and to pile up booty for themselves. Moreover,
all the plunder had already been distributed; it
would not be right to take it back. Not one to
brook a public challenge, Agamemnon tells
Achilles that he can go home now, but without
his war-prize Briseis, whom Agamemnon
claims for his own. Achilles draws his sword
with intent to take the other man's life, but is
restrained by Athene, who promises that
waiting will pay off in prizes worth three times
what Agamemnon is taking away. When
Achilles finally concedes, Chryseis is returned
to her father, Briseis is taken from Achilles'
shelter, and the offended hero goes to the
seashore to call upon his mother Thetis for
help. He persuades her to ask Zeus to help the
Trojans drive the Achaeans back among their
ships until they recognize the madness of
dishonoring the best of the Achaeans.
Day 14
True to her word, after Zeus's return to
Olympos twelve days later, Thetis goes to him
with Achilles' request and gains his consent.
When Hera takes Zeus to task for plotting with
the sea-nymph against the Trojans, a quarrel
ensues. Distracted, however, by Hephaestos's
antics, Hera, Zeus, and the rest of the gods
end the day with laughter, feasting, music, and
finally, sleep.
Book 2: That night, Zeus sends a deceitful
dream to Agamemnon, projecting victory for
the Greeks on the next day if he will marshal
them for battle.
Day 15: First day of battle
Books 2-7: In the morning Agamemnon
summons the kings who form his council and
tells them about the dream. He declares his
purpose to test the morale of the troops in a
public assembly by reporting that the war is a
lost cause instead of revealing the hopeful
message of the dream. If the leader of the
Greek forces was hoping to rally the troops to
the war effort by using reverse psychology, he
was sorely disappointed. Upon his
announcement in the assembly the men make
for the ships and must be forcibly reassembled
by Odysseus. Urged by members of his
council, who now share the blame in the event
of failureâ to stay the course, Agamemnon
relents and sends the Achaians to eat and
prepare for battle. The poet invokes the Muse
again and embarks on a lengthy catalog, first
of the Greek leaders and contingents and then
of the Trojan and allied leaders.
The two armies take the field, but instead of
engaging they consent to a duel between Paris
and Menelaos to determine the outcome of the
war. The narrative shifts to Troy, where Helen,
summoned to a vantage point on the wall,
points out the Achaean leaders to Priam and
the elders of the city. Back on the battlefield,
Menelaos is decisively winning the single
combat when Aphrodite sweeps Paris safely
back to his bedroom, where he is joined by
Helen. While they make love, Menelaos claims
victory in the duel by default, and a truce is
called.
The scene shifts again, this time to Olympos,
where the gods conspire to restart the war, in
which all now have a stake, by inciting the
Trojan archer Pandaros to break the truce. His
arrow grazes Menelaos and the two armies join
battle. The narrative first follows the exploits
(known as anaristeia) of Diomedes on the
battlefield. When Aphrodite tries to sweep
Aineias out of his path, Diomedes wounds her,
sending her crying to her mother. Hektor, with
Ares at his side, gains temporary advantage,
but Athene takes charge of Diomedes' chariot
and urges him to attack the war-god himself.
Ares complains to Zeus and the gods retire
from the battlefield. When the tide of battle
again turns in favor of the Greeks, Hektor slips
back into the city to instruct the women to
appeal to Athene, their patron goddess, for
help. While there he finds and seems to say
his farewells to his wife Andromache and their
young son Astyanax.
Hektor returns to the plain of Troy to find the
battle still raging. On the prompting of
Helenos, he calls for another duel to decide the
war, this time between him and a champion of
the Greeks' choosing. Telamonian Ajax, known
as the bulwark of the Achaeans and famous
for defensiive war craft, is chosen by lot and
the duel commences. Nightfall brings it to an
indeterminate end. Returning to their
respective dwellings, the Achaeans are
counseled to dig a trench and construct an
associated palisade to protect the ships, while
the Trojans debate returning Helen to her
husband.
Day 16 (truce)
Early in the morning, the Trojans propose a
truce, to which the Greeks agree, so that each
side may bury their dead.
Day 17 (truce)
The Greeks take advantage of the ceasefire to
dig a trench and build a palisade between their
ships, drawn up on the shore, and the plain of
Troy. Angered that they had built the wall
without first offering sacrifice, Poseidon
protested that its memory would outlast that of
the wall he and Apollo had built around the
city. Zeus assures his brother that when the
Achaeans depart Troy he may wipe out every
trace of the makeshift fortifications.
Day 18 Second Day of Battle
Books 8-10: Zeus orders the gods to stay out of
the battle and himself watches the action from
the vantage point of Mt. Ida. The scale he uses
to weigh the fates of the two armies indicates
that the Trojans will win the day. Following a
Trojan advance the Greeks enjoy a brief
resurgence, but Hektor is unstoppable and the
Greeks are soon driven back behind the wall.
Nightfall finds the Achaeans dispirited and the
Trojans camped on the plain, eager to force
their way among the Greek ships at morning's
light.
Agamemnon summons the Greek generals to
private council and, now with utter
seriousness, advises abandoning Troy that
night in order to escape with their lives.
Diomedes rashly advocates staying the course.
Nestor, however, gently urges Agamemnon to
placate Achilles with gifts and conciliatory
words, knowing that Diomedes' plan is doomed
to fail apart from the fighting power of the
offended king. In a thinly veiled effort to
obligate and subordinate Achilles, Agamemnon
sends Odysseus, Ajax, and Phoinix to his
shelter with a rich offer of ransom. The
embassy attempts to effect his return by
recasting Agamemnon's ransom as a generous
gift, by enticing Achilles with the possibility of
killing Hektor and winning glory, and by
exploiting their bonds of friendship and filial
duty, but to no avail. Asserting that he must
choose between a long but inglorious life in his
native Phthia and death at Troy, which would
bring him undying fame, Achilles declares his
intent to set sail for home the next day. That
his only choice, however, is to die at Troy is
evinced when he concludes that he will not
leave but will also not take up arms until the
Trojans threaten to set his own vessels ablaze.
The embassy reports disingenuously that
Achilles will leave for home the next day and
he advises others to do the same. Dismayed,
the council nonetheless approves Diomedes'
flawed plan to carry on the war without their
best combatant. Odysseus and Diomedes,
clad in animal skins, set out on a noctural
spying mission in hopes of discovering the
designs of the Trojans, whose campfires flicker
ominously on the plain.
Day 19 Third day of battle
Books 11-18: Agamemnon leads the armies out
and himself kills a number of Trojans, allowing
the Greek forces to gain the upper hand
temporarily. When he is wounded and carried
in a chariot back to the ships, Hektor
recognizes it as a sign that Zeus will now favor
the Trojans. Diomedes and Odysseus also
retreat from the battlefield wounded, while
Ajax holds the Trojans at bay. The three
injured leaders are shortly followed by
Machaon the physician, who is struck by an
arrow and carried back to the camp in Nestor's
chariot. Achilles, watching the wounded come
in, suggests to Patroklos that perhaps now the
Achaeans' situation is dire enough that they
will come to him on bended knee. He sends
his friend off to Nestor's shelter to inquire
about the injured man (and perhaps to give the
old king opportunity to counsel the leaders to
do what is right by Achilles).
With Hektor pressing ever nearer to the
palisade, Patroklos chafes to ask his question
of Nestor and hurry back to Achilles. But the
old man indulges in a long speech, urging his
young guest to persuade Achilles either to join
battle or, failing that, to send Patroklos out in
Achilles' armor at the head of the Myrmidons
to frighten the Trojans and buy the Greeks
some breathing space. Patroklos is further
delayed in returning to Achilles' shclter when
he comes across a wounded companion,
Eurypylos, and stops to tend him. Meanwhile
Ajax manages to defend the wall surrounding
the ship until Hektor comes close enough to
smash one of the gates with a stone, allowing
the Trojans to pour through the breach. At this
moment, Zeus is temporarily distracted,
perhaps by Hera's seduction, as we will see,
and Poseidon takes advantage of his
inattention to join the battle and rally the
Greeks. The three wounded leaders,
Agamemnon, Diomedes, and Odysseus also
make an appearance and urge on their troops
fighting among the ships. With renewed vigor,
the Achaeans turn the Trojans in flight back
across the ditch. Ajax hurls a huge stone at
Hektor and sends him reeling; his companions
manage to haul him to safety where he lies on
the ground in a daze. And all the while Zeus is
oblivious, having fallen into a deep sleep after
being seduced by his wife.
The king of the gods awakens to find that his
plan to help the Trojans, and thus fulfil his
promise to Thetis, has been derailed: Hektor is
on the ground vomiting blood and the Greeks
are streaming out through the walls in hot
pursuit. Zeus quickly orders the gods helping
the Achaeans to leave the battlefield and
sends Apollo to revive Hektor and help the
Trojans recover the ground lost while he was
sleeping. With Apollo's help, the palisade is
breached a second time so that the Trojans are
able to cross it in waves. The Achaeans fall
back and the fighting rages among the ships;
Hektor reaches for one of the prows and
prepares to torch it.
Patroklos, hearing the noise of battle coming
nearer, leaves Eurypolos and carries Nestor's
message to Achilles. Achilles consents to let
his friend lead the Myrmidons out in his armor
on the condition that Patroklos not pursue the
Trojans all the way to the city wall. The ruse
works for a time, and Patroklos slaughters
Trojans until he is stopped by Apollo, who
knocks off his helmet, and Hektor, who deals
him a death blow. A tug-of-war ensues over
the corpse, by now stripped of its marvelous
armor. When Achilles hears of his friend's
death, he steps to the wall and utters a
terrifying war cry, a flame emerging from his
head; this frightens the Trojans so that the
Achaeans recover Patroklos' body. Achilles
mourns, lying in the dust, but also steels
himself to return to battle with one goal: to kill
Hektor. Soon afterward, he will meet his own
end. Hektor now wears Achilles' arms, so
Thetis asks Hephaistos to make a new set for
her son.
Day 20 Fourth Day of Battle
Books 19-22: Achilles receives his new armor
and summons the Achaeans to assembly in
preparation for combat. He announces the end
of his anger, regretting the day he had
captured the woman Briseis who became the
object of such a ruinous quarrel, and urges the
men to marshal for battle at once. He is
delayed, however, first by Agamemnon who
denies personal responsibility for the quarrel
and extends the same offer of ransom as he
had the night before, and by Odysseus, who
insists on taking a common meal before going
into combat. Achilles brushes aside both
symbols of reconciliation with Agamemnon,
vowing to neither eat nor drink until he
avenges Patroklos' death. While the men eat,
Athene fortifies him with nectar and ambrosia;
he then arms himself for war.
Zeus assembles the gods on Olympos and
gives them leave to rejoin the fighting, in part
to keep Achilles from storming the city walls
contrary to his destiny. Achilles nearly kills
Aineias, who is fated to survive the war, but
Poseidon sweeps him out of danger. He
captures 12 Trojans and sends them to the
camp to die on Patroklos' funeral pyre.
Lykaon, whom he had sold into slavery before,
he now hews down as the Trojan warrior begs
for his life. Achilles' savage slaughter of
enemy warriors intensifies until he literally
chokes the River Skamandros with their
corpses and the river rises up against him,
enraged. Up to now the gods have left
Achilles on his own, but when he calls out for
help against this elemental force of nature,
Hera sends Hephaistos to overcome the
flooding river with fire. The gods return to
comic skirmishes among themselves while the
berserk mortal hero cuts down the Trojans,
who are now retreating in panic. Apollo
distracts Achilles momentarily, allowing the
last of the Trojans to escape to safety behind
the city walls, except Hektor who alone
remains outside. Gripped by fear, Hektor
takes flight and Achilles chases him in a grim
life or death race around the circuit of the city.
When Athene appears near Hektor in the form
of his brother, he takes courage, thinking he is
not alone, and turns to face his dread
opponent. He asks for an agreement that
whoever is victor will return the corpse of his
victim to the family for burial, but Achilles
disavows any such settlement. As Priam and
Hekabe look on in horror, Achilles rushes upon
Hektor and drives the spear though the soft
part of his neck, the only spot left vulnerable
by his own glorious armor. Refusing the offer
of ransom gasped out by the dying man, the
raging hero counters that if he could he would
hack Hektor's flesh away and eat it raw; as it
is, he will leave that messy work to dogs and
birds. With that, Achilles lashes the dead
man's feet to his chariot and drags him back to
the Achaean camp.
Book 23: That night, after the Greeks share a
funeral meal, the ghost of Patroklos visits
Achilles in a dream and requests a swift burial.
Day 21
The Greeks burn Patroklos on a funeral pyre,
together with offerings and the 12 captured
Trojans.
Day 22
Patroklos' bones are gathered and buried
under a mound of earth. Achilles announces
funeral gamesâ including a chariot race,
boxing, wrestling, and a footraceâ where he
presides, distributes the prizes, and settles
quarrels but does not participate.
powerful man by the knees, a gesture of
supplication, and kisses his hands. Achilles is
moved to pity by the reminder of his own
elderly father. The two men weep together for
their respective losses and Achilles agrees to
accept the fabrics and other precious objects
Priam has brought as ransom and to send the
old man back to Troy with his sonâÄôs body.
A meal is shared and Achilles agrees to
restrain the Greeks for the 12 days needed to
complete the funeral rites.
Days 35-43
Before dawn, Priam is roused early to return to
Troy, carrying his dead son on the cart
previously loaded down with treasure. Hektor
is lamented first by his wife Andromache, then
by his mother Hekabe, and finally by Helen.
For nine days the Trojans gather wood for the
funeral pyre.
Day 44
Hektor is burned on the funeral pyre.

Days 23-33 Day 45

Book 24: Achilles is still mourning his friend The Trojans gather Hektor's bones for burial,
and daily for 12 days drags Hektor's corpse with which the Iliad ends.
around the funeral mound.

Day 34

The gods meet in council and debate stealing

the corpse in order to put an end to Achilles'
senseless abuse and allow Hektor's family to
perform funeral rites. Zeus, however,
arranges for a settlement that Achilles had
earlier disavowed: he sends instructions to
Priam to take ransom to Achilles for the release
of his son's body and instructions to Achilles to
accept the ransom. That night with Hermes as
guide, the king of Troy makes his way into the
Achaean camp and slips unnoticed into
Achilles' shelter. He takes hold of the