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Updated: May 31, 2025
Sing, O Goddess! the wrath unblest of Peleian Achilleus, Whence the uncountable woes that were heapt on the host of Achaia; Whence many valorous spirits of heroes, untimely dissever'd, Down unto Hades were sent, and themselves to the dogs were a plunder And all fowls of the air; but the counsel of Zeus was accomplish'd: Even from the hour when at first were in fierceness of rivalry sunder'd Atreus' son, the Commander of Men, and the noble Achilleus.
Gladstone to attempt to base historical conclusions upon the fact that Helena is always called "Argive Helen," or to draw ethnological inferences from the circumstances that Menelaos, Achilleus, and the rest of the Greek heroes, have yellow hair, while the Trojans are never so described. The Argos of the myth is not the city of Peloponnesos, though doubtless so construed even in Homer's time.
In the Homeric picture Achilleus sits solitary in his tent, bound as it were to the affections of earth by the one tie of his friendship for Patroclos. No figure has ever been painted by a poet's pen more terrible in the loneliness of its wrath, its sorrow, its revenge. But from one end of his song to the other Vergil has surrounded Æneas with the ties and affections of home.
He, with the counsel of wisdom, arose in the midst to address them: "Favour'd of Zens!" he began, "thou commandest me, noble Achilleus, Here to interpret the wrath of the King, Far-darting Apollo.
I want Achilleus and Odysseus, and am enraged to see them trying to be Homers!" Sterling, who respected my sincerity, and always was amenable enough to counsel, was doubtless much confused by such contradictory diagnosis of his case. The question, Poetry or Prose? became more and more pressing, more and more insoluble.
Be it, thy strength is the greater, thy birth from the womb of a Goddess, Still is his potency more because more are beneath his dominion. Thou, Agamemnon, give pause to thine anger; myself I entreat thee: Master the wrath, O King, that divides thee from noble Achilleus, Ever in murderous war great bulwark for all the Achaians."
When was it ever my custom to pry or torment with a question? Only it now is my fear that the white-footed daughter of Nereus, Thetis, has led thee astray with the craft of her secret persuasion: Early she sat by thy side, and was grasping thy knees in entreaty Nor did she leave thee, I think, without pledge of revenge for Achilleus, And of destruction anon and of woe at the Danäid galleys."
Such was the strength of the rebels that the city could not be taken without a regular siege. Diocletian surrounded it with a ditch and wall, and turned aside the canals that supplied the citizens with water. After a tedious siege of eight months, Alexandria was at last taken by storm in 297, and Achilleus was put to death.
But so much was the strength of the Greek party lessened, and so deeply rooted among the Egyptians was their hatred of their rulers and the belief that they should then be able to throw off the yoke, that soon afterwards Alexandria declared in favour of Achilleus, and Diocletian was again called to Egypt to regain the capital.
But as the sun must always be parted from the morning-light, to return to it again just before setting, so Achilleus loses Briseis, and regains her only just before his final struggle. In sullen wrath the hero retires from the conflict, and his Myrmidons are no longer seen on the battle-field, as the sun hides behind the dark cloud and his rays no longer appear about him.
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