Search Results: Achilles

Achilles is a figure from Greek mythology and literature and star of the Trojan War. Leader of the fearsome Myrmidons, sacker of cities, and slayer of Hector, godlike Achilles was quite simply invincible in battle. Only the divine intervention...

Homer's Iliad describes the final year of the Trojan War, a legendary conflict between an alliance of Greek cities and the city of Troy in Anatolia. It was probably written in the 8th century BCE after a long oral tradition. The Greeks themselves...

Patroclus is a figure from Greek mythology who fought in the Trojan War and was most famous for his close friendship with the Greek hero, Achilles. He followed Achilles to Troy and would ultimately die because of him and his actions. Patroclus'...

Thersites is a character in the Iliad who made a stand against Agamemnon and the enterprise of the Trojan War. Homer chose to add Thersites’ speech after Achilles’ infamous dispute with Agamemnon, probably to emphasize the struggles that...

Andromache is a Greek tragedy written by Euripides (c. 484-407 BCE), one of only 19 plays (out of 92) to survive. The play is actually in two parts, and like Sophocles' Women of Trachis, it has no central character. The first part of the...

Ajax is a play written by the 5th-century BCE Greek poet and dramatist Sophocles. Although Sophocles wrote at least 120 plays, only seven have survived. Of his surviving plays, the best-known is Oedipus Rex (Oedipus the King) - part of a...

The Trojan War was fought between Greeks and the defenders of the city of Troy in Anatolia sometime in the late Bronze Age. The story has grabbed the imagination for millennia but a conflict between Mycenaeans and Hittites may well have occurred...

History is recorded by individual human beings with their own beliefs and interests guiding what they choose to record, and, as such, many events and details may be omitted from the account of a certain event or the story of a great person’s...

Iphigenia in Aulis (or at Aulis) was written by Euripides, the youngest and most popular of the trilogy of great Greek tragedians. The play was based on the well-known myth surrounding the sacrifice of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra's daughter...

Thetis is one of 50 Nereids (sea nymphs) and a goddess of the sea in Greek mythology. Thetis is best known for being the mother of the Greek hero Achilles, however, her role goes beyond that; she appears in various stories and interacts with...