Achilles Death In The Odyssey

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Money. Fame. Lovers. Glory. All these things have been coveted by men for all of history. This is true for society today and there is evidence of it in societies of the past. In some cultures, these objects and ideas were given to the best as a reward. How did the society know who was the best? In the ancient Greek society, the man who was the best was the man who was most successful in war and heroics. A man was known by how successful he had been in war, how many rich possessions he had, how many men he had killed, and even the successes of his father. Becoming a hero and obtaining war prizes was the ultimate goal for the ancient Greeks. One of the most well-known Greek heroes was Achilles, son of Peleus. The story of Achilles’
Agamemnon directly violates the heroic code that all the Greeks followed. This code had specific rules on who got what amount of prizes. Louis Markos states that the “more fiercely and bravely one fights, the more meeds of honor he will win.” The amount of meeds a man obtained directly determined how much honor he had. For the Greeks, gaining honor was the most important and significant goal in a man’s life because honor meant immortality. Every man will die, but if he can carry out an act that is heroic enough and gets him a large amount of meeds, he can gain immortality; not a physical immortality, but the immortality that comes with great success, a name that lasts forever. By taking Briseis, Agamemnon breaches this code of honor so intensely that every man fighting for the Greeks sees the injustice. By doing so, Agamemnon treats Achilles in a way that suggests he is “not worthy of being treated as an equal, or even as a fellow citizen.” (online 11) Phoenix even tells Achilles that “one could not blame your anger.” The injustice was not found in the fact that Agamemnon asserted his authority, which he had every right to, but in the way he did so. By taking away Achilles’ war prize, Agamemnon took away the direct representation of Achilles’ honor. It is because of this wrongdoing that Achilles steps away from the entire
Achilles was under no obligation to join the suitors of Helen in bringing her back to Troy. He was “too young to have been one of the suitors” and therefore had no obligation to participate in the war. (A) Achilles’ mother, Thetis, knew that he was “destined to die at Troy,” so she hid him away. (A) Even so, the men of Greece knew they needed Achilles’ help to be able to win the war, so they sent Odysseus and Diomedes to find Achilles. They tricked Achilles out of hiding and took him away to the warfront where he spent the next ten years of his life fighting a war that was not his own. This is one of the reasons that Achilles chooses not to go back to the warfront and fight. In his time alone, he has realized that the war is not his to fight. As well as it not being his war, Achilles also realizes how insignificant the Trojan War is and, more significantly, the constant war for glory the Greeks battle every