The poem portrays the important aspects and values of the Greek society during the heroic age. The heroic age is conveyed by one main character, Achilles, who represents the tragic Greek hero in the Iliad and serves as one of the best examples for it.
All tragic heroes are born into nobility and so is Achilles. His father Pelius was king of the Myrmidons in Pthia and his mother Thetis was a sea nymph, a daughter of the Titan Nerens and the Oceanid Noris. Thus, not only was Achilles a prince and heir to the throne of the Myrmidons but was also the son of an immortal goddess.
Throughout the Iliad, Achilles went through some significant changes that affected himself as well as the Achaeans and Trojans. He began a hero and ended a tragic hero. Before the war even started, it was known by all that Achaeans as well as the Trojans that Achilles was the best fighter. He was far stronger than any other Achaean and the hero of all fighters.
However, it was his pride and quest for glory that led to his fall. He had a quarrel with Agamemnon, the commander-in-chief of the Greek army, causes the first major change in him. Achilles in his wrath not only withheld himself from battle but also invoked Zeus, through his mother to make the Achaeans suffer enough loses in the war, so that Agamemnon comes begging for Achilles’ help. Because Achilles remained away from the battle, Patrochus, his friend and comrade lost his life.
The death of Patrochus whom Achilles considered a part of himself caused the second major change in him. Achilles was so consumed with hate, anger and grief that in losing his friend that he rejoined the battle against the Trojans and went on a rampage, sparing the lives of no Trojan that he came across.
Achilles’ decision to first go with Odysseus to troy despite warnings of his fate, and need to return to battle to avenge Patrochus, were serious erroneous decisions he was doomed to make due to the tragedy of his fate.
“If I hold out here and I lay siege to Troy, my journey home is gone, but my glory
never dies.
If I voyage back to the fatherland I love, my pride, my glory dies….
true, but the life that’s left me will be long”
And Achilles chose glory and death at Troy. In this way Achilles was responsible for his own fate – another important characteristic of a tragic hero. Achilles’ mother, Thetis had told him that his death is fated to come soon after Hector’s yet he accepted his fate and chose to kill Hector. By accepting his fate to die in battle, Achilles accepted death with honour.
In many respects Achilles’ pride and rage were his tragic flaws. They fuelled his conscious need for glory in battle and vengeance for the death of Patrochus propelling him into combat and pushing him towards his fated death.
Achilles death is tragic, in that he made it through the whole Trojan war with the reputation as the most fearless and savage Achaean warrior and he was killed by an arrow wound mere days before the fall of Troy. In this way, Achilles in a way falls from his high esteem. He, the greatest Achaean warrior is killed by Paris, a hated adulterer and an infamous coward.
Homer’s readers are affected by pity for the once great Achilles, and they are sympathetic of the torment that he must endure as a result of his tragic fate.
Thus, Achilles was no doubt a shining example of a tragic Greek hero. The eternal remembrance that Achilles gave up his life for, outside the gates of Troy, is more tragic than glorious, and to this day serves as example from which historians can base conceptual Greek tragedies on.