Book Review: The Song of Achilles

I. Exposition
A. Characters
 Achilles
 Son of the king Peleus and the sea-nymph Thetis, he was the
greatest warrior of his generation, as well as the most beautiful.
The Iliad names him “swift-footed” and also praises his singing
voice. He was raised by the kindly centaur Chiron, and took
the exiled prince Patroclus as his constant companion. As a
teenager, he was offered a famous choice: long life and
obscurity, or short life and fame. He chose fame, and sailed to
Troy along with the other Greeks. However, in the ninth year
of the war he quarreled with Agamemnon and refused to fight
any longer, returning to battle only when his beloved Patroclus
was killed by Hector. In a rage, he killed the great Trojan
warrior and dragged his body around the walls of Troy in
vengeance. He was eventually killed by the Trojan Prince
Paris, assisted by the god Apollo.

 Aeneas
 A Trojan noble, the son of the goddess Aphrodite and the
mortal Anchises, renowned for his piety. He fought bravely in
the Trojan war, but was known best for his adventures
afterwards. As Vergil tells in the Aeneid, he escaped the city’s
fall and led a group of survivors to Italy, where he married a
native princess and founded the Roman people.
 Agamemnon
 Brother of Menelaus, he ruled Mycenae, the largest kingdom in
Greece, and served as the over-general of the Greek expedition
to Troy. During the war he quarreled often with Achilles, who
refused to acknowledge Agamemnon’s right to command him.
Upon his return home after Troy’s fall, he was murdered by his
wife, Clytemnestra. Aeschylus depicts this incident and its
aftermath in his famous tragic cycle The Oresteia.

 Ajax
 The king of Salamis and descendent of Zeus, known for his
enormous size and strength. He was the second greatest
Greek warrior after Achilles, and memorably stood against
the Trojans’ attack on the Greek camp when Achilles refused
to fight. However, after Achilles’ death, Agamemnon chose
to honor Odysseus as the most valuable member of the Greek
army. Ajax went mad with grief and rage, and killed himself.
His story is movingly told in Sophocles’ tragedy Ajax.

 Andromache
 Born a princess of Cilicia, near Troy, she became the loyal and
loving wife of Hector. She hated Achilles, who killed her
family in a raid. During the sack of Troy, she was taken
captive by Pyrrhus and carried back to Greece. After his death,
she and Helenus, Hector’s brother, founded the city of
Buthrotum, which they built to resemble the lost Troy. Vergil
tells their story in Book 3 of the Aeneid.
 Automedon
 Achilles’ charioteer, skilled at handling his divine, headstrong
horses. After Achilles’ death, he served his son Pyrrhus.

 Briseis
 Taken captive by the Greeks in their raids on the Trojan
countryside, Briseis was given as a war-prize to Achilles.
When Achilles defied him, Agamemnon confiscated her as a
punishment. She was returned after Patroclus’ death, and in
Book 19 of the Iliad, she and the other women of the camp
mourn over his body.

 Calchas
 A priest who advised the Greeks, encouraging Agamemnon to
sacrifice his daughter Iphigenia, and to return the captive slave-
girl Chryseis to her father.

 Chryses and Chryseis

 Chryses was an Anatolian priest of Apollo. His daughter,
Chryseis, was taken as a slave by Agamemnon. When Chryses
came to retrieve her, offering a generous ransom, Agamemnon
refused and insulted him. Enraged, Chryses called upon his
god Apollo to send a plague to punish the Greek army. When
Achilles publicly urged Agamemnon to return Chryseis to her
father, Agamemnon erupted, precipitating their dramatic rift.
 Deidameia
 Daughter of King Lycomedes, and princess of the island
kingdom of Scyros. To keep him from the war, Thetis dressed
Achilles as a girl, and hid him among Deidameia’s ladies-in-
waiting. Deidameia discovered the trick and secretly married
Achilles, conceiving the child Pyrrhus.

 Diomedes
 The King of Argos. Known for both his guile and his strength,
Diomedes was one of the most valued warriors in the Greek
army. Like Odysseus, he was a favorite of the goddess Athena,
who in Book 5 of the Iliad grants him supernatural strength in
battle.

 Hector
 Oldest son of Priam and crown prince of Troy, Hector was
known for his strength, nobility, and love of family. In Book 6
of the Iliad, Homer shows us a touching scene with his wife,
Andromache, and young son, Astyanax.

 Helen
 The legendary most beautiful woman in the world, Helen was a
princess of Sparta, daughter of the queen Leda and the god
Zeus (in the form of a swan). Many men sought her hand in
marriage, each swearing an oath to uphold her union with
whoever prevailed. She was given to Menelaus, but later ran
away with the Trojan prince Paris, setting in motion the Trojan
War. After the war, she returned home with Menelaus to
Sparta.
 Heracles
 Son of Zeus and the most famous of Greek heroes. Known for
his tremendous strength, Heracles was forced to perform
twelve labors as penance to the goddess Hera, who hated him
for being the product of one of Zeus’ affairs. He died long
before the Trojan War began.

 Idomeneus
 King of Crete and grandson of King Minos, of Minotaur fame.

 Iphigenia
 Daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, promised in
marriage to Achilles, and brought to Aulis to appease the
goddess Artemis. Her sacrifice made the winds blow again, so
that the Greek fleet might sail to Troy. Her story is told in
Euripides’ tragedy, Iphigenia at Aulis.

 Lycomedes
 King of Scyros, and father of Deidameia. He unknowingly
sheltered Achilles disguised as a girl in his court.

 Menelaus
 Brother of Agamemnon and, after his marriage to Helen, the
king of Sparta. When she was kidnapped by Paris, he
invoked the oath sworn by all of her suitors, and with his
brother led an army to retrieve her. In Book 3 of the Iliad he
dueled with Paris for possession of Helen, and was winning
 before the goddess Aphrodite intervened on Paris’ behalf.
After the war, he and Helen returned to Sparta.

 Nestor
 The aged king of Pylos, and former companion of Heracles.
He was too old to fight in the Trojan War, but served as an
important counselor to Agamemnon.

 Odysseus
 The wily prince of Ithaca, beloved by the goddess Athena.
He proposed the famous oath requiring all Helen’s suitors to
swear a vow to uphold her marriage. As his reward, he
claimed her clever cousin Penelope as his wife. During the
Trojan War, he was one of Agamemnon’s chief advisors, and
later devised the trick of the Trojan horse. His voyage home,
which lasted another ten years, is the subject of Homer’s
Odyssey, and includes the famous encounters with the
Cyclops, the witch Circe, Scylla and Charybdis, and the
Sirens. Eventually he returned to Ithaca, where he was
welcomed by his wife and grown son, Telemachus.

 Paris
 Son of Priam who became the judge of the famous “beauty
contest” between Hera, Athena and Aphrodite, with the
golden apple as a prize. Each goddess tried to bribe him,
Hera with power, Athena with wisdom, and Aphrodite with
the most beautiful woman in the world. He awarded the
prize to Aphrodite, and she in turn helped him spirit Helen
 away from her husband Menelaus, thus starting the Trojan
war. Paris was known for his skill with a bow and, with
Apollo’s help, killed the mighty Achilles.

 Patroclus
 The son of King Menoitius. Exiled from his home for
accidentally killing another boy, Patroclus found shelter in
Peleus’ court, where he was fostered with Achilles. He is a
secondary character in the Iliad, but his fateful decision to try
to save the Greeks by dressing in Achilles’ armor sets in
motion the final act of the story. When he is killed by
Hector, Achilles is devastated and takes brutal vengeance
upon the Trojans.

 Peleus
 King of Phthia and father of Achilles by the sea-nymph
Thetis. The story of Peleus overpowering the shape-
changing Thetis in a wrestling match was a popular one in
antiquity.

 Phoinix
 Long-time friend and counselor of Peleus, who went with
Achilles to Troy as his advisor. In Book 9 of the Iliad, he
spoke of having cared for Achilles when he was a baby, and
vainly tried to persuade Achilles to yield and help the Greeks.
 Polyxena
 The Trojan princess whom Pyrrhus sacrificed at his father’s
tomb, before leaving Troy for the voyage home.

 Priam
 Elderly king of Troy, renowned for his piety and his many
children. In Book 24 of the Iliad, he bravely made his way
into Achilles’ tent to beg for his son Hector’s body. During
the sack of Troy, he was killed by Achilles’ son, Pyrrhus.

 Pyrrhus
 Formally named Neoptolemus, but called “Pyrrhus” for his
fiery hair, he was the son of Achilles and the princess
Deidameia. He joined the war after his father’s death,
participating in the trick of the Trojan horse, and brutally
murdering the old king of Troy, Priam. Vergil tells the story
of his part in the sack of Troy in Book 2 of the Aeneid.
B. Setting
 Greece
 The earliest evidence of the presence of human ancestors in
the Balkans, dated to 270,000 BC, is to be found in the
Petralona cave, in the northern Greek province of Macedonia.
All three stages of the stone age (Paleolithic, Mesolithic, and
Neolithic) are represented in Greece. Franchthi Cave is one
of the better known examples of this era, as it was occupied
during all three of these phases. Neolithic settlements in
Greece, dating from the 7th millennium BC, are the oldest in
Europe by several centuries, as Greece lies on the route via
which farming spread from the Near East to Europe. Greece
is home to the first advanced civilizations in Europe and is
considered the birthplace of Western civilization, beginning
with the Cycladic civilization on the islands of the Aegean
Sea at around 3200 BC, the Minoan civilization in Crete
(2700–1500 BC), and then the Mycenaean civilization on the
mainland (1900–1100 BC). These civilizations possessed
writing, the Minoans writing in an undeciphered script
known as Linear A, and the Myceneans in Linear B, an early
form of Greek. The Myceneans gradually absorbed the
Minoans, but collapsed violently around 1200 BC, during a
time of regional upheaval known as the Bronze Age collapse.
This ushered in a period known as the Greek Dark Ages,
from which written records are absent.

 Troy
 In the Iliad, the Achaeans set up their camp near the mouth of
the River Scamander (presumably modern Karamenderes),
where they had breached their ships. The city of Troy itself
stood on a hill, across the plain of Scamander, where the
 battles of the Trojan War took place. The site of the ancient
city is some 5 km from the coast today, but the ancient
mouths of Scamander, some 3,000 years ago, were about that
distance inland, pouring into a large bay forming a natural
harbour that has since been filled with alluvial material.
Recent geological findings have permitted the reconstruction
of how the original Trojan coastline would have looked, and
the results largely confirm the accuracy of the Homeric
geography of Troy. In November 2001, geologists John C.
Kraft from the University of Delaware and John V. Luce
from Trinity College, Dublin presented the results of
investigations, begun in 1977, into the geology of the region.
They compared the present geology with the landscapes and
coastal features described in the Iliad and other classical
sources, notably Strabo's Geographia, and concluded that
there is a regular consistency between the location of
Schliemann's Troy and other locations such as the Greek
camp, the geological evidence, descriptions of the
topography and accounts of the battle in the Iliad. Besides the
Iliad, there are references to Troy in the other major work
attributed to Homer, the Odyssey, as well as in other ancient
Greek literature (like Aeschylus' Oresteia). The Homeric
legend of Troy was elaborated by the Roman poet Virgil in
his Aeneid. The Greeks and Romans took for a fact the
historicity of the Trojan War and the identity of Homeric
Troy with the site in Anatolia. Alexander the Great, for
example, visited the site in 334 BC and made sacrifices at
tombs there associated with the Homeric heroes Achilles and
Patroclus.

 River of Styx
 The gods were bound by the Styx and swore oaths on it. The
reason for this is during the Titan war, Styx, the goddess of
the river Styx, sided with Zeus. After the war, Zeus promised
every oath be sworn upon her. Zeus swore to give Semele
whatever she wanted and was then obliged to follow through
when he realized to his horror that her request would lead to
her death. Helios similarly promised his son Phaëton
whatever he desired, also resulting in the boy's death.
According to some versions, Styx had miraculous powers and
could make someone invulnerable. According to one
tradition, Achilles was dipped in it in his childhood,
acquiring invulnerability, with exception of his heel, by
which his mother held him. This is the source of the
expression Achilles' heel, a metaphor for a vulnerable spot.
Styx was primarily a feature in the afterworld of Greek
mythology, similar to the Christian area of Hell in texts such
as The Divine Comedy and Paradise Lost. The ferryman
Charon is believed to have transported the souls of the newly
dead across this river into the underworld, though in the
original Greek and Roman sources, as well as in Dante, it
was the river Acheron that Charon plied. Dante put Phlegyas
as ferryman over the Styx and made it the fifth circle of Hell,
where the wrathful and sullen are punished by being drowned
in the muddy waters for eternity, with the wrathful fighting
each other. In ancient times some believed that placing a coin
(Charon's obol) in the mouth of the deceased would help pay
the toll for the ferry to help cross the Acheron River which
would lead one to the entrance of the underworld. If someone
could not pay the fee it was said that they would never be
able to cross the river. This ritual was performed by the
relatives.
 Macedonia
 According to Herodotus, the history of Macedonia began
with the Makednoi tribe, among the first to use the name,
migrating to the region from Histiaeotis in the south. There
they lived near Thracian tribes such as the Bryges who would
later leave Macedonia for Asia Minor and become known as
Phrygians. Macedonia was named after the Makednoi.
Accounts of other toponyms such as Emathia are attested to
have been in use before that. A branch of the Macedonians
may have invaded Southern Greece towards the end of the
second millennium B.C. Upon reaching the Peloponnese the
invaders were renamed Dorians, triggering the accounts of
the Dorian invasion. For centuries the Macedonian tribes
were organized in independent kingdoms, in what is now
Central Macedonia, and their role in internal Hellenic politics
was minimal, even before the rise of Athens. The
Macedonians may have belonged to the Dorian branch of
Greeks, while there were many Ionians in the coastal regions.
The rest of the region was inhabited by various Thracian and
Illyrian tribes as well as mostly coastal colonies of other
Greek states such as Amphipolis, Olynthos, Potidea, Stageira
and many others, and to the north another tribe dwelt, called
the Paeonians. During the late 6th and early 5th century BC,
the region came under Persian rule until the destruction of
Xerxes at Plataea. During the Peloponnesian War, Macedonia
became the theatre of many military actions by the
Peloponnesian League and the Athenians, and saw incursions
of Thracians and Illyrians, as attested by Thucidydes. Many
Macedonian cities were allied to the Spartans (both the
Spartans and the Macedonians were Dorian, while the
Athenians were Ionian), but Athens maintained the colony of
 Amphipolis under her control for many years. The kingdom
of Macedon, was reorganised by Philip II and achieved the
union of Greek states by forming the League of Corinth.
After his assassination, his son Alexander succeeded to the
throne of Macedon and, retaining the office of "General of
Greece", he became one of the best known persons to which
this land ever gave birth.

C. Mood
 Valiant
 Possessing or showing courage or determination. Even
though Patroclus was an awkward young prince, he is what
we all fear we might be – pathetic in the face of fate – but his
honesty and practicality make him a loveable chap, especially
when he takes on the role of war camp medic and gets to
know all of the great warriors' flaws.

 Despondent
 In low spirits from loss of hope or courage.

 Pessimistic
 Tending to see the worst aspect of things or believe that the
worst will happen. Patroclus tends to be self-conciousand
always places himself underneath others. He doesn’t believe
in himself, but eventually, he did.
D. Conflict
 When word comes that Helen of Sparta has been kidnapped, the
men of Greece are called upon to lay siege to Troy in her name.
Seduced by the promise of a glorious destiny, Achilles joins their
cause, Torn between love and fear for his friend, Patroclus follows
Achilles into war, little knowing that the years that follow will test
everything they have learned, everything they hold dear. And that,
before he is ready, he will be forced to surrender his friend to the
hands of Fate.

 The gods are continually intervening and trying to make sense of

things, while the men rampage around trying to appease the gods
and get what they want at the same time. Achilles spends most of
his time brandishing his sword and killing people without really
registering it. He doesn't know his own strength. There is one man
whom Achilles must avoid killing, and that is his arch-rival Hector.
He knows the prophecy: Hector dies first, then Achilles. So as long
as Hector lives, Achilles is safe. As Patroclus puts it: "And Hector
must live, always, he must never die, not even when he is old, not
even when he is so withered that his bones slide beneath his skin
like loose rocks in a stream."
E. Resolution
 Although Patroclus purports to be a coward, we know that the only
person whom he really fears is Achilles' mother, the cruel sea
goddess Thetis. She is forever popping up with blood spilling out
of her lips, kidnapping Achilles to warn him of the evil ways of
men – and then to grieve that even she cannot save him from them.
The interplay between the gods and men in The Song of Achilles is
wonderful: no one is ever completely in control, although this
doesn't stop both sides from persuading themselves that, at some
particular moment, they are the ones with the power.

 There is also Achilles heroism itself which is fabled and expected

even before he has done anything even remotely heroic. Not to
mention the fact that the ideal of Greek heroism is so completely
different to our own ideal of what being heroic means: it is more
about deeds than behaviour. In that sense, Patroclus could be
constructed as the heroic one of the duo (due to his actions during
the War) and to a certain extent this is a modernised, contemporary
view of this story.

 Patroclus plea for Achilles to be not only remembered as the self-

centred, egotistical Trojan War hero whose selfish actions were
directly responsible for the deaths of thousands of Greeks but also
as a wonderful musician, playful mate, someone capable of deep
feelings and a devoted companion and lover.
F. Theme
 This story portrays an act of heroism, friendship, tentative
companionship gives way to a steadfast friendship, and of course,
love. Although it is devastating type of love story, it rendes the
epic Trojan War is a dazzling feat of the imagination, a devastating
love story, and an almighty battle between gods and kings, peace
and glory, immortal fame and the human heart.

 The unfairness of life: As the teacher of Achilles, Chiron, points

out, “There is no law that gods must be fair, Achilles. The fickle
nature of truth: Odysseus (called Ulysses in Latin) remind Achilles
and Patroclus that “True is what men believe….”And of course,
there is the whole question of free will and the meaning of life. If
everything is pre-ordained by the gods, or worse yet, just a by-
product of their own conflicts and game-playing, why should we
endure the grief that comes to us?

 The novel focuses primarily on the theme of the human capacity to

love. In Miller’s interpretation, the gods, and most especially
Thetis, Achilles’s mother, don’t understand love, and thus being
half-god as Achilles is, sets him up for some complicated trouble
in matters of the heart. Told from the point of view of Patroclus,
The Song of Achilles is a graceful new exploration of the ancient
tale, taking you inside these two heroes in a compelling way.

 Miller, who is clearly knowledgeable about Greek history and

archaeology, has chosen to float the tale in a mythological world
much as the Homeric tradition did, with heroic details of armor and
ship, but not much detail of daily life as it occurred in that place
and time as we have recently reconstructed it. The Song of
Achilles has vivid descriptions. Chiron’s cave, for instance: “In
front of us was a cave. But to call it that is to demean it, for it was
not made of dark stone, but pale rose quartz.” This is a magical
place, and we enter it, as the two young men do, with wonder and
awe. And of course Miller builds Troy for her readers. “Back in the
main camp, we stood on the hill that marked the boundary between
sand and grass, and regarded the thing we had come for. Troy. It
was separated from us by a flat expanse of grass and framed by
two wide, lazy rivers. Even so far away, its stone walls caught the
sharp sun and gleamed. We fancied we could see the metallic glint
of the famous Scaean gate, its brazen hinges said to be tall as a
man. Later, I would see those walls up close, their sharp squared
stones perfectly cut and fitted against each other, the work of the
god Apollo, it was said. And I would wonder at them—at how,
ever, the city could be taken.” These descriptions paint brilliant
images—Miller’s especially good at her descriptions of nature—
but they are more mythological than archaeological. The Song of
Achilles takes the reader on a thoroughly enjoyable voyage into the
legendary world of these heroes.
II. Recommendation
 The early indication of Patroclus’s innate honesty (when he fails to
lie about the death he’s caused), while a disappointment to his
father, is essential to the novel. Patroclus’s virtues don’t coincide
with his father’s or Thetis’s ideas of heroic attributes—or even his
own at first—but he turns out to be the best of the Greeks in
Miller’s rendering because of his moral sensibilities and his
capacity to love. Being best at slaughtering Trojans does not define
Miller’s Aristos Achaion, “Best of the Greeks,” although that is
how the phrase is understood among Achilles’s fellow warriors.
Achilles, for all the intensity of his love for Patroclus, is deficient
in these gentler virtues because he cannot connect to anyone but
Patroclus. The direness of Achilles’s sorrow when Patroclus dies
appears to spring from this failing. There can be nothing or no one
to replace the hole left by this loss. She (the author) has a unique
solution, arising from this crippled nature of Achilles in the area of
love, to two questions the Iliad asks: why Achilles allows
Agamemnon to take Briseis away without a fight and why he
chooses to stay out of the fight even while so many of his fellow
Greeks die as a result. Her answers provide a surprising moment. I
won’t spoil the shock by revealing it, but it will grab you whether
the Iliad’s an old friend or you’ve never read it. Suffice to say,
Patroclus does not share this crippling, narrowed focus of love, and
this lifts him into Miller’s new definition of the best hero.

 She doesn’t just imbue war with beauty, but when Patroclus is on
the field, she brings it alive, with the deep fear and momentary
panic; the excitement; the claustrophobia inside the armor; the
smells; the noise; the resignation to death if it comes, and the
overwhelming relief that washes over you like an ocean wave
when it doesn’t. And when it does end in tears and grief so intense,
the tears and the grief within the story were mirrored by my own.
 Major kudos to the author for being fateful to the original but
writing it in a way that makes the very ending to this story, a happy
one.

 This story makes you feel incredibly clever. It takes you to

different places, just by reading but if we were all better read in
classical history, we can use this as a secondary output or source. If
you think Jane Austen had the original word on pride and
prejudice, give Homer a whirl. Or for a briefer exposure to the
Trojan War that sounds more contemporary, and brings it to
astounding life, try this beautifully-crafted re-telling by Madeline
Miller. It richly deserves the accolades it has garnered.