Achilles and Patroclus#In the Iliad

File:(27) Flaxman Ilias 1795, Zeichnung 1793, 189 x 284 mm.jpg, 1795.]]

Achilles and Patroclus quarter together in a tent near their Greek allies fleet of ships. King Agamemnon realizes that Achilles, due to his heroic reputation, needs to enter the fight, but Achilles, having been disrespected by Agamemnon, refuses. Agamemnon sends an envoy to change his mind. In Book IX (lines 225 to 241) the diplomats, Odysseus and Ajax, hear Achilles playing the lyre and singing all alone with Patroclus. They both spring to their feet in surprise as the guests enter. After much talk, the embassy fails to convince Achilles to fight.

After more fighting, Nestor arrives back to the Greek allies base with a wounded soldier. Achilles sends Patroclus out to speak with him. In Book XI (lines 786 to 804) Nestor reminds Patroclus that his father had long ago taught him that, although Achilles was nobler, he (Patroclus) was still Achilles' elder, and therefore he should counsel and guide Achilles wisely so that perhaps he would finally enter the fight against the Trojans, but if not, then he himself (Patroclus) should don Achilles' armor to deceive the Trojans into thinking that Achilles had joined the fight, which should scare them away from their base and back to their own walls.

Later on, the Trojans continue their advance on the Greek allies' base and breach the defensive wall guarding their ships. Patroclus eventually dons Achilles' armor and scares the Trojans back as planned, and Patroclus also kills Sarpedon, a son of Zeus, but then Hector kills Patroclus. News of Patroclus' death reaches Achilles through Nestor's son Antilochus, which throws Achilles into deep grief. The earlier steadfast and unbreakable Achilles agonizes, touching Patroclus' dead body, smearing himself with ash and fasting. He laments Patroclus' death using language very similar to the grief of Hector's wife. He also requests that when he dies, his bones be mixed with Patroclus' in a vase.{{efn|Reading The Odyssey (Book XXIV), one discovers that Achilles' bones have indeed been placed in a vase with those of Patroclus, but also learns that Antilochus became closer than any other to Achilles following Patroclus' death, and that Antilochus' bones were also placed within the same vase, but separated from the bones of Achilles and Patroclus, which had been stirred together.}}

The rage that follows from Patroclus' death becomes the prime motivation for Achilles to return to the battlefield. He returns to battle with the sole aim of avenging Patroclus' death by killing Hector, despite a warning that doing so would cost him his life. Achilles even engages in battle with the river god Scamander in his efforts to reach Hector. After defeating Hector, Achilles drags his corpse by the heels behind his chariot.

Achilles' strongest interpersonal bond is with Patroclus. As Gregory Nagy points out:

{{quote|For Achilles{{nbsp}}[...] in his own ascending scale of affection as dramatized by the entire composition of the Iliad, the highest place must belong to Patroklos{{nbsp}}[...] In fact Patroklos is for Achilles the {{lang|grc|πολὺ φίλτατος{{nbsp}}[...] ἑταῖρος}} — the '{{transliteration|grc|hetaîros}} who is the most {{transliteration|grc|phílos}} by far' (XVII 411, 655).Gregory Nagy (1999) The Best of the Achaeans, second edition. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. p. 105 ([http://www.press.jhu.edu/books/nagy/BofATL/chapter6.html online edition] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200726165906/https://www.press.jhu.edu/books/nagy/BofATL/chapter6.html |date=2020-07-26 }}). {{ISBN|0-8018-6015-6}}.}}

{{transliteration|grc|Hetaîros}} meant "companion" or "comrade"; in Homer it is usually used of soldiers under the same commander. While its feminine form ({{transliteration|grc|hetaîra}}) would be used for courtesans, a {{transliteration|grc|hetaîros}} was still a form of soldier in Hellenistic and Byzantine times. In ancient texts, {{transliteration|grc|philos}} (often translated "most beloved") denoted a general type of love, used for love between family, between friends, a desire or enjoyment of an activity, as well as between lovers.

Achilles' attachment to Patroclus is an archetypal male bond that occurs elsewhere in Greek culture: the mythical Damon and Pythias, the legendary Orestes and Pylades, and the historical Harmodius and Aristogeiton are pairs of comrades who gladly face danger and death for and beside each other.Johansson, Warren (1990) Encyclopedia of Homosexuality, U.S.

In the Oxford Classical Dictionary, David M. Halperin writes:

{{quotation|Homer, to be sure, does not portray Achilles and Patroclus as lovers (although some Classical Athenians thought he implied as much (Aeschylus fragments 135, 136 Radt; Plato Symposium 179e–180b; Aeschines Against Timarchus 133, 141–50)), but he also did little to rule out such an interpretation.Oxford Classical Dictionary, third edition. Simon Hornblower and Antony Spawforth, eds. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996. p. 721. {{ISBN|0-19-866172-X}}.}}

Since the 5th century BC, Greek writing has dealt with the nature of the relationship between Achilles and Patroclus. The majority of extant works from this period portray the pair as lovers, whether the works are retelling their myth or interpreting their portrayal as written in the Iliad. Because the Iliad never explicitly states the nature of the pair's relationship, there was long-standing debate over textual interpretation, even though there are limited extant works which argue that they were not lovers. Writers who argued most forcefully that the relationship involves sex and same-sex love include Aeschylus, Plato, and Aeschines. Xenophon is the most notable source to refute this portrayal, claiming that the relationship is not erotic.{{Cite journal |last=Warwick |first=Celsiana |date=2019 |title=We Two Alone: Conjugal Bonds and Homoerotic Subtext in the Iliad |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/article/749465 |journal=Helios |volume=46 |issue=2 |pages=115–139 |doi=10.1353/hel.2019.0007 |issn=1935-0228}}{{Cite journal |last=Morales |first=Manuel Sanz |last2=Mariscal |first2=Gabriel Laguna |date=2003 |title=The Relationship between Achilles and Patroclus according to Chariton of Aphrodisias |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3556498 |journal=The Classical Quarterly |volume=53 |issue=1 |pages=292–295 |issn=0009-8388}}

In Athens, the relationship was often viewed as being both sexual and pederastic.{{cite journal|last=Clarke |first=W. M. |year=1978|title=Achilles and Patroclus in Love|journal=Hermes|volume=106|issue=3|pages= 381–396|jstor=4476069}} The Greek custom of {{transliteration|grc|paiderasteia}} between members of the same sex, typically men, was a political, intellectual, and sometimes sexual relationship.{{Cite journal|first=Nicole|last=Holmen|date=2010|title=Examining Greek Pederastic Relationships| page=1|url=http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/175/examining-greek-pederastic-relationships|journal=Inquiries Journal|volume=2|issue=2}} Its ideal structure consisted of an older {{transliteration|grc|erastes}} (lover, protector), and a younger {{transliteration|grc|eromenos}} (the beloved). The age difference between partners and their respective roles (either active or passive) was considered to be a key feature.{{Cite book|title=Sexuality in Greek and Roman Society and Literature: A Sourcebook|url=https://archive.org/details/sexualitygreekro00john|url-access=limited|last1=Marguerite|first1=Johnson|last2=Ryan|first2=Terry|publisher=Routledge|year=2005|isbn=9780415173315|location=New York|pages=[https://archive.org/details/sexualitygreekro00john/page/n28 3]|via=Google Books}} Writers that assumed a pederastic relationship between Achilles and Patroclus, such as Plato and Aeschylus, were then faced with a problem of deciding who must be more active and play the role of the {{transliteration|grc|erastes}}.{{Cite book|title=Pederasty and Pedagogy in Archaic Greece|last=Percy|first=William A.|publisher=University of Illinois Press|year=1998|isbn=9780252067402|location=Chicago|pages=[https://archive.org/details/pederastypedagog00perc/page/39 39]|via=Google Books|url=https://archive.org/details/pederastypedagog00perc/page/39}} When classical writers labeled their roles, they mostly characterized Achilles as the {{transliteration|grc|erastes}} and Patroclus as the {{transliteration|grc|eromenos}}, although Plato notably flips this characterization. The pair didn't neatly fit into expected pederasty roles, and pederasty may not have been a common institution at the time the Iliad was written, making this a subject of debate.

Aeschylus makes the relationship between Achilles and Patroclus the center of his lost tragedy The Myrmidons (5th century BC), explicitly casting the relationship as homoerotic, pederastic, and sexual. Aeschylus assigned Achilles the role of {{transliteration|grc|erastes}} or protector (since he had avenged his lover's death, even though the gods told him it would cost him his own life), and assigned Patroclus the role of {{transliteration|grc|eromenos}}. Achilles publicly laments Patroclus' death, addressing the corpse and criticizing him for letting himself be killed. In a surviving fragment of the play, Achilles speaks of "the reverent company" of Patroclus' thighs and how Patroclus was "ungrateful for many kisses."{{cite book|title=Achilles in Greek Tragedy|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=2007|isbn=978-0-521-81843-8|page=51|author=Michelakis, Pantelis}}Aesch. Myrmidons fr. 135 Radt.

Pindar's comparison of the adolescent boxer Hagesidamus and his trainer Ilas to Patroclus and Achilles in Olympian 10.16–21 (476 BC) as well as the comparison of Hagesidamus to Zeus' lover Ganymede in Olympian 10.99–105 suggest that student and trainer had a romantic relationship, especially after Aeschylus' depiction of Achilles and Patroclus as lovers in his play Myrmidons.{{cite journal| pmid=16338892 | volume=49 | issue=3–4 | title=Pindar's Tenth Olympian and athlete-trainer pederasty | year=2005 | journal=J Homosex | pages=137–71 | last1 = Hubbard | first1 = T | doi=10.1300/j082v49n03_05| s2cid=27221686 }}

In Plato's Symposium, written {{c.|385 BC}}, the speaker Phaedrus holds up Achilles and Patroclus as an example of divinely approved lovers. Phaedrus argues that Aeschylus erred in claiming Achilles was the {{transliteration|grc|erastes}} because Achilles was more beautiful and youthful than Patroclus (characteristics of the {{transliteration|grc|eromenos}}) as well as more noble and skilled in battle (characteristics of the {{transliteration|grc|erastes}}).Percy, William Armstrong (2005) "Reconsiderations about Greek Homosexualities," in Same–Sex Desire and Love in Greco-Roman Antiquity and in the Classical Tradition of the West, Binghamton. p. 19. {{ISBN|9781560236047}}{{Cite book|title=Greek Homosexuality|last=Dover|first=Kenneth J.|publisher=Vintage Books|year=1978|isbn=978-0-394-74224-3|location=New York|pages=197–199|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/greekhomosexuali00dove/page/197}} Instead, Phaedrus suggests that Achilles is the {{transliteration|grc|eromenos}} whose reverence of his {{transliteration|grc|erastes}}, Patroclus, was so great that he would be willing to die to avenge him.

The poet Bion of Smyrna later referenced Plato's view, and an opposing argument from Xenophon. In his poem, Bion agreed with Plato that the relationship was one of lovers and not just friends.

Plato's contemporary, Xenophon, in his own Symposium, had Socrates argue that Achilles and Patroclus were merely chaste and devoted comrades in the Iliad. Specifically, according to Socrates: "Homer pictures us Achilles looking upon Patroclus not as the object of his passion but as a comrade, and in this spirit signally avenging his death".[https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0212%3Atext%3DSym.%3Achapter%3D8%3Asection%3D31 Xenophon, Symposium, 8.31] Xenophon cites other examples of legendary comrades, such as Orestes and Pylades, who were renowned for their joint achievements rather than any erotic relationship. Notably, in Xenophon's Symposium, the host Kallias and the young pankration victor Autolycos are called {{transliteration|grc|erastes}} and {{transliteration|grc|eromenos}}.

This interpretation of the Iliad relationship as non-sexual influenced later authors. It is referenced in works from Dio Chrysostom, Lucian, Plutarch, Themistius, and Libanius.{{Cite journal |last=Laguna-Mariscal |first=Gabriel |last2=Sanz-Morales |first2=Manuel |date=2005 |title=Was the Relationship between Achilles and Patroclus Homoerotic? The View of Apollonius Rhodius |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/4477639 |journal=Hermes |volume=133 |issue=1 |pages=120–123 |issn=0018-0777}}

Aeschines, at his trial in 345 BC, placed an emphasis on the importance of {{transliteration|grc|paiderasteia}} to the Greeks, and argues that though Homer does not state it explicitly, educated people should be able to read between the lines: "Although (Homer) speaks in many places of Patroclus and Achilles, he hides their love and avoids giving a name to their friendship, thinking that the exceeding greatness of their affection is manifest to such of his hearers as are educated men."{{sfn|Holmen|2010}} Aeschines presented the relationship as pederastic, noble, and loving, and cites the Iliad in his speech.Aeschines. "Against Timarchus", [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Aeschin.+1+133&redirect=true Section 133] Aeschines describes Achilles as the {{transliteration|grc|erastes}} in the relationship.

Most ancient writers (among the most influential Plutarch, Theocritus, Martial, Meleager, and Lucian) followed the thinking laid out by Aeschines.{{sfn|Clarke|1978}} The poets Bion of Smyrna and Strato also characterized the relationship as pederastic, with Achilles as the {{transliteration|grc|erastes}}.

Attempts to edit Homer's text were undertaken by Aristarchus of Samothrace in Alexandria around 200 BC. Aristarchus believed that Homer did not intend for Achilles and Patroclus to be lovers. However, Aristarchus thought one passage of the Iliad implied Achilles was in love with Patroclus.Crompton, Louis

(1993) Homosexuality and Civilization. The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. p. 6. {{ISBN|9780674022331}} Aristarchus disavowed these lines, arguing that it was an edited section from someone who wanted Achilles and Patroclus to be lovers. In the text, Achilles wishes that every Greek and Trojan except himself and Patroclus would die, so that the two can sack Troy together.Homer, Iliad [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Hom.+Il.+16.97&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0134 16.97-100]. Aristarchus thought this was too intense and believed Homer's Achilles was too sympathetic to wish for all the Greeks and Trojans to die this way.

According to Pseudo-Apollodorus, Patroclus was the son of Menoetius and Polymele. After Patroclus killed a young boy in anger, Menoetius gave him to Peleus, the father of Achilles. As such, Patroclus can be seen as a brother-like figure to Achilles.{{Cite book |last=Wood |first=Christopher |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=j6EREAAAQBAJ |title=Heroes Masked and Mythic: Echoes of Ancient Archetypes in Comic Book Characters |date=2021 |publisher=McFarland |isbn=978-1-4766-8315-7 |pages=44 |language=en}}

Statius in the Achilleid states that Achilles and Patroclus were either within the same age group, or acted as if they were. This signifies that he did not assign a strict pederastic role to either of them based on their ages.{{cite book |last1=Butler |first1=Shane |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KNeiCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA29 |title=Deep Classics: Rethinking Classical Reception |date=5 May 2016 |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing |isbn=978-1-4742-6053-4 |page=29 |quote=For good measure, Poliziano throws in a unique example of a compromise view, reporting that the Roman poet Statius, in his unfinished epic, the Achilleid, makes Achilles and Patroclus 'equals in age', though Poliziano curiously (and uncharacteristically) misparaphrases the relevant lines (which he then quotes), in which we are told that the two, as boys, simply acted the same age, though the latter 'fell far behind in strength'.}}{{cite book |last1=Ingleheart |first1=Jennifer |author1-link=Jennifer Ingleheart |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tzdtDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA268 |title=Masculine Plural: Queer Classics, Sex, and Education |date=4 September 2018 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-255160-3 |page=268 |quote=... and that Patroclus is par studiis aeuique modis, 1.176. This latter phrase is difficult: it probably means something like 'equal in the pursuits and ways of youth', and Bainbrigge may have taken it as inspiration ...}} Statius described a "great love" between the pair since their youth, using language that is left ambiguous as to whether it is homoerotic or platonic.

The poet Theocritus characterizes the relationship as sexual in one of his poems. This poem can be read as implying the relationship is more egalitarian than traditional pederasty roles allow.

Chariton of Aphrodisias and Apollonius Rhodius viewed the Iliad's version of the relationship between Achilles and Patroclus as homoerotic, according to modern classicists Gabriel Laguna-Mariscal and Manuel Sanz-Morales. This is because the ancient writers allude to Homeric passages about the relationship when they are writing of love within erotic contexts in their own works.

When Alexander the Great and his confidant Hephaestion passed through the city of Troy on their Asian campaign, Alexander honoured the sacred tomb of Achilles and Patroclus in front of the entire army, and this was taken as a clear declaration of their own relationship. The joint tomb and Alexander's action demonstrates the perceived significance of the Achilles–Patroclus relationship at that time (around 334 BC).Plutarch (1973) Age of Alexander, Life of Alexander. p. 294, Penguin Classics editionArrian (1958). The Campaigns of Alexander. p. 67, Penguin Classics edition.

File:Nikolay Ge 002.jpeg Nikolai Ge]]

During the Middle Ages, the classical tradition frequently portrayed Achilles as heterosexual and having an exemplary platonic friendship with Patroclus. Medieval Christian writers deliberately suppressed the homoerotic nuances of the figure.

Antonio Beccadelli's collection of erotic poetry, the Hermaphroditus, includes a poem describing intercourse between Achilles and Patroclus.{{Cite book |last=Butler |first=Shane |title=Deep classics: rethinking classical reception |date= |publisher=Bloomsbury Academic, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc |year=2016 |isbn=978-1-4742-6053-4 |editor-last=Butler |editor-first=Shane |location=London |pages=23-30 |chapter=Homer's Deep}} The collection was popular but also sparked condemnation, and Pope Eugenius IV threatened to excommunicate anyone reading it.{{Cite web |title=The Hermaphrodite — Harvard University Press |url=https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674047570 |archive-url=http://web.archive.org/web/20240721172631/https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674047570 |archive-date=2024-07-21 |access-date=2025-05-01 |website=Harvard University Press |language=en}}

William Shakespeare's play Troilus and Cressida portrays Achilles and Patroclus as lovers in the eyes of the Greeks.{{Citation|last=Shakespeare|first=William|editor1-first=Kenneth|editor1-last=Muir|date=1609|pages=47–48|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=9780198129035|doi=10.1093/oseo/instance.00027413|title=The Oxford Shakespeare: Troilus and Cressida|chapter=Troilus and Cressida}} Achilles' decision to spend his days in his tent with Patroclus is seen by Odysseus (called Ulysses in the play) and many other Greeks as the chief reason for anxiety about Troy.{{Citation|last=Shakespeare|first=William|editor1-first=Kenneth|editor1-last=Muir|date=1609|pages=24–5|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=9780198129035|doi=10.1093/oseo/instance.00027413|title=The Oxford Shakespeare: Troilus and Cressida|chapter=Troilus and Cressida}}

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Jonathan Shay, whose book Achilles in Vietnam proposes readings of the Iliad that have been helpful and therapeutically useful for the healing of mental wounds in Vietnam veterans, pointed out that their familial relationship in the Iliad must not be overlooked: Patroclus is Achilles' cousin and his foster brother; symbolically, comrades in battle are "like brothers," making the Achilles/Patroclus model useful for thinking about the intensity of Vietnam veterans' feelings of loss when their comrades fell beside them. Shay places a strong emphasis on the relationships that soldiers who experience combat together forge, and points out that this kind of loss has in fact often led to "berserking" of soldiers stunned with grief and rage, in a way similar to the raging of Achilles in the Iliad. Shay points out that a frequent topos in veterans' grief for a companion is that companion's gentleness or innocence; similarly, while a warrior of great note, Patroclus is said in the Iliad by other soldiers and by Briseis the captive to have been gentle and kind.

The film Troy presented Patroclus as a younger relative of Achilles, without any romantic or sexual aspects.{{cite book|last1=Michael|first1=Michael G.|title=Of Muscles and Men: Essays on the Sword and Sandal Film|date=2011|publisher=McFarland|isbn=978-0786489022|page=46}} (In the Iliad, it is explicitly stated that Patroclus was the older and more responsible of the two.) The film presents the pair as cousins and is one of the main modern inspirations for reading the pair as close relatives. It justifies their bond as arising from kinship and guardianship rather than friendship. According to historian Cezary Kucewicz, this is a departure from previous interpretations of the pair as either close comrades or lovers. Achilles and Patroclus were related in original tellings via Aegina, a nymph, but not portrayed as relatives. In an uncommon variant of the myth attributed to the poet Hesiod, the pair are portrayed as direct cousins via their fathers, Menoetius and Peleus.{{Cite web |last=Kucewicz |first=Cezary |date=2020-09-29 |title=Were Achilles and Patroclus cousins? |url=https://www.badancient.com/claims/achilles-patroclus-cousins/ |access-date=2025-05-01 |website=Bad Ancient |language=en}}

Madeline Miller's The Song of Achilles (2011) is a coming-of-age story told from Patroclus' point of view, showing the development of a loving and sexual relationship between Achilles and Patroclus.{{cite news|last1=Haynes|first1=Natalie|title=The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller – review|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/sep/29/song-of-achilles-miller-review|work=The Guardian|date=September 29, 2011}}{{cite journal |last1=Leidich |first1=Sarah |title=From Muse to Material: The Defiance of Homeric Identity Through Creative Adaptation |journal=Meliora: A Journal of Barnard English Theses |date=2021-04-28 |volume=1 |issue=1 |url=https://journals.library.columbia.edu/index.php/meliora/article/view/7930/4214 |access-date=2022-03-21}} Miller wrote that her portrayal of the pair as lovers was inspired by ancient Greek and Roman literature. She shared her analysis of the Iliad's portrayal of the relationship:

{{Blockquote|text=There is a lot of support for their relationship in the text of the Iliad itself, though Homer never makes it explicit. For me, the most compelling piece of evidence, aside from the depth of Achilles' grief, is how he grieves: Achilles refuses to burn Patroclus' body, insisting instead on keeping the corpse in his tent, where he constantly weeps and embraces it—despite the horrified reactions of those around him. That sense of physical devastation spoke deeply to me of a true and total intimacy between the two men.{{cite news|url=http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/jacketcopy/2012/05/first-time-author-madeline-miller-wins-last-ever-orange-prize.html|title=First-time author Madeline Miller wins last-ever Orange Prize|last=Kellogg|first=Carolyn|date=May 30, 2012|work=Los Angeles Times|accessdate=May 30, 2012}}}}

Commentators from the Classical period interpreted the relationship through the lens of their own cultures, just as post-classical writers did. Middle Ages writers on the classical tradition often cast Achilles as heterosexual and having an exemplary platonic friendship with Patroclus. Medieval Christian writers deliberately suppressed the homoerotic nuances of the figure.

Modern scholars have debated how the Iliad portrays the nature of Achilles' and Patroclus' relationship. Specific questions include whether the bond was homoerotic, included sexual intercourse, conformed to pederasty, and was a platonic friendship. Scholars have also debated whether some questions are even answerable, what types of evidence are appropriate, and what the norms and context of Homer's time would have been.

Angelo Poliziano was the first post-classical scholar to review the homoerotic tradition of the relationship between Achilles and Patroclus, and perhaps the first modern scholar to examine ancient portrayals of same-sex love. In his Miscellania from 1489, he devotes an essay to reviewing ancient authors' opinions on the relationship. He documents implicitly and explicitly sexual characterizations of the relationship, as well as the debate over the partners' pederastic roles. Modern classicist Shane Butler characterizes Poliziano's conclusion as a "deliberate tease" that avoids using the text of the Iliad to determine that one pederastic interpretation is correct over the other, leaving the question of roles unresolved.

John Addington Symonds, in his 1873-76 text Studies of the Greek Poets, argued that the love between Achilles and Patroclus was central to the plot of the Iliad. Symonds later described it as an idealized example of masculine love: “a powerful and masculine emotion, in which effeminacy had no part, and which by no means excluded the ordinary sexual feelings…the tie was both more spiritual and more energetic than that which bound man to woman.” In this essay, he also described their bond as a "heroic friendship," and rejected the interpretation that their relationship was pederastic.{{Cite web |last=Roalsvig |first=Emma |date=2019-03-24 |title=The Epic Love Story of Patroclus and Achilles |url=https://symondsproject.org/the-epic-love-story-of-patroclus-and-achilles/ |access-date=2025-04-11 |website=John Addington Symonds Project |language=en-US}}

Saul Levin, in the 1949 article "Love and the Hero of the Iliad," states that their relationship was not pederastic, but that the relationship was more meaningful to Achilles than any love he could have for women, or his other familial relationships.{{Cite journal |last=Levin |first=Saul |date=1949 |title=Love and the Hero of the Iliad |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/283510 |journal=Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association |volume=80 |pages=37–49 |doi=10.2307/283510 |issn=0065-9711}}

W. M. Clarke, in the 1978 article "Achilles and Patroclus in Love," argues that the pair are in love, in a homoerotic, and likely sexual, relationship. He rejects the notion that they just had a close platonic friendship, and also says that the relationship does not align with pederasty. Clarke cites comparisons between their relationship and others in the Iliad, as well as how other characters describe the pair and how they describe each other. Clarke also uses comparative evidence from other literature and myths, especially on tropes of love, and dissects ancient commentary on the Iliad.

Bernard Sergent, in his 1986 Homosexuality in Greek Myth, stated that their relationship was definitely homophilic but not pederastic, and their relationship involved "an intensity of emotions between two men in an expression that surpasses what our own culture tolerates." Sergent does not comment on whether the pair had sex.{{Cite book |last=Percy |first=William A. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TCvoj1efp8UC |title=Pederasty and Pedagogy in Archaic Greece |date=1996 |publisher=University of Illinois Press |isbn=978-0-252-06740-2 |pages=40 |language=en}} According to William A. Percy III, other scholars also believe that in Homer's Ionian culture there existed a homosexuality that had not taken on the form it later would in pederasty.{{Cite journal |last=Percy |first=William Armstrong |year=2005 |title=Reconsiderations About Greek Homosexualities |journal=Journal of Homosexuality |volume=49 |issue=3–4 |pages=13–61 |doi=10.1300/j082v49n03_02 |pmid=16338889 |s2cid=20548741}}

David Halperin argues that that Achilles and Patroclus had a non-sexual platonic friendship. In works like One Hundred Years of Homosexuality, Halperin compares Achilles and Patroclus to the roughly contemporary traditions of Jonathan and David, and Gilgamesh and Enkidu.{{Cite book |last=Halperin |first=David M. |title=One hundred years of homosexuality: and other essays on Greek love |date=1990 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-0-415-90096-6 |location=New York |pages=76-85}} He argues that while a modern reader is inclined to interpret the portrayal of these intense same-sex male warrior friendships as being fundamentally homoerotic, it is important to consider the greater themes of these relationships:

{{quote|The thematic insistence on mutuality and the merging of individual identities, although it may invoke in the minds of modern readers the formulas of heterosexual romantic love{{nbsp}}[...] in fact situates avowals of reciprocal love between male friends in an honorable, even glamorous tradition of heroic comradeship: precisely by banishing any hint of subordination on the part of one friend to the other, and thus any suggestion of hierarchy, the emphasis on the fusion of two souls into one actually distances such a love from erotic passion.{{Cite journal|last=Halperin|first=David M.|year=2000|title=How to do the history of male homosexuality|url=http://www-bcf.usc.edu/~bitel/documents/Halperin.pdf|journal=GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies|volume=6|pages=87–124|doi=10.1215/10642684-6-1-87|s2cid=145019034|access-date=2016-12-09|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161220080123/http://www-bcf.usc.edu/~bitel/documents/Halperin.pdf|archive-date=2016-12-20|url-status=dead}}}}

According to Halperin, these distinctive friendships needed to be explained to audiences using the familiar language and imagery of marital and familial relationships. This can explain the overtones in Book 19 of the Iliad wherein Achilles mourns Patroclus (lines 315–337) in a similar manner used previously by Briseis (lines 287–300).

Classicists Victor Davis Hanson and John Heath argue that modern authors who identify the pair as homosexual ingeniously reinvent the Homeric text at will.{{Cite book |last1=Hanson |first1=Victor Davis |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ty3lHncLD48C |title=Who Killed Homer?: The Demise of Classical Education and the Recovery of Greek Wisdom |last2=Heath |first2=John |date=2001 |publisher=Encounter Books |isbn=978-1-893554-26-9 |pages=137–138 |language=en}}

James Davidson, in the 2007 book The Greeks and Greek Love: a radical reappraisal of homosexuality in Ancient Greece, argues that the relationship between Achilles and Patroclus was homoerotic, and that the pair had a type of homosexual marriage.{{Cite journal |last=Brook |first=Eric C |date=2008-07-20 |title=Review of: The Greeks and Greek Love: A Radical Reappraisal of Homosexuality in Ancient Greece |url=https://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2008/2008.07.20/ |journal=Bryn Mawr Classical Review |issn=1055-7660}}

Robin Lane Fox has written that "There is certainly no evidence in the text of the Iliad that Achilles and Patroclus were lovers. [...] Those contemporary critics who see all literary instances of male affection for males as proof of "repressed homosexuality" have the same problem as other conspiracy theorists: their hypothesis is invulnerable to disproof; we have no way of knowing if they are wrong".

Marco Fantuzzi, in the 2012 book Achilles in Love, argues that there was no homoerotic element to their relationship, and that they had a symbiotic bond, with Patroclus serving as Achilles' alter ego.{{Cite journal |last=Acosta-Hughes |first=Benjamin |date=2013-09-11 |title=Review of: Achilles in Love. Intertextual Studies |url=https://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2013/2013.09.11/ |journal=Bryn Mawr Classical Review |issn=1055-7660}}

Shane Butler, in the 2016 book Deep Classics: Rethinking Classical Reception, disagrees with Fantuzzi and argues that the pair had a true love that naturally defied labels and explicit roles like those of pederasty. Butler says the best answer to defining their relationship is that they occupy all of the options: friends, battlefield-comrades, and lovers.

Celsiana Warwick argued in the 2019 article "We Two Alone: Conjugal Bonds and Homoerotic Subtext in the Iliad" that the relationship was homoerotic, taking the form of a conjugal bond rather than fitting into the norms of pederasty. Warwick argues that their bond, and that of Odysseus and Penelope, were presented by Homer as the ideal conjugal relationship, and that these ideals had subversive elements.

• David and Jonathan
• Homosexuality in ancient Greece
• Homosexuality in the militaries of ancient Greece
• Nisus and Euryalus

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{{Reflist}}

{{LGBT history}}

{{Troilus and Cressida}}

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Category:Achaean Leaders

Category:Achilles

Category:LGBTQ themes in Greek mythology

Category:Mythological duos