ENG 283E: Our Premodern Epics: How Epics Create Culture and Vice Versa

Achilles and Patroclus: Friends or More? by Madeleine McCaughey

The relationship between Achilles and Patroclus as presented by Homer in the Iliad was a matter for discussion among writers and scholars from the fifth century BC: was it a relationship of homosexual love or was it just a friendship? At no point in the Iliad does Homer make it explicit the nature of their relationship, which leaves room for ambiguity. Many writers of the antiquity have established parallels between their romantically involved characters to the relationship of Patroclus and Achilles. In Callirhoe, Chariton presents Chaereas and Callirhoe who find themselves in a state of separation and grief, a common trope in a Greek novel, set in Syracuse, Sicily. Chariton falls in love with Callirhoe, the daughter of a Hermocrates, a hero of the Peloponnesian War and the most important political figure of Syracuse. Hermocrates was a real general from Syracuse and did have a daughter who married Dionysius I of Syracuse.
In his passages, Chariton cites verses from the Iliad that illustrate the grief Achilles has from the death of Patroclus. One example is in 5.10.9 ("Even if in Hades people forget the dead, even there I shall remember you, my dear"): Chareas, in a state of anguish because of his split from Callirhoe, tries to kill himself. At death’s door, he quotes Il. 22.389-90, verses in which Achilles promises to remember Patroclus always, even though in Hades there is no remembrance of the dead ("Even if they forget the dead in Hades, yet even there shall I always remember my dear companion").  The parallels noted between the Iliad and Callirhoe highlight the significant influence Homer’s novel played on ancient Greek novels and epics.

Homer, and Robert Fitzgerald. "22.389-90." The Iliad. Garden City, NY: Anchor, 1974. N. pag. Print.
Chariton, and G. P. Goold. "5.10.9." Callirhoe. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1995. N. pag. Print.

This page has paths:

This page references: