Why does Achilles exhibit such profound grief over Patroclus’ death? (Catherine Project 5)

 Catherine Project, Spring 2024, Homer -- Response 5, Il. 17-20

Why does Achilles exhibit such profound grief over Patroclus’ death?

Achilles’ reaction to Patroclus’ death seems vastly disproportionate to the admittedly terrible news. In the immediate wake of the news, he responds with intense grief and disregard for his own life: Antilochus holds Achilles’ hands fearing that Achilles will kill himself (18.33-4), and he responds to his mother that his death is worth it for Hector’s (18.98-9). Later in our reading for this week, he alienates himself from his own humanity: he refuses to eat and drink (19.209-214) and refuses Tros’ supplication (20.463-7). Nobody else exhibits such profound grief in the Iliad, and Odysseus gently tries to discourage Achilles in his particular case: “we must harden our hearts and bury the man who / dies, when we have wept over him on the day” (19.228-9). So why does Patroclus’ death hit Achilles so hard?

Perhaps there’s something special about the relationship between Achilles and Patroclus. If so, probably not because they are lovers, even if they are in later Greek texts (e.g. in Aeschylus’ mostly lost Myrmidons): the Iliad mostly rejects homosexual relationships (e.g. Ganymede is merely Zeus’ cupbearer at 20.232-5), and Achilles and Patroclus both sleep with women separately after the embassy (9.661-8). 

But they still could have a profound bond of friendship, similar to some of the other glimpses we have of others that are tightly bound together (the Aiantes, Sarpedon and Glaucus, Diomedes and Sthenelus, etc.): Achilles issues the astonishing wish that all the other Greeks and Trojans would die and that he and Patroclus alone would take Troy (16.97-100), which looks a bit like Diomedes’ wish that he and Sthenelus would remain alone at Troy to take the city (9.46-9). At times Achilles almost characterizes Patroclus as someone who will take his place upon his death: at 19.328-33 he expresses his thwarted wish that Patroclus take his son to Phthia and show him his home, apparently as a kind of surrogate father to Achilles’ son. 

Personally I find it very hard to buy this line of argument, though. Achilles is inconsistent on what outcome he wanted for himself and Patroclus (at 18.324-8 he remembers his promise that both he and Patroclus would come home), but more importantly I find their interactions in the epic to be lacking evidence of an unusually deep friendship. Patroclus acts as a kind of trusted, high-ranking servant to Achilles in 1 and 9 – present but silent, following Achilles’ commands to lead out Briseis and cut the meat – and their only extended conversation is when Patroclus asks Achilles to go to war (at the beginning of 16). This is a hard conversation to assess, but Achilles’ comparison of Patroclus to a little girl (16.6-11) seems demeaning at best, and Patroclus’ own speech expresses irritated frustration (16.29 “you are impossible to deal with”). Admittedly It’s hard to judge because the Iliad tends not to shed much light on male friendship (e.g. at 11.642). But nevertheless, I find it hard to believe that we are supposed to see Achilles and Patroclus’ friendship as deeper or more meaningful than e.g. Sarpedon and Glaucus. 

So why is Achilles so upset? Three possibilities:

1. Achilles himself claims guilt for not being present to defend Patroclus (18.98-100), not to mention his responsibility for Patroclus’ death by sending him to battle in his place. Perhaps regardless of his feelings toward Patroclus he feels some responsibility and guilt for his death (though he’s not particularly concerned about all the Achaeans whose deaths he’s caused).
2. “Survivor’s guilt” is a trope of war fiction: people often feel guilty for having survived when their brothers-in-arms did not. Perhaps Achilles feels guilty for still being alive at all. 
3. The other similar friendships we’ve seen are decidedly of unequals: Sarpedon is much better in every way than Glaucus, and similarly Diomedes than Sthenelus. Perhaps there is a kind of noblesse oblige here: maybe the superior member is supposed to take greater risks and die, not the lesser member (e.g. it’s Sarpedon who dies, not Glaucus), and so perhaps Patroclus’ death violates that hierarchy by having the lesser member take the greater’s place and die in his stead.