Why does achilles withdraw from battle

At one point, when Hector is wounded by Aias , Apollo heals him enough the push the Achaeans back to their ships. He also aided Hector in the killing of Achilles best friend Patroclus. Although Apollo greatly admired and loved Hector, he could not save him from the Fates.

He could do so again, so the promise of more gifts is possibly an empty promise. This idea of social status is in keeping with the heroic code by which Achilles has lived, but in his isolation, he comes to question the idea of fighting for glory alone because "A man dies still if he has done nothing. Hektor is the embodiment of this view. Some critics see these ideas slowly developing through Achilles' ability to relate to others on a personal basis, as he does with Patroklos, and as he does in his guest-host relationship with the ambassadors from Agamemnon.

However, it is only after Patroklos' death that these relationships and broader concepts of love begin to become significant for Achilles. Ironically, with the death of Patroklos, Achilles begins to see life and relationships with other people from a mortal point of view, and at the same time, he is drawing ever closer to the divine aspects of love.

He has an obligation to avenge Patroklos' death, and he realizes his own shortcomings as Patroklos' protector. He also sees that his sitting by his ships is "a useless weight on the good land," something that is causing the deaths of many Achaian warriors. Unfortunately, however, Achilles is unable to see that the Achaians feel his withdrawal as keenly as he now feels the loss of Patroklos. It is Achilles' anger, whether he is sulking or whether he is violent, that is paramount throughout most of the epic.

In fact, his battle with the river is probably one of the most savage scenes in the Iliad. It shows us Achilles' insane wrath at its height. On first reading, the scene may seem confusing, but it is important to the reader's view of Achilles and to the mutilation theme.

Mutilation of bodies and Achilles' excesses prompt the river god to charge him with excessive evil. Back in Troy, the Trojans arm to meet the Achaeans and their warriors and allies are catalogued as well. Book 3. Paris challenges any of the Achaeans to a duel and Menelaos accepts. A truce is declared while Agamemnon and Hektor determine the conditions of the duel; Helen is to be awarded to the winner. Helen joins Priam on the walls of Troy and names the Achaean warriors for him.

Then, Priam goes to the battlefield to swear an oath with Agamemnon to respect the results of the duel. Menelaos and Paris fight. When Menelaos wounds Paris, Aphrodite snatches him away to the safety of his bedroom in Troy and to Helen. Book 4. At a council of the gods on Mount Olympos, Zeus considers bringing the Trojan War to an end after nine years and sparing the city of Troy.

Hera angrily objects, and Zeus sends Athena to break the truce. Athena persuades Pandaros, a Trojan nobleman, to shoot an arrow at Menelaos. Menelaos is wounded, the truce is broken and, as Agamemnon rallies the troops, fighting breaks out. Book 5. With fighting resumed, both armies battle bravely but the outstanding warrior is the Achaean hero, Diomedes, who Athena has inspired with exceptional courage and skill, as well as the ability to distinguish gods from men.

However, he must not engage any of the gods with the exception of Aphrodite. Diomedes kills Pandaros and is about to kill Aeneas when Aphrodite intervenes to save her son. When he wounds Aphrodite, Ares comes to help the Trojans. The goddesses, Hera and Athena, join in on the Achaean side.

Book 6. Hektor returns to Troy to ask the Trojan women to make a sacrifice to Athena to win her pity. He discovers Paris at home with Helen and rebukes his brother for abandoning the battlefield.

Hektor takes the opportunity to visit his own home and in a moving scene, says an emotional good-bye to his wife, Andromache, and their baby, Astyanax, before returning to battle. Book 7. Back on the battlefield, Hektor proposes a duel with one of the Achaeans. However, none of the Achaeans is brave enough to accept the Trojan heroes challenge.

Nestor chides the warriors until nine of the Achaean champions volunteer to fight Hektor. Finally, Telamonian Ajax is chosen by lot and the warriors engage in a ferocious fight, but the duel ends in a draw as night falls. Both sides agree to a truce to bury the dead, and the Achaeans build a wall and a trench to defend their ships and fortify their camp.

He relates to her the tale of his quarrel with Agamemnon, and she promises to take the matter up with Zeus—who owes her a favor—as soon as he returns from a thirteen-day period of feasting with the Aethiopians.

Meanwhile, the Achaean commander Odysseus is navigating the ship that Chryseis has boarded. When he lands, he returns the maiden and makes sacrifices to Apollo. Chryses, overjoyed to see his daughter, prays to the god to lift the plague from the Achaean camp. Apollo acknowledges his prayer, and Odysseus returns to his comrades. But the end of the plague on the Achaeans only marks the beginning of worse suffering.

Ever since his quarrel with Agamemnon, Achilles has refused to participate in battle, and, after twelve days, Thetis makes her appeal to Zeus, as promised. Zeus is reluctant to help the Trojans, for his wife, Hera , favors the Greeks, but he finally agrees.

Hera becomes livid when she discovers that Zeus is helping the Trojans, but her son Hephaestus persuades her not to plunge the gods into conflict over the mortals. Like other ancient epic poems, The Iliad presents its subject clearly from the outset. Although the Trojan War as a whole figures prominently in the work, this larger conflict ultimately provides the text with background rather than subject matter.

By the time Achilles and Agamemnon enter their quarrel, the Trojan War has been going on for nearly ten years. Instead, it scrutinizes the origins and the end of this wrath, thus narrowing the scope of the poem from a larger conflict between warring peoples to a smaller one between warring individuals. But while the poem focuses most centrally on the rage of a mortal, it also concerns itself greatly with the motivations and actions of the gods.