Imaginary interview with Achilles
by Charactorium · Achilles · Mythology · 6 min read
The sun sets over the plain of Troy. Under a vast tent where bronze weapons gleam, a warrior with blazing eyes sharpens his spear. He agrees to speak, he whom the Achaeans call the swiftest, the most terrible — Achilles, son of Thetis.
—Before the war, before Troy, who shaped you into a warrior?
I was born in Thessaly, in Phthia, to King Peleus and Thetis, the silver-footed Nereid — a mother from the waves, a mortal father, and me between them, neither fully man nor fully god. Very young, I was entrusted to the centaur Chiron, high on the slopes where one hunts deer bare-handed. He taught me the spear before speech, tending wounds before songs, the lyre between races. A centaur does not lie to the child he raises: he told me that my divine blood exempted me from nothing, that a demigod must earn his place among men through his deeds. I grew up riding that truth. When I left the mountain for the ships, I carried not the pride of a goddess's son, but the roughness of Chiron's pupil.
A centaur does not lie to the child he raises.
—They say your mother tried everything to keep you from this war. How did you experience that?
My mother knew. Nereids see beneath the surface of things as beneath the sea, and Thetis had read my fate: a long, obscure life in Phthia, or a brief life crowned with glory before Troy. She hid me, as a child, where no one would think to seek a warrior. But you cannot hide a fire under a veil. I wanted to leave. I wanted it as one wants to breathe. A mother weeping beforehand for her son's death, and a son running toward that death with open eyes — that was the first battle I fought, and it took place on no battlefield. I chose the ships. I chose bronze and salt. Thetis could not hold me back; she only obtained from the gods that my armor, when the hour came, be forged by Hephaestus himself.
You cannot hide a fire under a veil.
—Let's talk about your quarrel with Agamemnon. What drove you to lay down your arms?
Agamemnon thought himself king of my anger as he was king of kings. He took Briseis, my portion of honor, the captive my arm had won. Understand me: it was not a woman being torn from me, it was my timè, my honor made visible before the entire army. A warrior without honor is merely a butcher. So I withdrew my spear and my Myrmidons from battle, and I stayed under my tent while the Trojans pushed the Achaeans back to the ships. Let them die, I thought, let them feel what the contempt of one man costs. They will say I let my own perish out of pride. I answer: without honor, why would a man accept to die far from home, on a foreign shore? My anger, which the bards still sing, was no whim. It was the price of my dignity.
A warrior without honor is merely a butcher.
—That anger cost you dearly. In hindsight, do you regret it?
They sing that my anger was ruinous, that it hurled so many valiant warriors to Hades and left their bodies as prey for dogs. That is true. But does one regret being what one is? I am made of that flame. Where I nuance is on the price: I thought I was losing only anonymous Achaeans, men of Agamemnon. I was wrong. My anger ended up taking the being I loved most, Patroclus, who went to fight in my armor because I refused to go myself. That is what I understood too late: rancor does not only strike the one it targets. It comes back, it finds you in your own bed. If I regret anything, it is not having stood up to the king. It is having let my friend pay for my quarrel.
Rancor does not only strike the one it targets. It comes back, it finds you in your own bed.
—The death of Patroclus brings you back to battle. What happened inside you that day?
When they told me that Hector had killed Patroclus and stripped my armor from his corpse, something went out and something ignited. I no longer slept. I let out a cry that, they say, drove the Trojans back to the rampart. No more Briseis, no more Agamemnon, no more quarrel: only a name to erase from the world remained. Hephaestus, at my mother's plea, forged me new armor, a shield that held the entire universe, cities at peace and cities at war. I put it on as one puts on one's own death. For I knew — an oracle had told me: killing Hector seals my own end soon. I mounted my chariot anyway. The vengeance of a friend is well worth shortening one's life by a few seasons.
I put it on as one puts on one's own death.
—The duel against Hector remains the climax of the Iliad. How would you describe that confrontation?
He ran. Hector, the bulwark of Troy, the only one of their blood worthy of mine, fled three times around the walls of his own city before facing me. I do not hold his running against him: a wise man smells death. But fate awaited him where he stopped. We fought under the eyes of his father on the walls, and my spear found his throat, the only flaw in the armor he had stolen from me. Then — I do not hide it — fury possessed me: I tied his body to my chariot and dragged him through the dust around the city. The gods blamed me for that. But that day, I sought neither their approval nor restraint. I sought klèos, the glory that outlives a man, and blood to pay for blood.
A wise man smells death.
—What was an ordinary day like under your tent, away from the clash of duels?
I rose at dawn, even before the camp stirred. A warrior's body is his first tool: running on the sand, spear thrown and retrieved a hundred times, sword whirled until the arm burns. My Myrmidons trained with me, and often Patroclus at my side. The afternoon belonged to combat or plunder. But in the evening, under the canvas, it was something else: beef grilled over embers, wine mixed with water in cups, and sometimes an aoidos who sang the exploits of men of old. Strange trade, to listen to the glory of the dead sung, knowing that tomorrow you will be the stuff of another song. My spear Xanthos rested against the pole, my armor gleamed in the shadow. I slept little. A man who has seen his fate has trouble closing his eyes.
Strange trade, to listen to the glory of the dead sung, knowing that tomorrow you will be the stuff of another song.
—Your weapons are not ordinary objects. What do they represent to you?
My armor did not come from a mortal forge. It was Hephaestus, the lame god, who hammered the bronze of my shield, and he engraved the whole world on it: the sea, the dances, the harvests, the trials in the public square. I carry the peace of ordinary men on the arm with which I wage war — the irony is not lost on me. My spear Xanthos can only be wielded with two hands; no other Achaean can lift it. The helmet, the greaves, the cuirass: all of it weighs, and that weight is a promise. When a warrior dons arms touched by gods, he accepts a bargain: protected beyond others, he must also strike beyond others. One receives nothing from the Olympians without a debt. Mine, I paid in blood, my own and that of the Trojans.
One receives nothing from the Olympians without a debt.
—Everyone knows about your heel. How do you live with that single weak point?
When I was an infant, Thetis dipped me in the black waters of the Styx, the river that encircles the realm of the dead, to make me invulnerable. Bronze slides off my skin, arrows blunt against me. But she held me by the heel, and there, where her hand was, the water did not touch. A single point, as wide as a finger, where I remain as mortal as any shepherd. Think about it? No. A warrior who watches for his wound has already lost. But I know this, which my master Chiron would have approved me to say: there is no man entirely invincible. The gods see to it that each has his flaw, be it the size of a heel. It is their way of reminding us that we are born to die, even we, the sons of Nereids.
The gods see to it that each has his flaw, be it the size of a heel.
—You knew your end was near when you came here. What would you say to those who will sing your name after you?
I am prophesied an arrow. Paris, the abductor of Helen, that prince who prefers the bow to hand-to-hand, will strike me in the heel — guided, they say, by the hand of Apollo. To die thus, by the sole defect of my body, after having felled Hector and the queen of the Amazons Penthesilea: such is the turn fate holds for me. I do not complain. I had the choice between growing old forgotten in Phthia and falling young before Troy, leaving a name that never dies. I chose the name. If I am still sung when my bones are dust, then my bargain was good. Let those who invoke me remember this: a hero is not one who escapes death, but one who sees it coming and advances anyway. The rest — honor, anger, the heel — is only the path by which one goes there.
A hero is not one who escapes death, but one who sees it coming and advances anyway.
This imaginary interview was generated by artificial intelligence from sources documented in Achilles's profile. It dramatises what the figure might have said based on what we know about them, but does not constitute attested historical testimony. For primary sources and factual documentation, refer to the full profile.