The anger of Achilles: its tradition and relevance in the Latin literature of Late Antiquity
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.34624/fb.v0i19.34795Keywords:
fury of Achilles, reception of Achilles, Latin literature, Late AntiquityAbstract
The anger of Achilles is the most prominent characteristic of his personality. Μῆνις (“anger”), which is the first word of the proem of Homer’s Iliad, is mentioned as being the theme of the entire poem (cf. 1–7). The reception of Achilles in Greek and Roman literature had a number of stages to go through from Homer to Late Antiquity, during which Homer’s text assumed a significant role as a didactic text and the reader was educated to examine it from different perspectives, which involved a reassessment of Achilles’ actions and conduct, including his anger. Achilles’ role in Roman culture and literature during Late Antiquity illustrates that he functioned as both positive and negative exempla. This literary ambivalence of his representation is omnipresent in Late Antique Latin literature. In some accounts of Achilles’ actions and words, his famous temper is absent; in other texts, his irascibility and cruelty are stressed; and in yet others his use of violence is portrayed both negatively and positively by Latin writers, sometimes by the same author. Both the favourable and negative aspects of Achilles and his anger that appear in Late Antique Latin works are linked to the aspirations of the Roman elite and the values emphasized by Christian writers. Achilles is employed as a favorable model and even as a negative foil for the emperor or one of his representatives when he confronts the enemy. Despite aspects of Achilles’ irascible character and conduct being viewed negatively in Christian terms, his reputation as a fierce warrior seems to have encapsulated, if somewhat paradoxically, the type of strong character that appealed to the Roman elite in the struggle to maintain their ascendancy in the face of military and political confrontations with their barbarian neighbours.
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