The Time of Achilles _ Gods and Heroes

"""If they ever tell my story, let them say I walked with giants. Men rise and fall like the winter wheat, but these names will never die. Let them say I lived in the time of Hector tamer of horses. Let them say, I lived in the time of Achilles.""

The Wisdom, Courage, and Virtue of Antiquity have much to teach and inspire the modern world that is devoid of purpose and resilience. Courage is the ultimate virtue as it is the foundation for all other virtues. With courage life expands, without courage it shrinks.


Buried beneath post modernism, the enlightenment, the reformation, and Monotheism is the time where Gods were Warriors and Warriors were Gods. Where Courage was the ultimate virtue that made all other virtues possible.


My Homeric Cries - Nietzsche

""In Basel, I stood undaunted
Yet solitary there — God have pity,
And I cried out: Homer! Homer!
Thus annoying everyone.
They go to church and then go home
And laugh at the loud crier.

Now I no longer mind it;
The finest audience
Hears my Homeric cries
And is quietly patient withal.
As a reward for this exuberance
Of kindness here is my printed thanks.""

Nietzsche
""In Basel, I stood undaunted"" (1869)
Nietzsche acquired a position on the classical philology faculty at the University of Basel. The Swiss university offered Nietzsche the professorial position, and he began teaching there in 1869, at the age of 24. *Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

"" we'll stand in the Lycian front ranks
and meet head on the blazing fires of battle,
so then some well-armed Lycian will say,
'They're not unworthy, those men who rule Lycia,
those kings of ours. It's true they eat plump sheep
and drink the best sweet wines - but they are strong,
fine men, who fight in the Lycians' front ranks.'
Ah my friend, if we could escape this war,
and live forever, without growing old,
if we were ageless, then I'd not fight on
in the foremost ranks, nor would I send you
to those wars where men win glory. But now,
a thousand shapes of fatal death confront us,
which no mortal man can flee from or avoid.
So let's go forward, to give the glory
to another man or win it for ourselves.""

[Iliad, 12.307-330

“Achilles is among the Homeric figures who experiences the most pain. And it is important to make clear that the ‘eternally striving youth’, with the radiance of his power and beauty, is also for us, on the threshold of Western culture, the figure who felt the most pain, a figure who is capable of great suffering,” writes Walter Schadewaldt. And while the Iliad is indeed the story of Achilles’ anger, it is also the song of his sorrow.

The Iliad:
As he was thus pondering, the son of Nestor came up to him and told his sad tale, weeping bitterly the while. “Alas,” he cried, “son of noble Peleus, I bring you bad tidings, would indeed that they were untrue. Patroclus has fallen, and a fight is raging about his naked body—for Hector holds his armour.”
A dark cloud of grief fell upon Achilles as he listened. He filled both hands with dust from off the ground, and poured it over his head, disfiguring his comely face, and letting the refuse settle over his shirt so fair and new. He flung himself down all huge and hugely at full length, and tore his hair with his hands. The bondswomen whom Achilles and Patroclus had taken captive screamed aloud for grief, beating their breasts, and with their limbs failing them for sorrow. Antilochus bent over him the while, weeping and holding both his hands as he lay groaning for he feared that he might plunge a knife into his own throat. Then Achilles gave a loud cry and his mother heard him as she was sitting in the depths of the sea by the old man her father, whereon she screamed, and all the goddesses daughters of Nereus that dwelt at the bottom of the sea, came gathering round her. ""***

""Jesus wept.""
— Gospel of John, 11:35
""Jesus wept"" (Greek: ἐδάκρυσεν ὁ Ἰησοῦς, edákrysen o Iesoús lit. ""Jesus shed tears"") is a phrase famous for being the shortest verse in the King James Version of the Bible. This verse occurs in John's narrative of the death of his friend Lazarus.


Achilles Wept
The Iliad - Homer
Greek Warrior Culture
Antiquity
Brave
Courage
Roman and Greek Virtue
Alexander the Great and Achilles
The Iliad

""But when Achilles was now sated with grief and had unburdened the bitterness of his sorrow, he left his seat and raised the old man by the hand.""
Achilles, seated, and Priam, crouched at his feet, cry at length, the one for Patroclus and Peleus, the other for Hector. Once Achilles has worn out his sorrow, the desire for tears leaves, at the same time, his heart and his body."