The Myth of Patroclus | The Day He Wore Achilles' Armor and His Death

A man comes running into the Greek camp, weeping. The Trojans are setting fire to the ships, and he has just seen wounded commanders being carried out one after another. The place he runs to is not the battlefield, but the tent of Achilles, who had withdrawn entirely from the fighting and shut himself in his quarters.

After quarreling with Agamemnon, Achilles had declared he would not join the battle. The one who came to persuade him was none other than his closest companion and comrade-in-arms, Patroclus. This article walks through what happened on this day, and why it changed the course of the entire war.

A Plea That Began in Tears, and the Conditions Achilles Set

Patroclus did not hide his tears before Achilles. Reporting that the greatest Greek warriors had been wounded one after another and that the ships were burning, he begged to be allowed to lead out at least himself and the Myrmidon soldiers. And he made one more request: to borrow Achilles' own armor.

The calculation was simple. He judged that the Trojans, mistaking him for Achilles at the mere sight of the armor, would fall back. Achilles granted this plea, but not without conditions.

He made it clear to Patroclus that he must stop at saving the ships. He was to drive the Trojans back but not pursue them to the city walls. Along with a warning not to seek glory for himself in Achilles' absence, he added that if Patroclus went too deep toward the walls, one of the gods of Olympus would step in directly and block his way.

The Effect of the Armor, and a Charge Drunk on That Effect

Leading the Myrmidons onto the battlefield, Patroclus saw exactly the effect he had expected. The Trojans, recognizing Achilles' armor, were thrown into such turmoil that their ranks wavered, and the Greeks turned the tide in one sweep, pushing all the way to the walls of Troy.

In the course of this advance, Patroclus came face to face with Sarpedon, who led the Lycian forces. Their duel did not last long. Patroclus' spear pierced the area around Sarpedon's heart, and he collapsed like a felled tree.

The last thing he did before dying was to urge Glaucus, who was beside him, to protect his armor and call his comrades for help. In the heavens, Zeus, watching his son die, asked Hera whether they could not save him, but Hera dissuaded him, saying it was a fate already fixed. In the end, Zeus accepted his son's death, but shed drops of bloody rain on the spot in mourning, and sent Apollo to wash the body, anoint it with oil, and return it to his homeland of Lycia.

Riding the momentum of felling Sarpedon, Patroclus began to overstep the conditions Achilles had set. He hurled himself at the walls three times, but each time Apollo pushed back his shield with a hand to block him. When he charged a fourth time without retreating, Apollo at last raised his voice and warned him that the fate of bringing this city down was not granted to him, nor later to Achilles. At those words, Patroclus fell back, unwilling to incur the god's anger.

A Death Passed Through Three Hands

At a moment when the battle grew fierce again, Apollo intervened directly. Coming up from behind and striking Patroclus' broad shoulders with his palm, he blurred his vision, and his helmet was knocked off and rolled beneath the horses' hooves. Apollo did not stop there; he even loosened the fastenings of his armor, leaving him virtually defenseless.

Seizing that opening, Euphorbus, a Dardanian spearman, drove a spear into his back. Striking precisely between the two shoulder blades, the blow was fatal, but it alone did not bring him fully down. Euphorbus immediately withdrew.

Hector did not miss the sight of him, already stripped of his helmet and staggering back wounded by the spear. Pushing through the crowd, Hector drove his spear deep into his lower belly, and Patroclus collapsed where he stood.

Just before his breath left him, Patroclus laid out the exact order of his death for Hector. Zeus and Apollo had brought him down; among men, Euphorbus had driven in the first spear; and Hector, he said, was merely the third to lay a hand on him. Then he left one final word: Hector too would not live long — death was already drawing near him, and that death would be Achilles' doing. Hector drew out the spear and shouted over the body, but that prophecy later came true exactly as spoken.

The Fight Over the Masterless Armor

The first to notice that Patroclus had fallen was Menelaus. He stood guard over the body, and when Euphorbus, who had driven in the spear earlier, approached again, he struck him down in reply. But when Hector then pressed forward in earnest, he judged he could not hold out alone and withdrew to seek support.

In the meantime, Hector stripped Achilles' armor from Patroclus' body and put it on himself. Watching from the heavens, Zeus remarked bitterly that the day would never come when Hector, wearing that armor, would take it off to boast of it to his wife Andromache.

The now unarmored body was guarded by Ajax. He covered Patroclus with his great shield and held his ground, and together with the returning Menelaus he steadied the line and held out. Meanwhile Automedon, who drove Achilles' chariot, had to watch the masterless horses shed tears. Thanks to Zeus breathing strength into these horses, Automedon barely managed to escape the battlefield.

Finally, Menelaus and Meriones lifted the body together and began carrying it toward the ships, while the two Ajaxes held back the pursuing Trojans from behind. The task of bringing the news to Achilles fell to Antilochus.

The Crack Made by a Cry Raised Without Weapons

Hearing the news from Antilochus, Achilles scooped up handfuls of dust, poured them over his head, tore at his hair, and sank to the ground. The women beside him wailed with him, and Antilochus had to hold his hands, fearing he might harm himself.

His mother Thetis, hearing her son's cries from beneath the sea, came running at once. Comforting him, she told him not to enter the battle until she returned with new armor from Hephaestus. While refusing to give up his resolve to face Hector, Achilles agreed to wait until his mother returned.

But without armor, he went out before the trench and raised a shout. Athena draped her own aegis over his body and set a flame-like divine light above his head. That cry, repeated three times, threw the Trojan ranks into uncontrollable turmoil, and in the confusion chariots tangled together and twelve soldiers died. Seizing that moment, the Greeks at last brought Patroclus' body safely back into the camp.

That night in the Trojan camp, Polydamas advised falling back inside the walls to defend them. His judgment was that with Achilles back on the battlefield, they could no longer resist with their old momentum. But Hector overruled this advice and insisted on continuing the fight the next day, and the Trojans followed his will. Meanwhile, Thetis went to Hephaestus, obtained a new shield and suit of armor, and brought them to her son.

An Oath and a Dream, and Over the Flames

Before going out to battle, clad in his new armor, Achilles swore an oath before the body of Patroclus: that he would drag Hector here and throw him to the dogs, and that he would sacrifice twelve Trojan princes on his funeral pyre.

After felling Hector and falling asleep, Achilles was visited in a dream by the spirit of Patroclus. He begged him to hurry the funeral so that he could pass through the gates of the underworld, and to gather the bones of the two of them together in a single urn. It was a plea that recalled once more the bond that had run from their childhood days.

When the pyre was prepared, Achilles cut off a lock of his own hair and placed it in Patroclus' hand. He called upon the gods of the north and west winds to keep the flames burning through the night, and beside the pyre he sacrificed, as he had sworn, two hunting dogs, four horses, and twelve captured Trojan youths.

After the funeral, memorial games were held. Chariot racing, boxing, wrestling, running, spear throwing, and archery followed one after another, and the winners received prizes such as cauldrons, horses, and tripods. Diomedes took first place in the chariot race.

The Dragged Body and an Old Father's Night Journey

Even after the funeral, Achilles' rage did not subside. He lashed Hector's body to his chariot and dragged it around Patroclus' tomb for many days. But Apollo protected the body, so its outward appearance was not defaced.

Among the gods watching this scene, discontent erupted. Apollo criticized Achilles, saying he was no different from a lion pouncing on a flock of beasts, drunk on his own strength. Only Hera, Poseidon, and Athena opposed, out of their long-standing grudge against Troy, and in the end Zeus had Thetis tell her son to accept a ransom and return the body.

Iris, given the same command, told King Priam to gather treasure and go to the Greek camp. The old king set out in the middle of the night with only his attendant Idaeus, and Hermes appeared in the form of a young man to guide the way.

Reaching Achilles' quarters, Priam embraced his knees and kissed the hands that had killed so many of his sons. Then, with the heart of an old father, he pleaded with Achilles: is not your father, too, waiting for his son as I am now?

At those words, Achilles wept with him as he thought of his own father. He accepted the ransom, carefully tended Hector's body and returned it, and even granted a truce of twelve days so the funeral could be held. Priam carried his son's body back to Troy, and after nine days of mourning, the pyre was lit on the tenth day — and here the story comes to a close.

Companion, or Something More

Then and now, many interpretations have been offered about the relationship between Patroclus and Achilles. The original texts portray the two as the closest of companions and comrades-in-arms who fought side by side on the battlefield. How deep that bond was is clearly revealed in the prophecy Patroclus left Hector as he was dying, and in the dream scene where he recalls their bond from childhood and asks for their bones to be buried together.

That said, there has long been an interpretation that defines this relationship as a romantic one in the modern sense. Since the original text does not explicitly define their relationship in any language, it is more accurate to see this as a point that later scholars and readers have read differently.

Characters Whose Stories Continue

You can continue reading about what final end Hector, who struck Patroclus down, meets in the Hector myth summary. To see what kind of figure Achilles, who lent his armor and in the end lost his friend, is in the Trojan War as a whole, see the Achilles myth.

For where exactly the Iliad, which contains these events, begins and ends, see the Iliad plot summary, and for the beginning and course of the war as a whole, see the Trojan War story.