ABSTRACT
The Iliad opens in the tenth year of the Greek siege of Troy, brought on by the theft of Helen, wife of King Menelaos of Sparta, by the young Trojan prince Alexandros (Paris). The poet announces in the first verse that he will sing “the wrath of Achilles,” and this motif does indeed provide the structure of the entire poem, until its final resolution in Book 24, when Achilles returns to Priam the body of his son Hektor. By this point, the source of Achilles’ wrath had changed to something far more devastating in its effect on him, the death of his beloved friend, Patroklos, at the hands of Hektor.
