ABSTRACT
Achilles may be the greatest representative of any warrior in any literature, a man without equal in Homer’s world as he is in our own, but he is not a ‘given’. He is, in part, a projection of each age mediated through the needs of the state and what it expects of its heroes. This was so even in the age of the Greeks and it has remained so ever since. Achilles remains the model of the greatest of all virtues, courage in combat, the ultimate example of a man combining the tragedy of death with memory of the lasting grace of the great deed. All warriors have had to emulate the man their society has wanted Achilles to be, which is why he has retained, and still does, his iconic status even if he is a creature of myth. Achilles can be whatever you want him to be. Homer does not settle the question of who he is; he invites us to ask that question anew every time war changes.
