Iliad how does paris die

During the war, Paris killed Achilles by shooting his heel with a poisoned arrow. Late in the war, Paris was killed by Philoctetes. Hector could have never defeated Achilles, because: Fate had determined that Achilles would win the fight and Hector would lose his life.

Hector deliberately stood outside to fight Achilles, but he had never faced him when Achilles was in a rage. Achilles takes the first shot with his spear and misses. Hector asks his brother to give him his spear, but there is no one there. Then Hector realized that the gods had set him up to die. Achilles is killed by an arrow, shot by the Trojan prince Paris.

In most versions of the story, the god Apollo is said to have guided the arrow into his vulnerable spot, his heel. After his death, Achilles is cremated, and his ashes are mixed with those of his dear friend Patroclus. Begin typing your search term above and press enter to search.

Press ESC to cancel. Skip to content Home Essay How is death portrayed in the Iliad? Ben Davis May 13, How is death portrayed in the Iliad? Who dies in the Iliad? How did Achilles die in the Iliad? Why did Achilles have to die? Did Menelaus kill Helen?

Did Helen go willingly with Paris? Why did Hector kill Menelaus? Why did Paris kidnap Helen? What did the 3 goddesses offer Paris?

How did Hector of Troy die? Back on the battlefield, both the Trojans and the Greeks search for Paris, who seems to have magically disappeared. Agamemnon insists that Menelaus has won the duel, and he demands Helen back. Meanwhile, the gods engage in their own duels. Zeus argues that Menelaus has won the duel and that the war should end as the mortals had agreed. But Hera , who has invested much in the Achaean cause, wants nothing less than the complete destruction of Troy.

In the end, Zeus gives way and sends Athena to the battlefield to rekindle the fighting. Disguised as a Trojan soldier, Athena convinces the archer Pandarus to take aim at Menelaus. Pandarus fires, but Athena, who wants merely to give the Achaeans a pretext for fighting, deflects the arrow so that it only wounds Menelaus.

Agamemnon now rallies the Achaean ranks. He meets Nestor, Odysseus, and Diomedes, among others, and spurs them on by challenging their pride or recounting the great deeds of their fathers. Battle breaks out, and the blood flows freely. None of the major characters is killed or wounded, but Odysseus and Great Ajax kill a number of minor Trojan figures. The gods also become involved, with Athena helping the Achaeans and Apollo helping the Trojans.

The efforts toward a truce have failed utterly. While the first two books introduce the commanders of the Achaean forces, the next two introduce the Trojan forces. Priam, Hector, Paris, and Helen of Troy formerly, of course, queen of Sparta all make their first appearances in Book 3 , and their personalities begin to emerge. While the sight of Menelaus causes Paris to flee, Hector, much more devoted to the ideal of heroic honor, criticizes him for the disgrace that he has brought upon not only himself but also the entire Trojan army.

Though Paris sulkily blames his misfortune in the fight on the gods whom he claims aided Menelaus, Homer himself makes no mention of these gods, and the suffering that Menelaus undergoes in the fight suggests that he had no divine help.

While the rest of the Trojan army is forced to fight for the woman whom he stole from the Achaeans, he sleeps with her. The other Trojan characters emerge much more sympathetically, and the poem presents its first mortal female character, Helen, in a warm light. Her remorseful reflections upon the homeland that she left behind as she surveys the Achaean ranks arrayed beneath the walls of Troy further reveal her regret and sense of having done wrong.

The scene becomes particularly poignant when she wonders whether her brothers Castor and Polydeuces, whom she cannot find in the crowd, might possibly have refused to join the Greek expedition and fight for such an accursed sister. The Iliad presents no clear villains. In fact, in wars that occurred before the start of the poem, such as the struggle against the Amazons that Priam mentions, the Trojans allied with the Achaeans.

Both armies suffer in the current violence, and both feel relieved to hear that the duel between Menelaus and Paris may end it. When the two sides consecrate their truce with a sacrifice, soldiers in both armies pray that, should the cease-fire be broken, the guilty side be butchered and its women raped—whichever side that may be. When the cease-fire does fail and open conflict between the two armies erupts for the first time in the epic, the carnage consumes both sides with equally horrific intensity.

Indeed, the gods seem to be the only ones who take pleasure in the conflict, and the mortals, like toy soldiers, provide Hera and Athena an easy way to settle their disagreement with Zeus.