Were Achilles and Patroclus lovers?
It’s one of the big questions of Greek mythology that continues to be debated thousands of years later: were Achilles and Patroclus lovers? Or just platonic friends?
On Quora, I recently came across a popular answer to the question “What important parts of Greek myths do filmmakers always seem to get wrong?”
According to this answer, which as of writing this has been upvoted over 6,000 times, one of those things they get wrong is the relationship between Achilles and Patroclus. This writer is sure that Hollywood (and specifically the 2004 film Troy) refuses to show the true romantic nature of their relationship in order to appeal to a wider audience. “Yes, Achilles is gay,” he states definitively.
I wouldn’t normally write an article in response to a single person’s opinion online, but I have come across this sentiment many times over the years. There is a widespread attitude that Achilles and Patroclus were clearly in sexual relationship and that anyone who questions that or disagrees must have some hidden agenda that would cause them to deny their true nature.
In an article about the film Troy in the Guardian, the reviewer writes, “It seems the Greek hero (Achilles) has undergone a radical straightening process – and I'm not talking about his hair any more. No gods and no gay men. You've got to wonder why they bothered making a film about ancient Greece in the first place..”
So, here, I’m going to bring us back to the original sources and offer something of a rebuttal to this popular interpretation. But I’m also going to examine the best evidence that Achilles and Patroclus were in a romantic or sexual relationship.
When it comes to Achilles and Patroclus, the obvious place to start is Homer’s epic poem the Iliad. It is the oldest surviving, most definitive account of their lives, as well as the source material that most of the later interpretations and representations were based on. It is the gold standard when it comes to the mythology of Achilles and Patroclus.
So what does the Iliad say? Simply put, it says they are incredibly close companions. It does not state or, as far as I can tell, even imply that Achilles and Patroclus are lovers. But don’t take my word for it. Here are a couple moments and quotes that proponents of the “lover” argument often cite:
It is indisputable that Achilles and Patroclus are especially close to one another. Achilles even wishes that all of the other soldiers, both Greek and Trojan, would perish so he and Patroclus could conquer Troy by themselves (Book 16).
After Patroclus is killed by Hector, Achilles reacts with intense sorrow and anger, going as far to say that he has lost his will to live until he is able to avenge Patroclus’ life. Here are some of his words: “My dear comrade’s dead - Patroclus - the man I loved beyond all other comrades, loved as my own life - I’ve lost him.” Book 18.
Patroclus returns as a ghost and has one final conversation with Achilles: “A last request - grant it, please. Never bury my bones apart from yours, Achilles, let them lie together…So now let a single urn, the gold two-handed urn your noble mother gave you, hold our bones - together.” Book 23.
Later, Achilles holds an elaborate and emotional funeral ritual for Patroclus and even places a lock of his own hair in Patroclus’ hands (Book 23).
There are many other similar moments, but I think you get the picture. It is clear that Achilles and Patroclus had an incredibly deep, intimate bond. But nothing between them in the Iliad is explicitly romantic or sexual.
Gregory Nagy, who may well be the world’s leading authority on the Iliad and the meaning behind the text, writes that, “For Achilles ... in his own ascending scale of affection as dramatized by the entire composition of the Iliad, the highest place must belong to Patroklos.” Again, nothing necessarily sexual.
Robin Lane Fox, another one of the most influential and knowledgeable historians of ancient Greece, sums it up by saying, “There is certainly no evidence in the text of the Iliad that Achilles and Patroclus were lovers” (The Tribal Imagination: Civilization and the Savage Mind, pg. 223).
Ok, so why do so many people seem to disagree with Homer, or subscribe to an interpretation that goes beyond what he wrote?
Because many Greeks of the 5th and 4th centuries BCE, centuries later after the Iliad was written, did portray Achilles and Patroclus as lovers. They presented them as part of a pederastic relationship, which was a custom at the time in which an older male (usually in his twenties) formed a sexual relationship with a younger male (usually in his teens).
However, the Classical Greek writers couldn’t even agree on who was the older partner (erastes) and who was the younger partner (eromenos). Plato presents one version in his Symposium, while Aeschylus presents another in his lost play The Myrmidons (meanwhile others at the time, such as Xenophon, don’t seem convinced the two were lovers at all).
This confusion makes it pretty clear to me that the Classical Greeks were merely trying to project their culture onto a different, much older culture portrayed in the Iliad (which was written around the 8th century BCE and based on legends dating back to the 12th century BCE).
This projection has been a common thread running through portrayals of Achilles and Patroclus ever since ancient times. They are often shown as lovers in cultures that are more sexually liberal (especially as it pertains to same-sex love) and as close friends in cultures that are more sexually conservative.
So what is the verdict? Were Achilles and Patroclus lovers?
Before answering, it’s important to state that Achilles and Patroclus are mythological figures. Even if the myths are somehow loosely based on real individuals, the Achilles and Patrocus we know are fictional, not historical. So, there really is no “true” answer in the same way we know that, say, the United States was founded in 1776. It’s a little more abstract and open to interpretation.
If by “Were Achilles and Patroclus lovers?”, one is asking about the meaning behind the oldest and most comprehensive source we have, the answer for me is probably not. Homer does not explicitly say they were, nor does he clearly imply it. Some believe there are clues within the text that he hoped readers and listeners would pick up on, but that is a pretty big stretch for me. Feels like wishful thinking.
If, however, one is looking at the totality of the mythological tradition of Achilles and Patroclus, clearly there is plenty of precedent to depict them as lovers. Many of history’s greatest thinkers, writers, and artists thought of Achilles and Patroclus as romantically involved. From this standpoint, why is Shakespeare’s interpretation (in which they are lovers) any less valid than Homer’s? There is certainly an argument that myths evolve over time and Homer’s version is just one (albeit important) link in that ongoing chain.
So it depends on how you approach finding “truth” in mythology.
It’s also worth noting that some folks with much better credentials than me appear to disagree with some of my conclusions.
Madeline Miller, who holds a Masters degree in Classics from Brown University, spent over a decade adapting the Iliad into the award-winning novel The Song of Achilles (which I review here). In it, Achilles and Patroclus do have a sexual relationship. Here is one short excerpt from their younger days, before the Trojan War began:
"I was trembling, afraid to put him to flight. I did not know what to do, what he would like. I kissed his neck, the span of his chest, and tasted the salt. He seemed to swell beneath my touch, to ripen. He smelled like almonds and earth. He pressed against me, crushing my lips to wine" (100).
It’s one of my favorite books and I know that Miller did everything she could to be true to the ancient source material. In an interview she was asked how she came to the conclusion that the two were lovers:
I stole it from Plato! The idea that Patroclus and Achilles were lovers is quite old. Many Greco-Roman authors read their relationship as a romantic one—it was a common and accepted interpretation in the ancient world. We even have a fragment from a lost tragedy of Aeschylus, where Achilles speaks of his and Patroclus’ “frequent kisses.”
There is a lot of support for their relationship in the text of the Iliad itself, though Homer never makes it explicit. For me, the most compelling piece of evidence, aside from the depth of Achilles’ grief, is how he grieves: Achilles refuses to burn Patroclus’ body, insisting instead on keeping the corpse in his tent, where he constantly weeps and embraces it—despite the horrified reactions of those around him. That sense of physical devastation spoke deeply to me of a true and total intimacy between the two men.
The fragment Miller refers to is from the Myrmidons by Aeschylus, which I mentioned before was written a couple of centuries after the Iliad was finalized. And as for the way Achilles grieves, it certainly underscores their intimacy, but doesn’t necessarily imply a sexual intimacy. At least not to me. Miller also admits that she took inspiration from other sources than the Iliad to develop her story.
To defend the other side for a moment, we simply don’t know for sure what Homer wished us to believe about Achilles and Patroclus. I’m not convinced he wanted us to think they were lovers, but there are a few passages that certainly open up the possibility.
There’s also a lot we don’t know about the Archaic Age of Greece (the time of Homer), so we’re missing some valuable context. Maybe the Greeks of the Classical Age knew something about this earlier time period we don’t. After all, they were much closer to Homer in terms of the timeline than we are.
So, although I don’t think Homer intended us to view Achilles and Patroclus as lovers, that view doesn’t directly contradict Homer’s version either. So certainty isn’t really on the table here. The most one can really say is that a romantic or sexual aspect to their relationship doesn’t reflect a literal reading of the text. Anything beyond that is an exercise in speculation, projection, or interpretation (or all three).
Below I’ve posted a good Youtube video I found about this same subject.