Myth & Folklore: Where Did Mighty Achilles Get his Start?

By Judith Starkston

When I wrote my novel, Hand of Fire, set within the Trojan War, I thought a lot about Achilles, that troublesome hunk of a hero first mentioned in Homer’s Iliad, but popularized in countless stories and media. He was the greatest of the Greek warriors in the Trojan War. My novel focuses on Briseis, the woman Achilles took captive after sacking her city. Their relationship is at the core of my story. I used my imagination to bring Achilles to life, but I also did some historical digging.

The ruins of Troy with the plain

In the last couple of decades, we’re finding more reasons to see some accurate history in the legends of the Trojan War (Here is one link on that topic and here's another). It’s not such a leap that the heroes who fought on the plain of Troy were originally real men who lived and breathed. But there’s also been an infusion of myth and legendary grandeur into these heroes. For example, Achilles’ mother is said to be the powerful sea goddess Thetis who freed Zeus, King of the gods, when the rest of the Olympians ganged up on him. That’s some parentage. So where did Achilles’ mythological tradition originate?

Myth and legendary heroes are a lot like archaeological digs. They have many layers of complex elements that they acquire over time. I think the Hittite myth of the warrior god Telipinu accounts for part of the Achilles tradition—perhaps its starting point in the shift from man into myth.

Much of “Greek” mythology actually has its origins in various Near Eastern traditions, so it isn’t surprising to find portions of Achilles’ story arising on the eastern side of the Aegean. Moreover, the Hittites were the dominant empire surrounding Troy (in what is now Turkey) during the time when the Achilles legend would have started. The Greeks of Achilles’ time had major interactions with the Hittites. The oral tradition that reworked the stories of the Trojan War and Achilles developed over a thousand years and came to a final form around 750 BC in this same region and spans both the rise and fall of the Hittite Empire. I think the oral bards were influenced by the myth of Telipinu as they gradually took the historical reality that lies behind the Trojan War and turned it into a spellbinding tale that eventually became the Iliad we know today. 

So why do I think this? Listen for the correlations between the Greek and Hittite stories.

Here are the relevant key pieces of the Achilles’s story as we have it from the Greeks:

Achilles as healer, Attic red figure vase

1. As I noted, Achilles has divine parentage, a semi-divine status greater than that of other sons of gods, who are strong but not preeminent over all others in battle

2. Achilles becomes angry at an insult from one of the other Greek kings, Agamemnon, and withdraws from the battlefield

3. The Greek word Homer uses for Achilles’ anger means cosmic, divine anger, not the ordinary sort. When Achilles withdraws from the battle the Greeks die in droves

4. Achilles’ presence brings well being for his men, his absence destruction. The Greeks send a delegation to persuade him to come back to the fighting so they don’t all die.

5. When Achilles goes back into battle after the death of his friend, he battles a river and burns both it and its riverbanks up in the process (with some divine assistance)

6. Besides his killing prowess, Achilles is known as a healer, one who preserves life

Here are some parallel elements taken from Harry Hoffner’s translation of the Telipinu myth in Hittite Myths (Society of Biblical Literature, Ancient World Series, 1998)

Hittite Warrior god, Telipinu type

1. Telipinu is the divine son of the Stormgod. His divine skill involves making the crops grow and rains come, as well as being a warrior. He has a particularly powerful role in the well being of humans

2. Telipinu is offended by either one or more of the other gods' "intimidating words" and withdraws in anger. His father says, "My son Telipinu became enraged and removed everything good."

3. Once Telipinu withdraws, the damage is cosmic in reach. "The mountains and trees dried up, so that shoots do not come forth. The pastures and springs dried up, so that famine broke out in the land. Humans and gods are dying of hunger."

4. The gods send different delegations, including a bee and an eagle, to entice Telipinu back so that everyone doesn't die. 

5. In one version of the myth, once the gods try to bring Telipinu back, he becomes "even more angry" and he destroys springs, rivers, brooks and riverbanks.

6. When Telipinu returns, plenty, abundance and fecundity also return. The human and sheep mothrs bear offspring and the king has longevity. Telipinu heals all the damage. 

I think this infusion of a tragic Hittite god helps explain the evolution of Achilles into the torn and anguished hero we find in Homer. By nature, Achilles is all-powerful and protective, and yet he causes devastation and dies engulfed in grief.

So the next time you hear someone celebrating “Western Civilization,” you might remind yourself that, in fact, from the beginning, our most iconic heroes and ideas arose from an active interaction between all parts of the ancient world. The notion of an east/west split is an anachronism we’d do better to leave behind.
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Judith Starkston writes historical fiction and mysteries set in Troy and the Hittite Empire. She is a classicist (B.A. University of California, Santa Cruz, M.A. Cornell University) who taught high school English, Latin and humanities. She and her husband have two grown children and live in Arizona with their golden retriever Socrates. Her debut novel is Hand of Fire.

Find an excerpt, book reviews, historical background, as well as on-going information about the historical fiction community on www.JudithStarkston.com

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Legendary Heroes and Feats: Achilles

Achilles receiving divine armor from his goddess mother

Achilles, as depicted in Homer’s Iliad, is a legendary hero. You might even say a mythological one since his mother was said to be a goddess—a goddess strong enough to protect Zeus when all the other gods ganged up against him. Some mom! And some son.

He’s an interesting bundle of contradictions. In the Iliad, he asked uncomfortable questions of the Greek leadership in the Trojan War. Why are we fighting? What is the meaning of a warrior’s life if we all die, both the one who fights in the forefront and the one who hangs back? For what end should our fathers, mothers and wives suffer such losses? He had the moral courage to be a thorn in a powerful but greedy leader’s side and defend the men of the fighting ranks. Homer’s depiction of this questioning dimension in Achilles’ character makes him an appealing hero to a modern world, weary of war. Achilles would be great in a democracy—just the kind of gadfly every open society needs. Through Achilles Homer lets us explore the big questions about life and war, family and loyalty, love and hate. There’s something so irresistible about a man who has all the physical power and none of the answers but is willing to ask the questions anyway.

On the battlefield at Troy

But also in the Homeric tradition Achilles was the Best of the Achaians, a formal title that meant everyone saw him as the pre-eminent warrior without question on the battlefield. If he sometimes questioned why they fought, he still excelled at the fighting.

One battle in particular showed his semi-divine excellence. The Greeks and other ancient people imagined that every river was a god, and appropriately enough, the rivers that embraced Troy on either side were controlled by divinities who supported the Trojans. At one particularly fierce moment in the war, Achilles slaughters Trojans right and left in order to get to Hector, the greatest of the Trojan warriors. Hector has killed Achilles’ best friend, and Achilles is driven by both grief and fury. He kills so many Trojans on the bank of the River Scamander that the divine river decides to enter the battle and finish Achilles off. Huge waves rear up to drown the hero. Zeus sees what is going on and brings a fiery wind to help drive away the water. Eventually Achilles fights his way free and dashes across the plain killing Trojans as he goes. Revenge is a powerful motivator. To succeed against a godly river is an extraordinary feat—even if we rationalize the tale it’s still impressive. Almost nothing is more powerful than the onslaught of tons of water. But when the tradition remembers your battle as a victory over a god, well, that’s a pretty legendary feat.

I’ve been intrigued at where the tradition behind such a hero might have arisen. It’s as likely as not that some “real” human warrior provided the beginning of the Achilles legend. Some version of a Trojan War did historically happen (I discuss this in articles entitled  “Troy History or Myth?” and “Did the Trojan War Really Happen?”) But any historical warrior received several generations of mythologizing before he became the Achilles we hear about in the tradition.

We think of Achilles as part of the Greek tradition because Homer composed in Greek, but it’s also the case that the poetic/mythological tradition of the Trojan War, including the stories of the heroes on the Greek side, arose in the region around Troy, the western coast of what is now Turkey. The peoples there, in the era in which any “Trojan War” would have occurred, were culturally and religiously closely related to the powerful Hittite Empire just to the east. Troy was formally allied to the Hittites through much of this period.

Among the Hittite myths there is one about a young, angry god, Telipinu, and I think his myth influenced the way Achilles’ story formed. Homer and the other oral bards would have heard the Telipinu cycle of myths, and they could have incorporated it into their understanding of this hero.

Hittite gods carved into an open air sanctuary

As the Hittite myth describes it, Telipinu, son of the Stormgod, attends the assembly of the gods one day only to find they have offended his honor so vilely that he rushes out in fury and refuses to have anything to do with the gods or mankind. He runs around burning rivers and hiding from his friends. His absence from the company of the gods causes great harm. Eventually he is brought back into harmony with the gods. This mythic plotline calls up pieces of Achilles’ story with remarkable precision, including burning up a river. I think this young warrior god, Telipinu, whom the armies of the Hittites and Trojans described as “running before them” in battle, became intermixed with a human warrior. I think this literal combination of man and myth gave rise to a hero slightly disjointed with his world, one who could ask big moral questions as well as fight.

I’ve expressed this understanding of Achilles through fiction in my novel of Briseis and the Trojan War, Hand of Fire. While my readers need never have read the Iliad or any Hittite myths, those influences guided my writing. Here’s my description of Achilles burning up the river, with some appropriately ambiguous help from Briseis and the gods. (For my sources of inspiration, you’ll find the relevant “battle in the river” verses in Homer in Iliad Bk 21, the first 400 lines or so, and the Telipinu myth is published in English translation in Hittite Myths, by Harry Hoffner, Jr., published by Scholars Press.)

“There—Briseis saw a golden flash. Achilles stood in the river surrounded by the dead bodies of his victims. The water crested above him like a lion pouncing on its prey. Boulders and bodies, carried by the water’s force, knocked his feet from under him. Troy’s immortal river itself engaged him in battle. Achilles reached for a branch of an overhanging elm, but the whole tree wrenched from the riverbank, its dense roots dragging the river bluff with them into the water, nearly burying Achilles.

Surely this was not his fate, to lie folded under mud and stones in the hostile waters of Scamander, but how could even he escape such raw power?

To reach for Troy he had fought against the city’s gods for so long; she could not tolerate this river god rising against him also and drowning his beauty in its murk, no matter how many dead he had thrown into Scamander’s waters. She strained forward, willing him to escape the river’s hold. A wind rose up, hot and blasting. It caught her hair and pulled it toward the river. When she tried to gather her hair in her hand, it scorched her fingers and escaped her hold.

The banks of the river burst into flames. The dead burned in a sudden pyre. The water boiled. The fish leapt upon the scorched banks in a vain attempt to flee the flames that had replaced their watery homes. The tamarisks and elms along the river’s edge became monstrous torches.

In the midst of this inferno, she saw Achilles lift his massive shield and spear in victory. Her heart surged. Not even the divine river could stop him. She heard his shout of joy as he raced across the plain, blasting Trojans like a bolt of lightning. Invincible warrior god, unstoppable fire.”

Author Interview & Book Giveaway: Judith Starkston on HAND OF FIRE

This week, we're pleased to welcome author and Unusual Historicals contributor JUDITH STARKSTON with her newest novel, HAND OF FIRE. One lucky visitor will get a free copy of Hand of Fire. Be sure to leave your email address in the comments of today's author interview for a chance to win. Winner(s) are contacted privately by email. Here's the blurb.

The Trojan War threatens Troy’s allies and the Greek supply raids spread. A young healing priestess, designated as future queen, must defend her city against both divine anger and invading Greeks. She finds strength in visions of a handsome warrior god. Will that be enough when the half-immortal Achilles attacks? Hand of Fire, a tale of resilience and hope, blends history and legend in the untold story of Achilles’s famous captive, Briseis.

**Q&A with Judith Starkston**

Tell us about Hand of Fire and why you chose to write about Briseis?

Hand of Fire tells the story of Briseis, the captive woman from Homer’s Iliad who caused the bitter conflict between Achilles and Agamemnon during the Trojan War. She has practically no voice in the male-centered epic; I wanted to discover her as a flesh and blood woman.

I was asked a really good question at my book launch: does a reader need to be familiar with the Iliad to read my book? Absolutely not! My primary critique partner has never read the Iliad, and she was invaluable for keeping me true to that goal.

Hand of Fire is partly a romance—Briseis and Achilles fall in love but in an unconventional manner that includes a mystical element. Achilles is half-immortal and I made full use of that half of his conflicted personality.

In addition to the romantic element, Hand of Fire explores why some people, women especially, can survive great tragedy and violence against them, even managing to experience joy in what life still has to offer.

It is a coming of age tale featuring a smart, strong-willed young woman in an ancient culture (Trojan/Hittite) that, counter to our modern stereotypes of the past, expects Briseis to be powerful, literate and a leader. Briseis succeeds in rising to those expectations despite the circumstances arrayed against her—and she’s strong enough to take on the mightiest of the Greek heroes.

How did you research the historical background to the story and did you discover anything surprising along the way?

The Trojans and their allies (such as Briseis’s city of Lyrnessos) are culturally and politically related to the powerful empire of the Hittites that ruled what we think of as Turkey throughout the Late Bronze Age (around 1250 BCE). Troy was a semi-independent kingdom of the Hittites. As a classicist, I knew a fair amount about the Mycenaean Greeks when I started writing, but the Hittites were a delightful new realm of exploration for me—and that’s Briseis’s world.

I spent a lot of time at university libraries, pouring through dry stuff like archaeological site reports (which produce both an urgent need for napping and great juicy details if you stick with it—fortunately for my readers, I do the culling). I also travelled extensively in Turkey and Greece, meeting with archaeologists at key sites and examining museum collections.

The big surprise for me was the Hittite culture that has come to light in the last couple decades, especially as the recently excavated cuneiform clay tablet libraries have been translated. We have a rich historical record of these people—including details very handy for a historical fiction writer like political intrigues, treaties, religious practices, magical rites and customs of daily life. I found Briseis’s “job description” right there in the tablets. It was a joy that these authentic sources described a role so perfect for the woman I had imagined confronting the war and Achilles and finding love and joy in life no matter how hard the Greeks made that for her.

What do you hope readers take away from your book?

Despite being a book about war with a lot of death and violence, the fundamental theme of Hand of Fire is one of hope. I think people will come away with a renewed sense of the resiliency of humanity and of women in particular.

Also, my aim was to build the Bronze Age world of these Greeks and Trojans vividly enough that readers feel like they’ve lived there. For most people, that’s a new and exotic world and yet it will feel surprisingly familiar in some ways. I guess you could call Hand of Fire historical escapism with a positive message.

Can you tell us what you are writing next?

I’m in the middle of a historical mystery featuring the Hittite Queen Puduhepa as “sleuth.” She would be as famous as Cleopatra if she hadn’t been buried by the sands of time. Her seal is on the first extant peace treaty in history next to her foe, Pharaoh Ramses II. Now that both her world and her correspondence have been excavated, I’ve started a series about her. She ruled from her teens until she was at least eighty, so I think this series may outlast me!

I’m also outlining a sequel to Hand of Fire—and Briseis may make a move to Cyprus. It’s such a gorgeous and intriguing island, covered in Bronze Age ruins, with several qualities that make it perfect for her. But as readers of Hand of Fire will realize, Briseis has got some business to take care of nearer to home before that happens. 

Learn more about author Judith Starkston

Website: JudithStarkston.com

Twitter: @JudithStarkston

Facebook: JudithStarkston

Google+: +JudithStarkston

Current Book List

Hand of Fire, (Fireship Press, 2014)

SoWest: Desert Justice, story entitled “Season for Death” (Desert Sleuths Sisters in Crime Anthology)

Excerpt Thursday: HAND OF FIRE by Judith Starkston

This week, we're pleased to welcome author and Unusual Historicals contributor JUDITH STARKSTON with her newest novel, HAND OF FIRE. Join us again on Sunday for an author interview, with more details about the story behind the story. One lucky visitor will get a free copy of Hand of Fire. Be sure to leave your email address in the comments of today's post or Sunday's author interview for a chance to win. Winner(s) are contacted privately by email. Here's the blurb.

The Trojan War threatens Troy’s allies and the Greek supply raids spread. A young healing priestess, designated as future queen, must defend her city against both divine anger and invading Greeks. She finds strength in visions of a handsome warrior god. Will that be enough when the half-immortal Achilles attacks? Hand of Fire, a tale of resilience and hope, blends history and legend in the untold story of Achilles’s famous captive, Briseis.

**An Excerpt from Hand of Fire**

That’s what it’s come to, Briseis thought, women defending the palace with cooking pots. She reached up to the burning places on her cheek and chest where Mynes’s whip had struck her.

She sent Eurome to warn Maira and prepare Hatepa, though they would keep what was happening from the queen for now. Then Briseis started up the ladder to a defense tower.

A tremendous crack rang out and the ground shook beneath her. It felt like a lightning strike, dangerously close, but the sky was clear blue. What had happened? She climbed to the top and looked toward the Great Gate of Lyrnessos. Where the wooden beams and stone supports should have been, a cloud of dust and debris arose.

What force could have pulled down the massive gate in so little time? The men, few as they were, could harry the attackers from above the gate, inflicting enemy losses so great most leaders would choose to withdraw.

She saw a huge warrior standing on the rubble, his sword held high, the morning light reflecting fiery gold off his full-length shield. She knew then. Nothing stood between Achilles and her city.

She raced down the ladder.

As she reached the ground she yelled to the servants hurrying to their posts. “The Great Gate is down. We must gather everyone and escape from the city and head to the sheep camps. No point defending the palace. Achilles knocked down the city gate as if it were a pile of kindling.”

Servants ran to call the others from the walls. Briseis hurried inside to get Eurome, Maira and Hatepa. She tried to appear calm. The less frantic Hatepa became, the faster they could escape.

Briseis pushed aside the door curtain. “Lady Hatepa, your son has asked you to come with me quickly outside the city.”

The queen fidgeted in her chair. “Mynes? Outside the city? What are you saying? What is that noise I heard? What is that cut on your face?”

“Your son commanded me to take you to safety.” They pulled the queen to her feet, ignoring her protests. Eurome handed Briseis her healing satchel.

Hatepa began to cough. “I must sit down. Why are you dragging me around?” She batted at Maira and Eurome.

Eurome looked the queen in the eye. “Queen Hatepa, unless you wish to be skewered by a Greek spear, you’d better walk. There are no servants left in the palace. Come with us or stay alone to greet the Greeks.”

Hatepa’s eyes bulged wider than usual. Her mouth opened and closed like a fish stranded on the shore. For a moment Briseis wondered if she was unable to breathe, but then she squawked, “How dare you—”

“Eurome is right, Queen Hatepa,” Briseis interrupted. “We wish no disrespect, but you can come now or be left behind. We cannot endanger others to suit you.” Hatepa stopped resisting.

Outside in the main courtyard, the remainder of the household staff had gathered, men and women with some children. Such a large group would have trouble getting through streets jammed with fleeing townspeople. She could hear screams rising from the lower city. They had to get out. Greek warriors could be climbing the hill toward the palace right now. Everyone looked at her.

“We must leave the city. Go from the back of the palace away from the fighting that is centered on the Great Gate. We’ll escape the other way, out the Stag Gate.”

She hoped that by starting their journey on the steep backside of the palace hill, well above the packed neighborhoods, they could avoid both Greeks and crowds. By the time they dropped into the populated area, they would be near the Stag Gate.

The menservants had knives, clubs and other weapons snatched from the work sheds or kitchens, but she said a prayer that enough of the guard had survived to keep the Greeks busy so that her household and the townspeople could escape without a fight. The shrieks from the battle kept increasing. Had the fighting spread this far? As they unbarred the gate, Briseis held her breath.

The street lay empty. They hurried along the road that hugged the back of the palace. The children held tight to their mothers and moved silently with the adults. All went well until they reached a side road with houses and shops on either side.

Other fleeing people crowded in so that she lost sight of the servants at the front of her group. Family groups trying to stay together got pushed to the sides by faster moving men. Briseis glanced behind and saw Hatepa stumbling forward, her eyes wide with terror.

Maira walked next to the queen, holding her arm, but Briseis couldn’t find Eurome. She tried to go back to look for her, but the flow of the crowd made it impossible, and in the confusion her old nurse could have passed her. Briseis pressed on, fighting back tears.

Other paths and alleys led to the gate, but she stayed on the main road, hoping her household and Eurome had also. The crowd pushed her faster, and she could no longer see Maira. A few of her servants ran near her. Two of the men, armed with a club and a butchering knife, stayed on either side of her. How had they clung to her when she had lost both Eurome and Maira?

Suddenly she heard screams. The crowd in front turned back, driven by something. The serving man with the knife took her arm. “Down this alley.”

She ran up several stone steps and into a narrow passage between the buildings. Some of her serving women ran after her in single file, the men behind them. She heard a man bellow in agony and looked back. The man with the club was on the ground. Close behind she saw the horsehair plume of a Greek helmet.

Learn more about author Judith Starkston

Website: JudithStarkston.com

Twitter: @JudithStarkston

Facebook: JudithStarkston

Google+: +JudithStarkston

Current Book List

Hand of Fire, (Fireship Press, 2014)

SoWest: Desert Justice, story entitled “Season for Death” (Desert Sleuths Sisters in Crime Anthology)