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MALE FRIENDSHIP in HOMER's ILIAD and WOLFGANG PETERSEN's TROY (2004) Andreas Krass in the Literary Histo

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MALE FRIENDSHIP in HOMER's ILIAD and WOLFGANG PETERSEN's TROY (2004) Andreas Krass in the Literary Histo OVER HIS DEAD BODY: MALE FRIENDSHIP IN HOMER’S ILIAD AND WOLFGANG PETERSEN’S TROY (2004) Andreas Krass In the literary history of male friendship, a particular discursive scenario is ubiquitous. As one friend has just died, the other laments about his terrible loss. This is the case with Achilles & Patroclus in Homer’s Iliad as well as David & Jonathan in the Old Testament, Aeneas & Pallas in Vergil’s Aeneid, Laelius & Scipio in Cicero’s On Friendship, and Michel de Montaigne & Étienne de la Boétie in Montaigne’s Essay on Friendship.1 It seems that male friendship needs a discursive license to be legitimized as a topic in literary texts. A man passionately expressing his love for another man will not be disparaged if the person he talks about is dead and if his thoughts and feelings are uttered in the mode of grief. The taboo of judging someone who has lost his closest friend excels the taboo of what is called “homosexuality.” In my article, I would like to show how this discursive arrangement works by the example of “one of the most cel- ebrated figures in the legends of Greek mythology,” i.e., Achilles and his friend Patroclus.2 By comparing the first (Homer’s Iliad) and – for the time being – latest (Wolfgang Petersen’s Troy) major account of their story, I will analyze the different ways in which male friendship is dealt with in antiquity and modernity.3 1 Cf. Andreas Krass, “Männerfreundschaft. Bündnis und Begehren in Michel de Mon- taignes Essay De l’amitié,” in Andreas Krass and Alexandra Tischel, eds., Bündnis und Begehren. Ein Symposium über die Liebe, Berlin 2002 (Berlin: Geschlechterdifferenz und Literatur, 2002) 127–141. 2 Dorothea Sigel, “Achilles,” in The New Pauly, Brill Online, June 29, 2010, accessed November 25, 2011. 3 For the medieval discourse on Achilles and Patroclus, see Andreas Krass, “Achill und Patroclus. Freundschaft und Tod in den Trojaromanen Benoîts de Sainte-Maure, Herborts von Fritzlar und Konrads von Würzburg,” in Zeitschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Lin- guistik 114 (1999) 66–98. For filmic studies, see Martin M. Winkler, ed., Troy: From Homer’s Iliad to Hollywood Epic (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2007); and Kostas Myrsiades, ed., Reading Homer: Film and Text (Madison, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2009). © Andreas Krass, 2013 | doi:10.1163/9789004241923_010 This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the CC BY-NC 4.0 license. Andreas Krass - 9789004241923 Downloaded from Brill.com10/01/2021 01:34:23AM via free access 154 andreas krass The Ancient Tradition: From Homer’s Iliad to Aeschines’ Against Timarchus In his groundbreaking study, Greek Homosexuality (1979), Kenneth J. Dover examines literary and pictorial records of sexual relationships between men in Greek antiquity.4 The story of Achilles and Patroclus as portrayed by Homer, Aeschylus, Plato, and Aeschines is, among many others, one of the most prominent instances. Like John Boswell in his famous study, Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality: Gay People in Western Europe From the Beginning of the Christian Era to the Fourteenth Century (1980), Dover does not hesitate to apply the term “homosexuality” to pre- modern narratives and persons.5 From today’s perspective it seems inade- quate to do so since every epoch and culture have their own discourses on erotic relationships between persons of the same gender. Therefore this article intends to examine the precarious border between male friendship and sexuality rather than ask whether or not Achilles and Patroclus were “homosexuals.” a) Brothers-in-arms: Homer The story of Achilles and Patroclus is told in the second half of the Iliad.6 Because Achilles has refused to participate any longer in the siege of Troy, Patroclus asks Achilles to lend him his weapons so he can fight against the enemy instead. Achilles agrees, and while wearing his armor, his fellow warrior and friend Patroclus along with the other Greek soldiers succeed in pushing the Trojans back to their ramparts. Apollo, however, favoring the Trojans, unexpectedly strikes Patroclus from behind. Weakened by this supernatural strike, Patroclus falters, is defeated, and is ultimately killed by Hector. The latter steals the armor Patroclus is wearing and puts it on. When Achilles is told that his friend is dead, he mourns him and swears to take revenge. Even unarmed, he manages to retrieve Patroclus’ body from the battlefield. His mother, the nymph Thetis, asks Hephaes- 4 Kenneth J. Dover, Greek Homosexuality (rev. ed.; Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts 1989); cf. Elke Hartmann, “Homosexuality,” in The New Pauly, Brill Online, accessed November 25, 2011; B.R. Burg, ed., Gay Warriors, A Documentary History from the Ancient World to the Present (New York: New York University Press, 2002) 5–26. 5 John Boswell, Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality: Gay People in Western Europe from the Beginning of the Christian Era to the Fourteenth Century (Chicago/London: 1980); Boswell also wrote about Achilles and Patroclus: “Battle-Worn: Gays in the Military 300 B.C.,” in The New Republic 208 (May 1993) 15–18. 6 Homer, The Iliad (trans. Robert Fagles; New York: Penguin Classics, 1990). Andreas Krass - 9789004241923 Downloaded from Brill.com10/01/2021 01:34:23AM via free access male friendship in homer’s iliad and wolfgang petersen’s troy 155 tus, the god of fire and metalworking, to forge a new armor for her son. On the following day she gives this new armor to Achilles and promises to prevent Patroclus’ body from decaying. Wearing his new armor, Achil- les fights a duel against Hector, who is still wearing Achilles’ armor, and kills him. This avails Achilles and the Greeks the belated opportunity to lament Patroclus’ death. At night the ghost of the deceased friend appears and demands of Achilles to expedite his funeral. The next morning Patro- clus’ body is cremated and his ashes are collected. Achilles, still furious about his friend’s death, derides Hector’s dead body and drags it around the tomb again and again. Homer refrains from ascribing a sexual relationship to Achilles and Patroclus. Yet he portrays their friendship as highly passionate. In the first lines of his poem he introduces Achilles as a warrior driven by strong feelings (1.1–2): Rage-Goddess, sing the rage of Peleus’ son Achilles murderous, doomed, that cost the Achaeans countless losses. At the outset Achilles’ rage – “the leitmotiv of the Iliad” – is directed towards Agamemnon for kidnapping Briseis, one of his female slaves and lovers.7 The death of Patroclus marks a significant turning point. Now, Achilles’ anger is redirected towards Hector for killing his friend. As Jan Stenger points out, the close connection between Achilles’ wrath and Patroclus’ fate “is probably a creation of the poet of the Iliad.”8 When Achilles rejoins the war, he intends to take revenge for his beloved friend rather than defend the Greeks. Rage and love seem to be two sides of the same coin. How deeply the two brothers-in-arms love each other first becomes clear when Patroclus approaches Achilles with the request to send him out in his stead. Patroclus bursts into tears and Achilles feels deeply sorry for his friend (16.1–12): So they fought to the death around that benched beaked ship as Patroclus reached Achilles, his great commander, and wept warm tears like a dark spring running down some desolate rock face, its shaded currents flowing. And the brilliant runner Achilles saw him coming, filled with pity and spoke out winging words: “Why in tears, Patroclus? 7 Dorothea Sigel, “Achilles.” 8 Jan Stenger, “Patroclus,” in The New Pauly, Brill Online, accessed November 25, 2011. Andreas Krass - 9789004241923 Downloaded from Brill.com10/01/2021 01:34:23AM via free access 156 andreas krass Like a girl, a baby running after her mother, begging to be picked up, and she tugs her skirts, holding her back as she tries to hurry off – all tears, fawning up at her, till she takes her in her arms . That’s how you look, Patroclus, streaming live tears.” The intimacy of their friendship is compared to the close relationship of a mother to her daughter. In this ironical but nonetheless telling attribu- tion of gender roles, Patroclus is compared to a girl, even though Homer elsewhere clearly portrays him as senior to Achilles.9 By effeminizing and emotionalizing the two friends, Homer indicates on a symbolic level that they are not only warriors but also intimate friends who express empathy for each other. The motif of the armor also addresses the topic of male friendship. It works on a literal as well as a symbolic level. The armor signifies Achilles’ identity and Patroclus’ identification with Achilles. Since both the old and the new armor are gifts of the gods, they are vested with divine power which protects the legitimate owner but not necessarily the wearer from any harm. That is why both Patroclus and Hector can be killed even while wearing Achilles’ armor. The armor also serves as a marker of male homo- social relationships, including kinship, friendship, and hostility, which change throughout the story: 1. Hephaestus gives the armor to Peleus divine protection 2. Peleus gives it to this son Achilles kinship 3. Achilles lends it to his friend Patroclus friendship 4. Hector steals it from his enemy Patroclus hostility 5. Hephaestus gives new armor to Achilles divine protection 6. Achilles kills Hector revenge (still wearing Achilles’ old armor) With the transfer of the armor, social relationships between men are instigated. Since these relationships are charged with affective energy, they can be described as expressions of what Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick calls “male homosocial desire.”10 Thus, the armor has two meanings.
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