Patroclus

Who Was Patroclus?

Patroclus was a Greek hero of the generation that fought at Troy, son of Menoetius and the closest companion of Achilles, the greatest warrior in the Greek army. His death at Hector’s hands is the hinge on which the Iliad turns, since it is his loss that drags Achilles back into battle.

Family and Background

Patroclus’ father, Menoetius, was a son of Actor, and Homer often names Patroclus by the patronymic Menoetiades, “son of Menoetius” (Iliad 11.785, 9.202). Apollonius of Rhodes lists Menoetius among the Argonauts, sent by Actor from Opus to join the chiefs (Apollonius, Argonautica 1.69–70; Apollodorus, Library 1.9.16). Homer never names Patroclus’ mother. Apollodorus gives three versions: Sthenele, daughter of Acastus; Periopis, daughter of Pheres; or, on the authority of Philocrates, Polymele, daughter of Peleus (Library 3.13.8). Plutarch records that Menoetius also had a daughter, Myrto, Patroclus’ sister, who according to some bore Heracles a daughter, Eucleia (Plutarch, Aristides 20.6).

What Does the Name Patroclus Mean?

The name is generally read as a compound of the Greek words for father and glory, meaning something close to “glory of the father”. The ancient sources do not say whether it was chosen with that meaning in mind.

Where Was Patroclus From?

Patroclus’ homeland was Opus, in Locris, not Phthia, where most of his story unfolds. In the Iliad his ghost tells Achilles that Menoetius brought him “from Opus” to Peleus’ house when he was a small child (Iliad 23.84–90), and Achilles later recalls that Menoetius had expected his son to be taken back to Opus after the war (Iliad 18.324–327). He came to Phthia as a boy, in exile after a killing, and was raised in Peleus’ household beside Achilles.

Why Is Patroclus Remembered Alongside Achilles?

Patroclus is remembered chiefly as Achilles’ closest companion. Achilles says he honoured him above all his comrades, “equal to my own head” (Iliad 18.80–82), and it is Patroclus who calms him, speaks plainly to him, and finally persuades him to let him fight. That friendship, formed in childhood, is the thread running through the rest of his story.

Patroclus’ Early Days and Exile to Phthia

The Killing of Clysonymus

As a boy in Opus, Patroclus killed the son of Amphidamas in a quarrel over a game of knucklebones, “not meaning to” and in a child’s anger, as his ghost later tells Achilles (Iliad 23.85–88). Homer does not name the dead boy. Apollodorus names him Clitonymus, son of Amphidamas, and also places the quarrel over knucklebones at Opus (Library 3.13.8); Clysonymus is a variant form of the same name. Homer’s account makes the act an accident of childhood temper rather than a crime of malice, though it still sent the boy and his father into exile.

Flight to the Court of Peleus

Menoetius took his son away from Opus to Phthia, where Peleus ruled. Peleus received the child kindly, raised him in his house and appointed him therapon, a companion-in-arms, to his own son Achilles (Iliad 23.89–90). Menoetius did not forget his son: when Patroclus set out for Troy, the old man advised him that Achilles was nobler by birth but that Patroclus was the elder, and that he should give Achilles sound counsel (Iliad 11.785–789).

Schooling with Achilles under Chiron

The Iliad says that the Centaur Chiron, the most righteous of the Centaurs, taught Achilles the healing drugs, and that Patroclus learned them from Achilles (Iliad 11.828–832). So Patroclus did not train with Chiron himself; he learned his medicine through his friend. Homer shows him using this knowledge at Troy, when he treats the wounded Eurypylus in his hut (Iliad 11.842–848). It was Chiron who gave Peleus the ash spear that Achilles carried, and that Patroclus, alone of the heroes, did not take with him when he borrowed the armour (Iliad 16.140–144).

Patroclus and the Oath of Tyndareus

Suitor Among Suitors

Apollodorus lists Patroclus, son of Menoetius, among the men who came to Sparta to win the hand of Helen, daughter of Tyndareus (Library 3.10.8). Fearing that the choice of one suitor would set the others quarrelling, Tyndareus, on Odysseus’ advice, made every suitor swear to defend the chosen husband against anyone who wronged him in his marriage (Library 3.10.9). Achilles, still a child at the time, is not in Apollodorus’ list of suitors.

The Oath and Helen’s Marriage

Tyndareus chose Menelaus as husband for Helen (Library 3.10.9), and the other suitors, bound by their word, went back to their own homes.

Menelaus Calls in the Oath

Years later, when Helen was carried off to Troy, Menelaus went to Agamemnon at Mycenae, and Agamemnon sent a herald to each king to remind them of the oaths they had sworn (Apollodorus, Epitome 3.6). Achilles sailed to Troy at the head of the Myrmidons with fifty ships, and Patroclus went with him (Apollodorus, Epitome 3.14; Library 3.13.8).

Patroclus in the War Years

Life in Achilles’ Camp

At Troy, Patroclus fought among the Myrmidons and shared Achilles’ hut. When Odysseus, Ajax and Phoenix arrived there, they found Achilles playing a lyre, with Patroclus sitting opposite him in silence, waiting for him to finish; Achilles told him to mix a stronger bowl of wine for the guests (Iliad 9.186–205). Patroclus is trusted with the daily business of the camp, and Homer gives him an ability the other heroes lack, that of speaking to Achilles in his anger.

The Quarrel and the Embassy to Achilles

When Agamemnon took Achilles’ captive Briseis as compensation for the loss of Chryseis, Achilles withdrew from the fighting, and the Trojans began pushing the Greeks back toward the ships. Agamemnon sent an embassy of Odysseus, Ajax and Phoenix to Achilles’ hut with offers of gifts to set his anger aside, but Achilles, with Patroclus present, refused (Iliad 9.182–668).

Nestor’s Appeal in the Camp

Later, with the Trojans driving closer to the ships, Achilles saw Nestor carrying a wounded man from the battle and sent Patroclus to ask who it was; it was Machaon (Iliad 11.596–615). The elderly Nestor, receiving him in his hut, pressed him to persuade Achilles to return, or at least to send Patroclus into the fight in his place, wearing his armour (Iliad 11.656–803).

The Patrocleia: Achilles’ Armour and the Death of Patroclus

The Trojans Reach the Ships and Patroclus Pleads

With Achilles still refusing to fight, Hector and the Trojans broke through the Greek defences and set fire to a beached ship (Iliad 16.122–123). Patroclus, weeping, came to Achilles’ side, “pouring down warm tears like a dark spring”, and begged him: if he would not fight himself, he should let Patroclus lead the Myrmidons in his armour, so that the Trojans would take him for Achilles and give the Greeks a breathing space (Iliad 16.1–45). The episode is known as the Patrocleia.

Achilles’ One Condition

Achilles agreed, but with a condition: Patroclus was to drive the Trojans from the ships and then turn back at once, and was not to lead the fighting on toward Troy, lest one of the gods who loved the Trojans, Apollo above all, should oppose him (Iliad 16.80–96).

Wearing Achilles’ Armour

Patroclus put on Achilles’ armour, took command of the Myrmidons, and had Automedon, whom Achilles honoured most after himself, yoke the horses Xanthus and Balius to the chariot (Iliad 16.130–154). He left behind the great ash spear, which only Achilles could wield (Iliad 16.140–144). The Trojans saw the armour and, believing Achilles had rejoined the war, broke and ran (Apollodorus, Epitome 4.6).

Routing the Trojans and the Death of Sarpedon

Patroclus drove the Trojans back from the ships and killed many of their champions, among them Sarpedon, a son of Zeus and a leader of Troy’s Lycian allies, whom he struck down with a spear to the chest, so that he fell “as an oak falls” (Iliad 16.419–483). Carried forward by his success, he disregarded Achilles’ warning and chased the Trojans up to the wall of Troy.

Apollo’s Blow and Hector’s Killing Stroke

Three times Patroclus leapt at the wall and three times killed nine men, but when he charged a fourth time “like a spirit”, the end of his life appeared (Iliad 16.784–787). Apollo, wrapped in thick mist, met him in the battle and struck him from behind on the back and shoulders; his eyes spun, the god knocked the helmet from his head, shattered his spear, and loosened his corselet (Iliad 16.788–806). Stunned and unguarded, Patroclus was wounded in the back by the Trojan Euphorbus, son of Panthous, and when he tried to withdraw, Hector ran in and drove a spear through his belly (Iliad 16.806–821; Apollodorus, Epitome 4.6). As he lay dying, Patroclus told Hector that it was Zeus and Apollo who had overcome him, that deadly Fate and Leto’s son had killed him, and among men Euphorbus, so that Hector was only the third; and he foretold that Hector himself would soon fall to Achilles (Iliad 16.843–854). His soul went down to Hades, grieving for its youth and strength (Iliad 16.855–857). Hector stripped the armour from the body, and the Greeks fought over the corpse for the rest of the day (Iliad 17.121–125).

Funeral and Aftermath

Achilles’ Grief and Vengeance on Hector

News of Patroclus’ death overwhelmed Achilles; he poured dust over his head and lay stretched in it (Iliad 18.20–24). Thetis, his mother, brought him new armour made by Hephaestus to replace what Hector had taken (Iliad 18.368–617, 19.1–18). Achilles killed Hector before Troy’s walls and told him that dogs and birds would tear him, while the Greeks would bury Patroclus (Iliad 22.330–336). He then lashed the body to his chariot and dragged it back to camp (Iliad 22.395–404).

The Funeral of Patroclus

Achilles burned Patroclus on a great pyre with offerings of sheep and cattle, two of his nine dogs, four horses and, in a detail Homer does not soften, twelve noble Trojan youths killed at the pyre (Iliad 23.165–176). In the night before the burial, the ghost of Patroclus came to Achilles, asking for burial and asking that their bones lie together in one urn (Iliad 23.62–92). His bones were gathered into a golden bowl wrapped in fat, to be kept until Achilles himself died (Iliad 23.236–254). After Achilles’ death, the Greeks mixed his bones with those of Patroclus in a golden jar that Thetis provided, a gift of Dionysus made by Hephaestus (Homer, Odyssey 24.72–84; Apollodorus, Epitome 5.5).

The Funeral Games

Achilles then held funeral games in Patroclus’ honour, bringing prizes from the ships: cauldrons, tripods, horses, mules, oxen, women and iron (Iliad 23.257–261). The contests included a chariot race, boxing, wrestling, a foot race, fighting in armour, throwing the iron weight, archery, and the spear throw (Iliad 23.262–897). In Apollodorus’ summary, Diomedes won the chariot race, Epeius the boxing, and Ajax and Odysseus in the wrestling (Epitome 4.7); in the Iliad, Achilles stops their bout and declares both of them winners (Iliad 23.733–737).

Patroclus’ Role and Symbolism

The Iliad’s Turning Point

Patroclus’ death resolves the Iliad’s central conflict. Achilles’ anger at Agamemnon, which opens the poem and keeps him from the fighting, is set aside the moment Patroclus is killed; Achilles tells Thetis that he now has no wish to live except to kill Hector (Iliad 18.80–93), and everything that follows, the return to battle, Hector’s death and the funeral games, comes from that loss.

A Model of Loyalty and Restraint

Where Achilles is proud and quick to anger, Patroclus is shown as gentle and ready to weep for the Greeks’ suffering. In the Iliad his speeches to Achilles are blunt but affectionate, and when Nestor and Menoetius advise him they rely on this: Menoetius says that Achilles will listen to him for his own good (Iliad 11.785–789).

Achilles’ Better Judgment, Overruled

Patroclus’ fatal mistake was to press the attack toward Troy after Achilles told him to stop once the ships were saved (Iliad 16.87–96). Homer says the end of his life came when Apollo met him (Iliad 16.787–788), so the poem places his death at the point where he went beyond Achilles’ instructions.

A Companion Bound to Achilles’ Own Fate

Because Patroclus’ death draws Achilles back into a war in which he already knows he will die, the two men’s fates are bound together; Achilles says that both are destined to redden the same earth at Troy (Iliad 18.329–330), and their bones were afterward laid in one urn (Odyssey 24.76–77).

Patroclus in Ancient Literature

Homer’s Iliad

The fullest and earliest account of Patroclus comes from the Iliad, particularly Books 9, 11, 16, 18 and 23, covering his place in Achilles’ hut, his plea to Achilles, his death at the hands of Apollo, Euphorbus and Hector, and the funeral held in his memory. Homer shows Patroclus as gentle and beloved above every other companion without describing the bond in abstract terms.

Pseudo-Apollodorus’ Library and Epitome

The mythographic Library lists Patroclus among Helen’s suitors bound by the Oath of Tyndareus and records his mother’s names and the quarrel that drove him to Phthia, while the Epitome summarises his death and its consequences for Hector and Achilles.

Plato’s Symposium

Writing centuries after Homer, Plato has the character Phaedrus discuss Achilles and Patroclus in the Symposium as an example of devoted love. Phaedrus says that Achilles chose to die in order to avenge his lover Patroclus, and he says that Aeschylus talks nonsense when he makes Achilles the lover: Achilles, he argues, was the more beautiful and the younger, and so was the beloved (Plato, Symposium 179e–180b).

Misconceptions and Lesser-Known Facts

Which Woman Was Patroclus’ Mother?

Unlike most Greek heroes, Patroclus has no single settled mother in the tradition. Homer does not name her; Apollodorus offers Sthenele, Periopis or Polymele and makes no attempt to decide between them (Library 3.13.8). His father and his exile to Phthia are the fixed points.

What Was the Nature of Patroclus and Achilles’ Bond?

Homer’s Iliad calls Patroclus the closest of Achilles’ companions and shows a devotion stronger than anything else in the poem, but never describes their bond in the terms later writers used. Aeschylus, in his lost play the Myrmidons, made Achilles the lover (as Phaedrus reports in Plato’s Symposium 180a), and Plato’s Phaedrus takes the bond to be a love affair, while disputing which of the two was the lover and which the beloved. Apollodorus, too, says that at Peleus’ court Patroclus became Achilles’ beloved (Library 3.13.8). The Iliad itself does not settle the question.

Patroclus Was Not Achilles’ Servant

Patroclus is often described as Achilles’ squire or attendant. Homer does call him Achilles’ therapon (Iliad 23.90), but he is a highborn exile raised in the same royal house, sharing Achilles’ hut as a companion, and he takes command of the Myrmidons in Achilles’ place (Iliad 16.64–65).

Patroclus’ Death Is Not Achilles’ Death

Because the two men’s stories are so closely tied, it is easy to blur their deaths into one event. Patroclus dies within the Iliad, at Hector’s hands; Achilles’ own death, though foreshadowed by the poem, happens after the Iliad’s narrative ends (Apollodorus, Epitome 5.3–5).

Unraveling Patroclus: A Death That Redirects a War

Patroclus is rarely the subject of his own story outside the Iliad, and even there, most of what he does is measured by its effect on Achilles: the friendship, the plea, and finally the death that turns Achilles’ anger from Agamemnon toward Hector. That does not make him minor. The whole poem turns on this one loss, large enough to override Achilles’ refusal to fight.

Patroclus Sources

The primary source for Patroclus is Homer’s Iliad, especially Books 9, 11, 16, 17, 18, 22 and 23, which narrate his years at Troy, his plea to Achilles, his return to the fighting in Achilles’ armour, his death, and the funeral held in his honour; and Homer’s Odyssey 24.72–84, where the bones of Patroclus and Achilles lie in one urn.

Apollodorus’ Library (1.9.16, 3.10.8–9, 3.13.8) and the Epitome (3.6, 3.14, 4.6–7, 5.5) give the family, the suitor list and oath, the exile, and condensed accounts of the same events, and Apollonius of Rhodes (Argonautica 1.69–70) names Menoetius among the Argonauts. Plutarch (Aristides 20.6) names his sister Myrto. Plato’s Symposium (179e–180b), in the speech given to Phaedrus, discusses Achilles and Patroclus as a later example of devoted love.

See Also: Achilles, Hector, Menoetius, Peleus, Chiron, Helen, Tyndareus, Menelaus, Apollo, Priam