Mark Gagnon

And Achilles agrees, but he warns him, hey, you can go, put on my armor, they'll think it's me, push the Trojans back from the ships, but don't do anything else, and then we'll figure it out.

Now, Patroclus...

Does a lot more.

He gets a little sugar high from this little skirmish.

So wearing Achilles' armor, he rallies the Greeks and drives the Trojans all the way back to the walls of Troy.

Now the Trojans think that Achilles has returned and they panic.

But Patroclus pushes too far.

He doesn't listen to Achilles.

He reaches the walls of the city itself and there Hector kills him.

Now, right off the bat, let's just be clear about what happens next because it is one of the most devastating sequences in all of ancient literature ever.

When Achilles learns that Patroclus is dead, he lets out a scream so terrible that, according to the story, his mother hears it at the bottom of the ocean.

He doesn't just grieve, he's destroyed.

And his grief turns into a rage that is just all-consuming.

And it becomes so much that it becomes the driving force of the entire poem.

Achilles returns to battle wearing new armor forged by the god Hyphaestus himself and cuts through the Trojan armor like wildfire.

I mean, the dude's just passing the ball, bro.

He's hot.

And so he fills the river Scamander with so many bodies that the river gods rise up in anger.

And they're like, what are you doing dumping all these bodies in a river?

Finally, outside the walls of Troy, he meets Hector.