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  Though everyone liked Philoctetes, they decided—on Odysseus’s advice—to leave him on Lemnos to fend for himself and sail onwards to Troy themselves. What the Greeks did not realize was that as long as Philoctetes did not fight by their side, victory would elude them.

  The story of Philoctetes is found in the Little Iliad, which forms part of the Epic Cycle of stories, dating to the seventh century BCE.

  All the great Greek tragedians, including Sophocles, Euripides and Aeschylus, wrote plays on Philoctetes, but only one, Philoctetes by Sophocles, survives.

  Philoctetes is one of the warriors inside the Trojan Horse.

  Protesilaus

  It was foretold that the first Greek soldier to step on Troy would surely die. And so when the Greek ships reached the shores of Troy, not a single soldier was willing to jump on to the land.

  Finally, Odysseus leapt out of his ship, but cleverly landed on his own shield which he had thrown on the ground first, thus technically not stepping on Trojan soil. The next to follow was Protesilaus, under the impression that the first Greek had already landed on Trojan soil. Thus tricked by Odysseus, he was killed, as had been foretold, by Hector, the eldest Trojan prince and a fine warrior.

  The gods felt sorry for Laodamia, Protesilaus’s wife, who had watched her husband set sail for Troy shortly after their wedding. They had not even consummated their marriage. Taking pity on her, the gods decided to let his ghost visit her for a few hours. However, this brief time spent with the ghost of her husband only intensified Laodamia’s misery. She commissioned a statue of him, and spent every waking hour serving it as if it was truly her husband. Fearing for her sanity, her father ordered that the statue be burned. Laodamia protested and finally threw herself into the fire, choosing death over life as a widow.

  A tree grew on the spot where Laodamia died. It grew so high that its topmost branches could see across the sea. But they would wither as soon as they were tall enough to catch sight of the Trojan shores, indicating the rage and bitterness of a husband and wife separated by the tragic war.

  Yearning for a lover from whom one is separated, or viraha, is a common theme in Hindu mythology. Radha yearns for Krishna who leaves Gokul for Mathura. Urmila mourns for Lakshman who goes to the forest with his brother Ram.

  In an alternative version by the Latin writer Conon who lived in the age of the Roman emperor Augustus, Protesilaus survives the Trojan War and wants to set sail for Greece with Priam’s sister, Aethilla, but she and other Trojan women burn the ship and force him and his men to start a new city with them—the city of Scione.

  In the first century CE, the Latin writer Hyginus put together the Fabulae, a collection of mythological narratives from his time. Though not a great work of literature, it does give us an idea of the stories that were current at the time. The story of Laodamia’s tragic love for the statue of her husband is one such tale.

  Briseis

  The Greeks had thought that they would breach the walls of Troy, raid the city, kill Paris and bring back Helen to Greece within a year. But the walls, built by Poseidon, proved formidable. And the part built by the mortal Aeacus was too well fortified.

  So the Greeks had no choice but to camp on the beaches of Troy and lay siege to the city—a siege that stretched for years. Ten long years!

  During this time, the soldiers survived by sacking the settlements around Troy for provisions. In these raids, men were killed and women were captured and turned into concubines who cooked for the Greeks in the day and satisfied their lust at night.

  Amongst these concubines were Chryseis who belonged to Agamemnon, and Briseis, who belonged to Achilles. Chryseis’s father, a priest of Apollo, invoked the god and begged him to strike the Greek soldiers with sickness until they let his daughter go. Apollo shot the arrow of disease amidst the Greeks, until at last, tired of sickness, and having consulted the oracles, the men begged Agamemnon to let his concubine go. ‘Only if she is replaced by Briseis, who is as beautiful as her,’ he said. The Greeks agreed without consulting Achilles.

  When Agamemnon forcibly claimed Briseis, Achilles was so angry that he declared he would not fight in the war until his concubine was returned to him and Agamemnon had apologized.

  Many European Orientalists believed there was much in common between the Greek war epic of Troy and the Hindu war epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. However, they failed to notice that in the Hindu epics, women are not treated with disrespect or captured to serve as concubines.

  The story of the concubines that eventually leads to Achilles withdrawing from the battlefield of Troy forms the theme of Homer’s most celebrated work, the Iliad.

  Briseis is described as a princess, the daughter of a local king, who is captured during the Greek raids and turned into a concubine to serve the Greek warriors.

  In medieval times, Briseis becomes Briseida, or Cressida, daughter of Calchas, the Trojan oracle who defects to the Greek camp. She is in love with the Trojan prince Troilus, but when she is allowed to go over to the Greek camp on her father’s request, she meets and falls in love with the Greek warrior Diomedes, thus breaking Troilus’s heart.

  Patroclus

  Briseis was not returned, and Agamemnon refused to apologize. So Achilles would not fight. As a result, after nine years of continuously winning battles against the Trojans on the beaches, the Greek army started facing defeat. More and more Greeks began to die in battle, or return injured. The formidable army that had once been offensive now became defensive and afraid.

  Achilles, however, did not care. He would not take up arms, not until his conditions were met and his humiliation by Agamemnon avenged. Patroclus tried to convince his lover, but Achilles refused to budge, like a petulant child.

  Finally, to motivate the disheartened Greeks, Patroclus entered the battlefield wearing Achilles’ helmet. Mistaking him for Achilles, the Greeks were revitalized, fighting with a renewed vigour, and the terrorized Trojans became defensive.

  But then tragedy struck: Hector caught hold of Patroclus, and assuming that he was Achilles, killed him with a spear.

  Mistaken identity is a common theme in mythological stories. In the Mahabharata, Ashwatthama kills five youths he finds sleeping in the Pandava camp at night, mistaking them to be the five Pandavas.

  In his childhood, Patroclus had accidentally killed his friend Clysonymus following a fight over a game of dice. Forced into exile as punishment for his crime, he found shelter in Peleus’s home. Shortly after his arrival, Achilles and he were sent to study under Chiron.

  Patroclus kills Sarpedon, the son of Zeus and king of Lycia, who fights on the side of Troy as an ally though he has nothing against the Greeks and feels the Trojans are wrong. Sarpedon is sometimes identified as the brother of Minos of Crete, who was gifted with a very long life.

  In Classical Greece, Plato, the philosopher, describes the relationship between Achilles and Patroclus as a model of romantic love while Xenophon disagrees. In the twentieth century, the Hollywood movie Troy shows the relationship between the two men as asexual, while in the contemporary novel Song of Achilles, author Madeline Miller makes the relationship romantic as well as sexual. People have seen the relationship of Achilles and Patroclus differently depending on their comfort with homosexuality.

  Alexander the Great’s love for his male friend Hephaeston was probably inspired by the story of Achilles’ love for Patroclus. Alexander loved the epic the Iliad and Achilles was his hero. It is reported that both he and Hephaeston visited the tomb of Achilles and that when Hephaeston died, Alexander was plagued by dreams of his own death, just as Achilles could not bear to live without Patroclus.

  Hector

  When news of his lover’s death reached Achilles, his rage knew no bounds. He blamed Hector, not his own intransigence, for Patroclus’s death and challenged the Trojan prince to a duel. His mother tried to stop him but he refused to listen to reason, so she gifted him with a divine armour made by Hephaestus himself to protect him from