View Single Post
Old 06-15-2016, 01:31 AM   #2
spacemonkey
 
Join Date: Mar 2012
Default Re: Statting heroes from the Trojan War?

Reasonably skilled warriors that got built up in each retelling. Olympian gods were flawed, could do amazing things but also had amazing weaknesses. Achilles, for example, just a great warrior during Trojan War, got shot in the heel and died. 1000 years later everyone agrees if they'd shot him anywhere else it woulda just bounced off. They even built up a whole story around the hows and whys, but the story wasn't created until long after he was dead.

Quote:
However, none of the sources before Statius makes any reference to this general invulnerability. To the contrary, in the Iliad Homer mentions Achilles being wounded: in Book 21 the Paeonian hero Asteropaeus, son of Pelagon, challenged Achilles by the river Scamander. He cast two spears at once, one grazed Achilles' elbow, "drawing a spurt of blood".

Also, in the fragmentary poems of the Epic Cycle in which we can find description of the hero's death, Cypria (unknown author), Aithiopis by Arctinus of Miletus, Little Iliad by Lesche of Mytilene, Iliou persis by Arctinus of Miletus, there is no trace of any reference to his general invulnerability or his famous weakness (heel); in the later vase paintings presenting Achilles' death, the arrow (or in many cases, arrows) hit his body.
spacemonkey is offline   Reply With Quote