Editing Achilles (section)

=== Achilles and Patroclus ===
{{Main|Achilles and Patroclus}}
[[File:Akhilleus Patroklos Antikensammlung Berlin F2278.jpg|thumb|Achilles tending Patroclus wounded by an arrow, Attic red-figure [[kylix]], {{circa|500 BCE|lk=no}} ([[Altes Museum]], Berlin)]]

The exact nature of Achilles' relationship with Patroclus has been a subject of dispute in both the classical period and modern times. In the ''Iliad'', it appears to be the model of a deep and loyal friendship. Homer does not suggest that Achilles and his close friend Patroclus had sexual relations.<ref name="Fox 2011">{{cite book |title=The Tribal Imagination: Civilization and the Savage Mind |author=Robin Fox |year=2011 |publisher=Harvard University Press |isbn=978-0-674-06094-4 |quote=There is certainly no evidence in the text of the Iliad that Achilles and Patroclus were lovers. |page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=YCxy_4Bt1F0C&pg=PA223 223]}}</ref><ref name="Martin 2012">{{cite book |title=Alexander the Great: The Story of an Ancient Life |last=Martin |first=Thomas R |year=2012 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-14844-3 |quote=The ancient sources do not report, however, what modern scholars have asserted: that Alexander and his very close friend Hephaestion were lovers. Achilles and his equally close friend Patroclus provided the legendary model for this friendship, but Homer in the ''Iliad'' never suggested that they had sex with each other. (That came from later authors.). |page=100}}</ref> Although there is no direct evidence in the text of the ''Iliad'' that Achilles and Patroclus were lovers, this theory was expressed by some later authors. Commentators from [[classical antiquity]] to the present have often interpreted the relationship through the lens of their own cultures. In fifth-century&nbsp;BCE Athens, the intense bond was often viewed in light of the [[Pederasty in ancient Greece|Greek custom of ''paiderasteia'']], which is the relationship between an older male and a younger one, usually a teenager. In Plato's ''Symposium'', the participants in a dialogue about love assume that Achilles and Patroclus were a couple; Phaedrus argues that Achilles was the younger and more beautiful one so he was the beloved and Patroclus was the lover.<ref>[[Plato]], ''[[Symposium (Plato)|Symposium]]'', [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Plat.+Sym.+180a 180a]; the beauty of Achilles was a topic already broached at ''Iliad'' 2.673–674.</ref> In Xenophon's ''Symposium'', Socrates says that Achilles and Patroclus were not lovers but had a platonic relationship. [[Kenneth Dover]] argues that ancient Greek had no words to distinguish heterosexual and homosexual,<ref>[[Kenneth Dover]], ''Greek Homosexuality'' (Harvard University Press, 1978, 1989), p. 1 ''et passim''.</ref> and it was assumed that a man could both desire handsome young men and have sex with women. Many pairs of men throughout history have been compared to Achilles and Patroclus to imply a homosexual relationship.{{citation needed|date=January 2025}}