"His noble memory is not destroyed nor his name, but he is immortal, though he lies beneath the earth, whomever, excelling in valor, standing fast, and fighting for his land and children, raging Ares destroys." - Tyrtaeus*

A) Iliad 16.234ff [Achilles is praying to Zeus]: "King Zeus," he cried, "lord of Dodona, god of the Pelasgi, who dwells afar, you who hold wintry Dodona in your sway, where your prophets the Selli dwell around you with their feet unwashed and their couches made upon the ground - if you heard me when I prayed to you aforetime, and did me honor while you sent disaster on the Achaeans, grant me now the fulfillment of yet this further prayer. I shall stay here at my assembly of ships, but I shall send my comrade into battle at the head of many Myrmidons. Grant, O all-seeing Zeus, that victory may go with him; put your courage into his heart that Hektor may learn whether my attendant [therapôn] is man enough to fight alone, or whether his might is only then so indomitable when I myself enter the turmoil of war. Afterwards when he has chased the fight and the cry of battle from the ships, grant that he may return unharmed, with his armor and his comrades, fighters in close combat." Thus did he pray, and all-counseling Zeus heard his prayer. Part of it he did indeed grant him - but not the whole. He granted that Patroklos should thrust back war and battle from the ships, but refused to let him come safely out of the fight.

B) Iliad 16.87-100: When you have driven the Trojans from the ships, come back again. Even if Hera's thundering husband should put triumph within your reach, do not fight the Trojans further in my absence, or you will rob me of glory that should be mine. And do not for lust of battle go on killing the Trojans nor lead the Achaeans on to Ilion, lest one of the ever-living gods from Olympus attack you - for Phoebus Apollo loves them well: return when you have freed the ships from peril, and let others wage war upon the plain. Would, by father Zeus, Athena, and Apollo, that not a single man of all the Trojans might be left alive, nor yet of the Argives, but that we two might be alone left to tear aside the mantle that veils the brow of Troy.

C) Iliad 16.698ff: The sons of the Achaeans would now have taken Troy by the hands of Patroklos, for his spear flew in all directions, had not Phoebus Apollo taken his stand upon the wall to defeat his purpose and to aid the Trojans. Three times did Patroklos charge at an angle of the high wall, and three times did Apollo beat him back, striking his shield with his own immortal hands. When Patroklos was coming on like a daimôn for yet a fourth time, Apollo shouted to him with an awful voice and said, "Draw back, noble Patroklos, it is not your lot to destroy the city of the Trojan chieftains, nor yet will it be that of Achilles who is a far better man than you are." On hearing this, Patroklos withdrew to some distance and avoided the anger [mênis] of Apollo.

D) Iliad 16.784ff: Then Patroklos sprang like Ares with fierce intent and a terrific shout upon the Trojans, and three times did he kill nine men; but as he was coming on like a daimôn, for a fourth time, then, O Patroklos, was the hour of your end approaching, for Phoebus [Apollo] fought you in fell earnest. Patroklos did not see him as he moved about in the crush, for he was enshrouded in thick darkness, and the god struck him from behind on his back and his broad shoulders with the flat of his hand, so that his eyes turned dizzy. Phoebus Apollo beat the helmet from off his head, and it rolled rattling off under the horses' feet, where its horse-hair plumes were all begrimed with dust and blood. Never indeed had that helmet fared so before, for it had served to protect the head and comely forehead of the godlike hero Achilles. ... At this his mind went into derangement [atê]; his limbs failed him, and he stood as one dazed.

E) Iliad 11.600ff: Achilles saw and took note, for he was standing on the stern of his ship watching the hard stress [ponos] and struggle of the fight. He called from the ship to his comrade Patroklos, who heard him in the tent and came out looking like Ares himself [literally, 'equal to Ares']; here indeed was the beginning of the ill that presently befell him. "Why," said he, "Achilles do you call me? what do you want with me?"

F) Iliad 23.69ff: "You sleep, Achilles, and have forgotten me; you loved me living, but now that I am dead you think for me no further. Bury me with all speed that I may pass the gates of Hades; the ghosts [psukhai], vain shadows of men that can labor no more, drive me away from them; they will not yet suffer me to join those that are beyond the river, and I wander all desolate by the wide gates of the house of Hades. Give me now your hand I pray you, for when you have once given me my dues of fire, never shall I again come forth out of the house of Hades. Nevermore shall we sit apart and take sweet counsel among the living; the cruel fate which was my birth-right has yawned its wide jaws around me - nay, you too Achilles, peer of gods, are doomed to die beneath the wall of the noble Trojans.

"One prayer more will I make you, if you will grant it; let not my bones be laid apart from yours, Achilles, but with them; even as we were brought up together in your own home, what time Menoitios brought me to you as a child from Opoeis because by a sad spite I had killed the son of Amphidamas - not of set purpose, but in childish quarrel over the dice. The horseman Peleus took me into his house, entreated me kindly, and named me to be your attendant [therapôn]; therefore let our bones lie in but a single urn, the two-handled golden vase given to you by your mother."

G) Iliad 19.282-302: Then Briseis like golden Aphrodite, when she saw Patroklos torn by the sharp bronze, falling around him she wailed with piercing cries. And with her hands she struck her breast and tender neck and beautiful face. And then lamenting she spoke, a woman like the goddesses: "Patroklos, most pleasing to my wretched heart, I left you alive when I went from the hut. But now returning home I find you dead, O leader of the people, So evil begets evil for me forever. The husband to whom my father and mistress mother gave me I saw torn by the sharp bronze before the city, and my three brothers, whom one mother bore together with me, beloved ones, all of whom met their day of destruction. Nor did you allow me, when swift Achilles killed my husband, and sacked the city of god-like Mynes, to weep, but you claimed that you would make me the wedded wife of god-like Achilles and that you would bring me in the ships to Phthia, and give me a wedding feast among the Myrmidons. Therefore I weep for you now that you are dead ceaselessly, you who were kind always." So she spoke lamenting, and the women wailed in response, with Patroklos as their pretext, but each woman for her own cares.

H) Iliad 19.315-336: "Hapless and dearest comrade, you it was who would get a good dinner ready for me at once and without delay when the Achaeans were hasting to fight the Trojans; now, therefore, though I have meat and drink in my tents, yet will I fast for sorrow. Grief greater than this I could not know, not even though I were to hear of the death of my father, who is now in Phthia weeping for the loss of me his son, who am here fighting the Trojans in a strange land [dêmos] for the accursed sake of Helen, nor yet though I should hear that my son is no more&emdash;he who is being brought up in Skyros&emdash;if indeed Neoptolemos is still living. Till now I made sure that I alone was to fall here at Troy away from Argos, while you were to return to Phthia, bring back my son with you in your own ship, and show him all my property, my bondsmen, and the greatness of my house&emdash;for Peleus must surely be either dead, or what little life remains to him is oppressed alike with the infirmities of age and ever present fear lest he should hear the sad tidings of my death."

I) Iliad 23.212ff: As a father mourns when he is burning the bones of his bridegroom son whose death has wrung the hearts of his parents, even so did Achilles mourn while burning the body of his comrade.

APPENDIX: The Death of Sarpedon

J) Iliad 16.426-461: Sarpedon sprang from his chariot as he spoke, and Patroklos, when he saw this, leaped on to the ground also. The two then rushed at one another with loud cries like eagle-beaked crook-taloned vultures that scream and tear at one another in some high mountain fastness. The son of scheming Kronos looked down upon them in pity and said to Hera who was his wife and sister, "Alas, that it should be the lot of Sarpedon whom I love so dearly to perish by the hand of Patroklos. I am in two minds whether to catch him up out of the fight and set him down safe and sound in the fertile district [dêmos] of Lycia, or to let him now fall by the hand of the son of Menoitios." And Hera answered, "Most dread son of Kronos, what is this that you are saying? Would you snatch a mortal man, whose doom has long been fated, out of the jaws of death? Do as you will, but we shall not all of us be of your mind. I say further, and lay my saying to your heart, that if you send Sarpedon safely to his own home, some other of the gods will be also wanting to escort his son out of battle, for there are many sons of gods fighting round the city of Troy, and you will make every one jealous. If, however, you are fond of him and pity him, let him indeed fall by the hand of Patroklos, but as soon as the life [psukhê] is gone out of him, send Death and sweet Sleep to bear him off the field and take him to the broad district [dêmos] of Lycia, where his brothers and his kinsmen will bury him with mound and pillar, in due honor to the dead." The sire of gods and men assented, but he shed a rain of blood upon the earth in honor [timê] of his son whom Patroklos was about to kill on the fertile plain of Troy far from his home.

K) Iliad 16.479-491: Patroklos then aimed in his turn, and the spear sped not from his hand in vain, for he hit Sarpedon just where the midriff surrounds the ever-beating heart. He fell like some oak or silver poplar or tall pine to which woodmen have laid their axes upon the mountains to make timber for ship-building - even so did he lie stretched at full length in front of his chariot and horses, moaning and clutching at the blood-stained dust. As when a lion springs with a bound upon a herd of cattle and fastens on a great black bull which dies bellowing in its clutches - even so did the leader of the Lycian warriors struggle in death as he fell by the hand of Patroklos.

L) Iliad 16.632-655: He led the way as he spoke and the hero went forward with him. As the sound of woodcutters in some forest glade upon the mountains- and the thud of their axes is heard afar - even such a din now rose from earth-clash of bronze armor and of good ox-hide shields, as men smote each other with their swords and spears pointed at both ends. A man had need of good eyesight now to know Sarpedon, so covered was he from head to foot with spears and blood and dust. Men swarmed about the body, as flies that buzz round the full milk-pails in the season [hôra] of spring when they are brimming with milk - even so did they gather round Sarpedon; nor did Zeus turn his keen eyes away for one moment from the fight, but kept looking at it all the time, for he was settling how best to kill Patroklos, and considering whether Hektor should be allowed to end him now in the fight round the body of Sarpedon, and strip him of his armor, or whether he should let him give yet further toil [ponos] to the Trojans. In the end, he deemed it best that the brave attendant [therapôn] of Achilles son of Peleus should drive Hektor and the Trojans back towards the city and take the lives of many.

M) Iliad 16.663-683: The Achaeans, therefore stripped the gleaming armor from his shoulders and the brave son of Menoitios gave it to his men to take to the ships. Then Zeus lord of the storm-cloud said to Apollo, "Dear Phoebus, go, I pray you, and take Sarpedon out of range of the weapons; cleanse the black blood from off him, and then bear him a long way off where you may wash him in the river, anoint him with ambrosia, and clothe him in immortal raiment; this done, commit him to the arms of the two fleet messengers, Death, and Sleep, who will carry him straightway to the fertile district [dêmos] of Lycia, where his brothers and kinsmen will give him a funeral, and will raise both mound and pillar to his memory, in due honor to the dead."

Thus he spoke. Apollo obeyed his father's saying, and came down from the heights of Ida into the thick of the fight; forthwith he took Sarpedon out of range of the weapons, and then bore him a long way off, where he washed him in the river, anointed him with ambrosia and clothed him in immortal raiment; this done, he committed him to the arms of the two fleet messengers, Death and Sleep, who presently set him down in the fertile district [dêmos] of Lycia.

 The corpse of Sarpedon is taken away by Sleep and Death as Hermes looks on. This vase is in the Metropolitan Musum of Art. Visit their website for more information about the vase.

Laurel Bowman publishes two extremely useful resources for the god Apollo: the first collects all of the primary sources that relate myths involving Apollo. The second collects images of Apollo in ancient art.

*Translation of Tyrtaeus is that of J. Hurwit 1985 (The Art and Culture of Early Greece), 255.