#minor:

[babyrdie]

I heard that baby/child Achilles's feeding was strange. Do you know anything about this?

You said…Achilles and food?

Attention, you have awakened in me the desire to write an ✨opinion post ✨

Ah, nonnie, there's something about this question that interests me! So yeah, I have things to tell you about this topic! But first, in order to provide some initial context, I'll share what some sources say about Achilles' diet, especially regarding his childhood.

In Apollonius Rhodius's version, Hera, when describing how Achilles is raised on Pelion, says that he “craves thy mother's milk”.

“[...] When thy son shall come to the Elysian plain, he whom now in the home of Cheiron the Centaur water-nymphs are tending, though he still craves thy mother milk [...]”

Argonautica, 4.810-812. Translation by R.C. Seaton.

Considering that we later learn that Thetis left Phthia when Achilles was a baby, it seems likely that Hera was perhaps being literal:

[...] but sharp pain smote Peleus, for never before had he seen her [Thetis] come, since first she left her bridal chamber and bed in anger, on account of noble Achilles, then a babe. For she ever encompassed the child's mortal flesh in the night with the flame of fire; and day by day she anointed with ambrosia his tender frame, so that he might become immortal and that she might keep off from his body loathsome old age. But Peleus leapt up from his bed and saw his dear son gasping in the flame; and at the sight he uttered a terrible cry, fool that he was; and she heard it, and catching up the child threw him screaming to the ground, and herself like a breath of wind passed swiftly from the hall as a dream and leapt into the sea, exceeding wroth, and thereafter returned not again. [...]

Argonautica, 4.866-879. Translation by R.C. Seaton.

In Statius's version, Achilles explicitly said he wasn’t nursed ("nourishing breast") and that his diet wasn’t conventional ("no wonted food"). He describes that Chiron gave him "entrails of lions and the bowels of a half-slain she-wolf”.

[...] “Even in my years of crawling infancy, when the Thessalian sage [Chiron] received me [Achilles] on his stark mountain-side [Pelion], I am said to have devoured no wonted food, nor to have sated my hunger at the nourishing breast, but to have gnawed the tough entrails of lions and the bowels of a half-slain she-wolf. That was my first bread, that the bounty of joyous Bacchus, in such wise did that father of mine feed me. [...]"

Statius' Achilleid, 2.96-101. Translation by J.H. Mozley.

In Pseudo-Apollodorus' version it is said that Achilles was initially known as Ligyron because he wasn’t breastfed. J.G. Frazer explains the etymology proposed here as “Apollodorus absurdly derives the name Achilles from a (privative) and cheilê, “lips,” so that the word would mean “not lips.”” (note 268). Chiron also gave Achilles “innards of lions and wild boars and the marrow of bears”.

[...] Peleus brought his son to Cheiron, who accepted him and raised him on the innards of lions and wild boars and the marrow of bears. He named him Achilles (before that, his name had been Ligyron) because he had never put his lips {cheilos} to a breast.

Pseudo-Apollodorus' Library, 3.13.6. Translation by Stephen M. Trzaskoma.

In Philostratus's version, Chiron gave Achilles "honeycombs and the marrow of fawns”.

[...] When Achilles was born, they [Thetis and Peleus] made Kheiron his foster-father. He fed him honeycombs and the marrow of fawns. [...]

Philostratus’ Heroica, 731-734. Translation by Jennifer K. Berenson Maclean and Ellen Bradshaw Aitken.

In a Byzantine book that seeks to provide etymologies, among the suggested etymologies of the name Achilles (Akhilleus), there is the idea that the "khilê" part is a reference to him not having been breastfed and having been fed only "stag-marrow" by Chiron.

Akhilleus: [this name comes from] lessening grief, for Achilles was a doctor. Or it is because of the woe, which is pain, he brought to his mother and the Trojans. Or it is from not touching his lips to food [khilê]. For he had no serving of milk at all, but was fed with stag-marrow by Kheiron. This is why he was hailed by the Myrmidons in the following way, according to Euphoriôn: “He came to Phthia without ever tasting any food This is why the Myrmidons named him Achilles.”

Etymologicum Magnum, s.v Achilles. Translation from here. 

In the scholia D of The Iliad, it is said that Chiron, while raising Achilles, gave him "marrow of lions and bears." While there is no explicit mention of the name Lygiron, it seems implicit that this is the case here, since the commentary says "he [Chiron] called the boy Achilles”, indicating that in this version the name Achilles was given by Chiron and not by Peleus or Thetis, which hints back to what was proposed by Pseudo-Apollodorus.

If you in your mind are avoiding some destiny (εἰ δέ τινα φρεσὶ σῇσι εοπροπίην ἀλεείνεις) [...] Peleus [...] brought him [Achilles] to Mt. Pelion, giving him over to Cheiron to raise. Because Cheiron nourished him on the marrow of lions and bears, he called the boy Achilles. After teaching him the art of medicine and how to play the lyre and sing, he returned him to his father. Thetis, meanwhile, was angry and left Peleus, returning to the sea. [...]

Scholia D, 16.36. Translation by R. Scott Smith.

In the 4th-century CE artistic representation known as the “Achillesplatte,” Achilles is depicted as a baby sitting on top of animal carcasses next to Chiron in a reference to the myth of Chiron feeding him carnivorous animals. And as mentioned by Robertson (1940), it is possible that an earlier Greek amphora (C.V.A. Berlin i, Pl.v) made a similar reference. In The Iliad, there are many instances of Achilles' eating, but they concern not his diet but his state of mind. I have therefore decided to include them throughout the argument proposed here rather than listing them among the primary sources, although primary sources they are, because I would otherwise have to repeat them.

Now that I've clarified the primary sources regarding Achilles' nutrition, let's look at what this might mean. One of the things emphasized is the supposed absence of breast milk. Accounts of the moment when Thetis abandons Phthia for the sea after Peleus accidentally interrupts her in an attempt to immortalize Achilles emphasize that Achilles was, in fact, a baby (Hesiodic The Aegimius frag. 2; Argonautica 4.866–879; Pseudo-Apollodorus' Library 3.13.6; Scholia D 16.36). The emphasis on the absence of breast milk seems significant, considering how its association with a mother's nourishing power was recognized.

For example, in The Iliad (22.79-89), Hecuba, hoping to persuade Hector to desist from facing Achilles, exposes her breasts to remind him that she is his mother and, consequently, to remind him of the pain she will suffer. She even says, "I used to give you my breast to soothe you". Her pleading strategy doesn't work since Hector still chooses to fight, but it's still significant that this is a narrative element. The reason it doesn't work isn't that there's no appeal in her lament, it's just that Hector is deeply committed to his notion that he must continue to fight. Priam, Hecuba, Andromache — father, mother, wife — none of Hector's most important people are able to convince him, so I don't think Hector's refusal to listen to Hecuba's plea tells something about the ineffectiveness of maternal appeal, but rather tells more about Hector.

Clytemnestra, in Aeschylus, strongly associates her breasts with her role as a mother. Clytemnestra dreams that she gave birth to a serpent and treated it like a baby, but when she took it to her breast to nurse, the snake bit her. This caused the blood and milk to mix (The Libation Bearers, 526-533). Later, to convince Orestes to give up on killing her, Clytemnestra exposes her breasts to him and reminds him of who she is: his mother. And she almost succeeds, as Orestes actually hesitates. But Pylades, who isn’t Clytemnestra's son and as such is unaffected by such an argument, prevents his friend from not killing her. Clytemnestra even reinforces the argument with statements such as “the milk that nourished you” and “It was I who nourished you, and with you I would grow old” (The Libation Bearers, 896-908, trans. H.W. Smyth).

In Clytemnestra's case, however, her breast not only represents motherhood, but specifically a corrupted motherhood. The image presented isn’t of a mother peacefully nursing a baby eager for comfort, but rather of a mother whose milk has been tainted by blood, just as the bonds between her and Orestes have been tainted by the murders of Pelops’ lineage — there is no longer any comfort Clytemnestra can offer or Orestes can accept; they are trapped in a cycle of violence. And while Hecuba's plea fails Hector because he sees himself as a man with a duty, Clytemnestra's plea fails Orestes because, in the end, she is no longer seen by the narrative as a mother. She renounced this role when she took the actions she did, something confirmed when in Eumenides the characters argue that Orestes did not commit matricide because, after all, Clytemnestra “isn’t truly” considered his blood relative. Indeed, the role of wife and mother being intrinsically linked to the female figure in Ancient Greece, even Clytemnestra's femininity is denied: "These are my wife's words" (Agamemnon, 349), she says, and the Chorus responds, "You speak as wisely as a most prudent man" (351). In contrast, to Aegisthus, Clytemnestra's lover, the Chorus says, "Woman that you are!" (1625).

In an epigram, the author associates motherhood with two parts of a woman's body: the breasts (associated with nutrition) and the belly (associated with the act of giving birth).

By Anonymous (What Clytaemnestra might have said when Orestes was about to kill her) Where dost thou direct thy sword, to my belly or my breasts? This belly brought thee forth, these breasts nurtured thee.

Greek Anthology, 9.126. Translation by W.R. Paton.

In this sense, it's the womb that carries the child, but it's the breast that strengthens them so them stays alive. It's not enough for a baby to simply be born; them must be nourished, similar to how there's no point in planting a seed if you deprive it of nutrients — nothing will grow from it.

Another example, besides the exposure of breasts in supplication, is the way children are still described in close proximity to the breast. For example, when describing how Neoptolemus forcibly took Astyanax from his nurse, a fragment states that "but her [Andromache] son he [Neoptolemus] snatched from the bosom of his [Astyanax] rich-haired nurse" (The Little Iliad, frag. 14, trans. Evelyn-White). On another occasion, mothers grieving the death of their children associate the idea of a final comfort with the idea of holding them close to their breasts, even if the said child is lifeless: "Let me embrace and hold my children to my bosom in my enfolding arms" and "Come, let me clasp the dear ashes to my bosom" (The Suppliants, 815 and 1160, trans. E.P. Coleridge). And indeed, proximity to the mother's breast tends to be considered a comfort, as demonstrated by the way Andromache, in an attempt to comfort Molossus in what appears to be possibly the last moments of his life, says: “Rest there, my babe, my darling! on thy mother's bosom, e'en in death and in the grave” (Andromache, 512, trans. E.P. Coleridge).

Overall, it's safe to assume a logical connection (after all, it's a fairly obvious idea) between breasts and motherhood in the ancient Greek imagination, which includes mythological representations. The lack of proximity between the mother's breast and a child is seen as negative, something regrettable. Coccagna (2014, pp. 402) notes:

We find an early reference to the comfort of a mother’s breast in Hecuba’s appeal to  Hektor to remember his mother’s λαθικηδέα μαζόν, or care-banishing breast. This passage lies at the beginning of a long tradition of mothers invoking their breasts to incite pity in their children in the hope of swaying their decisions. The tragedian  Euripides employs the term mastos close to thirty times, and demonstrates the scope of the word’s signification. Most frequently, mastos refers to a mother’s breast, whether in a scene in which a female character beseeches a child by making reference to their breast that once suckled him in infancy or bemoans the separation of mother and son, as in the Ion, when the description of the child seeking the breast is referenced twice. In Bacchae, the mastos’ natural function is violated as frenzied women, their breasts swollen with milk not fed to the children they have left behind, nurse wild animals in their stead. These depictions present non-eroticized, biologically functional breasts that mark the woman’s role as mother and caregiver

As mentioned, the separation of the child from the mother's breast in the play Ion (Ion, 760-762, 961-962, 1490-1498) is supposed to be something sad, and the way in Bacchae the women driven mad by Dionysus no longer breastfeed, even though their breasts are heavy with milk (Bacchae, 677-703), is a way of demonstrating how these women are in fact no longer behaving in a typically feminine way — how the cult of Dionysus defies the norms and how much Pentheus is struggling with this feeling of being confronted by the "other". Therefore, it is as if the association between maternal breasts and the act of nourishing and comforting were a kind of status of normality. That is, that a child is prevented from being close to its mother's breast or that a child isn’t being breastfed by her is a status of abnormality. 

Therefore, considering everything that has been established here about the powerful appeal of maternal imagery surrounding breasts (whether it be the comfort Andromache attempts to offer Molossus, Hecuba's heartfelt plea, Clytemnestra's distorted motherhood, the tragedy of a child separated from the breast, the challenge to the status quo in Bacchae or other examples), it makes sense to assume that the emphasis on Achilles' lack of breastfeeding serves a purpose. After all, why would there have been attempts to explain the name's etymology through this if it were truly so irrelevant?

The thing is: it's not just that Achilles wasn't properly breastfed, it's that Achilles, being a child of an abnormal marriage, grew up in abnormal situations and, eventually, won't behave in a way considered normal either. Thetis, by leaving Phthia, left Achilles without the idea of an mortal present mother — she is quite present by divine standards, but not by mortal standards of motherhood. It's, of course, normal to expect a goddess not to be content to resign herself to the human environment (and I say this even if her marriage wasn't forced. For example, it's not as if Aphrodite wanted to live among mortals because of Aeneas), but it's not normal to expect a mortal son to not be breastfed. Thetis having Achilles as a son is abnormal because an immortal mother shouldn't grieve a mortal son, but Achilles having Thetis as a mother is also abnormal because, in this case, he wasn't raised according to mortal social ideals. But this not only represents the precarious mother-son experience of both, but also reinforces the abnormality of the mortal/immortal duality that Achilles experiences. This duality that Thetis embraces and laments with all her fervor.

In The Iliad, Hera argues that it is natural for her to favor Achilles over Hector, as Achilles is closer to the divine. He is "born of a goddess," whom Hera says she herself "nurtured and reared," but Hector is "mortal and sucked at the breast of a woman":

Then in anger white-armed Hera addressed him: “This speech of yours, you of the silver bow, might be justified if you gods hold Achilles and Hector in the same honor. But Hector is mortal and sucked at the breast of a woman, while Achilles is born of a goddess, one whom I myself nurtured and reared and gave as wife to her husband,  to Peleus, who was exceedingly dear to the immortals’ hearts; and all you gods took part in the wedding. And you among them partook of the feast, lyre in hand, you companion of evil, faithless forever.”

The Iliad, 24.55-64. Translation by Caroline Alexander.

Now, it is true that Hera nowhere says that Achilles didn’t suckle at Thetis’ breast, but it’s notable that she only emphasized Hector as having suckled at a mother's breast in the context of differentiating him from Achilles. The later tradition that Achilles wasn’t in fact nursed by Thetis in the way that children would normally be nursed by their mother may perhaps represent the possibility of this being the case in a Homeric context as well, though it remains speculative. But if this is the case, then Thetis's failure to nurse Achilles takes him out of a human state and brings him closer to a non-human state. Murnaghan (1992, pp. 245) states that “Hector's mortal heritage is identified specifically with his nursing at his mother's breast, as if he had taken in mortality itself along with his mother's milk” and adds “In the Homeric Hymn to Apollo, which tells the story of the god's birth, it is explicitly noted that Apollo's mother did not nurse him and he was fed nectar and ambrosia instead” (1992, pp. 255, note 6). Note that it isn’t about divine children never being breastfed and necessarily having only ambrosia in all possible myths, but it is about human children never being able to live without typically human nutrients.

Interestingly, as pointed out by Pedrucci (2017), in the best-known case of a goddess breastfeeding someone, divine milk possibly has the symbolic act of immortalizing the mortal character. In the story told by Diodorus Siculus in Library of History 4.9.4, the infant Heracles was exposed by his mortal mother Alcmene and rescued by his half-sister Athena. She then tricked Hera into breastfeeding him, unaware that he was an illegitimate son of Zeus. Later, the infant Heracles is depicted as being able to strangle the two serpents that Hera sent to kill him, and it is said that “Consequently the inhabitants of Argos, on learning of what had taken place, gave him the name Heracles because he had gained glory (kleos) by the aid of Hera” (4.10.1, trans. C.H. Oldfather), which may perhaps indicate the possibility that Hera's milk nourished him more than mortal milk would. But this is very much a speculation, as it is also entirely possible that Diodorus is simply referring to the fact that, had Hera not been constantly trying to kill him, Heracles would not have consistently proven himself superior to the challenges and thus achieved fame/kleos. What is less speculative, though, is that Hera still plays a prominent role in Heracles' immortalization, albeit unconsciously. Not only is she the one who forces him to face the challenges that will eventually grant him enough glory to make him worthy of an apotheosis, but she is also the one who gives Hebe in marriage to Heracles (Library of History, 4.39.2). By effectively marrying Heracles to Hebe, an Olympian goddess, Heracles' entry and, consequently, his apotheosis is strongly confirmed. In this sense, Hera's act of breastfeeding Heracles may not necessarily have given him immortal characteristics, but it could still have been a nod to how he would later be immortalized, representing Hera's role as a "stepmother" and thus a legitimizer of Heracles' deified status. In one epigram, Hera is even shown directly expressing her approval: "What Hera would say when Heracles was deified: Thy father, Heracles, has well rewarded thy valiant toil, since labor can bring to men unsurpassable renown after an infinite round of labors" (Greek Anthology, 9.468, trans. W.R. Paton). And her role as "stepmother" seems to have been recognized in antiquity, as she is referred to as a "second mother" by Lycophron (Alexandra, 31-37). If the mortality of Heracles' biological mother made him mortal, the immortality of his stepmother symbolically immortalized him.

Thus, if symbolically Hecuba's breast milk represents Hector's mortality and Hera's breast milk represents Heracles' future immortalization, it’s possible that Thetis's lack of breast milk represents Achilles's confused status. Before he was born, it was stated that Thetis's son would be a cosmic threat because he would be destined to surpass his father and, therefore, being the son of a god, he would surpass the gods and dethrone Zeus (Aeschylus's Prometheus Bound 907–927; Pindar's Isthmian Ode 8.36–45; Argonautica 4.799–804; Pseudo-Hyginus's Fabulae 54 and Astronomica 2.15.4; Quintus Smyrnaeus's Posthomerica 5.394; Scholia D 1.519). This was avoided by forcing Thetis into marriage with a mortal, and consequently, Achilles is no longer a cosmic threat, but a mortal threat for surpassing humans (Scholia D 1.519). At Thetis's wedding, Apollo prophesied a happy motherhood for her, though notably he is the one who kills Achilles and indirectly causes an unhappy motherhood for Thetis (Aeschylus frag 189, Plutarch's How a Young Man Owed to Hear Poems 2.16E, Eusebius's Preparation for the Gospel 13.3.647A). There was a prophecy that allowed him to live physically but die in memory since he would live an obscure life, or to die physically but live in memory since he would gain unfading glory (The Iliad, 9.410-420). Achilles' life is one of immense duality: he is neither mortal enough nor immortal enough, and even alive, his death is always looming in the air, and if he chose to live, he would die in memory. And I think perhaps there's a possibility that the absence of breast milk plays some symbolic role in this.

Regarding Achilles and milk, it’s interesting to mention that in The Iliad Achilles mentions the rumors/insults about him not having been fed with breast milk, but with bile:

Then when Achilles had drawn them up marshaled in good order with their leaders, he lay a strong injunction on them: “Myrmidons, let no one forget the threats  that you made by our fast ships against the Trojans during all the time of my wrath, when each of you blamed me: ‘Cruel son of Peleus, your mother nursed you on bile, pitiless one, who hold your companions against their will beside the ships. Let us go back home again in our sea-going ships since bitter anger has so fallen on your heart.’ In your gatherings you often said such things to me; but now looms the great task of battle, for which before you longed. Therefore each one of you with brave heart go to battle with the Trojans.”

The Iliad, 15.198-209. Translation by Caroline Alexander.

If the act of breastfeeding can symbolically represent something, then what does this insult — which distorts conventional breastfeeding — represent? Hawkins, who elaborates extensively on the relationship of bile to a physiological representation of intense anger or violent impulse in ancient Greek texts, suggests that the accusation that Achilles was nourished with bile is taken in a non-literal way. The point isn’t to assert that he was genuinely fed this way, but rather to allude to his temperamental behavior:

When Achilles harangues the Myrmidons just before Patroclus leads them into battle, he reminds them of a rumour that his troops had circulated as both a threat (ἀπειλέω, 16.201) to the Trojans and a criticism (αἰτιάομαι, 202) of Achilles himself. He says that each one of them (ἕκαστος, 202) as they were assembled together (ἀγειρόμενοι θάμ’, 207) had said (203–6):  ‘σχέτλιε Πηλέος υἱὲ χόλωι ἄρα σ᾽ ἔτρεφε μήτηρ, νηλεές, ὃς παρὰ νηυσὶν ἔχεις ἀέκοντας ἑταίρους: οἴκαδέ περ σὺν νηυσὶ νεώμεθα ποντοπόροισιν αὖτις, ἐπεί ῥά τοι ὧδε κακὸς χόλος ἔμπεσε θυμῶι.’ ‘Hard son of Peleus, your mother nursed you on cholos. Pitiless man—you hold your comrades back by the ships. So let’s head homeward with our seafaring ships, Since evil cholos has pounced upon your heart.’  The troops’ invective (reminiscent of Thersites’ allegations against Agamemnon, Il. 2.211–42) does not offer a full-blown physiological assessment of χόλος, but it does rely on an image of ingestion. The soldiers do not claim that Thetis actually had χόλος in her milk but, rather, that Achilles got his anger from an external source.37 The fact that such a dynamic was only dimly understood can be seen in the subsequent description of ‘evil χόλος’ pouncing upon Achilles’ heart. The active role that χόλος takes in that image derives from the vocabulary of daemonic experiences, such as attacks by Atê or the temporary loss of one’s wits at a critical moment in battle.

Iambus and Elegy: New Approaches — Anger, Bile, and the Poet’s Body by Julia Nelson Hawkins, pg 331-332.

In other words, it is possibly similar to Patroclus's behavior, who, to assert that Achilles wasnt being empathetic, said, "Pitiless one: your father was not the horseman Peleus, nor Thetis your mother, but the gray sea bore you and the wild cliffs, since your mind is unbending" (16.33-35). To emphasize Achilles's lack of empathy by not showing himself moved by the death of the Achaeans, Patroclus separated him from a common birth by declaring that he didn’t have a mother and father like other people, but was instead generated by nature itself. Similarly, to emphasize Achilles's temperament, the soldiers take away from him a common nourishment (breast milk) and replace it with something else (bile). In both cases, the insult is meant to affect Achilles by insinuating that he isn’t acting humanly or at least not being human in the same way as the others. In fact, Patroclus, when speaking to Nestor, even explicitly stated that he sees Achilles as temperamental (“Well do you know, old one, Zeus-cherished, the kind of man that one is; a man to be dreaded; swift would he be to blame even the blameless,” 11.653-654), which again reinforces that perhaps even among the Myrmidons, Achilles' image was indeed volatile. That is, even his own people (the Myrmidons) and the one he holds most dear (Patroclus) know there is something about Achilles. They may admire and love him regardless, but they are aware and they have no intention of pretending not to notice. Perhaps, who knows, this makes their loyalty even more impressive — Patroclus has the ability to not close his eyes to what Achilles is and still desire to have him entirely by his side.

Hawkins also points to a quote from Smith that clarifies the Homeric context of the word translated as bile. Smith's (1996, pp. 555-556) point is as follows:

Cholos is not precisely bile, and it is not, in the epic, associated with the liver, which in the medical writers filters the bile out of the blood and stores it. It is the emotion anger, or the cause of anger, kotos, and mênis. As such it is prominent in the Iliad and also in the Odyssey and probably many poems before them. The precise images with which it is presented allow us to characterize it: It comes into the body as part of the food (Il. 22.94); it is in the phrenes or kradia (Il. 16.203). When it is stimulated it rises up, aexei, like smoke, as Achilles says, and it overwhelms the senses until it tastes sweeter than honey (Il. 18.108–10). It makes a man angry, however wise he is — it controls his phrenes (Il. 9.436, 675, 14.207, 306). But at first cholos can be controlled — παῦσαι, ἔχειν, and σβεννύναι are used—or it can be digested, but once in control it runs its course. One may compare this with a later medical description of fits of madness which come from bile rushing in quantity to the head and overheating it — which effect persists until the bile is dissipated. The epic mênis and the medical mania retain much in common.

In other words, the intent of this rumor is that Achilles wasn't nourished with the safe comfort of mother's milk, but rather with anger. But analyzing Smith's words, we have more food for thought. According to him, the physiology of cholos is something that, while controllable, cannot be completely stagnated and requires effort. And, when uncontrolled, it circulates throughout the body, consuming those who feel it.  It's something bitter, that stays in the mouth, that is part of the body — like bile. And indeed, Achilles seems to tries to control it at times: he avoids killing Agamemnon because of Athena's advice, he doesn't take out his frustration on the men who come to fetch Briseis, he receives the embassy hospitably even though he doesn't intend to accept the offer, he waits for Thetis to return with her armor to actually fight, he reconciles with Agamemnon, he is willing to listen to Priam. The great dilemma, then, is how much he will allow himself to be consumed. The problem is that, even in his anger, Achilles is different. After all, what he feels is not merely cholos, but is specifically mênis — a term that, apart from Achilles, is only applied to gods in the Homeric texts, although the way in which Achilles exercises it still makes it clear that in the end he is a mortal because it differs from the mênis exhibited by gods in its development and conclusion.

The curious part is that Hanson (2003) argues that, in fact, Achilles logically couldn’t have been truly nourished by anger, as the Myrmidons' accusation of nursed with bile thing seems to imply. At least, not in a Homeric context. We are reminded that Peleus advised Achilles to be gentle and diplomatic; that Phoenix, similar in behavior to Peleus, was a second father to Achilles and was sent to Troy to advise him; that Patroclus is his closest companion who has already learned the price of anger and is supposedly wiser; and that Achilles grew up with the wisest of the centaurs, Chiron. Achilles is said to have had a typically ideal princely education, and such education included the self-control so revered by the ancient Greeks. In a Homeric context, therefore, it doesn’t seem likely that Achilles's externalization of anger was something inborn, but more likely that it was a skill developed on the battlefield. Being overcome by anger is reprehensible when we think of a prince who must lead the people, but if anger makes someone a more deadly warrior, it's no wonder it soon becomes a tool. It's still advisable to control it, because if it isn't, then it's no longer a tool, but a weakness. Could the moments we see Achilles restraining his anger be signs that, internally, he's aware of this? The feeling was probably there since childhood, but outsourcing only came with full force in war, and it's a dam constantly on the verge of breaking. And let's face it: it's easier to let the dam break than to rebuild it. By the end of The Iliad, however, Achilles is slowly rebuilding this.

But that's the exclusively Homeric context. What about later traditions, those that speak of feeding on Pelion? In an explanatory note, Hawkins (note 37) adds another possibility that the bile accusation is linked to an ancient proverb and also makes a connection with the tradition that Achilles was fed in a similar way to a wild animal:

37 By the Hellenistic period there was a strong tradition that Achilles had the diet of a wild animal, only eating raw guts and the marrow of wild beasts: Apollonius derives the name of Achilles from A-cheilê because his lips never touched the breast (Bibl. 3.13.6, ap. Hanson (2004) n. 5). Statius (Ach. 2.96–102) claims that Chiron’s diet for Achilles only consisted of ‘the vicious entrails of lions and the marrow of the half alive she-wolf ’, spissa leonum / viscera semianimisque lupae traxisse medullas. See Heslin (2005) 173–80. This tradition might be a result of the Homeric taunt that suggests that Achilles did not have a human diet. A fragment of Diphilus (ed. T. Kock, CAF ii, 74), however, does pun on the tradition of mothers putting χολή on their breasts to wean their infants, which suggests that perhaps the troops might have  teased Achilles based on a proverb about bile and weaning: ‘A: Angry? A parasite angry? B. No, but he applied some bile (χολή) to the table, weaning himself like children from their mothers’ milk.’ Cf. the nurse in Romeo and Juliet I.3: ‘And she was wean’d,—I never shall forget it,—For I had then laid wormwood to my dug.’ A combination of these various strands might suggest that the taunt is that Achilles was nursed on bile by a wild animal. Hanson (2004) 185 notes that Eustathius takes the taunt seriously as a commentary on Achilles’ body: ‘You used to suckle bile in place of milk and because of this your body has become compacted from bile’, tr. Hanson.

Crowe (2025, pp.31-32) argues that the tradition of Achilles' unusual diet serves purposefully to differentiate him from other human characters, to reinforce that he has something of a savagery internally.

At the same time in the Iliad as Achilles questions his own divinity, he also must grapple with his own savage nature. In Book 16 of the Iliad, when speaking to his men, Achilles makes reference to insults against him which insinuated his mother raised him on bile (Hom. Il. 16.203). This notion that what Achilles ate as a child effected how he acted in war would come back in Statius’s Achilleid when the hero gives a seventy-line speech about the way he was raised by the centaur Chiron. During this speech Achilles describes the kind of food he was reared on, “I am said in the time of both my tender and crawling years, when the Thessalian elder in his hard mountain received me, to have devoured no customary foods nor from nourishing breast satisfied my hunger, but to have torn the dense viscera of lions and the marrow of a half-dead she-wolf” (Stat. Ach. 2.96-100). Reference to Achilles’ childhood diet also appears in Pseudo-Apollodorus’s Bibliotheca, where the poet describes how Chiron fed the baby hero on the innards and marrow of savage beasts like lions, bears, and wild boar, naming him Achilles “because he had not put his lips to the breast,” that is to say Pseudo-Apollodorus creates an etymology of ἀ + χείλη for Achilles (Apollod. Bibl. 3.13.6). Yet the image of child Achilles being fed wild animals by Chiron can be traced as far back as a 7th century Attic neck-amphora which portrays Chiron bringing three live cubs to the infant Achilles (Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum, Berlin, vol. I, plate v = LIMC “Achilles” plate 21). Braund and Giles point to this early exposure of savagery to Achilles as a form of sympathetic magic, that through the early consumption of wild animals like wolves and lions, little Achilles took on some of their characteristics, becoming fearless, wild, and pitiless in battle.

Crowe (2025, pp. 32-33) clarifies that young Achilles' wild diet not only gave him physically superhuman characteristics but also isolated him from human society. While Hesiod asserted that the difference between humans and beasts is adherence to laws (Works and Days, 276-284), Achilles is seen constantly disobeying laws, whether formal or merely social. Examples cited by the author include disobedience to authority (Agamemnon, Apollo) and constant breaches of ancient Greek customs (refusing to fight even though it was expected of him as a soldier, refusing the supplicant Lycaon even though a supplication was expected to be accepted, dishonoring Hector's corpse even though this was considered a crime against divine law even in the context of war, and willingly performing human sacrifices even without a deity asking for it). Even the act of refusing to fight, turning away from the Greek army and living separately from them was suggested as a way to represent how Achilles distanced himself from human society, represented by the Greek army. Therefore, Achilles' supposedly atypical behaviors aren’t only seen as formidable in a battlefield context, they’re seen as isolating. And Achilles' unusual childhood diet would be a nod to this from an early age.

Crowe also points out that Achilles' imagery is repeatedly associated with the wild in The Iliad, being linked to dogs (the epithet "swif-footed" is given to both dogs and Achilles), wolves (Achilles is compared to the lupine star Sirius) and lions (repeatedly compared to one). While this reinforces his impressive ferocity and speed as a warrior, it also foreshadows the character's cannibalistic potential — a dangerous potential, since in the perception of the character's social context, that is, ancient Greek, cannibalism is a reprehensible and divinely punishable act. To illustrate his point, Crowe provides the example of how in The Iliad dogs are considered scavengers (constantly depicted eating corpses), Plato associated the wolf with an example of a tyrannical soul (Republic, 8.565d-566b), and, in the myth of King Lycaon, for committing the act of cannibalism, he is punished by transforming into a wolf (hence the term lycanthropy). Therefore, his direct association with such animals not only reinforces their superhuman capabilities, but also reinforces their potential to break the laws of their society, whether for good or for evil.

But if Crowe comments that in the later tradition there is a nod to a temperament nurtured from an early age and if Hanson argues that in the Homeric tradition there was no such nurturing, is there some possible consensus? Well, I believe it is possible. I think the nourishment offered by Chiron may imply that Achilles has savage potential, but without necessarily implying that he is already harmfully angry. It is indeed possible that, at younger age, he hasn’t externalize anger and focused on the self-control he was taught, as Hanson argues. After all, the savage isn’t only violence, rage and impulse. For example, it’s important to note that the association of Achilles' speed with the savage isn’t unique to The Iliad, nor is it inherently linked to death. As Nagy (1979, pp. 525) points out, Pindar made an association: “I find an interesting attestation in Pindar Nemean 3.43–66, a rare survival from the poetic traditions that had told about the boyhood deeds of Achilles. Here we see the {325|326} young hero killing lions and boars while armed with nothing but a spear (lines 46–47); in motion he is as fast as the winds (ἴσα τ᾽ ἀνέμοις: line 45), and his speed is such that he even outruns deer, hunting them down without the aid of hunting dogs or traps (lines 51–52).” A similar picture is painted by Euripides:

Chorus Achilles next, that nimble runner, swift on his feet as the wind, whom Thetis bore and Chiron trained, I saw upon the beach, racing in full armor along the shingle, and straining every nerve to beat a team of four horses, as he sped round the track on foot; and Eumelus, the grandson of Pheres, their driver, was shouting when I saw him, goading on his lovely steeds, with their bits of chased gold-work; the center pair, that bore the yoke, had dappled coats picked out with white, while the tracehorses, on the outside, facing the turning-post in the course, were bays with spotted fetlocks. Close beside them Peleus' son leapt on his way, in all his harness, keeping abreast the rail by the axle-box.

Iphigenia in Aulis, 206-230. Translation by E.P. Coleridge.

In both cases, Achilles' speed is wild, but it's free and powerful in a way that's not destructive. It makes sense, after all, Pindar is telling of a boy training on Pelion and Euripides is describing what is essentially a teenager playing. Neither of these Achilles is the one who uses his speed to chase Trojans. So perhaps Achilles' inner wildness isn't actually inherently negative? It can also be beautiful, childlike, impressive, relaxed, free — in a way that Achilles, in the tenth year of war, is no longer allowed to be. Perhaps, then, the idea that Chiron's atypical eating represents early wildness doesn't conflict with the Homeric context that Achilles may not have been nurtured to express his anger drastically.

Achilles's savagery and rage may be linked, but they are more nuanced than they seem to be. Achilles's interaction with food is also, in fact, nuanced. Despite the idea that his complicated history with breastfeeding and eating on Pelion points to an Achilles distant from idealized human society, Achilles is capable of interacting with food in a socially acceptable way. For example, in the embassy, we have two instances of this: Patroclus prepares food for the guests and Achilles sets the table (9.199-221) and Phoenix recounts how he used to feed Achilles as a child (9.485-491). Remarkably, all of them seem to associate food with emotional bonds, making it part of the construction of collective memories of affection and comfort. In other words, even if he didn't receive the comforting nourishment of breast milk as a baby, Achilles certainly found a sense of home in other foods in his life. Even though the beginning of his life hinted at a future that isolated him from others, Achilles still made attempts to not allow himself to be isolated — at least, to some extent.

If refusing to fight (1.292-303) and continuing to play music calmly even amidst the chaos (9.182-191) are generally interpreted as examples of Achilles isolating himself, the fact that he continues to eat Patroclus's food and still sees in it an emotional bond keeps him symbolically connected to what is human and, dare I say, alive in him. But, as we know, Patroclus dies. Depressed by his companion's death, Achilles laments that he can no longer eat Patroclus's food, saying, "Once it was that you yourself, evil-fated always, dearest of companions, set out a pleasing meal for me in my shelter readily and deftly" (19.315-317) and refuses to eat until Hector is dead (19.198-214, 19.305-308).

Odysseus argues that food is important for the living, whether in war or in mourning (19.215-237), and he is right. Achilles's refusal to eat is just one of many signs that he had always lived with the thought of being dead, and that this was nothing new to him, the gods or his loved ones:

Thetis told Achilles the prophecy of his death (9.410-420);

Apollo directly tells Patroclus that he and Achilles aren’t destined to witness the fall of Troy (16.704-711);

Antilochus, when telling of Patroclus's death, fears that Achilles will try to kill himself (18.32-34);

Achilles openly expresses the wish that he had never existed so that Thetis wouldn’t suffer the grief of losing him (18.77-93);

When thinking of the loss of Menoetius as a father, Achilles speaks of being destined to die in Troy, without returning to Peleus or being welcomed by Thetis, and, in this regard, being similar to the dead Patroclus (18.323-242);

Thetis tells Hephaestus that Achilles won’t return to Peleus, for he will die (18.428-443);

Achilles admits that he had plans for what would be done with Neoptolemus after his death, hoping that Patroclus would survive and take his place (19.326-333), and then reflects on how Peleus will react upon learning of his death (19.334-337);

The horse Xanthus, after Hera gives him voice, prophesies Achilles' death, to which Achilles replies that such a prophecy is unnecessary because he already knows his fate (19.404-424).

Hector reminds him of the prophecy about Achilles dying in the hands of Apollo and Paris, but Achilles doesn't care because death is already something accepted (22.355-375);

Patroclus speaks of being together in death while declaring that Achilles' fate is to die near the walls of Troy (23.69-92);

Other scenes.

Constantly, Achilles's imminent death isn’t a possibility; it is an undisputed truth. Stopping eating food isn’t only another way of trying to isolate himself from the other Greek soldiers in his grief while focusing on the idea of being satiated by blood, but it is also a way of connecting with the person he holds most dear: Patroclus. Patroclus is dead and won’t return, as is made abundantly clear by the way his shade cannot be embraced (23.99-108), but Achilles can still embraces him when he dies. He chose to die young to live a glorious life, but why live a life that no longer seems so glorious? Why continue when suddenly the promised kleos doesn't seem to be what he imagined? Achilles is obtaining undying glory and the immortalization of memory in exchange for living as a dead man — and the dead don't need to eat, neither "wild" food nor "conventional" food. No longer mortal or immortal, free or commanded, just nonexistent. No meals, no drinking, no getting up, until the moment of satisfying his hunger for Hector's blood, Achilles is living in an inactive state. In this way, Achilles' mourning is emphasized via his relationship with meals.

But Achilles' attitude toward the meal not only demonstrates his grief, which causes him to be inactive until the moment of revenge, but also demonstrates the activity inherent in his revenge. Neal (2006, pp. 32-33) mentions that the act of refusing to eat alone doesn’t occur in The Iliad with anyone other than Achilles, as the other characters only refrain from eating in groups. For her, this signals Achilles' separation from society: his attitudes have become individualistic. And separated from society, why follow social norms? While the other Achaeans are compared to carnivorous animals only in similes, Achilles directly expresses his desire for blood by declaring that he will only be satisfied with Hector's blood. Thus, by refusing mortal food and claiming to crave blood, Achilles demonstrates a transgressive hunger for a human. Not content with removing Achilles from society and bringing him closer to the bestial, the poet also brings him closer, albeit reprehensibly, to the divine. More specifically, to Ares, who, as a god of war, craves  for it — as evidenced by the epithet "insatiate of battle", used to describe both Ares and Achilles in the narrative. Ares, as we know, is treated by both mortals and immortals as reprehensible for representing the insatiably violent nature of war. Athena and Apollo called their brother "ruinous to mortals, murderous sacker of walled cities," while the poet, even at the beginning of the poem, says Achilles “inflicted woes without number upon the Achaeans" and in other instances uses the epithet "sacker of cities" to describe him. In his transgression, Achilles assumes the same epithet and the same lust for blood as a deity considered a bane to mortals. For Neal, “Achilles is a ravening hybrid, a man-beast-god driven by an all-consuming desire for the death and blood of mortals” (pp. 33). Thus, while in his inactive moment of sadness Achilles is merely distanced from mortals (refusing meal), in his active moment of anger Achilles is temporarily antagonistic to their ideals (hungry for blood).

As we know, Achilles enters the battlefield eventually. After numerous deaths, Achilles's savagery peaks in his confrontation with Hector, where the idea of cannibalism ceases to be a mere nod and becomes more real when Achilles threatens the other warrior with actual cannibalism (22.246-247), taking his comment to Odysseus that he won’t be satisfied with food but with blood to another level (19.198-214). It is common for Iliadic warriors to be associated with animals, but it is unusual for them to make such an association themselves. It’s the poet who compares them to such, not the warrior who declares his affinity with beasts. On the other hand, it is Achilles who directly compares himself to a lion to Hector (22.262-263). It is no longer merely stylistic, just imagery, but rather becomes something that symbolizes Achilles's constant struggle to maintain what is considered "humanly civilized" in him. And faced with Hector, he feels that perhaps he will let his rage consume him to the point where laws, whether mortal or divine, no longer matter to him. But while Achilles threatens to break his human bonds, he doesn't actually break them. He may even hint at cannibalizing Hector, but he doesn't do it. His humanity, represented here in food, isn’t completely corrupted by the crime (punished by the gods) of eating another human:

After their fateful contest, Achilles stands victorious as Hector begs him one last time to  honor his corpse and give it back to his family, imploring his killer “let me not by dogs be  devoured near the ships of the Achaeans” (Hom. Il. 22.339). Achilles’ reply is frightening in its  brutality “Implore me not, dog, by clasping knees nor by fathers. For would that my rage and  heart might urge me to eat your butchered flesh raw, for what you have done, yet surly there is no  man who shall ward the dogs from your head” (Hom. Il. 22.345-48). Achilles toys with the  thought of eating Hector, with cutting the meat off his bones and eating him raw, but notably, he  only wishes his μένος καὶ θυμὸς would bid him do it. The distinction between Achilles wishing  to eat Hector, and wishing his rage would drive him to it, is important; for as much as Achilles  loathes Hector, fantasizes about eating him, he cannot actually imagine cannibalizing Hector in  the literal sense, so he projects the act first onto the abstract idea of rage and heart, and then further onto dogs. It is this point at which Achilles realizes he cannot actually cannibalize  Hector, that the consumption of human flesh is the role of animals like dogs and not humans like  Achilles, so he projects his desires onto them in a more socially acceptable manner. By realizing  the full breadth of where his rage will carry him and the point where he can go no further, Achilles acknowledges his own humanity by abiding by the dietary restrictions set out in  Hesiod’s Works and Days. Achilles cannot bring himself to consume another human being, no  matter how much he may wish his anger would drive him to it, and he is thus confirmed as human.

Divine Achilles and his Raging Heart: Cannibalism in the Iliad by Luca Crowe, pgs 34-35.

And indeed, as Crowe argued, Achilles is human. He may have been somewhere between the human and the nonhuman, between the mortal and the immortal, between the living and the dead, but at the end of all this duality, he is human. Human enough that, despite cruel threats, he doesn’t comply. He broke many laws, it is true, but even Achilles has a limit, and cannibalism is one he isn’t willing to genuinely transgress. Phrases like "there are no pacts of faith between lions and men, nor do wolves and lambs have spirit in kind" (22.262-263) and "Would that my passion and spirit would drive me to devour your hacked-off flesh raw, such things you have done" (22.246-247) are ultimately just that: phrases. Threats never carried out. His desire is projected onto the dogs, for he is unable to cast aside his humanity enough to exercise desire himself — a desire that not even the dogs exercise, for Hector's body is divinely protected (23.179-191).

Achilles' rage may have pushed him to the limit of what is considered permissible for humans; indeed, it consumed him in a manner similar to that which the Myrmidons, through their comment about bile, accused him of being consumed. This rage caused him to violently kill countless people, to refuse a supplicant (21.97-136), to directly confront the god Apollo (22.14-24), to refuse Hector's wish for proper treatment of the loser's corpse (22.248-272), to repeatedly attempt to dishonor the dead Hector (23.1-23) and to commit human sacrifice on Patroclus's pyre (23.161-177). But by refusing to actually cannibalize Hector and recognizing that this can only be a fantasy, Achilles shows that he isn’t strange to what he does — he is aware that what he is doing isn’t truly permitted, not truly seen as ideally human. And by accepting this, he recognizes his identity as a human identity and embraces it. Others may not accept him as someone who acts entirely human, but Achilles sees himself as human. He may have actions that defy the gods, but he doesn’t have the arrogant feeling of seeing himself as one. And how could he? The kind of intimate relationship Achilles has with his own mortality, a relationship that defines him, isn’t something any god could have because it isn’t part of their condition. Achilles never tries to challenge the idea that he will die, instead he embraces it.

Having been sated by blood, his rage begins to subside until it is eventually controlled. As Smith had said, rage is a cycle that requires constant maintenance, and now Achilles is doing so. No longer hungry for blood, Achilles returns to accepting mortal food, even in groups. In this way, he is reintegrated into society, similar to how in Hymn to Demeter the goddess, who had stopped harvesting bountifully in response to the abduction of her daughter Persephone and thus alienated herself from divine society while living like a mortal in the house of Metanira, is reintegrated into Olympus by finally agreeing to allow the return of food when her request to recover her daughter is granted. Both characters (Achilles/Demeter) exclude themselves from their society (human and mortal/divine and immortal) through a food-related gesture (refusing to have meals/refusing to allow food to grow) while approaching a society they shouldn’t integrate into (divine in his assimilation with Ares and bestial in his assimilation with animals/mortal in her assimilation with Metanira and Demophon) because of mourning for a loved one (Patroclus/Pesephone). But after getting what they want (satisfying his hunger for Hector's blood/getting her daughter back), they return to interacting normally with food (returning to having meals/returning to allowing food to grow) and, therefore, are integrated into their natural society (human and mortal/divine and immortal). Just as Demeter's temporary resemblance to a human and mortal nurse is only an analogy, Achilles' resemblance to the divine is also just that: an analogy. The narrative reminds you that, no matter how unusual, destructive, and transgressive Achilles' hatred is, he is as mortal and human as the rest.

Days before Achilles was consumed by rage and subsequently controlled it, Odysseus accused Achilles of having forgotten his father Peleus's advice to be kind:

“O my friend, surely your father Peleus gave you instruction on that day, when he sent you from Phthia to Agamemnon: ‘My child, strength of body Athena and Hera will give you, if that is their will, but your great-hearted spirit is for you to restrain within your breast; friendship is far better; desist from strife that creates only evil, and they will honor you more, youths and elders of the Argives alike.’ So the old man instructed you, and you have forgotten. But even now stop, give up this heart-grieving anger [...]"

The Iliad, 9.251-260. Translation by Caroline Alexander.

But I don't think Achilles forgot. It seems weird to assume he forgot, when it's Achilles, who constantly remembers Peleus, that we're talking about. And indeed, I think that not for a moment was Achilles truly unaware of the limits. He's choosing which ones he'll risk transgressing and which ones he won't. Ironically, just as Smith said that the idea of anger was seen as a cycle in which you must constantly restrain violent impulses, Achilles is still capable of restraining himself. Thus, the Myrmidons' accusation that Achilles is so angry that he couldn't have been nourished by maternal comfort, but only by pure rage, isn't really true. Not because Achilles isn't capable of doing the unthinkable, but because he's capable of thinking even more unthinkable things and not doing them. Because, in his dual condition, he constantly defies the divine while escaping harsher punishments in a way that an ordinary human couldn’t, but is still subject to the rules to which mortals are subjected in a way that no immortal would be. And not only that, Achilles constantly chooses to keep returning to what is human and ephemeral.

Just as Odysseus accused him of forgetting to be kind and the Myrmidons accused him of being incapable of not being consumed by rage, Patroclus accused him (probably in a moment of temporary sadness and indignation rather than an truly thought) of being incapable of empathy, but this isn’t true. The idea that this isn’t true is reinforced by the encounter between Priam and Achilles, when the king comes to ask for his son's body back. We have an interaction in which Achilles welcomes Priam, accepts his pleas, returns Hector washed and allows Priam to sleep in his tent while hiding him from the Achaeans. But this is a post about food, so let's focus on food. In addition to these gestures, Achilles also wishes to share a meal with Priam (24.601). Achilles is the one who suggests the meal, reminding Priam of the importance of eating even when grieving, using Niobe as an example (24.576-620). In this way, he seeks to prevent Priam from experiencing the same isolation he did. Achilles was there, refusing to eat in mourning (rejecting society) and satisfying himself with something else (transgressing mortal and immortal laws). Now that he has learned his lesson, he doesn’t want Priam or anyone else to do the same, something Priam himself admitted he was actually doing when he said "But now I have tasted food and let gleaming wine down my throat; before I had tasted nothing" (24.641-642). Thus, Achilles doesn’t allow Priam to follow the same path of isolation and instead actively continues to integrate Priam into human society through the meal.

Part of the reason Achilles does all this is because Priam, to him, is like his father Peleus, but I think it's very probably that it is also connected to the character's internal development. In any case, what did Achilles show Priam if not empathy? Because he is capable of empathy, Achilles is able to understand his father's pain. Because he is capable of empathy, he is able to understand Priam's pain as a father. And because he is able to understand all of this, he is able to see Peleus in Priam and is able to see himself in Hector. A person completely incapable of empathy wouldn't do any of this, as they shouldn't be able to put themselves in another's shoes. And it is in relation to death that Achilles puts himself in their shoes. He understands the pain of grief that Peleus will have and that Priam is going through, and he understands that he will be the dead and mourning son that Hector is and that Patroclus was. Achilles' empathy in this scene is intrinsically linked to death in a brutally mortal way. He therefore exercises his empathy in the way a human does, even as he displays his apathy in a superhuman way.

So, to summarize the situation! Yeah, there are sources about Achilles' "strange" diet, especially about the lack of breastfeeding and a diet considered "savage" on Pelion. As for why this occurs, my interpretation is that, in Achilles' case, his interaction with food (and milk) informs us of the character's duality: too mortal for the gods and too immortal for humans, too alive for the dead and too dead for the living, too inhuman for human society and too human for the absence of civilization, too free for the laws and too imprisoned for pure freedom, etc. Achilles is aware that he will die, he is aware that he isn’t exactly like the others, he is even aware of the rumors about him. He isn’t ignorant in this regard. But he still tries. He tries when Patroclus cooks for him and Achilles sets the table. He tries when he remembers the tenderness of how Phoenix fed him. He tries when he refuses to commit cannibalism. He tries when he returns to eating. He tries when he shares a meal with Priam. In the end, he's still the boy who wasn't breastfed and who ate the entrails of lions and wolves instead of traditional meals — he's not like the others. His rage is harder to contain, and the consequences are more disastrous, for what he feels is a rage more than merely mortal, yet truly mortal nonetheless. But deep down, he still tries, regardless of the accusations that he didn't try. I don't think Achilles was completely successful in his attempts, but they existed. And the other characters may doubt his ability to behave socially acceptable to humans, but Achilles never doubted who he was. At every moment, he saw himself as both human and mortal, and he never saw himself as anything other than that. It is because he knows he is human that when he speaks to another human (Priam) he passes on the lesson. It's because he knows he's mortal that his lack of food is linked to his death, which in turn is foreshadowed by the death of Patroclus. It's because he knows he's not an animal that he can't cannibalize Hector. Therefore, I believe that Achilles' relationship with food demonstrates not only how dual the character is, but how the character himself found an identity that he accepted in the midst of this chaos.

Primary sources:

Homeric The Iliad. Translation by Caroline Alexander.

Hesiod, Works and Days, 276-28. Translation by H.G. Evelyn-White.

The Cypria, frag 14. Translation by H.G. Evelyn-White.

Hymn to Demeter.

Pindar, Isthmian Ode 8.36-45. Translation by Diane Arnson Svarlien.

Aeschylus, frag 189. Translation by H.W. Smyth.

Aeschylus’ Prometheus Bound 907-927. Translation by H.W. Smyth.

Aeschylus, Agamemnon, 349, 351 and 1625. Translation by H.W. Smyth.

Aeschylus, The Libation Bearers, 526-533 and 896-908. Translation by H.W. Smyth.

Euripides, Iphigenia in Aulis, 206-230. Translation by E.P. Coleridge.

Euripides, Andromache, 512. Translation by E.P. Coleridge.

Euripides, Bacchae, 677-703. Translation by E.P. Coleridge.

Euripides, Ion, 760-762, 961-962, 1490-1498. Translation by Robert Potter.

Euripides, The Suppliants, 815 and 1160. Translation by E.P. Coleridge.

Plato, Republic, 8.565d-566b. Translation by Paul Shorey.

Apollonius’ Rhodius, Argonautica, 4.799-812. Translation by R.C. Seaton.

Lycophron, Alexandra, 31-37. Translation by A.W. Mair.

Greek Anthology, 9.126 and 9.468. Translation by W.R. Paton.

Diodorus Siculus, Library of History, 4.9.4 and 4.39.2. Translation by C.H. Oldfather.

Pseudo-Hyginus’ Fabulae, 54. Translation by Mary Grant.

Pseudo-Hyginus, Astronomica, 2.15.4. Translation by Mary Grant.

Plutarch, How a Young Man ought to hear Poems, 2.16E. Translation by W.W. Goodwin.

Quintus Smyrnaeus, Posthomerica, 5.394. Translation by A.S. Way.

Scholia D, 1.519 and 16.36. Translation by R. Scott Smith.

Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospel, 13.3.647A. Translation by E.H. Gifford.

Secondary sources:

Crowe, Lucca, "Divine Achilles and his Raging Heart: Cannibalism in the Iliad" (2025). Student Research Submissions. 

Coccagna, Helen. Approaching the Ancient Artifact: Representation, Narrative, and Function (2014), chapter “Manipulating Mastoi: The Female Breast in the Sympotic Setting”.

Murnaghan, Sheila. “Maternity and Mortality in Homeric Poetry”. Vol. 11, No. 2 (Oct., 1992), pp. 242-264.

Pedrucci, Giulia. “Motherhood, breastfeeding and adoption: The case of Hera suckling Heracles”. Acta Ant. Hung. 57, 2017, 325–336

Smith, Wesley. “Physiology in the homeric poems”. Vol. 97 (1966), pp. 547-556.

Nagy, Gregory. “The Best of the Achaeans" (1979). 

Robertson, D.S. “The Food of Achilles”. The Classical Review, Vol. 54, No. 4 (Dec.,1940), pp. 177-180

Neal, Tamara. “Blood and Hunger in the Iliad”. Classical Philology, Vol. 101, No. 1 (January 2006), pp. 15-33.

Hanson, A.E. Ancient Anger: Perspectives from Homer to Galen, chapter ““Your mother nursed you with bile”: anger in babies and small children” (2003).

[mamasplat]

I haven’t seen a soul discuss the sheer amount of symbolism is legions blighted skin when it comes to their lore.

[so I will do so under the cut to avoid jump scaring my Pokémon mutuals with blight shit]

Joey and Susie, both having acts for the innocent side of mischief, stealing and ruining days but seldom ever thinking to take a life- plastered with torn expressions of agony along franks chest.

Those arms that wrap around Frank which I can only assume belong to Julie, who sits as the only one with a true fleshy smile, not a mask. Her hair washing over his shoulders and her grip on him true even in an amalgamated state.

Franks mask remaining. The body of the legion but his intentions not pure. He liked making people angry, he has violent streaks, but what pushed him wasn’t his own desires, it was the desires of a girl. A girl now forever melted into his back. Their minds practically fused as one with their friends taking second place below.

It is their worst possible ending. And yet, the truest in form to their sins.

[primamchorus]

If your OC were ever to fill out a Dating Site (or pamphlet or newspaper) profile, then what would they include?

wah! good evening, makhali and @mimble-sparklepudding!! thank you both for the ask! with two of these asks, i'll answer for two characters! \ o w o /

A Short Ask List About Love

:^)

[caesarclowningaround]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Fandom(s): One Piece Rating: E Chapter(s): 1/1 Ship(s): Caesar Clown/Sanji Summary: It's Christmas Eve and Sanji's cleaning up for the night, when Caesar comes into the kitchen to… Well, not even he is really sure. What he is sure of is that they're both drunk and there's mistletoe hanging above their heads.

Note(s): Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays everybody!!!! Remember when I did that poll for which person Sanji should get lucky with on Christmas and it came out 50/50? Thanks to @pigsinablanketfort (love u tina!!) I ended up choosing Caesar and TA-DAH!! Here's the fic!!

I decided to explore some ideas I have regarding the idea of Cesar joining the Strawhats, along with whether or not he knew Sora and what that dynamic might have been like. Just a blender of stuff I've been thinking about plus Christmas and smut because, hey, it's me!

Hope y'all enjoy it and have a wonderful and safe holiday season!! ☃️

[charbax]

KAW 2021 DAY 6 - Confined space(s)/ getting caught in a tight space together

Chapters: 6/7 Fandom: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebels Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Alexsandr Kallus/Garazeb "Zeb" Orrelios, Kanan Jarrus/Hera Syndulla Characters: Garazeb "Zeb" Orrelios, Alexsandr Kallus, Kanan Jarrus, Hera Syndulla, Sabine Wren, Ezra Bridger, C1-10P | Chopper Additional Tags: more characters will be revealed as prompts come, more tags will be revealed as prompts come, Fluff, Biting, H - Freeform, Stardew Valley AU, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Romantic Soulmates, Implied Sexual Content, Kinda?, Trapped In A Closet

A/N: Big Sibling Energy Comin' Through !And Also, B99 References .

AO3 link!

"Think that'll work?" Sabine asked as she looked at the jammed closet door, arms folded loosely.

Next to her in the exact same pose, Ezra shrugged. "Dunno. Hopefully. I'm tired of them gazing sadly at each other from across the canteen. And meetings. And when they bump into each other in the corridor."

"I told you that night shift was keeping them apart. They just need to kriff."

Ezra made a strange noise, like a cross between a choke and a cough. "Sabine! I told you to stop that."

"Kriff, bang, knock boots, fuc-"

"HEERAAA, SABINE'S SAYING BAD WORDS AGAIN!"

Meanwhile, unaware of the squabbling outside the closet, Kallus held his head in his hands and leaned against Zeb more comfortably, hiding his face in Zeb's neck. "Should we tell them that we're already...together?"

"Nah," Zeb rumbled, wrapping a comfortable hand around Kallus' waist. "Means that I get to see you a lot more than at bedtime."

"You mean when they pull me out of work to lock us in another supply closet? Not very much of a date, is it?"

“Anytime I get to see you is good enough for me.”

Kallus stopped blushing in mortification to instead blush in embarrassment, which was a key difference (and a lot more flushing). "So what you're saying is..."

"Let's make good use of the time we have right now." Zeb said with a grin and pulled him closer for a kiss.

[justalittlebluetiefling]

I really think it will be a mostly chill episode, they just ended an arc, travelercon was a rollercoaster, they have to gather themselves and see what’s next.... go on dates.... idk if the oath will be a thing since Vax’s wasn’t but is also kinda different so who knows

Hmm yeah I lean more toward we probably won’t get to see Fjord taking his oath, but it would be neat. 

I’m really hoping it’s just some chill beach hang outs, hanging out with Marion, Nugget, Veth, and Luc, calling Essek to check in. And then some interparty check ins, too. Fjord and Jester. Beau and Yasha. Obviously. A Caduceus and Fjord chat. Caleb and Veth. Veth and Beau. 

We’re manifesting a calm week-long beach vacation here.

[thoughtfulfangirling]

Oh hey, I managed to sit down and get into flow, and write ANOTHER thing.  Angstober prompt for 10/14: “You can’t find someone who doesn’t want to be found.”  This was directly inspired by @docholligay‘s Angstober fic Lucky Penny. I do it no justice, and I cannot for the life of me write Michiru’s wit, BUT HEY IT’S A THING AND IT’S WRITTEN.   Unedited and 1,247 words of Rei and Michiru angsting about Haruka... kinda

Rei sat in the obscenely large waiting room, her foot impatiently tapping on the immaculate marble floor, the only sound in the large room, so sparse but filled, dripping with elegance. The tapping, as Rei waited, increased in both pace and pressure, the acoustics of the room making it louder, a the rumbling beneath the ground, the heat beneath the surface. 

She had pulled a lot of strings to get here. Called in a lot of favors which required her swallowing of her pride. Contact with The Senator. 

The secretary behind the desk, phone to her ear, glared openly now at Rei, her lips drawn in a tight, whitening line. With a huff and a final push of her toes into the bottom of her so carefully polished black heels, planted her foot, issuing a thump. Her father may have helped create a line of communication to the Kaiohs, but she hadn't exactly used her connections in a way he'd approve once established. She wasn't entirely sure what she'd done had been entirely legal. 

But any ramifications, she assured herself, would fall on the senator. 

She turned and instead began to pace. She could still see Michiru's expressionless face as she removed her transformation ring. The last time Rei had seen her. After Haruka had... after Michiru denounced who she was, left them to fight on their own. Left them only with Rei's near sighted vision. 

"I don't understand why Senator Hino's office has to speak directly with Miss Hino directly. A lawyer would be—"

Rei whirled. "Because that would require we involve lawyers ourselves." She snapped, nearly growling. "Believe me, the Kaioh's do not want that. This is regarding Miss Kaioh, and it's urgent." 

The woman behind the desk rolled her eyes and seemed to settle in to continue being on hold. 

A sudden change in pressure, a flash behind Rei's eyes. She turned to the door a moment before it opened. Michiru seemed composed, but had an extra stillness to her which, even for Michiru, seemed off. Her face was a mask, a nothingness that chilled the fire inside of her for a moment. Rei's brain raced as she reconsidered what she'd come here to do. 

"Miss Hino." The words were a command, ushering Rei into the room Michiru hadn't quite stepped out of. Rei glanced at the secretary who had a look of surprise. Slowly, the woman hung up the phone. Rei gave the woman one last look, part glare and part I-told-you, and marched toward and then past Michiru into the room. 

There was that pressure again as the door silently closed behind her. 

"This must stop Rei. I do not want to be found. The lengths you have gone to are frankly, abusrd." Michiru said, stepping over to a couch with steaming tea on a low table. There was only one tea cup, and Michiru poured it for herself, no milk, no sugar. 

That was fine by Rei. She didn't want any tea. She didn't want any fake gestures of niceties. It made it all that easier to spark that kindle of flame inside her, a shield against the cold of this room and the immaculate icy figure of a woman she once thought a friend. 

Rei opened her mouth to retort, but Michiru continued. "I had hoped you would realize how fruitless this endeavor was, but being one more encouraged by failure than success, I realize the only way to put an end to this ridiculous pursuit is to let you catch your prey. I hope this satisfies your determination." 

Rei felt an intense urge to stomp a foot in pure frustration. She had never expected that Michiru would deal with the loss of Haruka as Mina had, going a bit out of control, drinking and just this side of self destructive, only her mission keeping her tethered to some modicum of keeping it together. But this... it was like Michiru had become empty. She looked hollow, as though she functioned on autopilot. She mirrored the grace of that waiting room. Beautiful and immaculate but utterly devoid of any warmth or pleasure. Sectioned aside with no intent to ever fill that space with anything else. 

"It would destroy Haruka, if she saw you like this." Rei accused. 

Michiru took a drink, her eyebrows ever so slightly raised. "I do not imagine she would be happy, no. It is rather a pity she is not here then to help you convince me to change my ways." 

"Don't you Care? That it would matter to her? You dishonor her by using her as an excuse to hide from the world." 

"I understand why you would hold onto the idea that it matters one way or the other to the dead what those who survive them do. I am not prone to telling myself such pretty lies. I may as well also say now that I am will not be persuaded to rejoin you." Michiru continued, her voice water, cutting through stone by it's sheer unwillingness to relent. 

"No." Rei said in a low voice, filled with anger so that it didn't betray her despair. "Mina was right. Even if I could talk you into it—which don't worry! I am sure you have some witty and undercutting way to let me know I'm not capable of it anyway—you would be a greater liability than help." She wasn't sure if she felt a bit satisfied or regretful as she saw the lines of Michiru's eyes tighten. She couldn't begin to guess what the emotion was behind the expression, but she'd finally made some sort of impression. 

"I had wanted to believe otherwise, but I see it's true. Standing here now..." she clenched her hands, struggling to say the words. It felt too vulnerable. Silence hung between them. When it seemed Rei wouldn't continue, Michiru set her teacup down and made her way silently toward the door, signaling Rei that their time had come to an end. 

"I guess it's true. You can't find someone who doesn't want to be found. You make it clear that you let me reach you here so I'll stop looking. Well you win, but you're wrong. I haven't reached you. You're not really here." 

With that, Rei walked toward her hollow friend. Almost mechanically, Michiru opened the door for Rei to leave. Her eyes seemed even more empty now than they had been before, and her fury wavered. 

She stopped in the doorway, not far enough into it that Michiru could try and keep her veneer of niceties if she tried to close the door. "Since it seems I see you again anyway, you may as well know, I came here because I wanted my friend back. At least I had thought, well. Whatever. So I lost two friends that night. You're not the only one who mourns." Michiru's eyes slid away from Rei, seeming to become unfocused for a moment. 

"I'll stop trying to find you. But if ever you find you're ready to be found... you know where to send the expensive apology gift." And with that, she jerked her chin up and marched out of the sitting room and clicked sharply passed the secretary and through the waiting room. She was going to go home. Michiru may want to remain lost, but seeing that in action made Rei see, in stark contrast, just how much, in many ways, Mina was waiting, begging to be found.