The ideal of character in Homer was what the Greeks called heroic; what
we should call chivalrous. Young men studied the _Iliad_ as our
ancestors studied the Arthurian romances, finding there a pattern of
conduct raised almost too high above the realities of common life for
imitation, yet stimulative of enthusiasm and exciting to the fancy.
Foremost among the paragons of heroic virtue stood Achilles, the
splendour of whose achievements in the Trojan war was only equalled by
the pathos of his friendship. The love for slain Patroclus broke his
mood of sullen anger, and converted his brooding sense of wrong into a
lively thirst for vengeance. Hector, the slayer of Patroclus, had to be
slain by Achilles, the comrade of Patroclus. No one can read the _Iliad_
without observing that its action virtually turns upon the conquest
which the passion of friendship gains over the passion of resentment in
the breast of the chief actor. This the Greek students of Homer were not
slow to see; and they not unnaturally selected the friendship of
Achilles for their ideal of manly love. It was a powerful and masculine
emotion, in which effeminacy had no part, and which by no means excluded
the ordinary sexual feelings. Companionship in battle and the chase, in
public and in private affairs of life, was the communion proposed by
Achilleian friends--not luxury or the delights which feminine
attractions offered. The tie was both more spiritual and more energetic
than that which bound man to woman. Such was the type of comradeship
delineated by Homer; and such, in spite of the modifications suggested
by later poets, was the conception retained by the Greeks of this heroic
friendship. Even Æschines, in the place above quoted, lays stress upon
the mutual loyalty of Achilles and Patroclus as the strongest bond of
their affection: "regarding, I suppose, their loyalty and mutual
goodwill as the most touching feature of their love."[1]