Achilles

Achilles, the foremost Greek hero of the Trojan War, is placed by Dante among the lustful in the Second Circle of Hell, where the infernal hurricane forever drives the souls of those who subjugated reason to appetite. His inclusion in this company marks a decisive moral judgment: no earthly glory, not even the supreme martial prowess celebrated throughout the classical tradition, exempts a soul from the consequences of carnal sin. Dante the pilgrim, upon hearing Virgil name the great lovers of antiquity, is so overcome with pity that he swoons, yet the poem's architecture leaves no doubt that Achilles' place in the hierarchy of damnation is fixed by the same divine justice that orders all the circles.

Identity and Background

Achilles is the son of the sea nymph Thetis and the mortal Peleus, king of Phthia, and was raised by the centaur Chiron. In the Homeric tradition he is the central figure of the Iliad, the warrior whose wrath drives the plot and whose death at the hands of Paris, guided by Apollo, marks the end of his brief, glorious life. Dante draws on a later medieval tradition when he writes that Achilles "at the last hour combated with Love" , a reference to the hero's passion for Polyxena, daughter of King Priam, which according to post-Homeric legend lured him to his death in the temple of Apollo. This version of the story makes Achilles not merely a victim of war but a man undone by erotic desire, which aligns him with the other souls in the Second Circle—Semiramis, Dido, Cleopatra, Helen, Paris, and Tristan—all of whom "reason subjugate to appetite" .

Life and Plot Trajectory

Achilles does not appear as an active character in the Divine Comedy; he is not encountered in dialogue, nor does he speak or interact with the pilgrim. His presence is entirely mediated through Virgil's words. As the poets stand on the brink of the Second Circle, watching the souls borne on the tempest, Virgil points out the shades of the famous lovers and names Achilles among them. The hero is thus reduced to a name in a catalogue, a figure whose entire epic existence is compressed into a single line of moral taxonomy. This treatment is itself a form of contrapasso: the man who chose a short, glorious life over a long, obscure one is now stripped of all narrative agency, his fame serving only to illustrate the universality of divine judgment.

Key Actions and Objectives

In the Inferno, Achilles performs no actions and pursues no objectives. His sole function is to be named as an example of the sin of lust. The poem's focus is not on his deeds in life but on the eternal state of his soul after death. The infernal hurricane that "hurtles the spirits onward in its rapine" and "whirling them round, and smiting, it molests them" is the mechanical expression of the sin's nature: those who were swept away by passion in life are now swept away by a force they cannot resist in death. Achilles, once the swiftest of runners and the most formidable of fighters, is now utterly passive, a particle in a storm.

Relationships and Conflict

Achilles' primary relationship in the poem is not with another character but with the moral system that condemns him. He is grouped with figures whose stories involve love that led to destruction: Dido, who killed herself for Aeneas; Cleopatra, the "voluptuous" queen; Helen, for whom so many died; Paris, who abducted her; and Tristan, the knight of Arthurian romance. The conflict that defines Achilles here is not the Trojan War but the internal war between reason and desire, which he lost. The poem implicitly contrasts him with the virtuous pagans of Limbo, who lived before Christianity and are punished only by the lack of hope, not by active torment. Achilles, by contrast, is among the actively tormented, his sin placing him in a lower circle than his fellow Greeks Homer, Socrates, and Plato.

Change and Ending

Achilles undergoes no change within the narrative of the Comedy. His fate is fixed and eternal. The only transformation is in the reader's understanding: the hero of the Iliad is recontextualized as a sinner, his kleos (glory) subordinated to the Christian scheme of salvation and damnation. The ending of his story in Dante's poem is the same as its beginning—a name on the wind, a lesson in the consequences of unchecked desire. The pilgrim's reaction, however, hints at the emotional power of these stories: he is "nigh bewildered" by pity, and when Francesca da Rimini finishes her tale, he swoons and falls "as a dead body falls" . Achilles, though silent, is part of the same tragic chorus.

Narrative Role and Evaluation

Achilles serves as a synecdoche for the classical world's greatest achievements, which Dante simultaneously honors and subordinates to Christian truth. By placing Achilles in Hell, Dante asserts that no amount of heroic virtue can compensate for the absence of Christian faith and the presence of mortal sin. The hero's inclusion also deepens the pathos of the Second Circle: if even Achilles can fall, then no human excellence is proof against damnation. Theologically, his presence reinforces the doctrine that salvation requires not just moral virtue but also grace and repentance. Aesthetically, the brief mention of Achilles, set against the vastness of his legendary deeds, creates a powerful dissonance that underscores the poem's central theme: the things of this world, however glorious, are as nothing before the eternal.