Aeneas and His Father Fleeing Troy Simon Vouet (French; 1590–1649) ca. 1635 Oil on canvas San Diego Museum of Art, San Diego, California
Greek mythology from A to Z:
[C] - Circe (Κίρκη) was a powerful enchantress versatile in the arts of herbs and potions and capable of turning human beings into animals.
Iris is an ancient goddess who provides communication between the heavens and earth … Ben Harrison art
Norse mythology from A to Z:
[R] - Rán is a sea goddess with an unpredictable and dangerous personality.
Odysseus, pretending to be insane to avoid going to war:
Helen, all through the whole damned Iliad:
Agamemnon (I don't think we need an explanation for this):
Iphigenia:
Ajax the great, after failing to get the armor of Achilles:
Achilles:
Patroclus:
Previous parts: 1
Greek mythology from A to Z:
[B] - Britomartis (Βριτόμαρτις) was a goddess of mountains and hunting, who was primarily worshipped on the island of Crete.
Greek mythology from A to Z:
[H] - Hebe (Ἥβη) was the goddess of youth, she served nectar and ambrosia to the Olympians.
The Anemoi - Greek gods of wind The Four Brothers: Zephyrus (The West), Notus (The South), Eurus (The East), and Boreas (The North).
Hermes Lucio!! I messed around a lot w the background I think it’s pretty neat :]
Apollo: Hyacinthus, it's cold outside. Let's hold hands. Hyacinthus: Oh okay! Zephyrus: it's fucking summer-
So it starts out with Apollo disguising himself as Lycaon, one of Priam's many sons, and telling to have a go at Achilles. Keep in mind that this is post-Patroclus Achilles. Aka: berserk Achilles. Aka: so fucking mad he would fight a literal river Achilles.
Aeneas, who is capable of critical thinking, says he doubts he can actually take him on. He also references a time when he was herding cattle on Mount Ida and Achilles ambushed him, adding that the only reason he survived then was because Zeus gave him enough strength to book it (cracking up the official times that he's been saved by a god from certain death to 3, you go dude!).
However, after a bit of back and forth and a ton of hyping up on Apollo's part, Aeneas decides to try anyway.
Like, what could possibly go wrong?
Achilles notices Aeneas charging at him and he begins to taunt him. It's something among the lines of: "I'm sorry, are you, background trojan character #61, actually gonna try and beat me? And then what? Do you think that Priam will reward you in some way? Maybe making you king after him? Well it's BULLSHIT, because Priam fucked so much that your chances of succeeding him are basically 0. Ahah. Loser."
Now, you'd think that maybe Aeneas got enraged at the comment and attacked him, or maybe he even got scared and backed down, but NOPE. What does Aeneas do?
Well, first of all, he insults Achilles' insults, comparing his bickering to that of a child. Literally, "I heard third graders do better than that." And then he decides to list his and Hector's entire fucking family tree.
You know that part of the Bible that's like "this guy sired this other guy, and this other guy sired yet another guy" and so on? It's basically that.
So after he's done with all that, Aeneas states that while he'd love to have a battle of insults with Achilles, because according to him he's actually very good at insulting people (his words, not mine), they should probably throw hands now. Achilles agrees.
The duel is shortlived and Aeneas gets his ass handed to him. Badly. As expected. And he's about die when ✨️POV shift✨️ we're not on Olympus where Poseidon, Hera and Athena are watching this absolute train wreck go down.
Poseidon, pitying Aeneas, suddenly goes on a rant. It's something among the lines of: "come on guys, look at him, he's just a little guy! He literally has no stakes in this war, he doesn't deserve to die here! He even gives us lots of gifts and sacrifices, he's literally such a nice guy. How can we do this to him!?
...oh and also he's part of some prophecy, Zeus would get mad if he died."
The fact that the way it's worded makes it sound like Aeneas being part of a literal prophecy is an afterthought to him absolutely floors me, Poseidon is literally just attached to a random dude that's fighting on the opposite side to his because he thinks he's nice.
After all that Hera is pretty unimpressed and states that she really doesn't care if our man lives or dies as neither her or Athena have ever saved a Trojan from death, she however adds that Poseidon is free to do whatever he wants.
The literal moment Hera stops talking, Poseidon lunges down from Olympus and onto the battlefield to look for the two combatants. When he does, he saves Aeneas like only he can do.
You know how when Diomedes first tries to kill Aeneas, Aphrodite gently folds her hands around him to shield him? There's none of that here. Poseidon just runs up to him and literally flings the motherfucker.
It literally says that he flies "high in the air". It's like a Looney Toons sketch.
So Aeneas lands and, while he's obviously a bit dazed, Poseidon proceeds to call him a madman and essentially tells him to never do something stupid like that again and just wait until Achilles is dead, then he'll be able to murder Achaeans to his heart's content. Aeneas is fine with that.
Achilles, who just saw his opponent just get yeeted into the fucking sky, just shrugs and goes "welp, guess that guy's off limits, I'm gonna go kill someone else now I guess lol".