Unchanged by any teller — how the centuries since have seen Priam.
The gallery
Priam Asking Achilles for the Body of Hector
Alexander Ivanov, 1824
Oil painting by the young Alexander Ivanov, now in the Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow. The aged king of Troy kneels before Achilles and clasps the hands that slew his son, begging that Hector's body be released for burial — the supplication that closes the Iliad, where Priam kisses 'the terrible, man-slaying hands that had slain his many sons.'
Priam Pleading with Achilles for the Body of Hector
Gavin Hamilton, 1775
Canvas by the Scottish neoclassical painter Gavin Hamilton, who worked in Rome and devoted a celebrated cycle of history paintings to subjects from the Iliad; this one is now in the Tate collection, London. The old king has crossed the Greek camp by night to the tent of Achilles, to plead for the corpse of the son who was Troy's last defence.
Priam at the Feet of Achilles
Jérôme-Martin Langlois, 1809
The painting with which Jérôme-Martin Langlois, a pupil of David, won the Prix de Rome in 1809; it is kept at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris. In the torch-lit tent, Priam in his heavy red mantle kneels at the couch of the young Achilles and presses the hero's hand to his face, while attendants look on in silence.
On screen
Troy
Wolfgang Petersen
Peter O'Toole's Priam walks into Achilles' tent to beg for Hector's body — the Iliad's last mercy, played as the film's quietest and hardest scene.
Helen of Troy
Robert Wise
Wise's epic keeps Priam on the walls as Troy's last king — the father who watches sons fall and still opens the gate for Helen.
Troy: Fall of a City
Owen Harris
The BBC/Netflix cycle gives Priam the long siege: a king holding a doomed city while his house tears itself between Paris and Hector.