Achilles held funeral games for Patroclus and dragged Hector's body daily — until old Priam came alone through the camp at night, kissed the hands that had killed his son, and ransomed the body; Troy buried Hector, and the Iliad ends with the hero's rites.1
Games for Patroclus
Book 23 opens with the pyre: Achilles sacrificed horses, dogs, and twelve Trojan captives on Patroclus' funeral mound. After the bones were gathered in a golden urn, the Achaeans held games — chariot race won by Diomedes after Athena broke Eumelus' car, boxing, wrestling, foot-race, armed combat, archery, and throwing the spear. Antilochus of Nestor's house outwitted Menelaus in the chariot turn; Ajax and Odysseus drew in the wrestling. The games honoured the companion whose death had ended Achilles' wrath against Agamemnon and begun the wrath against Hector.2
The body dragged
Each day Achilles dragged Hector's corpse behind his chariot around Patroclus' tomb — and each night Apollo preserved the body from corruption, for Hera and the Achaeans would have had the dogs devour it. The gods on Olympus pitied the outrage; Zeus sent Thetis to tell Achilles to accept ransom, and Iris to bid Priam go. The nested episode on Achilles and Hector tells the killing; here the poem turns from vengeance to pity.3
Priam in the camp
Priam loaded a wagon with treasure and crossed the plain with Idaios the herald, guided by Hermes in the likeness of a young man. They passed the sentries and reached Achilles' hut; the old king kissed the hands that had killed his children — the hands that had slain Hector — and asked for the body. Achilles wept with him, remembering his own father Peleus and the son he would never see grow old. He raised the body on a bier, covered it, and bound the kings not to delay the truce.4
Hector's rites
Priam drove through the camp while Achilles kept the host from pursuit. In Troy, Andromache and Hecuba and Helen lamented over the body on the bier — the wife who had begged him not to fight, the queen, the cause of the war who honoured him most truly. For nine days they gathered wood; on the tenth they burned Hector and buried the bones, then feasted in the palace. The Iliad ends with the rites of Troy's shield — the war would go on, but Homer's poem closes on burial and grief, not on the horse or the fall of the city.5
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