It is not always realised that the Iliad of Homer turns upon the motive of friendship, but the extracts immediately following will perhaps make this clear. E. F. M. Benecke in his _Position of Women in Greek Poetry_ (p. 76) says of the Iliad:— “It is a story of which the main motive is the love of Achilles for Patroclus. This solution is astoundingly simple, and yet it took me so long to bring myself to accept it that I am quite ready to forgive anyone who feels a similar hesitation. But those who do accept it cannot fail to observe, on further consideration, how thoroughly suitable a motive of this kind would be in a national Greek epic. For this is the motive running through the whole of Greek life, till that life was transmuted by the influence of Macedonia. The lover-warriors Achilles and Patroclus are the direct spiritual ancestors of the sacred Band of Thebans, who died to a man on the field of Chæronæa.” [Sidenote: _J. A. Symonds on the same_] The following two quotations are from _The Greek Poets_ by J. A. Symonds, ch. iii. p. 80 _et seq._:— “The _Iliad_ therefore has for its whole subject the passion of Achilles—that ardent energy or μῆνις of the hero which displayed itself first as anger against Agamemnon, and afterwards as love for the lost Patroclus. The truth of this was perceived by one of the greatest poets and profoundest, critics of the modern world, Dante. When Dante, in the _Inferno_, wished to describe Achilles, he wrote, with characteristic brevity:— “Achille Che per amore al fine combatteo.” (“Achilles Who at the last was brought to fight by love.”) “In this pregnant sentence Dante sounded the whole depth of the _Iliad_. The wrath of Achilles for Agamemnon, which prevented him at first from fighting; the love of Achilles, passing the love of women, for Patroclus, which induced him to forego his anger and to fight at last; these are the two poles on which the _Iliad_ turns.” [Sidenote: _Achilles and Patroclus_] After his quarrel with Agamemnon, not even all the losses of the Greeks and the entreaties of Agamemnon himself will induce Achilles to fight—not till Patroclus is slain by Hector—Patroclus, his dear friend “whom above all my comrades I honoured, even as myself.” Then he rises up, dons his armour, and driving the Trojans before him revenges himself on the body of Hector. But Patroclus lies yet unburied; and when the fighting is over, to Achilles comes the ghost of his dead friend:—