I. Achilles’ death and immortalization

It would seem, on the face of it, that Achilles is a prime candidate for immortality: not only does he have the requisite divine ancestry and patronage but he is also an exceptional fighter, far above others, and he does not have the betraying taint of mortal stupidity that is so often the downfall of heroes when immortality is – almost – within their grasp.Footnote ¹ But, of course, it is fundamental to the myth of Achilles, as we are most familiar with it, that he will die at Troy. In fact, it is probably true to say that there is no other Greek hero whose death so markedly shapes his life: when Achilles enters the war, ‘he is not only risking his life, like all the others, he will be certain to lose it’.Footnote ² The whole tenor of the Iliad is centred on this premise, and Achilles’ character and actions gain much of their impact from it. This impact, of course, stems from the fact that he is the only character in the Iliad – the only hero in the Trojan War – who actually knows, for certain, in advance, that he will not return home. Moreover, it is a deliberate choice on his part:

The famous choice, between a short and glorious life and a long and obscure one, has thus been made before the start of the epic, and Achilles’ fate is already sealed. We are frequently reminded of the fact that Achilles must die – Achilles predicts it, Thetis refers to it, even Achilles’ horses warn of it, and much of the structure of the Iliad depends on itFootnote ³ – and that his actions and choices in the course of the Iliad lead this death closer. Most clearly marked in this respect is the death of Hector. As Achilles declares his intention to avenge Patroclus in Book 18, Thetis warns Achilles of the consequences:

And Achilles accepts them:

And he appears prominently among the other dead in Hades in both Odyssey 11 and 24, where his burial is described at length.Footnote ⁴

This progression towards death is deeply rooted not only in the Iliad but in Achilles’ mythical narrative more generally. There are a series of episodes, some better preserved in the tradition than others, in which Achilles is told that some action, usually killing someone, will cause or hasten his own death.Footnote ⁵ Inevitably, he kills them, sometimes with full understanding of the consequences (Hector, for example), sometimes unknowingly. An example of the latter is Tennes, in one version a son of Apollo, about whom Thetis not only warns Achilles but also sends a servant to remind him: the servant fails, Achilles kills Tennes, Achilles realizes his mistake and kills the servant as well, and Apollo eventually takes his revenge.Footnote ⁶ Similar conditions surround the deaths of Hector and Memnon (though these may of course be related): Thetis warns him of the consequences of killing each of them.Footnote ⁷

As is clear from both the Tennes and Hector episodes, Thetis’ words and actions not only underline the certainty of Achilles’ death but also act as a kind of counterweight to it. Even as she demonstrates her awareness of his fate, her actions are dedicated to preserving his life. She attempts to prevent him from fighting at Troy in the first place, by packing him off and hiding him at Skyros.Footnote ⁸ She tries to circumvent fate by averting the death of Tennes. She warns him – successfully, for once – not to be the first off the ships at Troy.Footnote ⁹ She gives him armour made by Hephaestus – in the Iliad she gives him two sets of it, in fact, since Hector takes the first set from PatroclusFootnote ¹⁰ – and, in later versions, she dips him in the river Styx to make him invulnerable.Footnote ¹¹ As Achilles’ death draws nearer and his options narrow down, so Thetis’ actions move from attempts to change his fate to attempts simply to postpone it a little, and to make sure it is glorious. But, in the Iliad at least, she knows that she cannot save him.Footnote ¹²

How, then, do we reconcile this absolute commitment to death with the Aithiopis, in Proclus’ summary of which, after the death of Achilles, we find the following:

Jonathan Burgess has argued persuasively that this version in which Achilles is swept off to a better place may actually predate the Homeric epics, since almost every source that places Achilles anywhere after death agrees that he should be in a paradisical afterlife, and not in Hades.Footnote ¹⁴ Pindar places him on the ‘shining island’ (ϕαεννὰν…νᾶσον) in Nemean Ode 4, and on the Isle of the Blessed (μακάρων νᾶσος) in Olympian Ode 2; Ibycus and Simonides put him in Elysium, Euripides on the ‘white shore’ (λευκὰν ἀκτάν).Footnote ¹⁵ In fact, what Denys Page described as ‘that eccentric legend’ seems rather to be the mainstream version.Footnote ¹⁶

The next question is exactly what Achilles is being granted in the Aithiopis. What precisely is Thetis doing here? Is the White Island to be seen as a form of immortalization, or just a rather nicer bit of Hades? And how can we tell the difference? According to mythical narrative, a hero who actually makes it and becomes immortal lives the life of the gods, with the gods, as if he were a god himself – but a circumscribed one. His mortality is completely lost in the process of immortalization. And this is clear from the ways in which he – or, more rarely, she – becomes immortal. One common way is by bodily abduction, usually to Olympus – Ganymede carried off by Zeus, Tithonus by Eos – but this is not necessarily always the case: Apollo, rescuing Croesus from the flames, takes him to the land of the Hyperboreans.Footnote ¹⁷ A parallel can be drawn with the transition undergone by figures, animals, and various objects turned to stars; Orion is just one of many.Footnote ¹⁸ Alternatively, immortality may be gained by purifying elements, such as fire and water: Demeter anoints Demophoon with ambrosia and bakes him in the hearth fire; Asclepius is struck by the lightning bolt; Ino Leukothea dives into the sea.Footnote ¹⁹ Note that this is not just ordinary fire, but a lightning bolt, or fire and ambrosia; not just ordinary water, but the whole sea – to purify someone of their mortality takes something beyond the everyday. Or one might eat or drink something, the elusive herb of immortality which Glaucus the fisherman eats, and which Tydeus misses out on.Footnote ²⁰

Although the means and motivations for attaining immortality are variable, some common factors may be identified. One is that the immortality bestowed upon heroes is a corporeal immortality: none of these varied immortalizations leaves a body. Usually the hero is immortalized body and soul. Immortality of this kind is based on the swift removal of their bodies at the moment of death, as in the case of Memnon, or before it, as in the case of Ganymede, to a place where their wounds (if any) can be healed, and their death reversed and transmuted to immortality, where they can spin out their lives in utopian peace and plenty, enjoying the rewards of their fame and labour (or beauty) far from the toil and strife of the world in which those rewards were gained. If Ganymede is taken to Olympus κάλλεος εἵνεκα (‘on account of his beauty’), as Homer tells us, he is unlikely to have left a body mouldering in the grave.Footnote ²¹ When Zeus abducts Ganymede, Tros notices that his son is physically missing; and in Diodorus’ account of Heracles’ death and apotheosis, when Heracles’ pyre has burnt out, his friends find ‘not a single bone anywhere’ and therefore assume that he has been immortalized.Footnote ²² The immortalized hero has an immortalized body.

If Achilles is not being made immortal, then, why does Thetis have to ‘snatch’ him (ἀναρπάσασα)? Why cannot she just let him head down to Hades, and speak nicely to Persephone about which part of the underworld her son should inhabit?Footnote ²³ Thetis’ removal of Achilles’ body from the pyre itself seems more in tune with immortalization, with its similarities to Heracles’ apotheosis and its intimations of the fire that strips away the mortal part of a hero.Footnote ²⁴ However, Leuke is not Olympus, and seems usually to have been thought of as a more desirable corner of the afterlife, rather than an escape from it. Its ambiguous status is well illustrated in Apollodorus’ Epitome:

In this case, Leuke seems to be not even the site of Achilles’ afterlife but only of his tomb.Footnote ²⁶ Moreover, if Achilles is being made immortal, we have to contend with the rather ambiguous language of the description in Proclus’ summary, as opposed to Memnon, whose fate (earlier in the same summary) is made much clearer: ‘Ἀχιλλεὺς Μέμνονα κτείνει· καὶ τούτῳ μὲν Ἠὼς παρὰ Διὸς αἰτησαμένη ἀθανασίαν δίδωσι’ (‘Achilles kills Memnon. And Eos confers immortality on him after prevailing on Zeus’).Footnote ²⁷ It is also worth noting that Achilles, unlike Memnon, has a tomb (τάϕον) and funeral games. I suggest that to claim that Achilles is being immortalized is at least doubtful.

Nevertheless, the boundary between the two states, for heroes at least, is somewhat tenuous. A hero who is immortalized, like Memnon in the Aithiopis, does not in fact become a god (in the full-blown Olympian sense); he merely becomes immortal. He does not usually possess any particular powers, as the gods do; having received his immortality from the gods, he then generally adopts an inactive life and is rarely heard from again. Tithonus, for example, appears in the Iliad solely as Eos’ consort, and (for all the poet tells us) this is his only role.Footnote ²⁸ Certainly he shows no interest, in any version of his myth, in the sufferings of his kin in Troy.

Even clearer is the case of Heracles. He has the most active life of any hero, travelling, killing monsters, fighting battles, sacking cities, raping virgins, and so forth. His afterlife, however, as is clear from numerous sources, is spent tamely on Olympus, married to Hebe, and doing precisely nothing:

Unlike the gods, he does not leave Olympus, nor does he wield any power over mortals. (This picture offered by mythical narratives differs strongly from the very active version offered by the cult of Heracles; the distinction will be discussed below.) The same pattern can be seen in other figures, such as the Dioscuri. Immortalization is viewed as an escape; the hero immortalized in myth has earned, through arete (courage, hard work) or nepotism, the reward of respite from that work. So he lives in a place free from the ills that afflict humankind. Alternatively, he may earn his blissful afterlife by exceptional beauty (as Ganymede does) or, as in Menelaus’ case, simply by a successful marriage.Footnote ³⁰ Odysseus, too, is offered immortality by Calypso if he will live with her on her island, cut off from the rest of humanity.Footnote ³¹ Here, then, is another factor common to mythical narratives of heroic immortalization: once immortal, such heroes do nothing further for the living, and they do it a long way away. They are also temporally distanced from the historical present: mythical immortalizations form part of a narrative of decline from a past in which mortals were closer to the gods and such things were possible.

The pleasant and inactive life in a delightful place far from the land of the living, from which the hero does not depart, is the essential feature for both Heracles and Achilles: mythical immortality for the hero is in essentials the same as the pleasanter forms of afterlife, except that the former gets a better class of neighbours. This ambiguity is particularly clear in the fate of the heroes at the end of Hesiod's Heroic Age: possibly a wholesale immortalization but, situated in the Isles of the Blessed, more often linked with the afterlife.Footnote ³² Similarly, in the case of Memnon (although, as we have seen, Proclus’ summary of Arctinus’ Aithiopis is unambiguous about his immortalization), other sources clearly consider him to be dead and place him in Hades or Elysium.Footnote ³³ And Achilles, like Heracles, has a wife to share his paradisical afterlife: Polyxena, Helen, Iphigeneia, and (rather startlingly) Medea are all offered as candidates.Footnote ³⁴ He is also frequently in the company of other heroes; this, too, indicates death rather than immortality.Footnote ³⁵

What is unusual about Achilles in particular is that he is both buried and translated: Thetis removes Achilles and the Achaians raise a grave mound over him. Whatever the nature of Achilles’ afterlife, this burial mound is one thing that most ancient sources do agree on. Why is it so central to the tradition that Achilles should have a grave mound? In the passage from Diodorus mentioned above about the disappearance of Heracles’ body from his pyre, Heracles’ friends raised a mound even though there was no body.Footnote ³⁶ For Heracles, it signifies his much-discussed ambivalent status between cult hero and god – but the motif is not necessary to his myth, nor is it as pervasive as Achilles’ grave mound. For Achilles, the funeral mound is an essential expression of the kind of hero he is; it embodies the gravitational force of the Homeric concept of fame and memory as dependent upon one's grave marker. As the shade of Agamemnon notes enviously in the Odyssey, Achilles’ ‘great and noble tomb…would be seen from afar from the sea both by men that now are and that shall be born hereafter’ (Hom. Od. 24.80–4), and will become a mnema and focus for his kleos.Footnote ³⁷

Achilles’ combination of apotheosis and burial is not unique: as noted, the same motif sometimes appear in Heracles’ death and apotheosis. But it is unusual, and has perplexed scholars. Erwin Rohde therefore argues that the mound erected by the Greeks is in fact a cenotaph.Footnote ³⁸ Wolfgang Schadewaldt suggests that Thetis took an eidolon, leaving the body to burn.Footnote ³⁹ Jonathan Burgess argues that there is actually no contradiction here, and that the mortal part of Achilles remains as burnt ashes and is buried by the Greeks, while the immortal part is collected and removed by Thetis.Footnote ⁴⁰ He cites the Thessalian hymn to Thetis sung over the grave of Achilles in Philostratus’ Heroicus:

This is a problematic passage, given the corporeal nature of Greek immortality: as noted above, when the gods make someone immortal, they generally do so by taking and altering the body, not by just taking the soul or some equivalent thereof. Nor is there any clear precedent for being both in Hades and immortalized.Footnote ⁴¹ As Burgess notes, however, the hymn does seem to refer to a corporeal mortal part that was burnt and buried, and an equally corporeal immortal part that now resides in the Black Sea. It is possible that the tradition of the mound at Troy has given rise to the idea that some part of Achilles is buried there, especially since this is the first text to specifically state that the mound actually has some part of Achilles in it. Perhaps more to the point, we should not push too hard for a tidy and coherent picture where Greek religion is concerned, and even less so where hero-cult and underworld beliefs are concerned – two notoriously fluid and contradictory areas. In fact, the hymn's own description of the separation of Achilles’ mortal and immortal parts is to some degree contradicted by the ritual that attends it, for which the oracle tells the Thessalians to ‘burn and slaughter every year to Achilles some offerings as to a god, others as proper to burials’ (θύειν ὅσα ἔτη τῷ Ἀχιλλεῖ καὶ σϕάττειν τὰ μὲν ὡς θεῷ, τὰ δὲ ὡς ἐν μοίρᾳ τῶν κειμένων; Philostr. Her. 53.8–9). The Achilles who receives these (and takes vengeance when the Thessalians neglect the rite) is clearly more than just bones in a tomb, and indeed Philostratus mentions that, like other Trojan War heroes, he is occasionally to be seen hunting or even conversed with.Footnote ⁴² Whatever else is going on here, Philostratus (or the vine-grower) is clearly making a statement about the importance of the cult in the Troad, even while acknowledging Leuke as the preferred residence of Achilles. But the emphasis on the burial of Achilles in the Troad also make a statement about what kind of cult this is: a hero-cult, a cult for one who has been mortal and is now deceased.

II. Heroization and immortalization

At this point, since we have now established some parameters for immortalization in myth, it is useful to consider a very different form of immortality: hero-cult. Nicholas Coldstream aptly described hero-cult as ‘a rather untidy subject, where any general statement is apt to provoke suspicion’.Footnote ⁴³ The form and functions of hero-cult vary considerably from region to region, and the exact nature of the hero is also subject to variation. Lucian (Dial. Mort. 340) records a dialogue in Hades between the hero Trophonius and the confused Cynic philosopher Melanippus, in which Melanippus demands, ‘But in the name of prophecy, what is a hero? Because I haven't a clue.’Footnote ⁴⁴ Trophonius defines the hero as ἐξ ἀνθρώπου τι καὶ θεοῦ σύνθετον, ‘a sort of compound between human being and god’. As late a source as Lucian is, it is appropriate to cite his definition here in view of the widely varying answers put forward by most modern scholars, which often echo not only the terms used by Trophonius but occasionally also the perplexity shown by Melanippus.Footnote ⁴⁵

For the purposes of this article, I will use as a starting point a definition offered by Antony Snodgrass: a cult hero is a person

The hero to whom a cult is dedicated occupies a position abutting the worlds of both the living and the dead; he is placed, mythologically as well as in terms of ritual and religion, on the borderline. Such a hero exists in a limbo between the world of the dead, in which he belongs by virtue of being himself dead, and the world of the living, in which he has influence and power. That is, although he ought to be in Hades, he has returned to (or failed to leave) the world of the living, demonstrating an ability to cross the divide between the living and the dead which weakens the corresponding divide between mortal and immortal, and allows him, to a degree, to cross that as well; for the hero undoubtedly shares in the longevity and power characteristic of the gods. This immortality is, however, strictly limited. The hero is bound to his cult-site, often his grave, which is the link between his two worlds; he is not able to exert influence for any great distance beyond it.Footnote ⁴⁷

Hero-cult is therefore local cult. Many sites honoured heroes who were only known locally.Footnote ⁴⁸ So cult was often offered to the eponymous hero of a place, to autochthons, or to those with a particular local affiliation.Footnote ⁴⁹ The tie between hero and community ensured that localized cults such as these flourished; a hero-cult could develop around a man (or woman) who was only known and celebrated within a small community. The vital factor is that these powerful beings were once men and women; they are, whether mythical or genealogical ancestors or historical figures, a sort of cultural or community ancestor, and therefore they are often more intimately part of the community than the gods are, and may be called upon for help if the gods are unwilling to give it. This base in the community and the hero's affiliation with that community confer upon him a unique willingness to use his abilities on its behalf. To the community of which he is a part, the most important thing about the hero of cult is that, whatever the precise nature of his status as living or dead, he is bound to them, and bound to assist them, even if only by refraining from harm. Without the worship of the community, the hero does not exist; without the hero's assistance, the community is vulnerable. So the cult hero has a far more active afterlife than the hero immortalized in myth, who vanishes out of the world of men and ceases to interfere.

The corollary to this local status is that cult heroes are often heroes who are not known to us from mythical narratives. Hero-cult should not be confused, therefore, with the kind of mythical apotheosis discussed above. The immortalized hero always has a mythical narrative behind him to explain how and why he attained immortalization. Unlike the hero of myth, the hero of cult need not have any story, or even any name.Footnote ⁵⁰ Hero-cult posits a hero who exists in a state between the world of the dead, in which he belongs by being himself dead, and the world of the living, in which he is presently active and exerts his influence and power, and he is bound to both worlds by the existence of his grave site or bones. The mythical narrative of apotheosis, in contrast, leaves the hero no contact at all with the living since his long-ago immortalization, nor with the dead (as we have seen in the myth of Heracles). Furthermore, a hero whose mythical narrative excludes any kind of apotheosis may still receive hero-cult (for example, Agamemnon), and a hero who is made immortal in myth may be cultically ignored (for example, Ganymede).Footnote ⁵¹ So these are separate categories, and the conventions for each are not only different but sometimes entirely incompatible.

This incompatibility is particularly clear in the case of the little group of heroes who receive both immortalization and hero-cult. To give an example: in the Odyssey, Menelaus is told by Proteus that he will not die in Argos but will be taken to the Elysian Fields.Footnote ⁵² Since the only reason for this divine exemption is that he is Zeus's son-in-law, we may safely assume that the invitation is also meant for Helen. However, Helen and Menelaus had a cult at Therapnai in Sparta from the eighth century right through to the Hellenistic period.Footnote ⁵³ The two states of immortality are incompatible. Helen and Menelaus in Therapnai live (if that is the word) in the centre of their community, and their status there depends on their active participation in the life of that community. In Elysium, however, they are not able to return to or influence the world of the living, nor (by implication) would they wish to. In sum, the status of one depends on him being immortal and inactive, and bodily elsewhere, and that of the other depends on him being dead and active, with his bones here. The corporeal aspect of this, in particular, has been seen as a problem. The hero is literally required to be in two places at once.Footnote ⁵⁴

Attempts to reconcile this contradiction illustrate the dangers of treating Greek myth and cult as a seamless unity. One thing that has become clear is that the functions of the two sets of heroes – immortalized and heroized – are very different. The hero of cult derives his importance, and in fact his existence, from his relationship to the worshipper and his assistance to the community. The immortalized hero, in contrast, does not serve this kind of social function but should rather be regarded as a way of thinking about the unthinkable. Myths dealing with an attempt to break the barriers of mortality – particularly since so many attempts are unsuccessful – explain why most of us die. The select few who actually succeed provide reassurance that this state of affairs is not inevitable. From this point of view, the hero of cult and the hero of myth would appear to impinge on each other only indirectly. The inconsistency, by its very nature, is inevitable. What we have here is not so much a contradiction between two different forms of immortality for a small group of heroes. It might better be viewed as a necessary tension between two differing modes of thought concerning the interface between death and divinity, which happen to coincide in only a small group of cases.

Having established some working parameters for immortalization and hero-cult as separate entities, and having offered some grounds for the disparities between them, I now wish to take a closer look at the small group of heroes who entirely fail to abide by the conventions established above. These are heroes who are both recipients of hero-cult and whose mythical narrative includes immortalization: Heracles, the Dioscuri, Amphiaraus, Helen. Remarkably, most of these figures do not, like Menelaus, simply lead two separate afterlife existences, one in the local community and the other on Olympus. Instead, they operate outside the conventions of either category. Unlike most cult heroes, their cult sites are multiple and their powers wide-ranging; in fact, they more closely resemble the cult and abilities of gods, and, in the case of Heracles, he is indeed (at least sometimes) considered to be so.

For example, the Dioscuri, in their myth, gain a shared and partial immortality, so that they spend one day on Olympus and one in the underworld, quite probably alternating with each other, so that they are not in the same place at the same time.Footnote ⁵⁵ Thus Lucian presents a dialogue in which Apollo complains to Hermes that he cannot tell the Dioscuri apart as they both look exactly the same and only one of them is ever around at a time.Footnote ⁵⁶ Yet in cult they are always worshipped together, whereas according to their myth they were probably separated. They can range widely, whereas according to their myth they should spend all their time in either Hades or Olympus. So their behaviour is not compatible with the normal conventions of mythical immortalization – but nor is it compatible with the normal conventions of hero-cult. The hero-cults of the Dioscuri are not only located where they are buried, in Sparta. In fact, they have cult sites throughout Greece, especially around the Peloponnese and in Attica, and they move freely well beyond the borders of their local communities. They are known and called upon as helpful to sailors, whereas, according to their myth, after apotheosis they have no duties or obligations, and hero-cult should normally restrict them to a small area. This is neatly epitomized by Homeric Hymn 33, which describes them as:

Even if we take the less likely alternative, and assume that they may appear together but only every second day, when they are immortal, this hardly makes them suitable heroes for sailors to call upon. Storms cannot be relied upon to follow this two-day cycle. It seems that the apparently contradictory discourses of immortalization and heroization feed into each other to create a deity (or pair of deities in this case) who is not restricted by the conventions of either.

Another example is Amphiaraus, who, according to his myth, was swallowed by the earth during the battle of the Seven Against Thebes, but continued to prophesy under the earth, in the place where he was swallowed. He too has cult in many places, the emphasis being on healing rather than oracles.Footnote ⁵⁸ Here again is a hero with an unusual number and range of sites, acting in a capacity which one would not have expected from his mythography. And of course there is Heracles, who is certainly more mobile than the average cult hero, whose cult is widespread throughout Greece, and who is worshipped as both god and hero – and yet who is peacefully married to Hebe, and dwells in Olympus.Footnote ⁵⁹

It becomes clear that, when heroization and immortalization coincide, the resulting contradiction produces an interaction resulting in figures who share in the best of both worlds. In other words, it is precisely this small group of figures who are both heroized and immortalized who tend to operate outside the usual conventions of hero-cult and mythical immortalization. The convergence of these two distinct types of immortality has created a small group of ‘superheroes’ – powerful figures in both spheres. In short, these are figures whom the Greeks use to think about the parameters and possibilities of what it means to become not merely immortal but also godlike.

III. Achilles’ heroization

How does Achilles fit into this? He, too, receives cult in many places: at his burial mound at the Troad; in Laconia, where he turned up (posthumously) to sue for Helen's hand in marriage; in Croton in south Italy, where he is lamented by choruses of women; in Astypalaia in the Cyclades; in Erythrai in Asia Minor, along with Thetis and the Nereids; in Pharsalus, Tanagra, Elis, Locri, Miletus, and elsewhere.Footnote ⁶⁰ From what little we know, his cult often reflects his character in myth, but not always. For example, youths in Laconia sacrifice to him before contests, which seems apposite; but he prevents Athens being flattened by earthquake, which does not (though admittedly this story is very late).Footnote ⁶¹ It has often been argued that the widespread nature of Achilles’ cult is not typical of hero-cult, and this (in addition to the importance of his role at Olbia) has led some scholars to categorize it as divine.Footnote ⁶² I will argue that it is not (in its early stages) characterized as divine cult, and is not exactly like the cult of Heracles, the Dioscuri, or the rest, either – although these latter give us some clues as to how to understand it. I will focus on two cult areas of Achilles in particular. I do not wish to argue whether these are specifically divine cults or hero-cults (as will become clear, I think that to try to make too sharp a distinction between the two here is counterproductive); I am more concerned with the nature of the cult as perceived in and shaped by the literary sources (a picture also, I think, borne out by the characteristics of the finds).

First, the Troad. This is where one would most expect to find the cult of Achilles, as it is the site of his grave, though ancient and modern commentators alike are uncertain of exactly where that was – which did not stop it from becoming a tourist attraction, both then and now. The evidence of the Epic Cycle, in which Achilles appears at his tomb to greet Neoptolemus (Ilias Mikra), and to warn the Greeks against sailing (Nostoi), may indicate an early development of hero-cult; so may the sacrifice of Polyxena at Achilles’ tomb (Ilioupersis), and certainly the treatment of the latter episode in Euripides’ Hekabe is couched in terms of hero-cult.Footnote ⁶³ Unfortunately, as the temple and grave of Achilles remain unidentified (in spite of Schliemann's best efforts), our only evidence for a local hero-cult is literary, although that is interesting enough.Footnote ⁶⁴ As one might expect, the local inhabitants offered cult to Achilles at his tomb (and also to Patroclus, Antilochus, and Ajax).Footnote ⁶⁵ Philostratus also gives a detailed account of Thessalian cult to Achilles here; they sail in from Thessaly bringing with them not only the animals for sacrifice but also wood, wreaths, and even fire. Having made their sacrifice, they take their portion of the feast with them when they sail off ‘to avoid celebrating the banquet in enemy territory’ (ὡς μὴ ἐν τῇ πολεμίᾳ εὐωχοῖντο).Footnote ⁶⁶ This systematic exclusion of local elements reflects the fact that Achilles is buried in enemy land. So this is a hero-cult that acts as a ‘local’ cult not only for the inhabitants of the area where he is buried but also for those of the area whence he came – though there are some hints in the sources that Achilles also received cult at the Thetideion at Pharsalus in Thessaly. There are, of course, several examples of heroes’ bones being repatriated;Footnote ⁶⁷ it is a little more unusual to bring the cult to the hero, and clearly reflects the strength of the mythical tradition of Achilles’ death and the site of his tomb. At the same time, there is a balance here between the strength of the tradition that places his tomb at Troy and the hero's un-Homeric tendency to appear and expect cult.

His most prominent cult, however, was in the Euxine, on the north shore of the Black Sea. Here his worship was widespread, but two areas stand out: at and around Olbia, where the cult was extensive and long-lived, and the hero gave his name to the town of Achilleion (site uncertain) and to the long narrow spit of sand called the ‘Racecourse of Achilles’ just to the south of Olbia;Footnote ⁶⁸ and on the tiny island of Leuke, roughly 180 kilometres to the south of Olbia.Footnote ⁶⁹ Here his cult was established in the archaic period – the association of Achilles with this area was widely known at least from the sixth century bc, when Alcaeus referred to ‘Achilles lord of Scythia’ – and was still flourishing some 900 years later.Footnote ⁷⁰ It reached its height in the Roman period, during which (in the second and third centuries ad) Achilles in Olbia was worshipped under the cult title of Achilles Pontarches, the patron of the college of archons.Footnote ⁷¹ Dio Chrysostom notes that the Olbians honour Achilles as their god, and indeed his dedications are not significantly different from those given to Hermes and Apollo in their roles as patrons of the generals and magistrates.Footnote ⁷² However, it is the character of the early cult with which we are concerned here.

The earliest sites of the Olbian cult seem to have been Berezan Island and the adjacent Cape Beikuš, some 40 kilometres west of Olbia. Here cult was established at least as early as the second half of the sixth century bc, as has been borne out by recent finds.Footnote ⁷³ The finds at Cape Beikuš indicate the likely presence of a grove and a temple, and have produced a rich and varied range of offerings from a context that shows clear evidence of cult activity, including ritual dining.Footnote ⁷⁴ Finds both here and at Berezan include inscriptions on clay discs made from pottery fragments (both local and importedFootnote ⁷⁵), which have the name of Achilles inscribed (either in full or abbreviated) and also include graffiti of snakes, branches, stick figures, swords, daggers, arrows, boats, and water; one shows a hoplite with a votive form of Achilles’ name, and a fragmentary graffito which may be the name of the dedicator.Footnote ⁷⁶ This iconography is a mixture of that which is appropriate to Achilles’ warrior status (weapons, hoplites) and that which befits his cult (snakes – common for heroes – and boats, to which we shall return).Footnote ⁷⁷ Guy Hedreen has pointed out that these discs turn up throughout the Greek world as gifts to heroes, and are also found in graves; he concludes that they may represent pieces for gaming boards, which would be appropriate for Achilles given the very popular series of board-game scenes in his iconography.Footnote ⁷⁸

The cult on the island of Leuke was established at a similar date, with the earliest finds dating to the first half of the sixth century bc.Footnote ⁷⁹ The island is identified by several ancient sources which give fairly accurate details of its location. So Pausanias:

The island is all the easier to identify for being the only one in the area (that only Leuke is shown on maps is not because other islands are too small to be shown but because there are no other islands in the vicinity). It is a small lump of limestone, only 0.15 square kilometres, populated largely by the birds that kept Achilles’ temple swept with their wings, and by snakes, which may well have added to its mystique.Footnote ⁸¹ It was otherwise uninhabited.Footnote ⁸² Inscriptions from it seal the identification; for example, that on the base of a fifth-century lekythos reads: Γλαῦκός με ἀνέθηκεν Ἀχιλλῇι Λευκῇ μεδέοντι, παῖ⟨ε⟩ς Ποσιδέō (‘Glaucus son of Posideius dedicated me to Achilles lord of Leuke’).Footnote ⁸³ An early survey in 1824 also identified limestone blocks, the remains of the temple of Achilles, although these have subsequently been obliterated by the building of a lighthouse.Footnote ⁸⁴ A plan drawn by N. D. Kritskij in 1823 shows a quadrangular temple with several rooms; it included Ionic columns somewhere, and one fragment of sculpture survives, a leaf or griffin wing.Footnote ⁸⁵ Roof tiles dated to the sixth century bc and to the first centuries ad indicate that it was in use for a long time; parts of anchors spanning a similar date have been found in a bay to the south of the island.Footnote ⁸⁶

The cult had several functions.Footnote ⁸⁷ Ancient sources tell us that Achilles’ role is as protector of sailors and sea voyages (not surprising, as he is the son of a sea-goddess): he suggests safe anchorages to those near the island and may even appear, says Arrian, in visible form on the mast or the yards.Footnote ⁸⁸ It is this role, presumably, that gives rise to the boats on the Olbian discs. The lekythos from Glaucus has a further inscription saying, Γλαῦκος, ἐσπλῖν αἴδεο (‘Glaucus, be careful sailing in!’): clearly Achilles helps those who help themselves.Footnote ⁸⁹ The temple also contained an oracle.Footnote ⁹⁰ The votives indicate that even in its early stages the cult's importance extended well beyond the Black Sea area.Footnote ⁹¹

The two cults are closely related – Leuke seems to have functioned in part as an ideological boundary marker for Olbia – but not entirely homogeneous.Footnote ⁹² Although Olbia was a Milesian settlement, the cult does not seem to have come from Miletus, but, conversely, the local Scythian culture does not seem to have had any influence on the cult either: whatever its exact origins, it was a Greek cult of a Greek hero in a Greek polis.Footnote ⁹³ While it is possible that the existence of the cult fuelled Arctinus’ choice of Achilles’ destination in the Aithiopis, it is equally plausible to see Leuke as originally a mythical location placed at the periphery of the known world, which over time became more concrete, as the area became better known and the hero's cult became established.Footnote ⁹⁴ Whatever the case, the fusion of myth and cult has yielded the remarkable result of a place which is characterized as a mythical otherworldly location and yet is a place which one can actually visit. As has often been noted, the Greek dead were thought of as being at one and the same time present at the grave and also present in Hades. Similarly, Achilles is present at his grave in the Troad and also independently present in the afterlife – at Leuke. That the island still maintained its credibility as the dwelling place of Achilles even in late sources must in part be due to its isolation and its appearance. As a focus for cult, Leuke serves the same purpose as Achilles’ tomb: both sit on the shifting boundary between geography and myth, actual locations which owe their existence to mythical narratives. Both cults, too, attracted attention well beyond their local catchment areas: both achieved panhellenic fame.

But there is another aspect to these cults as well. Achilles is remarkably active and present in them, in a way that heroes often are not. He is not only manifested as the recipient of offerings and the unseen giver of benefits but he also accrues narratives based on non-cultic actions: he can be heard singing or riding horses; he races along the spit of land called the Racecourse of Achilles; he demands a girl who is descended from Priam, and then rips her to pieces; he sings love songs to Helen.Footnote ⁹⁵ These are all based more on his myth than on the functions of his cults, so that even in his afterlife he shows a certain liveliness and independence of action that is often lacking in hero-cults. What is characteristic of hero-cult, however, is the nature of these actions. The cult hero cannot be proactive: that is, he cannot form a new relationship. He must draw upon the network of friends, enemies, families, and obligations established during his life. Achilles’ actions, too, befit his mythical character: ripping girls to pieces is not characteristic of the Achilles of the Iliad, but war against Priam's descendants is a recognizable motif.Footnote ⁹⁶ Racing along the beach is certainly apt for ‘swift-footed Achilles’, and who is not susceptible to Helen's charm?Footnote ⁹⁷ Dramatized, or perhaps over-dramatized, these actions may be, but the epic Achilles is visible at the back of them.