Briseis- Greek FigureMortal"Daughter of Briseus"

The Fall of Lyrnessus

When Achilles sacked Lyrnessus, a city allied with Troy, he killed Briseis's husband Mynes and her three brothers. The young widow — Hippodameia by birth, called Briseis as daughter of Briseus — was taken as Achilles's war prize. In the Greek camp she shared Achilles's tent as a captive, but it was Patroclus who treated her with kindness.

The Quarrel

When a plague sent by Apollo forced Agamemnon to return his own war prize, the priest's daughter Chryseis, the king demanded compensation. He took Briseis from Achilles to assert his superior rank. Briseis went unwillingly, led away by the heralds while Achilles watched from the shore. For her, nothing changed but whose tent she slept in. Achilles withdrew from the war. His mother Thetis went to Zeus and begged him to turn the tide against the Greeks until Agamemnon felt the cost. Zeus agreed. The Trojans drove the Greeks back to their burning ships. Patroclus went out in Achilles's armor to hold the line, and Hector killed him.

Mourning Patroclus

When Briseis was returned to Achilles's tent, she found Patroclus dead, his body pierced with bronze. She fell across him, tore at her breast and her face, and cried aloud. Her lament was not the formal mourning expected of a captive but something rawer. She recalled how Patroclus had found her weeping after Achilles killed her husband and destroyed her city. He had told her not to cry. He had promised to take her to Phthia and persuade Achilles to make her his wedded wife. Now he too was gone, and with him the only gentleness she had known in the Greek camp. The serving women wept with her — each of them, Homer says, mourning her own sorrows under the cover of grief for Patroclus.