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The second part of the famous seige of Troy. Part I, Part II, Part III.

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With Hector alive again, the Trojans were out to war again. Achilles, seeing this from his tent, had his friend Patroklos wear his armour and push back the Trojans. Patroklos rode out into the battlefield, and everyone mistook him for Achilles and rallied around him and the Trojans fled. The Greeks pursued them closely, and the Trojans retreated into their city and closed the gates.

The Greeks now set up ladders against the high city walls and started scaling it. Patroklos was the first to reach the top, and when Hector saw him he was terrified, as he thought he was Achilles. Hector knew that if Achilles jumped into the city, Troy would fall. He prayed for intervention from the gods, and Apollo answered his prayer. Apollo tipped Patroklos from his position on the wall, with him falling backwards outside of the city. The impact of the fall threw the helmet off his head, and everyone then realized that he was not Achilles after all. The Trojans pushed forward again, and killed Patroklos, now without his helmet.

Patroklos' death spurred Achilles to fight again. His goddess mother, Thetis, made him a new set of armour, which he wore and strode onto the battlefield in. He called Hector out for a duel. Any god would have easily settled the duel, but Zeus forbade all interference, and realizing this, Hector knew that the first to tire would be the first to lose. He tried to tire Achilles, weighed down by his armour, by running around the city. Eventually, on the third round, Achilles caught up with Hector and killed him. He fastened Hector's body to a chariot and drove around the city three times. All the soldiers stopped in their steps and grew afraid of the savagery of the hero.

Every morning thereafter, Achilles would drag Hector's body around Patroklos' grave three times, Begging Achilles for Hector's bodyuntil finally when the Trojans could take it no more, Hector's father approached Achilles and demanded the body. Achilles would only give up the corpse for its equal weight in treasures, and so the exchange was made, and Hector was brought into Troy, and buried.

The prophecy of Achilles death was soon to be fulfilled, when Prince Memnon from Ethiopia arrived. Memnon was on the side of the Trojans, and he killed many Greek heroes. When he finally killed another of Achilles' friend, Achilles was enraged, and went out to do what he had done to Hector. However, after his savage slaughter of Memnon, he bent down to strip the body, and the gods took the opportunity to exploit Achilles' only vulnerability- his heel. When his mother Thetis had rendered him immortal by dipping him into the River Styx, she had held him by his heel, which was not put into the river, thus leaving his heel mortal. Apollo guided Paris' hand to shooting a poisoned arrow towards his heel. The arrow hit and poison filled Achilles' body. Achilles had finally died, and Thetis and the sea nymphs mourned, as the Greeks did. His funeral was held for eighteen days and he was finally burned and his ashes kept in a golden urn made by the god Hephaistos.

Even Achilles, the immortal son of Thetis had fallen. The Greeks were disillusioned and weary after ten years of fighting. Many had left home for many years, and yearned to return home. The Prophet Kalchas beckoned them to hold on, for Troy was fated to fall soon enough. There were a few conditions that had to be in place first: another Greek hero Philoketes had to fire an arrow from the unerring bow of Herakles, which would spark the start of the Trojan defeat. Philoketes had been exiled to a faraway island, and troops were immediately sent to fetch him.

Philoketes soon arrived outside Troy where the Greeks attended to him quickly. When he was told what had happened, Philoketes was furious. He took Herakles bow and went to the gates of Troy and challenged Paris to a duel of bows, to which Paris agreed. Paris took the first shot, and missed. Philoketes took his turn and shot a poisoned arrow, which hit Paris in the ankle. The poison filled his body as Paris screamed in pain. The Trojans hastily dragged their prince into the city and shut the gates. Inside Troy, the soldiers tried to persuade the mountain nymph Oinone,who had been Paris' wife before he left for Helen, for herbs to cure the poison. In spite, she refused, asking him to get Paris dying of poisonhelp from Helen instead, since he had left her for Helen. So Paris died, and Oinone later was overcome with grief and threw herself onto the funeral pyre and died together with Paris.

Once Paris was dead, his brothers started quarreling about who should have Helen. Helen wanted neither of them, and she tried to escape, but was discovered by one of the brothers and was eventually threatened into marriage. The other brothers were insanely jealous, and they started trying to find ways to betray the Trojans to the Greeks.

Next: The Fall of Troy >>