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Summary
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Patroclus’ ghost appears to Achilles and asks for burial. The Achaeans build a huge pyre and place Patroclus on it with sacrifices of animals and Trojan prisoners.
Achilles holds funeral games: chariot racing, boxing, wrestling, running, duelling, throwing, and archery. The games show the Achaean world briefly recovering its social order. Achilles continues to drag Hector’s body, and the gods begin to protect it from decay.
Opening lines
Thus they made lamentation throughout the city; but the Achaeans, when they were come to the ships and the Hellespont, scattered each man to his own ship; howbeit the Myrmidons would Achilles nowise suffer to be scattered, [5] but spake among his war-loving comrades, saying: — Homer, Iliad XXIII.1ff., trans. A. T. Murray (Loeb; Perseus Digital Library, CC BY-SA 4.0).
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The following entries mention “Iliad XXIII · The Funeral Games of Patroclus”.