Bibliography source 1:KANE, T. (1976). THE TWO FACES OF ACHILLES. CEA Critic,39(1), 4-6. Retrieved March 3, 2020, from www.jstor.org/stable/44370408

Firstly, before analyzing the content, the title of this article is attractive as it directly points out a distinctive feature of Achilles which reminds me of a famous figure in ancient Chinese history who also shares multiple personalities.
In this article, the author directly points out there are two views of Achilles. One is the cold-blood killer, as efficient as a shark and pitiless whereas another is the gentle warrior, embracing his enemies in acknowledgement of their joint suffering. From my perspective, these two traits of Achilles at first seem to be incompatible or even contradictory to one another. Yet the author explains in this article that these two different faces of Achilles are not only intimately related, but also imply a profound comment upon idealism. Then, the author mentions that the hero’s commitment to glory is the key to unlocking the myth of an intimate relationship between the two faces of Achilles.
In the author’s analysis, Achilles quit the war because he questions the warrior’s arete when Briseis is taken away, which is a loss of honor. As a result, Achilles believes that cowards and brave men are equally respected. He also implicates that he will return if Agamemnon has been sufficiently humbled. All of these actions taken by Achilles represent his concern for a hero’s glory. At this part of the article, the author has an unusual claim that is quite different from what I have read in other passages, which attributes Achilles’ ultimate return to an affirmation of glory rather than anger and guilt over Patroclus. Therefore, the immediate result of a total commitment to glory and dedication to the ideal of the culture that Achilles’s belief is savagery and dehumanization as a brutal killer through his conversation with Hector “I only wish I could summon up the appetite to carve and eat you raw”. The audience can realize that Achilles does not stop killing because of the tragic limitation of martial glory, which requires the constant sacrifice of life. Yet, he recovers from it when Priam evinces a more profound sense of suffering as a parent which unites humanity. In the last part, the author points out that the two faces of Achilles are not a contradiction, but rather a phrase of the hero’s evolution.
To conclude, the madness of Achilles and his sick ideal of glory or his culture is like a dark valley that drowns him at first. But that is also the reason which makes him more like a human than an immortal god as the affirmation of will and glory is usually submitted to mortality. Achilles, like a few other high spirits, finally passes through this dark valley when he spares the life of the old king at Troy. This article provides me with a deep understanding of the commitment to glory. More importantly, the author gives an insightful analysis of Achilles as a moral being by examining the affirmation of will and glory. Throughout this article, I believe most of the information is astute. However, in my own opinion, we can not deny that the death of Patroclus is a determining factor that drives Achilles back to the war.

Bibliography Source 2: Sale, W. (1963). Achilles and Heroic Values. Arion: A Journal of Humanities and the Classics, 2(3), 86-100. Retrieved March 3, 2020, from www.jstor.org/stable/20162854

This article is a close examination of Achilles’ heroic value at the beginning of this article. The author points out to his audience that the whole Achaean military society is based on the central concept called geras, the prize of honor. In this article, Briseis is described as a form of geras, a material obsession of Achilles. Hence, the audience can easily understand why Achilles becomes exceptionally angry and upset about his loss of Briseis as the article refers to Briseis to a symbol of honor, which is the essential value that Achilles believes. Additionally, I learn from this article that geras is the most important value that a hero treasures, and it acts as a propeller to ensure the proper functioning of the military system.
For the first time, I see an author choosing a side between Achilles and Agamemnon in their quarrel by explicitly claiming that Achilles’ withdrawal from the battle is morally justified. Furthermore, the author condemns the reckless action taken by Agamemnon when he decides to take away Briseis as a punishment to Achilles and also a movement to indicate the king’s nobility. By taking this action, Agamemnon does the worst thing he has ever -he shattered the heroic value system. The author comments that the society which Achilles dwells in is so entirely repudiating the value on which it is based, and it has little claim to the loyalty of the man it has so grievously wronged.
Reading through the whole article, I find out that the author is continuously holding Achilles back by writing how Achilles’ situation worsens after he withdraws from the war. In this article, Achilles is portrayed as a worthless foreigner who isolates from his community, without social status as a result of Agamemnon’s improper action. In the next part of the article, the author explains Achilles’ corresponding behaviors and words with a phrase “when a man has been so outraged that his faith in society is undermined, he will do and say things in anger which he might not fully mean.” From my perspective, the author is finding an excuse for Achilles to cover up his mistakes.
To conclude, this is an interesting article which provides me with insight from a person who strongly supports the course of actions taken by Achilles. It also raises another question of whether Achilles is morally right or wrong to withdraw from the war as a warrior, especially as a heroic commander in the military.

Bibliography source 3: Tom Sleigh. (2006). Achilles’ Dream. The Kenyon Review, 28(2), 13-17. Retrieved April 1, 2020, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/4338871

This article is fundamentally different in both structure and content compared to other passages that I have read so far. The author in this article depicts Achilles’ emotional stage after the death of Patroclus through Homeric style by writing a poem-like essay and adapting some parts of the Iliad. Unlike the contemporary article, this one utilizes a different text structure with more pausing between sentences.
At the beginning of this article, the author does not directly provide the audience with a clear timeline. Instead, it portrays a sorrow picture in which Achilles alone stood outside the tent staring at the darkness whereas other soldiers fell asleep. With a poetic tone and phrasing, the author let the audience envision the mindset of Achilles, and easily engage the readers to resonate with the feeling of Achilles. This characteristic is what makes this passage unique as it tells the story just like Iliad rather than writing analysis.
Reading on, we can learn that the timeline is right after the death of Achilles from” Achilles. How can you sleep? When I was alive, you didn’t neglect me. But now, in death, you’ve forgotten me. Bury me, Achilles–” It is not hard to infer from these callings that Patroclus and Achilles were very close when these two great men still alive. They indeed share some bond between them as Achilles can feel the dead soul of Patroclus. At this part, I now start to wonder is there any special feeling(love) between these two men just like other legends record. There is an interesting sentence in this passage “Achilles: don’t bury my bones apart, but mix them with yours so that in death we’ll be together as in life” which further vindicates my thought of a special relationship between these two warriors. In my common sense, soldiers are usually barry alone when they died during a fight, whereas lovers generally stay together till the end of their lives. Therefore, it is reasonable to deduce from Patroclus’ request that, at least, Patroclus shows a genuine love toward Achilles.
To refer back to another bibliography that I write in this assignment, I think this article strengthens my argument which Patroclus is a crucial reason why Achilles rejoins the war. To conclude, this passage provides us with the freedom of imagination of the relationship between Achilles and Patroclus, and I believe these two warriors share a strong bond wich beyond healthy friendship between each other.

Bibliography source 4: Robbins, E. (1993). The Education of Achilles. Quaderni Urbinati Di Cultura Classica, 45(3), 7-20. doi:10.2307/20547207

Bibliography source 5: McCloskey, Benjamin (2017). Achilles’ brutish Hellenism: Greek identity in the « Herōikos ». Classical Philology, 112(1), 63-85.

Bibliography source 6: Asplund, C., & Best, T. (2013). Achilles tendon disorders. BMJ: British Medical Journal, 346(7899), ‘29-33. Retrieved April 1, 2020, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/23493997

For Theme Bibliography :

Bibliography source 1:Papakonstantinou, Z. (2009). Wine and Wine Drinking in the Homeric World. L’Antiquité Classique, 78, 1-24. Retrieved April 4, 2020, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/antiqclassi.78.1

This article provides a close examination of the uses of Wine and its social significance, as depicted in Odysseus. I found this article exceptionally interesting because it relates xenia to an actual object-wine.
To begin with, the author states that Wine is the most common beverage of Homeric society with many different uses. One of them is to act as a symbol of Xenia. Commonly, the host will follow the established ry=ules of xenia regarding feasting and wine consumption. For instance, When Odysseus finally sailed back to Ithaca, the swineherd served Odysseus with Wine and good food even though he did not figure out the beggar is Odysseus. In this context, the Wine serves as a gift of xenia for the guest to help them settle down.
Additionally, according to the author’s statements, drinking is inevitably and quintessentially a social act that is usually carried out by members of elites in Homeric world to conform the basic requirements of being a host( e.g rules of xenia & including gift exchange to acknowledge the equal social status between the host and the guest). There is another example that can also testify to the idea that Wine acts as a gift or tool for upper-class people to perform xenia. When Telemachus first reached Nestor’s land, he was offered with food along with a beautiful cup that filled up with vintage eleven-year-old Wine as a drink and libations for the guest. We have been informed that the Wine is intentionally sealed up for years in Pylos to aim at elevating the xenia. These two examples from Odysseus indicate that Wine is indeed a standard drink that has a function of performing xenia in the Homeric world.
To conclude briefly about this article, the author draws the association between Wine and aristocratic xenia in primarily two ways. Firstly, Wine can be used in the context of gift-exchange, where people from the same hierarchy. By doing this, Wine serves as a medium to consolidate peer relationships through the goodwill of xenia. Secondly and most commonly, the consumption of Wine highlight the importance of the social occasion for both host and guest just like exchanging gifts when you dear friends decide to leave. Overall, this article provides many solid reasons why wine can presents xenia to the guest.

Bibliography source 2: Belfiore, E. (1993). Xenia in Sophocles’ Philoctetes. The Classical Journal, 89(2), 113-129. Retrieved April 4, 2020, from www.jstor.org/stable/3297661

In this article, the author studies the words, gestures and actions associated with the topic of xenia in Philoctetes. At the beginning of this article, the precise definition of xenia has been given to the audience “ a ritualized relationship or a formal relationship entered into between two members of different social groups, and manifested by the exchange of goods and services.” With this notion in mind, the audience can distinguish between xenia and kinship & friendship as these three relationships share some similar traits.
The author starts to introduce xenia to his audience by providing several preliminary steps to initiate xenia. At here, I noticed that the author uses a temporary to describe the bond created by xenia. I believe the author is trying to imply that, unlike friendship and kinship mentioned previously in the article, the relationship of xenia is less reliable for people to count on. In my mind, Xenia is more like a form of politics between people who share equal social-status but have different backgrounds
Then the article describes how Sophocles’ Philoctetes indicates the importance of the concept of xenia by using a weapon. In the first part of the play, the prefix of Xen- words occurs twice in the first line spoken by Neoptolemus’s sailors. Throughout the whole passage, the author expands the topic of xenia through the discussion of a bow. Like many other weapons, the bow has another functional value besides using it to fight in the war, which is a xenia gift. Never left Philoctetes’ hands, this bow is seen as untouchable as well as sacred. In the exchange of this bow, this weapon bonds three persons including Neoptolemus, Philoctetes, and Heracles. At this part, I now comprehend why the hero’s weapon weighs so much to another warrior. In exchanging arms or merely giving out weapons as a gift, this links the kleos with xenia. In the last part of Odysseus, Odyssey stops Telemachus from further trying to string the bow when his son nearly handles the challenge. I agree that Odyssey is afraid of losing his Kleos if his son successfully overcomes the task. Hence, we can reasonably infer that using weapons as a xenia gift means a lot to warriors.
To sum up, after reading this article, I now wonder in what circumstances can people determine this xenia bond is a temporary one or a long-lasting one.

Bibliography source 3: Tracy, C. (2014). The Host’s Dilemma: Game Theory and Homeric Hospitality. Illinois Classical Studies, (39), 1-16. doi:10.5406/illiclasstud.39.0001

This article argues that xenia or hospitality can not have functioned so well as Homer described given the selfish nature of humankind. By retrieving the theory of Darwin’s fromThe Origin of Species, at the first page of this article, the author conveys his opinion which altruism has no place in the survival of the fittest. What makes this article stand out from the others is that it incorporates game theory in the analysis of hospitality. With this new approach, the author intends to show that Homeric hospitality(xenia) follows some mechanism in Game theory.
The author firstly admits that some examples show genuine hospitality like Menalous offers food and gifts to Telemachus without recognizing him as the son of Odyssey. Then, she opens up her argument that the hospitality system does not work in Homeric society as numerous examples show the failure of hospitality as well. In Odyssey book 10, Circe’s magical attack on Odyssey’s crew indicates that a brutish host can bring severe damage to guests. Other examples like Penelope’s suitors plotting to kill Telemachus show that guests can potentially threaten the wellbeing of the host. Generally, there are three reasons for why people are conducting the xenia when strangers come: 1) Gods demand it 2) the hero’s claim to participate in reciprocal behavior 3) the desire for glory. Yet the author crushes these three reasons one by one through providing detailed examples like Heracles does not get punished by Zeus even if he disobeys God’s will to show hospitality.
Right after the counterarguments for the hospitality system, the author explains the reason why Game theory is a superior method in understanding Homeric Hospitality. Prisoner’s dilemma is a mathematical model that can predict human behaviors according to the selfish nature of people. The article explains that xenia is only performed under the circumstance in which both parties are equally benefited. As soon as one side of the party has more advantages over another, it will not hesitate to break the hospitality system to gain more benefits just as Penelope’s suitors or Heracles. From my perspective, I like the way that this article narrates as it does not deny the system of hospitality or simply make a statement that rejects the whole xenia thing. On the contrary, the author makes a concession and then gives her reasonings. At last, the game theory indeed provides a more in-depth insight into the hospitality system for us with a better understanding of how hospitality(xenia) works.

Bibliography source 4: Verheij, M. (2016). Hospitality & Homicide: Violation of xenia in Euripides’ “Electra”. Mnemosyne, 69(5), fourth series, 760-784. Retrieved April 4, 2020, from www.jstor.org/stable/24772109

Bibliography source 5: BLAKE, S. (2011). MARTIAL’S NATURAL HISTORY: THE “XENIA” AND “APOPHORETA” AND PLINY’S ENCYCLOPEDIA. Arethusa, 44(3), 353-377. Retrieved April 4, 2020, fromwww.jstor.org/stable/44578371

Bibliography source 6:HERMAN, G. (1990). TREATIES AND ALLIANCES IN THE WORLD OF THUCYDIDES. Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society, (36 (216)), new series, 83-102. Retrieved April 4, 2020, from www.jstor.org/stable/44696683