An ancient Greek legend goes that when Achilles defeated Hector, he stripped his enemy’s corpse and dragged it around along his conquest from behind his chariot. Victory, humiliation, domination; Achilles treated the Trojan prince like any other piece of meat, like a war trophy, like anything else that may catch the dust from his horses’ hooves and his chariot’s wheels.
Appalled by the treatment of the hero’s body, the king of Troy then knelt before Achilles to offer Hector’s weight in gold, in exchange for the body. It was then that Achilles had a chilling revelation that his own death will come soon; perhaps, he thought, through a fate worse than that of his fallen foe.
Years later, Paris shot an arrow into Achilles’ heel. Achilles died. Ah, hubris… ain’t it a bitch.
