Vico's Scienza Nuova monograph

Achilles the true mythical hero

We live in a world that is desperately in need of heroes. I might be over generalizing but by reviewing the things that Hollywood is actually producing as a movie, tells us a lot about the need of heroes and heroism. Recently there was a movie called “Iron man” (produced in Hollywood) which talked about a genius scientist who came up with a new weapon which can protect the world from other harmful weapons.

If I had to remember a mythical type of hero, I would probably recall Hercules and Achilles. Not because they are the only mythical heroes, but I remember reading and watching films about their lives that gave me a great impact in understanding Greek mythology.

Vico tries to explain the age of heroes which is the second stage of his theory, by using the mythical hero, Hercules. After the first step which is the age of gods, there come rulers who are called as the patriarchs. These patriarchs are considered heroes being the head of the clientage while protecting them.

“These patriarchs are now considered heroes and heroes mean sons of the gods. And their order is Hercules. The myth had it that Hercules founded every city in Greece. And he said, we have to read that not as a fictional account nor as an authoritative history, but as a mythic history. What it expresses is the fact that Hercules etymologically means son of the gods. And what it basically means is that the sons of the gods, the patriarchs founded all the cities.” (1937)

Hercules is actually representing the patriarchs who were the founder of all the cities. Another good example that shows the human inequality during the age of heroes is one of the greatest heroes of Homer, Achilles. To clarify this statement, I chose to dig in to the facts about Achilles to help us understand the concept of heroism during the age of heroes.

Achilles was the son of Peleus and the Nereid Thetis. The mythical history records him as the mightiest of Greeks who fought in the Trojan War. His mother Thetis attempted to make him immortal by dipping his son Achilles under the river Styx which was the sacred water that made everything invulnerable. But Thetis made a mistake holding her baby son Achilles in his heels. So the heel of Achilles remained vulnerable. (James Hunter)

With the short introduction above that leads us to the story of Achilles, I have decided to look through the primary source, “The Iliad” by Homer. After mentioning so much things about my knowledge on Achilles, I had to correct the errors that were misinterpreted by many authors who mentioned Achilles.

In the actual text of Homer’s Iliad, there are phrases like “Achilles, loved of heaven” and lines like “he spoke he drove his spear at the great and terrible shield of Achilles.” So what does these phrases tells us? It actually tells us that Home himself was writing about Achilles as a hero and the love one from gods.

Other lines like “the fight between Achilles and the river Scamander” or “Phoebus Apollo has been sending Aeneas clad in full armor to fight Achilles,” clarifies the idea of Vico’s age of hero. The reason that I say this is because the name of Achilles was only the one name that was worthy to be mentioned against the thousand warriors of Aeneas and others.

I believe that this story is a good example showing how humans were not really treated equal during the time of the Trojan War. It was the time for Achilles; it was the time for heroes where no one cares about the death of thousands of soldiers, while they care and grief about the courageous hero of Greece, Achilles.



Hunter, J (2008, July 3) Achilles. In The encyclopedia mythica.
Encyclopedia Mythica online
http://www.pantheon.org/articles/a/achilles.html

Vico, G. (1937). Selections from Scienza Nuova. In V.F. Calverton (Ed.), The making of society, an outline of sociology. USA: Random House. (Originally published in 1725)

Homer (750-650 BC). The Iliad.
Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation