How are Sirius and Achilles alike?

Answer 1

At the opening of Book 22 of the Iliad, the poet compares the gleam of Achilles' armour as he comes into King Priam's view with the star Sirius. He identifies the star as a signal of pestilence, but also a beacon of the harvest. Previous to this, Achilles had entered the plain in the company of the gods Hephaestus and Boreas, both sent by Hera to subdue the god-river Xanthus-Scamander and to enable Achilles' crossing. The poet compares the scorching effects of these gods to mid-summer period, which the Romans later called the "days of the little dog" or the forty day period when Sirius shone above the pre-dawn horizon.

Iliadic Achilles in this way takes on the role of a personification of the Dog Star. His burning wrath comes to a completion with the death of Hector, something that makes the 'harvest" of Troy possible for his fellow Achaeans. However, the death of Hector, itself described with reference to astral symbolism, brings with it the hero's own death, which is revealed to Achilles by Hector at the moment of his death. The Iliad itself spans a forty day period from its beginning with the arrival of the Apollo priest Chryse to its ending with the Trojan burial of Hector. Achilles is in the Iliad a mythic personification of the star Sirius.