A reporter interviews some veterans from the Troy war, by both sides, about the crucial point of the war: the duel of Achilles and Hector. Homer told the story by the heroes' point of view; now also the average soldier, brave or coward, fierce or ch...
A controversial episode of the battle fought that day was the duel between Aeneas and Achilles. By now, it's unclear what induced the Dardanian prince, surely brave but not temerarious, to a suicidal action as directly facing the strongest Achaean warrior. To find an answer, I have went till the Tyrrhenian shores where, some travellers said, Aeneas land after very long travel on the Mediterranean sea.
The voices were exact. The Hector's cousin, considered dead in the Troy burning by everybody, is alive, hag got a new family and, actually, he's the captain of his father-in-law's army in a local war.
I could not personally speak with him, indeed, to be sincere, I preferred to avoid the zone of war, but I could the same to gather precious witnesses among his old soldiers, who followed him in Italy.
Ichetaon, now the owner of an inn in Cumae, is one of them. He didn't want to follow his leader in the last adventures, but not for this he has forgotten the war passions, and took a lot of convincing before giving his version to a Greek man.
"Had Achilles and Aeneas never met before that day?"
"Yes, once, in the Lyrnessus battle, ant it was the only time he escaped. Let's say that, brave as he was, to repeat the experience was not his first desire."
"However, that day, he faced Achilles by his full will. What was the cause of that resolution? Was it by friendship for Hector, because he felt that it was a decisive day, or by any other reason?"
"As he told us later... You know, for the whole time that we have spent upon the sea, our only diversion was to tell one another our war deeds. As he told us later, it was Lycaon, the son of Priam, to induce him into that madness, saying him that, if the gods protected Achilles, himself too, Aeneas, had good reason to hope a hand by the celestial ones. If that poor boy Lycaon didn't be struck dead on the field that day itself, surely my lord would have given him a good telling-off."
(I report this affirmation, not affirming its veracity. Actually, many other witnesses swear that, at that hour, the unfortunate Lycaon was in a wholly different part of the battlefield.)
"The matter is that, when we and the Greeks are aligned one in front of another, anxious to begin the fight, Aeneas advances to challenge Achilles..."
"Excuse a personal question, but why were you so anxious to fight? You the Trojans, moreover, facing an Achilles pray of homicidal rage?"
"By fear. Who has not been there can't to understand it, but... You look at the sun, thinking that perhaps you will not see its setting. You contemplate an army with an hundred of lances, all seemingly directed to your belly. You have to stay immobile, with a great desire to turn your back, waiting the sound of the trumpet. You feel to be a toy in the gods' hand... Well, all this is a so painful experience that, to stop it, you prefer to fight.
I told Aeneas advancing and challenging Achilles to a duel. You know that, two princes, challenging one another, don't act as we soldiers do: one get out his sword, crying 'I kill you', the other get out his one, and, the time of a pissing, question is solved and a body is on the ground. No, before the fighting by arms, they have to fight by tongues, exchanging a nice string of indignities. When the gods wanted, they got the point and began to really fighting.
Before they recurred to lances and, to be sincere, Achilles won. But it was not his merit but of his shield, able to sustain also an out-of-common stroke while the first blow transfixed my lord's one. Then Achilles got out the sword, but you don't believe that my lord be intimidated for this. He took a stone, that two normal person would have not moved, and he on the point to throw it against his adversary."
"And did he throw it?"
"I don't know. At that moment, a big cloud of dust raised and when it posed, Aeneas was no more there. We saw him again to a lot of parasangs of distance, in the Cicones' places. He told us to have got a divine inspiration, to think about his people good and to not vainly sacrifice his life. Frankly, long years passed, I can't tell him wrong."
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Craeton, at the time of the battle, was a young Myrmidon warrior and, differently by Ephialtes, had vowed an unreserved admiration to his leader. Today is the commander in chef of the palace ward in Pylos and felt the same unreserved admiration for the Achilles' memory. This is, purified some too soldierly expression, his version of the duel.
"That guy Aeneas, for me, was just a swollen head as every Trojan, Hector first. He comes forth and tells his rigmarole about his ancestors, and the gods who can give their favour to one or the other one. Do you know the saying of us soldiers? The gods are on the side of the strongest warrior. Indeed, when they let the tongues, and passed to the lances, it was clear who the strongest one was. Aeneas just scratched the Achilles' shield, while Achilles well holed the Aeneas' one, as if he had had a drill. Then the Trojan first hinted to fend by a stone, just to save his face, and then ran away like greased lighting to the other side of the field...."
"Excuse me, but have you seen him escaping by your eyes?"
"Surely not, given the hurly-burly of the battle, but if a moment he was there, the moment after he was ten parasangs long, it means that he escaped quickly like the Jupiter's lighting. Do you believe, perhaps, to that story, telling that the god Poseidon saved him?"
