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Comment by dforrestwilson | Hacker News Reader

One of my favorite write-ups that I have read about Achilles posited that he had PTSD.

This really captures that imho.

If you are familiar with the Iliad, it wouldn't be much of a stretch to say that every man in the Trojan War probably had PTSD. It's one of the most unrelentingly brutal books I've ever read

Whatever the other qualities one may assign to 300, it's the most accurate depiction of the Iliad's action I've seen (yes I know it's not the story of the Iliad). The action portions of the text are basically a series of quick close-ups of guys getting stabbed in the chest by spears, with the occasional bad-ass slow-mo thing or 1v1 fight. Lots and lots of it.

I second this. The Iliad begins at a very cinematic pace that is very reminiscent of 300. The battle depictions – let's face it, the majority of the book – are relentlessly brutal.

Indeed. The level of anatomical detail is something generally only find on the shadier parts of liveleak or a medical journal.

It's hard to map modern concepts like PTSD onto ancient cultures. Violence and abuse was commonplace to a degree we can't even comprehend.

This comes up sufficiently often in the excellent /r/AskHistorians sub that it made their VFAQ [1] list twice. Both linked answers are worth reading.

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/vfaq#wiki_ancien...

Along these lines, I would recommend this lecture about the Iliad:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XD0FEcK9smE

The speaker (I believe a professor) makes some very compelling connections between the Iliad and gang culture. It gave me a new way (but certainly not definitive) way think about the Iliad. If I recall, he may also discuss PTSD towards the end.

I read it as about Hephaestus, not achilles. What happens when a god has seen too much

"Achilles in Vietnam" by Jonathan Shay. I agree it's quite good. IIRC, the author was a doctor in a VA clinic for Vietnam vets suffering from PTSD, and he was struck by the similarities between their condition and descriptions in the Illiad

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