Enough said as to that; but try to show that
Patroclus was not the friend but ‘the parasite of
Achilles.
I shall cite you Patroclus himself, Tychiades,
saying that he was a parasite.
That is a surprising statement.
Listen then to the lines themselves:
Let my bones not lie at a distance from thine, O Achilles :Let them be close to your side, as I lived in the house of our kindred.Iliad23, 83.
And again, farther on, he says: “And now Peleus
took me in and
Kept me with kindliest care, and gave me the name of thy servant.Iliad23, 89.
That is, he maintained him as a parasite. If he
had wanted to call Patroclus a friend, he would not
have given him the name of servant, for Patroclus
was a freeman. Whom, then, does he mean by
servants, if not either friends or slaves? Parasites,
evidently. In the same way he calls Meriones too a
servant of Idomeneus,
Iliad13, 246.
Observe also tliat in the same passage it is not
Idomeneus, the son of Zeus, whom he thinks fit to
call “unyielding in battle,” but Meriones, his
parasite.