Achilles, Archaeological Museum of Naples, Italy

Achilles and Troilus, Farnese Collection

Sculpture – Marble – (287 cm) late 2nd – early 3rd century

This Roman sculpture, dating from the late 2nd or early 3rd century, depicts a powerful warrior carrying a dying child on his back by holding him by a single leg over his shoulder, head down.

Achilles and Troilus This is a young boy mortally wounded in the abdomen, just below the ribs, from where his blood is still flowing; his limp body and dangling arms indicate that he has lost consciousness, and his face bears the mask of death.

Interpretations of this sculpture depicting a warrior and a wounded child vary, ranging from Neoptolemus and Astyanax to Achilles and Troilus.

One might indeed wonder whether the warrior is in the process of lifting the child and is about to throw him.

Furthermore, this sculpture was partially altered in the 16th century to give the warrior the face of Emperor Commodus (180–192), renowned for his cruelty and his involvement in gladiatorial combats.

Son of Achilles, Neoptolemus was one of the warriors hidden inside the Trojan Horse; and known for his cruelty.

Neoptolemus killed Priam, the king of Troy, and sacrificed his daughter Polyxena on his own father’s funeral pyre.

And he threw Astyanax, son of Hector and Andromache and grandson of Priam, over the ramparts of the city of Troy.

Achilles and Troilus