Briseis. Briseís, also known as Hippodámeia, is a significant character in the Iliad.
Her role as a status symbol is at the heart of the dispute between Achilles and Agamemnon that initiates the plot of Homer's epic. She was married to Mynes, a son of the King of Lyrnessus, until Achilles sacked her city and enslaved her shortly before the events of the poem.
Being forced to give Briseis to Agamemnon, Achilles refused to reenter the battle. Briseis receives the same minimal physical description as most other minor characters in the Iliad.
She is described with the standard metrical epithets that the poet uses to describe a great beauty, though her appearance is left entirely up to the audience's imagination. She was imagined about two millennia later by the Byzantine poet John Tzetzes as: tall and white, her hair was black and curly; she had beautiful breasts and cheeks and nose; she was, also, well-behaved; her smile was bright, her eyebrows big According to her mythology, Briseis was the daughter of Briseus, though her mother was unnamed.
She had three full brothers who died in the sack of Lyrnessus. When Achilles led the assault on Lyrnessus during the Trojan War, he captured Briseis and slew her parents and brothers. She was subsequently given to Achilles as a war prize to be his concubine. In the Iliad, as in Mycenaean Greece, captive women like Briseis were slaves and could be tra
Her role as a status symbol is at the heart of the dispute between Achilles and Agamemnon that initiates the plot of Homer's epic. She was married to Mynes, a son of the King of Lyrnessus, until Achilles sacked her city and enslaved her shortly before the events of the poem.
Being forced to give Briseis to Agamemnon, Achilles refused to reenter the battle. Briseis receives the same minimal physical description as most other minor characters in the Iliad.
She is described with the standard metrical epithets that the poet uses to describe a great beauty, though her appearance is left entirely up to the audience's imagination. She was imagined about two millennia later by the Byzantine poet John Tzetzes as: tall and white, her hair was black and curly; she had beautiful breasts and cheeks and nose; she was, also, well-behaved; her smile was bright, her eyebrows big According to her mythology, Briseis was the daughter of Briseus, though her mother was unnamed.
She had three full brothers who died in the sack of Lyrnessus. When Achilles led the assault on Lyrnessus during the Trojan War, he captured Briseis and slew her parents and brothers. She was subsequently given to Achilles as a war prize to be his concubine. In the Iliad, as in Mycenaean Greece, captive women like Briseis were slaves and could be tra
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