Achilles in Colophon
"Taking some of the chiefs with him, Achilles laid waste the country… He also took Lesbos and Phocaea, then Colophon, and Clazomenae, and afterwards the so-called Hundred Cities" - Apollodorus, 200 CE
There is one name that has echoed up and down the western coast of Anatolia for 3,800 years. One name whose utterance starts flocks of shrieking birds to flight. Say it along the coast, and the gray cliffs draw back from their stations above the shore, pine trees shiver in the sea breeze.
Achilles.
Achilles is that name.
It is a name made from two names. Achos is the word for “suffering” or “pain.” And leos is the name for “people” or “nation” – Achi-leos, “he who brings the suffering of the nations.” It is a formidable name. It is a very apt one, given the man who made the name immortal.
Achilles was a thin, wiry man with long, reddish-blonde hair. He was younger than the other generals in the Achaean army, who had pledged to defend the successful suitor of the lovely Helen. Achilles had crossed the Aegean from his homeland of Thessaly for one purpose and one alone. Achilles had not come for love but for glory. And nothing – not even certain death – could divert his relentless pursuit.
And so Achilles came to Asia – to Troy. He came, King Peleus’s son, with 20 ships of Myrmidons, 500 fighting men in all, his skilled attack force.
The Myrmidons on the march were a sight to see. No obstacle – fallen tree, swamp, or band of well-armed defenders – could long delay their march. They swarmed. They overcame. They diverted – always moving as one body, over, under, around. The Greek name, myrmidon, means “ants,” and that is just what Achilles’s black army resembled.
Accounts of the Trojan War report that the war lasted ten years, of which only six weeks are captured in Homer’s account of Achilles’ wrath in The Iliad. Those years weren’t spent camped outside the high walls of the city, waiting for them to fall – not for Achilles. They were years when he and his Myrmidons raided up and down the coast of Asia sacking cities, enslaving those residents he didn’t destroy.
This is how the citizens of Colophon, a hilltop city three days' journey south of Smyrna, learned to rue Achilles’ name.
The city was named “Colophon” or “summit” for its commanding view of the landscape around it. It wound its way around two sides of a promontory that jutted out of the chain of coastal hills that parallel the southern coast of the Izmir Peninsula. And there were two summits really: a hilltop where lay the acropolis, or fort, and then – across a low saddle – another hilltop where lay the palace. Colophon was secure, surrounded by a city wall.
The broad Colophonian Plain north of the city shimmered in summer sunlight. One day a refugee staggered out of the haze and climbed the hill to the north gate. He was from Clazomenae, a port on the northern side of the peninsula.
Once inside the city the bedraggled refugee made his way to the palace.
It wasn’t easy. Colophon, with an acropolis at its crown, had been built on a curious plan. There were no straight streets or 90-degree corners. Instead homes were built side-by-side in a line that weaved too and fro, the bends of the lanes growing ever closer as one climbed the twin hills. Like Troy and other cities built at that time, the layout of Colophon was that of a labyrinth, not a grid, as seen in modern cities.
The purpose of this labyrinthine layout had several reasons. The first was defensive. Should an attacking force make it through one of the four gates of the city, they would soon be lost in a maze of streets and alleyways with defenders assaulting from all sides. The force would gradually erode until they reached the hilltop acropolis and were finished off by its barracks of fighting men.
The second purpose of the labyrinth was that it tied the city into a close knot. There were no neighborhoods in Colophon. One passed many homes just to go to the market or to draw water from a well. The furthest point in town was at either end of the serpentine streets – the north gate and the acropolis – and those points were only 100 meters apart.
A third use of the labyrinthine layout was spiritual. The world was full of evil spirits, it was thought, and even they could get lost in such a maze of twists and turns. The palace was safe from demons of the human and metaphysical kind – or so the Colophonians thought.
As the refugee left the maze of houses and approached the palace, however, it was clear that the labyrinth had not banished his demons. He wept and tore his clothes as he approached the king’s chamber.
The king left his alabaster throne and approached the weeping man. “What is the cause of such distress?” he asked. “What news from Clazomenae?”
“Sea raiders,” he told them. “Achaeans. They came from the east. We didn’t see them until they were already inside the gates. I watched from the forest where I had cut a load of firewood. A few hours later, a line of prisoners and cartloads of treasure bound for their ships. They were merciless.”
“You are safe here,” the king said, “far from the sea and its pirates.” The king gestured to the north, “Our chariots guard the plain and patrol the southern road to the sea. You are safe here.”
“I am not safe here,” the refugee said.
“Yes you are. If you go further south, you will meet the sea again. The Mycenaeneans strike along the sea, you said.”
The refugee shook his head and looked back over his shoulder toward the plain. “They strike – he strikes – wherever he wishes.”
His host pointed along the ridge westward at the cliffs and thick tangle of forests. “Anywhere?”
“That name,” the refugee shuddered, ignoring the king's gesture. “I’ll never forget that name. Achilles. He attacked my city – he and his Myrmidons. No one is safe. No one. Anywhere.”
The next morning the Clazomenaean refugee was gone.
The city leaders doubled patrols on the plain and up and down the Ales Valley to the south. From the city’s height, there would be warning of an invasion if the Myrmidons ventured this far inland.
* * * * *
Achilles, meanwhile, urged his ships onward. Captives from Clazomenae had told him of the wealth of Colophon: its fine horses, its citadel, and its temples stuffed with treasure. He returned to the Greek encampment at Troy, divided the Clazomenaean treasure with Agamemnon and the other Achaean chieftains, and rested.
Within weeks the desire for another raid arose in him, and when he suggested it to his men, they responded with a loud cheer.
The most deadly weapon in Achilles’ arsenal was not a spear, a sword, or a shield. It was speed. The element of surprise was worth two battalions in battle.
As the Colophonians patrolled the northern plain and the valley to their south, Achilles attacked.
From the southwest.
He landed at Lebedos – or the fishing village that would one day become the city of that name. Achilles’ 50 ships approached from the west, and by the time they beached on the small island, the residents had fled, leaving a couple of toothless old men to meet the raiders and know their aims.
There was little of value in the village huts other than fishing nets. Patroclus, second in command of the Myrmidons, had learned the local dialect of Greek, and he asked the old men about Colophon.
They pointed to gray cliffs to the northeast, towering above the coast. They made arcs with their arms: over those hills. There lay Colophon. Beyond steep slopes and sheer cliffs.
Achilles sent six scouts ahead. They left at a quick run, without shield, armed only with daggers.
The Myrmidons donned their battle armor: a small shield, two spears and a sword for each man. Black, polished helmets. Four hundred men lined up in pairs, with Achilles and Patrolus at the front. A small squad remained to guard the ships.
Four hundred Myrmidons left Lebedos at a steady jog, every step in tandem, inexorable. In less than an hour they reached the foothills and climbed, their path marked by the on-rushing scouts. They strained to keep pace on the upward slopes, still at a jog, moving from the shimmering heat of the coast into cool, shaded forests, their steps padded by pine needles.
It was rough terrain they crossed. Occasionally the columns parted, divided by an outcropping of rock or a stand of tightly bunched thorn bushes, but they never slowed, never relented. They rushed ever onward.
Beside a stream, two hours into the advance, they rested and reconnoitered. The scouts were waiting there. The city lay only one league further. Six gates. Chariots patrolled the northern and eastern gates. The force would target the southern gate, attempting to enter the city on the heels of the first watchmen to bring warning.
When the scouts were done, the Myrmidons looked to their leaders.
Patroclus smiled. “It’s not like a charge up the beach.”
“No, it’s better,” Achilles added. “The forest is the perfect cover. They will never see us coming. They won’t know where we have come from. They won’t see where we go to when we leave.”
“At some point their chariots will come into play,” Patroclus countered.
“Not if we get there first,” Achilles said.
“You propose to outrun a company of chariots?”
Achilles looked around at his panting men. He licked his lips and smiled. “We already have.”
Patroclus nodded, grinned, and looked out at the fixed faces of his fellow Myrmidons.
Achilles drew a plan of the city: its gates, its acropolis, based on the reports of the scouts. “From here on, it’s double-time, men,” he said. “May the spoils – and the glory – be ours.”
The force covered the final league – 5 kilometers – in 20 minutes.
The first to spot them were shepherds, a father and son, about half a league from the city. They turned and ran to deliver a warning. The Myrmidons caught the father and cut him down within a few paces. The boy, quicker, more agile, made it within sight of the south gate. His warning was cut short by an arrow shot through his throat.
“To arms! To arms!” the shocked watchman called from the watchtower. “Shut the south gate.”
But as soldiers raced to bar the gate, they found Achilles, Patroclus, and the vanguard already inside, spears in play. Defenders fell as Myrmidons poured through the gate, racing, focused on their assignments in the city.
From the gate, Achilles and the vanguard moved to the eastern gate, locked it, and entered the labyrinth. The south gate was closer to the acropolis, but the labyrinth twisted them about the streets.
Now fire became a weapon as deadly as spears. A defender hurled a rock from the top of a house, breaking an attacker’s collarbone.
Patroclus’s spear knocked the defender from his perch, and Patroclus set the home alight. The raiders rushed through the winding streets, and as they fought higher up the hill. Flames followed, or leaped alleyways at the bidding of the sea breeze that followed them into the city.
They hadn’t stopped running since their stop at the stream a league from the city. The incline of the way to the acropolis added energy to their legs. Some of the men whined or yipped like hounds on the trail of prey.
Achilles in the labyrinth was a sight to see. This was no mere attack for him. It was meditative, serene. He lost himself in the labyrinth’s twists and turns. In the brutality and violence of war, he seemed at peace: his eyes bright, a smile on his lips. He raced through the loops of the maze.
He was the demon. He was not lost. The labyrinth was his plaything.
A chariot driver out on the plain was the first to look homeward and see black smoke rising from the city. He called to his company, and they whipped their teams homeward to aid in the defense.
When they approached the north gate, they found it barred. Myrmidons launched a hail of arrows from the walls, driving them back.
The Colophonians looked up at the acropolis, their base. They saw hand-to-hand struggles there: the barracks on fire, defenders rushing about. One by one they saw comrades engage with the enemy and fall. The bronze armor of the Colophonians mixed with the black shields of the Myrmidons and pulsed in a desperate life-or-death dance.
They raced to the eastern gate. It was barred, too. They watched for 30 minutes.
The bronze shields on the acropolis began to fall or run away, swarmed by the relentless black-armored invaders. There were cries. These were drowned out by shouts. Some of the bronze soldiers broke away from the acropolis and rushed into the city, perhaps hoping to help loved ones escape the onslaught. They found death awaiting them there.
And then there were no bronze shields. Only black shields running about the acropolis, strapped to the backs of rapacious Myrmidons: racing in and out of the Temple of Ares, swarming in and out of the palace, carrying booty above their heads, dragging screaming women and children.
One soldier in black armor climbed back to the top of the summit-turned-roiling-anthill. Myrmidon soldiers fell away but continued to march about below the crest. The warrior removed his helmet, shook his long, red-blonde locks, raised his hands above his head, and roared.
“Ach - ill - ees.”
That name. The name that brought suffering to cities.
Over the clattering of chariot wheels and drumbeat of horses’ hooves outside the walls, the Colophonian soldiers heard it: “Ach - ill - ees.”
They shuddered at its sound and choked, their throats raspy with the smoke of their burning city. And they whipped their teams onward to prepare a counterattack at the pass – a place they would wait in vain for the Myrmidons.
“Ach - ill - ees.” A line of prisoners heard it as they were marched out the south gate and into the unguarded woods along the path southwestward towards Lebedos.
It echoed across that great Colophonian plain – towards ruined Clazomenae and further still towards Smyrna, pressed safely between the tip of its great bay and two sheltering mountains..
It echoes still today to those who view the rubble-strewn hill of Colophon and climb to its empty acropolis, its palace overgrown with coastal pines.
It follows, whispered by the wind, along the Myrmidons’ shaded trail to Lebedos, still winding through soft forests of pine until its sudden plunge toward the sea.
Postscript:
This story burst into my brain in late winter 2023 as I hiked from Colophon to the coast along the “Achilles Trail.” The site of Colophon had enchanted me, even though I had found on two trips there little more than a pile of rubble with a few sections of wall or foundation.
As I made my way through the woods and among the coastal hills towards Lebedos, I thought of Achilles’s attack and how his speed would have caused havoc in the city that seemed so well defended from the north, the east and the south.
The distance was vast. That day I hiked 23 km, one of the longest hikes in my route along the Efes-Mimas Trail. Half of the trail was wooded, but by the time it plunged from the cliffs down a hillside to the coast, the ingenuity of Achilles’ attack appeared as clear to me as if I had read it in Homer or Apollodorus.
Achilles was a man with a gift for violence, who found his calling on the battlefield at Troy and among the scattered towns along the eastern coast of the Aegean, which he ravaged in many of the ways he destroyed Colophon in this tale.
I have been to Clazomenaea and old Smyrna, sites that Apollodorus also includes in his list of “Hundred Cities” conquered by Achilles. But Colophon remains embedded in my imagination for its spectacular location as well as the utter ruin in which it exists in the present day.
History shows that Colophon endured. It was one of the great Ionion cities among which Homer lived and traveled with his tales of Achilles, Odysseus, and Hector. Eventually it would develop a great cavalry — a force that was in earlier drafts, but which I had to abandon as there were no cavalry forces at the time of the Trojan War in the early 12th Century BCE.
In the early Hellenistic Age, in the years following the death of Alexander, Colophon was conquered by Lysimachus, who moved its inhabitants to his growing capital of Ephesus, about 25 km away. By the end of the classical era, all traces of its civilization were gone, and they remain so today.
Western Turkey has many sites like Colophon: rubble-strewn citadels, places of both triumph and terror. They are open to those willing to follow the trail. As I learned on my hike, one never knows in whose footsteps they might follow here.