stylistic:style_transfer, linguistic:translation
Fate of Achilles' armour

Achilles' armour was the object of a feud between Odysseus and Telamonian Ajax (Ajax the greater). They competed for it by giving speeches on why they were the bravest after Achilles to their Trojan prisoners, who, after considering both men's presentations, decided Odysseus was more deserving of the armour. Furious, Ajax cursed Odysseus, which earned him the ire of Athena, who temporarily made Ajax so mad with grief and anguish that he began killing sheep, thinking them his comrades. After a while, when Athena lifted his madness and Ajax realized that he had actually been killing sheep, he was so ashamed that he committed suicide. Odysseus eventually gave the armour to Neoptolemus, the son of Achilles. When Odysseus encounters the shade of Ajax much later in the House of Hades (Odyssey 11.543–566), Ajax is still so angry about the outcome of the competition that he refuses to speak to Odysseus.

The armour they fought for was made by Hephaestus and thus much stronger and more beautiful than any armour a mortal could craft. Thetis had the gear made for Achilles because his first set was worn by Patroclus when he went to battle and taken by Hector when he killed Patroclus. The Shield of Achilles was also made by the fire god. His legendary spear was given to him by his mentor Chiron before he participated in the Trojan War. It was called the Pelian Spear, which allegedly no other man could wield.

A relic claimed to be Achilles' bronze-headed spear was preserved for centuries in the temple of Athena on the acropolis of Phaselis, Lycia, a port on the Pamphylian Gulf. The city was visited in 333 BC by Alexander the Great, who envisioned himself as the new Achilles and carried the Iliad with him, but his court biographers do not mention the spear; however, it was shown in the time of Pausanias in the 2nd century CE.