text: In Roman and medieval literature The Romans, who traditionally traced their lineage to Troy, took a highly negative view of Achilles.Virgil refers to Achilles as a savage and a merciless butcher of men, while Horace portrays Achilles ruthlessly slaying women and children.Other writers, such as Catullus, Propertius, and Ovid, represent a second strand of disparagement, with an emphasis on Achilles' erotic career.This strand continues in Latin accounts of the Trojan War by writers such as Dictys Cretensis and Dares Phrygius and in Benoît de Sainte-Maure's and Guido delle Colonne's Historia destructionis Troiae, which remained the most widely read and retold versions of the Matter of Troy until the 17th century.Achilles was described by the Byzantine chronicler Leo the Deacon, not as Hellene, but as Scythian, while according to the Byzantine author John Malalas, his army was made up of a tribe previously known as Myrmidons and later as Bulgars.In modern literature and arts Literature Achilles appears in Dante's Inferno (composed 1308–1320).He is seen in Hell's second circle, that of lust.Achilles is portrayed as a former hero who has become lazy and devoted to the love of Patroclus, in William Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida (1602).Despicably, he has his Myrmidons murder the unarmed Hector, and then gets them to announce that Achilles himself has slain Hector, as if it had been in a fair fight (Act 5.9.5-14).The French dramatist Thomas Corneille wrote a tragedy La Mort d'Achille (1673).Achilles is the subject of the poem Achilleis (1799), a fragment by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.In 1899, the Polish playwright, painter and poet Stanisław Wyspiański published a national drama, based on Polish history, named Achilles.In 1921, Edward Shanks published The Island of Youth and Other Poems, concerned among others with Achilles.The 1983 novel Kassandra by Christa Wolf also treats the death of Achilles.H.D.