Achilleid

The Achilleid (; ) is an unfinished epic poem by Publius Papinius Statius that was intended to present the life of Achilles from his youth to his death at Troy. Only about one and a half books (1,127 dactylic hexameters) were completed before the poet's death. What remains is an account of the hero's early life with the centaur Chiron, and an episode in which his mother, Thetis, disguised him as a girl on the island of Scyros, before he joined the Greek expedition against Troy.

==Composition== Based upon three references to the poem in the Silvae, the Achilleid seems to have been composed between 94 and 96 CE. At Silvae 4. 7. 21–24, Statius complains that he lacks the motivation to make progress upon his "Achilles" without the company of his friend C. Vibius Maximus who was travelling in Dalmatia (and to whom poem is addressed). Statius apparently overcame this self-described writer's block, for in a poem from the posthumously published fifth book of the Silvae he refers to an upcoming recitation of a section from the Achilleid. This reference is believed to date from the summer of 95, and Statius presumably died later that year or early in the next, leaving the Achilleid unfinished.