Alcimus Character Analysis in The Silence of the Girls

A young follower of Greek warrior Achilles, Alcimus develops a crush on enslaved Trojan queen Briseis and tries to do favors for her. After Achilles learns that Briseis is pregnant with his child, he asks Alcimus to marry Briseis, take her to Achilles’s father’s court, and protect her and Achilles’s baby in the event of Achilles’s death. The morning of the day that Achilles dies in battle, he has a priest marry Alcimus and Briseis, rendering Briseis a free woman.

Alcimus Character Timeline in The Silence of the Girls

The timeline below shows where the character Alcimus appears in The Silence of the Girls. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.

Achilles, Patroclus, and Achilles’s two main attendants Alcimus and Automedon enter the laundry hut. Patroclus explains they have brought funeral clothing and coins... (full context)

Alcimus rushes in and announces that Agamemnon’s heralds have arrived. Achilles tells Patroclus to go get... (full context)

Mythology and Oppressed Perspectives Theme Icon

...morning and saw Patroclus standing naked in front of his mirror. In a flashback, when Alcimus comes in with Achilles’s armor, Achilles dismisses him, choosing to put the armor on Patroclus... (full context)

...yet” and assumes Achilles is telling the body that he hasn’t yet killed Hector. Occasionally Alcimus peeks in, and he and Briseis see Achilles standing by Patroclus—who is raised on a... (full context)

Briseis doesn’t attend Patroclus’s cremation: women aren’t allowed. Alcimus tells her about it later, stuttering as if fearful both of and for Achilles. Evidently,... (full context)

...that night. Briseis, terrified, waits until Achilles has had some after-dinner wine with Automedon and Alcimus to enter Achilles’s room. Once alone in the room with Achilles, Briseis asks why he... (full context)

...the dark. Briseis is terrified of Achilles’s loss of “humanity” and senses that Automedon and Alcimus are too. She wonders how she can escape the “never-ending cycle of hatred and revenge”... (full context)

...can eat until Achilles does, so he pretends to eat. Afterward, he orders his companions Alcimus and Automedon away. Though he recognizes that Alcimus is good and brave (if foolish) and... (full context)

Achilles takes Priam into his own rooms, where there’s more privacy. Alcimus and Automedon follow. Achilles yells for Briseis to bring wine and orders Alcimus and Automedon... (full context)

Briseis goes with Achilles, Alcimus, and Automedon to the stable yard. The men lift Hector’s corpse, carry it to the... (full context)

Achilles orders Alcimus and Automedon to leave. The two men, though shocked, obey. Briseis suggests that she could... (full context)

Achilles and Briseis finish preparing Hector’s corpse in silence. Once the body is ready, Alcimus and Automedon try to help Achilles carry it out, but Achilles insists on carrying it... (full context)

When Achilles, Alcimus, Automedon, and Briseis have had their wine, Achilles wishes the other two men goodnight. They... (full context)

...the yard and goes to heat water for Priam to wash with. Unexpectedly, Automedon and Alcimus approach. She gives them her alibi; when she lifts the water bowl, Alcimus offers to... (full context)

When Briseis, Alcimus, and Automedon reach the veranda steps, she tells them she’ll take it from there: Priam... (full context)

Briseis helps Priam walk as he, Achilles, Automedon, and Alcimus process toward Priam’s cart in the stable yard. At the cart, Alcimus raises a torch... (full context)

Achilles insists that he and Priam drink “the parting cup” before Priam leaves. Automedon and Alcimus exchange annoyed glances at this delay, and Briseis finds it confusing too—but she thinks she... (full context)

After dinner, Alcimus plays the lyre and Automedon the double flute while Achilles’s preferred songs—about men’s heroic exploits—are... (full context)

...meetings end. When he gets back to his quarters, he polishes his new armor with Alcimus—ignoring Automedon’s disapproving expression at Achilles doing a subordinate’s labor. (full context)

...isn’t gone but in front of him just out of sight. He tells Automedon and Alcimus stories about Patroclus from the first years of the war and Briseis stories about his... (full context)

...him play when he tells her he’s just remembered something and goes outside yelling for Alcimus. Achilles sits Alcimus down in the hall, pours him a drink, and says that Briseis... (full context)

The morning the battle-cessation ends, Achilles yells for Alcimus while Briseis is eating dry bread for breakfast. A priest walks in and marries Briseis... (full context)

...be sacrificed than live a slave. The other women are taken away one by one. Alcimus is the man who takes Andromache away—which hurts: Briseis has been trying not to interact... (full context)

...by the smell of bodies in the hut, Briseis goes outside for air. She sees Alcimus approaching carrying a heavy shield and a small child’s dead body. He explains that Andromache... (full context)

Alcimus carries the child’s body into the Trojan women’s hut and places him at Hecuba’s feet.... (full context)

...burial mound. When one Greek tries to stop her, another explains that she’s married to Alcimus and is allowed to pass. Remembering the phrase “silence becomes a woman,” she rolls Polyxena’s... (full context)

...into a love story and “hope[s] they manage to work out who the lovers were.” Alcimus comes to lead Briseis down to the ships, and she thinks that she is leaving... (full context)