# Achilles Restrained by Athena in Agamemnon's Tent, from Iliad, Book I

- By: Johan Tobias Sergel (Swedish, 1740-1814)
- Date: 1765/66
- Medium: Black chalk on cream laid paper
- Classification: Drawing and Watercolor
- Dimensions: 43 × 34.7 cm (16 15/16 × 13 11/16 in.)
- Culture: Sweden
- Credit line: Gift of Richard and Mary L. Gray
- Museum: [Art Institute of Chicago](https://www.artic.edu/artworks/241157)
- Rights: [Public domain (CC0)](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)
- Picture: https://www.artic.edu/iiif/2/1e72915a-8336-629f-6159-7523ac5a850e/full/843,/0/default.jpg
- Who can see it: Teens profiles and older (museums give no ratings; placed by Invisible Network from the museum's own words)

This drawing by Sweden’s most important Neoclassical sculptor and draftsman depicts a scene from Homer’s Iliad, set during the Trojan War. Chryses, a Trojan priest of Apollo, prays to Apollo for help after Agamemnon, the leader of the Greek army, has refused to return his kidnapped daughter. In response, Apollo inflicts a plague upon the Greeks. Agamemnon returns Chryses’s daughter, but demands Chryses’s second kidnapped daughter, who is held by Achilles, in exchange. Enraged, Achilles draws his sword on Agamemnon, at which point Athena intervenes, as seen in the drawing.

Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0