Phoinix is Peleus’s most trusted advisor who helps raise Achilles; he later accompanies Achilles and Patroclus to Troy. When Thetis takes Achilles to Scyros, Phoinix is the one to tell Patroclus that he’s gone—he’s a kind and gentle man, and he seems to understand that Achilles and Patroclus love each other romantically. He disapproves of Achilles’s pride in Troy and his refusal to defer to Agamemnon, and he later helps Patroclus and Briseis teach the Trojan women Achilles “claims” as war spoils. Though Phoinix wants Achilles to return and help the Greek army after Achilles’s quarrel with Agamemnon, he doesn’t try to convince him directly. Instead, he tells Patroclus and Achilles a story about the hero Meleager and his wife, Cleopatra, who begged her husband to fight in battle to save his people. Though Meleager did this, his people hated him for how slow he was to help. This story is meant to convince Patroclus to beg Achilles to fight, which he eventually does.