Patroklos confronts Apollo four times and then backs off, thus avoiding the mēnis ‘anger’ of the god, I.16.711. At the moment of his climactic fourth confrontation with Apollo, Patroklos is described as daimoni isos ‘equal to a daimōn’, I.16.705. The ‘superhuman force’ to which this word daimōn refers here can be understood to be Apollo himself. We see here a climactic moment in a pattern of divine-human antagonism that links the god Apollo with the hero Achilles, but Patroklos can now take upon himself the role of a ritual substitute for Achilles.