In this retrospective, it is said that Patroklos has been killed as a therapōn of Achilles, who is described here as ‘best of the Achaeans’. The immediate context accommodates here even the deeper meaning of therapōn as ‘ritual substitute’, since Patroklos himself could become temporarily the ‘best of the Achaeans’ at the moment of his death. At that moment, he is substituting himself for Achilles by prefiguring a future moment, beyond the Iliad, when Achilles will die in a way that matches the way that Patroklos died in Iliad 16.