Now the making of the funeral pyre may begin. And, in preparation, Achilles will cut his own golden-blond hair, I.23.141, placing into the lifeless hands of Patroklos the long lock that he shears off, I.23.152–153. (What follows is epitomized from H24H 12§26a.) The long unshorn hair of Achilles had ostentatiously signaled his pre-adult status. Once his hair is cut short, he can become an adult. In this Homeric scene, as we see Achilles standing on the heights of the promontory that will become the setting for the tumulus that encloses his own body, he wistfully looks out over the seas of the outer Hellespont, fixing his gaze toward the far west, in the direction of his native land of Thessaly, and longing for the river Sperkheios that flows through that distant land: it was to the waters of that river, which he will never live to see again, that he had hoped to sacrifice his long hair after he came of age and was ready to cut it, I.23.142-153. But now Achilles cuts his long hair prematurely and unseasonally as he stands there on the promontory, I.23.142. Meanwhile, the Myrmidons led by Achilles will anticipate his example, likewise cutting their hair, I.23.135-136. (At H24H 14§26a, I need to clarify what I say about I.23.135–136: it is only the Myrmidons, not the Achaeans en masse, who cut their hair here.) This ritual gesture of cutting the hair in mourning for Patroklos will later be extended after Achilles himself is killed: what then happens at his own funeral is that all the Achaeans, not only the Myrmidons, will join in the same gesture: as we learn at O.24.046, all the Danaoi=Achaeans will cut their hair for Achilles. But now, at I.23.138–153, Achilles himself will show the way by cutting his own hair, thus prefiguring what all the Achaeans will do en masse at his own funeral. Do as I do. Achilles shows the way to mourn him later by now cutting his own hair in mourning for his other self Patroklos. Moreover, this same ritual gesture of cutting the hair in response to the death of Achilles becomes an aetiology for explaining why it is that Greek men of the post-heroic age customarily wear their hair short, not long—except for such notable counter-examples as the Spartans. In a work of Philostratus, On Heroes (51.13), we read the following succinct formulation of an aetiology for this generalized Greek custom: ‘no longer could they [= the Achaeans] consider it a beautiful thing to grow their hair long, in the time after Achilles’ (οὐδὲ κομᾶν ἔτι μετὰ τὸν Ἀχιλλέα καλὸν ἡγούμενοι). In the wording of this aetiology, it is as if the death of Achilles were the single reason that explains why adult men of the post-heroic age no longer wore their hair long. It is as if all the ‘sons of the Achaeans’ were now ready to shift from pre-adult to adult status—once Achilles was dead and buried. The term ‘sons of the Achaeans’—as the Achaean warriors are conventionally described in the Iliad (I.01.162 and so on)—implies a pre-adult status for all those ‘boys’ who fought in the Trojan War. But now those fighting ‘boys’ of the heroic age have reached a post-heroic maturity that inaugurates a post-heroic age.