The Achilleis, the second epic poem by the imperial poet Publius Papinius Statius, remains a fragment, but even in this state it offers fascinating reading: the prototypical epic hero Achilles appears in an episode before the Trojan War that shows him from an unfamiliar side, as a young man searching for his own identity. This bilingual edition is only the second translation into German and is supplemented by a detailed introduction and explanations that reveal the literary versatility of the work