Achilles - in Greek mythology, son of the mortal Peleus, king of the Myrmidons,
and the Nereid, or sea nymph, Thetis. He was the bravest, handsomest, and greatest
warrior of the army of Agamemnon
in the Trojan War. According to Homer, Achilles was brought up by his mother at
Phthia with his cousin and inseparable companion Patroclus. One of the non-Homeric
tales of his childhood relates that Thetis dipped Achilles in the waters of the
River Styx, by which he became invulnerable, except for the part of his heel by
which she held him--the proverbial "Achilles' heel." The later mythographers related
that Peleus, having received an oracle that his son would die fighting at Troy,
sent Achilles to the court of Lycomedes on Scyros, where he was dressed as a girl
and kept among the king's daughters (one of whom, Deïdamia, bore him Neoptolemus).
Hearing from the soothsayer Calchas
that Troy
could not be taken without Achilles, the Greeks searched for and found him. During
the first nine years of the war, Achilles ravaged the country around Troy
and took 12 cities. In the 10th year a quarrel with Agamemnon
occurred when Achilles insisted that Agamemnon
restore Chryseis,
his prize of war, to her father, a priest of Apollo,
so as to appease the wrath of Apollo,
who had decimated the camp with a pestilence. An irate Agamemnon
recouped his loss by depriving Achilles of his favourite slave, Briseis.
Achilles refused further service, and consequently the Greeks floundered so badly
that at last Achilles allowed Patroclus to impersonate him, lending him his chariot
and armour. Hector
(the eldest son of King Priam
of Troy)
slew Patroclus, and Achilles, having finally reconciled with Agamemnon,
obtained new armour from the god Hephaestus and slew Hector.
After dragging Hector's body behind his chariot, Achilles gave it to Priam at
his earnest entreaty. The Iliad
concludes with the funeral rites of Hector. It makes no mention of the death of
Achilles, though the Odyssey
mentions his funeral. The poet Arctinus in his Aethiopis took up the story of
the Iliad and related that Achilles, having slain the Ethiopian king Memnon and
the AmazonPenthesilea,
was himself slain in battle by Priam's son Paris,
whose arrow was guided by Apollo.