Achilles was a central hero in the ancient Greek tradition, even though he doesn't necessarily
meet the modern conception of a hero.
His name is familiar to many, but there's a lot more to him than the phrase "Achilles'
heel."
This is the mythology of Achilles explained.
There are two main stories regarding the origin of Achilles, both of which involve the chief
Greek god Zeus.
The first story tells how both Zeus and his brother Poseidon had fallen in love with the
sea nymph Thetis.
So Themis , the goddess of Justice, made a prophecy that if one of the two gods had a
child with Thetis, that child would be more powerful than his father.
Both Zeus and Poseidon had personal experience with this sort of thing.
Zeus had killed and overthrown his father Cronus for eating his brothers and sisters,
and he also managed to get his father to upchuck Poseidon and the others.
Since patricide was a real concern, Zeus and Poseidon arranged to marry Thetis off to the
mortal Peleus.
The other, less dramatic version of the story is that Thetis brushed off Zeus's godly moves.
As a result, Zeus declared that Thetis would never marry a god, and thus, she ended up
with Peleus.
Peleus was honored by the arrangement, since it wasn't often that a mortal man had an opportunity
to marry a divine being.
But Thetis wasn't very happy.
She ran away, but with the help of a centaur, Peleus managed to capture her.
Thetis was humiliated at being forced to marry Peleus.
There was no way any child of hers was going to be just a regular mortal.
She had given birth to six children before Achilles, and she sought to see if any of
them were immortal, either by putting them in fire or boiling them in a cauldron.
Neither method revealed any immortal children, so Achilles ended up becoming an only child.
In fact, when Thetis decided to try holding Achilles over a divine fire by the heel, Peleus
stepped in to prevent it.
A more well-known version of Achilles' childhood is that Thetis, still motivated to make her
son immortal, dipped him into the River Styx by the heel.
Styx was one of the rivers of the Underworld, and its representation of death reflected
the powers that were imbued into the infant Achilles.
Thetis obviously was not an ideal parent.
There is a myth that she abandoned Peleus, leaving him alone with their son.
Another story tells that Thetis remained with the family and even packed Achilles' chest
when he headed off to the Trojan War.
Either way, most of the traditions agree that at some point while Achilles was still a child,
Peleus handed him over to Chiron the centaur to be educated.
The half-man, half-horse centaurs were considered to be wild and lawless creatures who lived
in drunken debauchery.
But Chiron was the exception, as he was considered wise and righteous.
Some mythical traditions hold that Chiron fed Achilles a diet of boar and lion entrails,
as well as the marrow of bear bones, to impart to him the strength of those beasts.
Other stories contend that the hero was given a gentler diet of deer marrow and honey comb.
Chiron also taught Achilles healing and how to play the lyre, as well as how to hunt and
how to wage war.
In fact, the spear that Achilles famously used at Troy was Chiron's.
A seminal part of Achilles' youth was developing a close bond with Patroclus, who would become
his lifelong companion.
Patroclus joined Achilles' household as an exile after having accidently killed another
child.
The two became the closest of friends.
In fact, the death of Patroclus in The Iliad is a key plot point that spurs Achilles back
into battle against the Trojans.
There's a longstanding speculation that Achilles and Patroclus were lovers.
According to the scholarly article "Achilles and Patroclus in Love" by W.M.
Clark, even some ancient writers believed this.
As Ancient World Magazine suggests, their close relationship might be similar to that
of comrades-in-arms who go through intense combat experiences together.
While Iliad author Homer never explicitly states that there was a physical relationship
between the two, they were obviously intimate on some level.
At one point in The Iliad after Patroclus dies, Achilles says,
"The man I loved beyond all other comrades, loved as my own life — I've lost him."
"Hector cut his throat."
Since Achilles was so powerful, it was prophesied that the Greeks could win the Trojan War only
with his help.
But another prophecy foretold that he would die in the war.
This troubled his parents, who hid him on the island of Skyros dressed as a girl.
But the Greeks dispatched the wily Odysseus to retrieve him.
Odysseus presented gifts to the ladies at court that included jewelry, mirrors, and
a sword and shield.
When Achilles immediately went for the sword and shield, his disguise was uncovered and
he was enlisted into the war.
Achilles arrived in Troy with 50 ships and elite warriors called the Myrmidons, who comprised
some of the best warriors that the Greeks had.
But according to Homer's depiction, the ancient Greeks who fought at Troy weren't capable
of maintaining order.
There are instances recounted in The Iliad of the Myrmidons marching to war.
But when it came to battle, they broke order and the fight became completely disordered
as each individual sought their own glory.
In the mythological tales, only rarely do the Myrmidons, or any of the ancient Greek
forces, demonstrate any sort of tactical sense.
Where Achilles really shone was in his own ability in individual combat.
He was basically the Greek superweapon, though he was largely kept at bay for the first nine
years of the Trojan War.
He and the Myrmidons sacked 12 cities by sea and 11 by land.
Unfortunately, not much is known about the early years of the war.
However, it was in these raids that Achilles captured the women Briseis and Chryseis . As
recounted in The Iliad, Achilles gave Chryseis to Agamemnon, but Chryseis' father offered
a ransom for her.
Initially Agamemnon refused, but after divine action by Apollo that caused a plague, he
gave her up.
So instead he then seized Briseis.
The Iliad is unclear about whether or not Achilles loved Briseis.
In some sections, he does indeed declare his love for her, but then later he makes dismissive
statements about her.
Either way, Achilles was insulted by Agamemnon's action, as he considered it overreaching arrogance.
The Iliad describes how Achilles refused to fight in the wake of Agamemnon seizing Briseis.
The Trojans led by Prince Hector were then able to make gains against the Greeks.
With things looking quite grim, Agamemnon begged Achilles to rejoin the fight by offering
Briseis to him, along with some treasure.
But a sulky Achilles refused, even after Odysseus tried to guilt him into it by describing how
many Greeks would die if he didn't rejoin the fight.
That prediction proved to be very true.
Hector and the Trojans drove the Greeks back and set some of their ships ablaze.
Patroclus then begged Achilles to allow him to lead the Myrmidons into battle, even if
Achilles himself wouldn't go.
Achilles agreed and let Patroclus wear his armor to lead a defensive action.
Patroclus was very successful at first, but then he became overconfident and led a rash
charge.
After intervention by Apollo, he was struck by a spear.
The wounded Patroclus was then finished off by the spear of Hector, who seized Achilles'
armor and wore it himself.
"I gave the dead boy the honor he deserved."
"You gave him the honor of your sword."
Achilles was famous for his rage.
In fact, Robert Fagles' translation of The Iliad begins with,
"Rage — Goddess, sing the rage of Peleus' son Achilles, murderous, doomed, that cost
the Achaeans countless losses."
That rage was first directed at Agamemnon, and then it was even more mightily apparent
after Patroclus' death, when only blood could console Achilles.
First, he vowed vengeance to his mother, who appeared to him at this hour.
Thetis then arranged to have the divine craftsman Hephaestus create a new set of armor for her
son.
It was gold and couldn't be pierced by arrows.
Achilles first had a big reconciliation feast with Agamemnon, but he was more interested
in killing Hector to avenge Patroclus' death.
So he led his Myrmidons on a killing spree, driving the Trojans back into the city.
At one point, so many Trojans stained the River Xanthos with their blood that the river
god rose in protest to chase Achilles off.
"Is there no one else?!"
Eventually, Achilles cornered Hector before the gates of Troy.
The city was watching, including Hector's father, King Priam.
When Hector saw Achilles heading his way, he threw his spear, which promptly bounced
off of Achilles' upgraded armor.
Hector then attempted to make a run for it.
The chase looped around the city three times, before Achilles thrust his spear into Hector's
throat.
Hector begged at Achilles' knees for his body to be returned back to Troy.
But alas Achilles responded,
"Dog, talk not to me neither of knees nor parents; would that I could be as sure of
being able to cut your flesh into pieces and eat it raw, for the ill have done me, as I
am that nothing shall save you from the dogs.
"
According to The Iliad, in Hector's last words to Achilles, he prophesied the hero's death
at the hands of Apollo and Paris.
Achilles hardly seemed to care, though.
Instead, he took Hector's body and dragged it behind his chariot before the gates of
Troy and then returned to the Greek encampment.
He also held funeral games for Patroclus, which included chariot races.
It was hardly a completely fun time devoid of strife, though.
The gods were furious with Achilles for his desecration of Hector's body.
Hector's father Priam arrived in the Greek camp with the help of the messenger god Hermes.
He begged Achilles to give back the body with a speech that in part said:
"Think of your father, O Achilles like unto the gods, who is such even as I am, on the
sad threshold of old age.
It may be that those who dwell near him harass him, and there is none to keep war and ruin
from him.
Yet when he hears of you being still alive, he is glad, and his days are full of hope
that he shall see his dear son come home to him from Troy; but I, wretched man that I
am, had the bravest in all Troy for my sons, and there is not one of them left."
This moved Achilles to ultimately relent and return the body to Priam.
The Iliad ends there, although the story of Achilles continues on for a short while more.
The myth of Achilles ends with his fated death.
He continued to dominate the stage in the final days of the war, with slayings of the
King of the Ethiopians and the Queen of the Amazons.
But as the Greeks pushed towards the city, Hector's brother Paris shot an arrow that
was guided by Apollo and struck Achilles' vulnerable heel.
There has been some speculation about how a wound to the heel could cause death, as
it is a non-vital body part, even among mortals.
The scholarly article "Achilles' Heel" by Jonathan Burgess considers various metaphysical
reasons, the possible use of poison arrows, and the possibility that Paris' arrow immobilized
Achilles long enough for a final blow to be struck in a more vulnerable area.
After the events of The Iliad, Achilles made one last appearance as a ghost in The Odyssey,
where he lamented his own death.
Because of his central role in the works of Homer, Achilles' mythology has been one of
the most popular subjects of antiquity.
Ultimately, his story can still resonate with readers today, with its themes of fate, raw
emotion, and deep flaws in character.
"Forget me not."
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