The Greatest Warrior in Greece: Achilles - Greek Mythology Explained

Welcome to Mythology Explained- today we’re going to be discussing Achilles. Achilles was the son of Peleus and Thetis. Pelus was the king of Phthia, which was either a city or district in Thessaly, and the grandson of Zeus, making Achilles the great-grandson of Zeus. Thetis was a sea-goddess and one of 50 Nereids, a group of sea-nymphs who were the daughters of Nereus, who was a sea-god and the son of Gaia, the personification of the earth, and of Pontus, the personification of the sea.

When Zeus found out that any children he sired by Thetis would be more powerful than himself, he decided to marry off Thetis to Peleus, a mortal man, to forestall any such eventuality. Another version has Zeus marry Thetis to a mortal after she rejects his advance. Thetis and Peleus’ marriage is a very important piece of this story, for it was the impetus that catalyzed the Trojan War, the conflict that would claim Achilles' life. You could say that it was the marriage of Achilles’ own parents that was the architect of the hero’s own doom.

The wedding was a grand affair. All of the gods were in attendance. That is, all of the gods except for Eris, the goddess of strife, who was intentionally snubbed by not being extended an invitation. Being deliberately excluded didn’t sit well with Eris, and so she devised a subtle and insidious plan. Her invitation be damned, she showed up at the wedding. She brought with her a golden apple inscribed with the words, “for the fairest”. Three goddesses, Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite, strode forward to claim the gift for their own, each goddess asserting that it was she who was the most beautiful and, thus, the rightful recipient of the apple. This dispute was a matter of deep contention between the three, so it was decided that Paris, a prince of Troy, was to be the arbiter who would adjudicate. Each goddess attempted to bribe him. Hera offered an expansive kingdom, Athena, victory in war, and Aphrodite, the most beautiful woman in all the world. Paris was most seduced by Aphrodite’s offer, and so it was she who was declared most beautiful. The prince promptly set sail for Sparta where he took Helen back to Troy with him, either willingly or unwillingly, depending on the version. This theft precipitated the Trojan war. Menelaus, Helen’s husband, and Agamemnon rallied all of Greece’s armies, setting sail with a thousand ships to assail the walls of Troy. And it would be this war that would prove the defining chapter of Achilles’ life.

When Achilles was but an infant, his mother contrived to make him immortal. There are two versions of this. The first is that she placed him atop fiery embers at night and then anointed him with ambrosia during the day. Peleus, fearing that his son would be burned to death, put an end to this process before the transformation was complete, leaving Achilles mortal. The second version is perhaps the better known of the two. It entails Achilles’ mother holding him by his heels and dipping him into the river Styx, one of the rivers of the underworld. This was done successfully, but the process was ultimately flawed; for it left Achilles with two vulnerable areas, two chinks in his otherwise impervious body: his heels.

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