From N.S. Gill,
Your Guide to Ancient / Classical History.
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Definition: Achilles is the quintessentially heroic subject of Homer's Iliad.

Achilles is part of the Achaean force Agamemnon takes to Troy to win back Helen for Agamemnon's brother Menelaus. Proud and autocratic Agamemnon antagonizes Achilles, and so Achilles sits out the fighting. At long last, Achilles is motivated by revenge to join the fray after his friend Patroclus is killed by Hector, the greatest of the Trojans. In a rage, Achilles kills Hector and then dishonors the body by dragging it around in a chariot for 9 days. The gods keep the corpse miraculously sound during this time. Then the father of Hector, King Priam, appealing to the better nature of Achilles, persuades him to return Hector's corpse to his family in Troy for proper funeral rites.

Achilles was the son of the mortal Peleus and the nymph Thetis. Thetis tried to make her son immortal by dipping him into the River Styx, while holding him by his ankle. His ankle was therefore the only portion of him capable of sustaining a mortal wound, which he received from a goddess-guided arrow shot by Paris of Troy. The mortality of Achilles is also explained as having been caused by an unsuccessful application of the treatment for immortality -- ambrosia by day and fire by night, which was a technique the goddess Demeter once tried.

Achilles Genealogy
Family tree of Achilles showing his relatives through to Chaos on both Achilles' mother Thetis and father Peleus' sides.

Review Achilles, by Elizabeth Cook

Pronunciation: a-kil'-eaz or a-kil'-yoos • (noun)

Alternate Spellings: Achilleus