Genealogy of Achilles

As you can see from TABLE 1, which shows the great Greek hero Achilles, his parents, two of grandparents, and four of his great-grandparents, the parents of Achilles were Thetis and Peleus. Thetis was a nymph and an immortal, but Peleus was human. Earlier, both the gods Poseidon and Zeus had been interested in marrying or at least mating with Thetis, but they had given up because of a prophecy that the son of Thetis would eclipse his father in fame. So, instead, the mortal Peleus married Thetis, instead.

The parents of Peleus were Aiacos (making him grandfather of Achilles) and Endeis (making her a grandmother of Achilles). The parents of Aiacos (or the great-grandparents of Achilles) were Zeus and Aegina.

In the family tree of Achilles, Zeus comes up several times. One of the more famous mortal sons of Zeus was Tantalus -- the one who served up his own son Pelops at a feast for the gods. The goddess Demeter, who was mourning the loss of her daughter Persephone, was too distracted to notice the feast meal consisted of human flesh, so she ate the shoulder of Pelops before the gods could restore Pelops to life. After they did revivify Pelops, Demeter replaced the missing part with an ivory shoulder. For his crime, Tantalus was sentenced to eternal suffering in the Underworld.

In the family tree of Achilles, Pelops appears as the parent of a son named Sciron [see TABLE 4]. This would make Sciron a brother of Atreus (as in the cursed House of Atreus) and Thyestes. The Athenian hero Theseus later killed Sciron.

The gods made Pelops more beautiful than ever when they resurrected him. His beauty was so great the god Poseidon fell in love him. Poseidon remained so enamored he helped Pelops in his quest for a mate, by enabling Pelops to defeat the more than overbearing father of Hippodamia, Oenomaus. Pelops then commemorated his victory over Oenomaus with the first Olympic Games.