Question: What Is an Achilles Heel?
What is the mythological reference to an Achilles Heel or Achilles' Heel?
Answer: The story of Achilles includes the attempt by his mother, the nymph Thetis, to make her son immortal. There are various versions of this, including her putting him in fire or water or anointing him, but the one version that has struck the popular imagination is the one with the Achilles Heel. In this version, found at its earliest in the first century A.D. written form in Statius' Achilleid 1.133-34 -- not that it wasn't familiar before then -- Thetis holds her son Achilles by his left ankle while she dips him in the River Styx. By this means, Achilles is made immortal on all surfaces touched by the river's water. Unfortunately, Achilles' heel is still mortal, so when the arrow of Paris (possibly guided by Apollo) hits Achilles in the ankle, Achilles is mortally wounded. An Achilles Heel is therefore a point of vulnerability or a soft spot.
