Achilles - the Loves, Weak Spot, Transvestism, and Valor of a Greek Hero

By N.S. Gill, About.com Guide

Reliefs From The Sebasteion of Aphrodisas: Achilles and Penthesilea

CC Flickr User Ken and Nyetta

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Name: Achilles - Ἀχιλλεύς
Parents: Peleus and Thetis
Offspring: Neoptolemus, son of Deidamia
Place of Death: Troy
Occupation: Legendary Hero

Achilles, the greatest and fastest hero on the Greek side during the Trojan War, is the subject of Homer's great epic poem about the Trojan War, the Iliad.

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Family:

Achilles was the son of Thetis, a nymph, who had attracted the wandering eyes of Zeus and Poseidon, but then, the mischievous Titan Prometheus revealed a prophecy that made the gods lose interest. He told them that Thetis' son would be greater than his father. Neither Zeus nor Poseidon was willing to risk losing his position, so they turned their attentions elsewhere and gave Thetis up to a mortal.

Thetis married King Peleus, instead of the king of the gods or the ruler of the seas. Their union, not notoriously happy, produced the child Achilles.

As was true for the most famous of the ancient heroes from Greek myth and legend, the centaur Chiron raised Achilles.

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Achilles' Heel:

In one version of Achilles' life, in an effort to make her son immortal, Achilles' mother, Thetis, held her son by the ankle while dipping him into the River Styx. This made Achilles invulnerable except where her fingers gripped him. Since his vulnerable spot was his heel, the term Achilles' heel is used for someone's weak spot.

During the course of the Trojan War, Achilles was injured, so his invulnerability wasn't total, but then, the immortal goddess Aphrodite was injured, too.

Note that there are other versions of the story, including a fire rite that closely resembles the story of Demeter and Triptolemus.

Related Articles:

Demeter Wants Her Daughter Back [See sections on Demeter getting a job and the next one, on conferring immortality]
Demeter and Persephone Consecrate Triptolemus

Achilles the Transvestite:

Achilles was obliged to join the Achaean forces when Agamemnon summoned them to fight for Helen at Troy. His nymph mother wasn't too keen on this because, being at least extremely long-lived, if not immortal, she feared for the life of her mortal son.

To keep Achilles from the carnage, Thetis sent him to Lycomedes' court dressed in women's garments. There he lived among young women, most of whom remained in ignorance about his gender.

Acting as an agent of King Agamemnon, Odysseus knew how to trick him out of hiding. He brought trinkets to sell the young women, but stuck in among them an item that would reveal a man of that time period: a sword. Odysseus had judged correctly. When Achilles saw the sword it was all over. To put it in our terms, he was drafted. Achilles led his men, known as the Myrmidons, to Troy.

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Achilles and Briseis:

Briseis was a war prize Achilles won when the Greeks defeated King Mynes of Lyrnessus, an ally of Troy. She was the king's daughter.

Achilles and his captive seem to have fallen in love, so that when the Mycenaean King Agamemnon demanded that Achilles give him Briseis, Achilles was furious and refused to fight for him any longer.

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Achilles and Patroclus:

Patroclus, whose name is sometimes written Patrocles, was a close friend, and possible lover of Achilles. He accompanied Achilles to Troy. When Patroclus was killed by the Trojan prince Hector, Achilles was enraged and resumed fighting for the Greeks in order to exact revenge. There would be funeral games for Patroclus, but only after Achilles had killed the most illustrious of Patroclus' killers, Hector.

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Achilles and Hector:

Achilles, enraged for a second time, wanted revenge for the death of his friend Patroclus. While Hector was the best of the Trojan fighters, he was not quite a match for Achilles. Killing Hector didn't begin to calm the maddened hero. Instead, he tried to disfigure the Trojan prince by dragging his corpse through the sand. King Priam begged for his son's body for proper burial, and Achilles gave in with a little push from the late Patroclus whose funeral games had not yet been held. Incidentally, we also get to see Achilles after death as a ghost where he tells Odysseus that being the lowliest person alive is preferable to being the grandest in the Underworld.

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