(European mythology)

The hero of Homer's Iliad, the ninth-century BC epic account of the siege of Troy, which probably took place four centuries earlier. Son of the Thessalian King Peleus and the nymph Thetis, Achilles was an invincible warrior but given to inexplicable fits of anger. He quarrelled with the other Greek chieftains, sulked in his tent, and across the battlefield he dragged the body of the Trojan champion Hector, whom he had slain in single combat. According to legend, Thetis sought to make Achilles immortal, by dipping him in the subterranean River Styx, and succeeded with the exception of the heel by which she held him. This one vulnerable spot a poisoned arrow from the bow of Paris found out, and Achilles died prior to the fall of Troy.

A Dictionary of World Mythology. Copyright © Arthur Cotterell 1979, 1986, 2003. All rights reserved.