ACHILLES, a-killez (Gk. 'Axd.atilc, Achidlens). The hero of Homer's Iliad, and the type of glorious youth. In the Homeric poems his story is simple. The son of King Peleus and the sea-goddess Thetis. he was brought up at his father's court in Phthia until induced to take part in the Trojan War, preferring an early death with fame to a long but inglorious life. This fate gives Achilles a tinge of melancholy charac teristic of the Greek mind. While the Greeks were in camp before Troy, Achilles plundered the surrounding country and secured as his Nutty the beautiful Briseis. The Iliad narrates the wrath of Achilles because Agamemnon deprived him of his fair slave to replace Chryseis, whom he had been forced to restore to her father in order to avert the wrath of Apollo front the Greeks. In the absence of Achilles the Trojans drive the Greeks to their ships, and their de struction is averted only when Achilles allows his friend, Patroclus, to lead his :Myrmidons to the rescue. Pursuing the Trojans to their walls, Patroclus is slain by Hector, and Achilles, over whelmed with grief. becomes reconciled with Agamemnon, that he may hasten to obtain re venge. Ile returns to the fight. and after driv ing the Trojans within the city, slays Hector and drags his body to the ships. After celebrat ing the funeral of Patroclus with great pomp, he yields to the command of Zeus and allows Priam to ransom the body of his son. In the Odyssey we have allusions to the death of Achilles, his splendid burial, and the renown of his son, Neoptolemus. Later epic poems and
other compositions add many details. Accord ing to some, his mother rendered hint invulner able by dipping hint in the River Styx: but his heel, by which she held him, was not immersed, and here he received his death wound from an arrow. lie was educated by the centaur Chiron, and was afterward hidden by his mother at Sey ros, among the daughters of Lyeom•des. He was needed, however, in the expedition against Troy. and was detected by the craft of Odysseus, N•lio offered a sword, as well as trinkets, to the maidens. When a trumpet sounded an (Harm Achilles at once seized the sword, and, being recognized. was then easily indneed to join the Greeks. llis combats with Penthesilea, Queen of the ..1ma•ons, and with 'Memnon (q.v.), who came to aid Priam after the death of Hector, were fa vorite subjects with Greek artists. He met his death at the hands of Apollo and Paris before the Seaan gate, or in the temple of Apollo, where he had gone to meet Polyxena, daughter of Priam. She was slaughtered on his grave after the capture of Troy. After his death he was transported to the Islands of the Blessed, where he was united with :Medea. Achilles was worshiped in Laconia and other parts of Greece, and it is probable that, like other Greek heroes, he was originally a god. honored especially by the .1chicaris of Plithiotis. See the articles llommt and