The wrath that opens Homer's Iliad
Menin aeide thea — 'Sing, goddess, of the anger…' — the poem's first word
Myth · Greek
Achilles
Greek mythology — hero of the Trojan War
The greatest warrior of the Greek army at Troy, son of the mortal Peleus and the sea-nymph Thetis, who tried to make him invulnerable and left one weak spot. His quarrel with Agamemnon and the rage that followed are the subject of the Iliad, whose first word is "wrath". He returned to the fighting only to avenge his friend Patroclus, killed Hector, and was himself shot dead before the city fell.
How to spot them
- ▸Leader of the Myrmidons of Phthia; son of a sea-nymph and a mortal king
- ▸Quiz clue: 'Peleus', 'Thetis', 'Briseis', 'Patroclus', 'the Myrmidons'
- ▸Dipped in the Styx as a baby, held by the one spot that stayed dry
- ▸A tendon and a plate of medieval armour both carry his name
Stories & episodes
Hidden among the daughters of Lycomedes in women's clothes
His mother's attempt to keep him from the war; a pedlar's display of weapons exposed him
Sulked in his tent for most of the poem after a captive girl was taken from him
Agamemnon seized Briseis, and the Greeks lost battle after battle without him
Lent his armour to his dearest friend, who died wearing it
Patroclus, killed by Hector with Apollo's help
Dragged a prince's corpse three times round the walls behind his chariot
Hector's body, mutilated daily until the gods intervened
A weeping old king kissed the hands of the man who had killed his son
Priam's night visit to ransom Hector, the last book of the Iliad
Killed by an arrow to the one part of him that could be wounded
Shot by Paris, guided by Apollo, at the Scaean Gate
His ghost told a visitor he would rather be a hired hand alive than king of the dead
The meeting in the underworld in Odyssey 11
Quick-fire facts
- •Son of Peleus, king of the Myrmidons, and the sea-nymph Thetis
- •Tutored by the centaur Chiron, as Jason had been
- •Thetis dipped him in the Styx holding him by the heel — hence the Achilles tendon and 'Achilles heel'
- •The Iliad's first word is menin, 'wrath'; the poem covers about fifty days in the tenth year of the war
- •Hephaestus forged him new armour after Patroclus died; the Shield of Achilles is described at length in Iliad 18
- •He also killed the Amazon queen Penthesilea and the Ethiopian prince Memnon
- •The heel story is not in Homer; it appears in later sources such as Statius
- •Brad Pitt played him in Troy (2004); Madeline Miller's The Song of Achilles won the 2012 Orange Prize
Drill it — 9 cards
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Sources
- Homer — The Iliad The quarrel, the death of Patroclus, the killing of Hector and the ransom
- Apollodorus — The Library (Bibliotheca) Book 3 and Epitome 3–5 for the birth, Scyros and his death