ACHILLES

According to Homer’s Iliad, Achilles was the Greeks’ best fighter in the Trojan War, famed for his strength and courage. The story of Achilles is dominated by prophecies about the future, and by desperate attempts to avoid fate—common themes in Greek mythology. As in other tales, the prophecies come true: despite the efforts of his mother, Achilles dies at Troy while still a young man.

Achilles was the son of the sea goddess Thetis and the mortal Peleus, king of Phthia. Long before his birth, the earth goddess Themis predicted that Thetis would give birth to a son who would be more powerful than his father. Zeus, king of the gods, and his brother, the sea god Poseidon, had both wanted to marry Thetis, but the prophecy put them off, since neither wanted to be overthrown. Instead, Themis said that Thetis should marry a mortal, Peleus, so that her son would be half mortal and thus no threat to the gods. Other versions say that Zeus’s wife, Hera, helped to raise Thetis, and the sea goddess refused Zeus’s advances out of loyalty to her.

Several events occurred at the wedding of Peleus and Thetis that would have a bearing on Achilles’ life. For a wedding gift, the gods gave the happy couple the enchanted horses Xanthus and Balius, which would later pull Achilles’ chariot. More significant, during the wedding ceremony, Eris, goddess of discord, threw a golden apple among the guests. The apple was inscribed with the words For the fairest, and was claimed by three goddesses: Hera; Athena, goddess of arts and war; and the love goddess Aphrodite. Zeus asked the mortal Paris, son of King Priam of Troy, to judge the victor. Paris chose Aphrodite in return for the goddess’s promise to help him win the most beautiful woman alive—Helen, daughter of Zeus and the mortal Leda.