Achilles
Achilles was the seventh son of Thetis and Peleus. His
six other brothers died when their mom Thetis tried to make them invulnerable.
As Thetis was holding Achilles during the final process to become invulnerable,
Peleus grabbed his son's ankle. Then he replaced Achilles' ankle with the
giant Damysus' ankle. Damysus was known for being very fleet footed.
The responsibility of raising young Achilles fell on Cheiron
the Centaur. Achilles soon mastered the arts of war, and was the fastest
mortal.
When the Trojan War began, Thetis was informed that if
Achilles were to fight against the Trojans, then the Greeks would be guaranteed
a victory, but her son would surely die. So she disguised Achilles as a
women and hid him with Lycomedes in Scyros.
Agamemnon sent crafty Odysseus
and Nestor to convince Achilles to lead the Greeks into combat. Through
cleverness, Odysseus tricked Achilles into revealing his disguise. Soon
Achilles is put in charge of the Greek army. He is accompanied with his
best friend and fighting companion Patroclus.
Before leaving for Troy, Thetis warned her son to avoid
killing any sons of Apollo, or the god will
kill him in revenge. Achilles put Mnemon in charge of reminding him to
be careful. As the Greeks passed the Tenes Kingdom, Tenes, a son of Apollo
hurled rocks, Achilles killed Tenes when he threw the rocks back. Afterwards,
Achilles killed Mnemon for not reminding him.
During the Trojan War, Achilles was the most feared adversary
because of his invulnerability. At one point Achilles decided to withdraw
from the conflict, because of an argument with Agamemnon. He rejoined the
fighting when he saw his friend Patroclus single- handedly holding off
the Trojan lines. In this battle Patroclus was killed. This angered Achilles
to the point that he forced the entire Trojan army into a retreat. During
the retreat he met the Great Hector. Hector knew Achilles prowess in battle,
so he attempted to tire Achilles by running around the city walls. Hector
was wrong. Achilles caught him on the third lap and killed him. He then
proceeded to strip the body of its armor, and then he dragged it through
the dirt behind a chariot.
Finally with the intervention of Apollo and Hermes, Priam
was allowed to buy back Hector's body in gold. Later on in the war, Paris
shot an arrow guided by Apollo, into the vulnerable ankle of Achilles'.
The shot caused him to suffer immensely before dying.
After Achilles died, his ghost visited the Greek armies
many times to remind them of his request. Achilles wanted Polyxena sacrificed
in honor of him; to get revenge for her disclosure of his weakness to Paris.
The most renown hero of the Trojan Wars had finally died.