![]() For this reason, the two gods withdrew their pursuit, and had her wed Peleus. ![]() Zeus and Poseidon had been rivals for Thetis's hand in marriage until Prometheus, the fore-thinker, warned Zeus of a prophecy (originally uttered by Themis, goddess of divine law) that Thetis would bear a son greater than his father. 1625 Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam)Īchilles was the son of Thetis-a Nereid and daughter of the Old Man of the Sea-and Peleus, the king of the Myrmidons. Birth and early years Thetis Dipping the Infant Achilles into the River Styx by Peter Paul Rubens ( c. Beekes has suggested a Pre-Greek origin of the name, based among other things on the coexistence of -λλ- and -λ- in epic language, which may account for a palatalized phoneme /l y/ in the original language. Achilles' descent from the Nereid Thetis and a similarity of his name with those of river deities such as Acheron and Achelous have led to speculations about his being an old water divinity (see § Worship and heroic cult, below). Some researchers deem the name a loan word, possibly from a Pre-Greek language. The poem is in part about the misdirection of anger on the part of leadership. With this derivation, the name obtains a double meaning in the poem: when the hero is functioning rightly, his men bring distress to the enemy, but when wrongly, his men get the grief of war. Furthermore, laós has been construed by Gregory Nagy, following Leonard Palmer, to mean "a corps of soldiers", a muster. Achilles' role as the hero of grief or distress forms an ironic juxtaposition with the conventional view of him as the hero of κλέος kléos ("glory", usually in war). The grief or distress of the people is a theme raised numerous times in the Iliad (and frequently by Achilles himself). The name grew more popular, becoming common soon after the seventh century BC and was also turned into the female form Ἀχιλλεία ( Achilleía), attested in Attica in the fourth century BC ( IG II² 1617) and, in the form Achillia, on a stele in Halicarnassus as the name of a female gladiator fighting an "Amazon".Īchilles' name can be analyzed as a combination of ἄχος ( áchos) "distress, pain, sorrow, grief" and λαός ( laós) "people, soldiers, nation", resulting in a proto-form *Akhí-lāu̯os "he who has the people distressed" or "he whose people have distress". Linear B tablets attest to the personal name Achilleus in the forms a-ki-re-u and a-ki-re-we, the latter being the dative of the former. The Achilles tendon is named after him following the same legend. According to that myth, when his mother Thetis dipped him in the river Styx as an infant, she held him by one of his heels leaving it untouched by the waters and thus his only vulnerable body part.Īlluding to these legends, the term " Achilles' heel" has come to mean a point of weakness which can lead to downfall, especially in someone or something with an otherwise strong constitution. Later legends (beginning with Statius' unfinished epic Achilleid, written in the 1st century AD) state that Achilles was invulnerable in all of his body except for one heel. Although the death of Achilles is not presented in the Iliad, other sources concur that he was killed near the end of the Trojan War by Paris, who shot him with an arrow. In the Iliad, he is presented as the commander of the mythical tribe of the Myrmidons.Īchilles' most notable feat during the Trojan War was the slaying of the Trojan prince Hector outside the gates of Troy. Achilles was raised in Phthia along with his childhood companion Patroclus and received his education by the centaur Chiron. A central character in Homer's Iliad, he was the son of the Nereid Thetis and Peleus, king of Phthia and famous Argonaut. Achilleús) was a hero of the Trojan War who was known as being the greatest of all the Greek warriors. ![]() In Greek mythology, Achilles ( / ə ˈ k ɪ l iː z/ ə- KIL-eez) or Achilleus ( Greek: Ἀχιλλεύς, translit. 300 BC) of Achilles during the Trojan War Ancient Greek polychromatic pottery painting (dating to c.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |