Achilles

Even Zeus himself aspired to be Achilles' mother, but he was frightened by the prophecy that her son would surpass even his father in glory. And so, with Thetis, the child was fathered by the mortal King Peleus. According to legend, the mother bathed little Achilles in the underworld in the river Styx; according to another version, she smeared him with ambrosia and clouded him over a fire. One day, however, Peleus saw this and banished Thetis. This left Achilles with only one unprotected spot on his body, his heel. From his youth, he was raised by the centaur Cheiron.

When the Trojan War broke out, Achilles' mother tried to hide him, for a prophecy had been made that either her son would become a great warrior and die, or he would be unknown but live long. So she hid him in a women's temple, where he was disguised as a woman. Odysseus saw through this ruse, but he couldn't tell which of the girls was Achilles. So he threw a sword and a pile of jewels on the ground in front of the girls. As the girls looked at the jewels, he had his armourers brandish their weapons. One of the girls immediately lunged for the sword, and that girl was Achilles. Ulysses then persuaded him to go to war. Thetis, seeing this, had Achilles forged the finest armour by Hephaestus. Achilles took with him the fabled war chariot drawn by immortal horses. These were given to his mother and father as a wedding gift from the gods.

Throughout the nine years of fighting for Troy, Achilles demonstrated his great strength and skill. One day, the commander-in-chief of the Greek army took his favourite captive, Briseis. Because of this, Achilles and his warriors stopped taking part in the fighting and the Trojans began to have a great advantage. When the Trojans, led by Hector, reached the Spartan anchorage by ship, Achilles' best friend, Patroclus, could not bear to do nothing. He asked Achilles for his armor and went to fight the Trojans. Hector recognized it wasn't Achilles, so he challenged him to a duel. In this duel, Patroclus fell. This angered Achilles, who returned to the war and drove the Trojans to the walls. Here, in the duel, he also killed Hector. But then he was struck in the heel by Paris, who was cowardly hidden in the bushes. The hero died of his wounds and the Greeks retreated in panic. They then devised a Trojan Horse plan to outwit the defenders of the city and deliver the final blow.

At Achilles' funeral, Bríseovna committed suicide, as she could not live without him and did not want to marry his son Neoptolemus, as Achilles had offered her. Achilles was subsequently avenged by Philoctetes, who killed Paris with the help of Heracles' (Hercules') arrows.

Thus, today we know the saying "Achilles heel" to refer to one's weakness.