Achilles

Achilles—Ancient Greek Achilleús—is a mythological hero of the Trojan War, conventionally regarded as the greatest warrior in the Greek army. He is the central character of Homer’s Iliad, where he commands the Myrmidons and kills the Trojan prince Hector outside Troy. The poem does not narrate Achilles’ own death, but other traditions place it near the end of the war and attribute it to an arrow shot by Paris. [S2]

Achilles’ story combines exceptional martial power with grief, anger, mortality, and vulnerability. His withdrawal from battle endangers the Greek campaign; the death of Patroclus brings him back; and his pursuit of vengeance leads him toward the death he knows awaits him. Later tradition added the famous account in which the River Styx made his body invulnerable except at the heel, giving rise to the proverbial “Achilles’ heel.” [S2] [S3] [S4]

Identity and place in Greek mythology

Achilles is the son of Peleus, a mortal king associated with Phthia and the Myrmidons, and Thetis, a Nereid or sea nymph. He grows up in Phthia with Patroclus and, according to the summarized tradition, is educated by the centaur Chiron. In the Iliad, Achilles leads the Myrmidons as part of the Greek expedition against Troy. [S2]

Britannica’s account describes Achilles as the most important soldier in the Greek army and states that Greek victory was far from assured without him. This strategic importance drives the Iliad’s conflict: when Agamemnon dishonors him, Achilles refuses to fight despite attempts to persuade him to return. [S3] [S4]

Among the titles and alternative names associated with Achilles are Aeacides, referring to his grandfather Aeacus; Pelides, referring to Peleus; Nereius, referring to Thetis and the Nereids; Phthius, referring to Phthia; and Podarkes, interpreted as “swift-footed.” Other reported appellations include Pyrisous, Aemonius, Aspetos, Larissaeus, and Ligyron. [S2]

Name and possible origins

Linear B tablets preserve forms of the personal name Achilleus as a-ki-re-u and a-ki-re-we. The name became more widespread after the seventh century BCE, while a feminine form is attested in fourth-century BCE Attica and as the name Achillia on a stele from Halicarnassus. [S2]

One proposed Greek analysis combines áchos, meaning distress, pain, sorrow, or grief, with laós, meaning a people, nation, or body of soldiers. On that reading, the name may suggest either someone who causes distress to a people or someone whose people suffer distress. This interpretation has been connected to the Iliad’s treatment of Achilles: properly directed, his power afflicts the enemy; misdirected through anger and failed leadership, it brings suffering to his own side. [S2]

The etymology is not settled. Some researchers regard the name as a borrowing from a pre-Greek language, and Robert S. P. Beekes proposed a pre-Greek origin partly on linguistic grounds. Achilles’ descent from Thetis and the resemblance of his name to names such as Acheron and Achelous have also prompted speculation that he developed from an older water divinity, but the supplied evidence presents this as conjecture rather than an established origin. [S2]

Parentage and birth traditions

In one account, Zeus and Poseidon both sought Thetis until a prophecy warned that she would bear a son greater than his father. The gods consequently abandoned their pursuit and arranged or allowed her marriage to the mortal Peleus. A different account in the Argonautica has Hera recall that Thetis rejected Zeus out of loyalty to Hera; the angered Zeus then decreed that Thetis would not marry an immortal. These traditions offer different explanations for the union of a sea goddess and a mortal king. [S2]

The familiar account of Achilles’ near-invulnerability is comparatively late in the form preserved by the supplied evidence. Statius’s unfinished Achilleid, written in the first century CE, relates that Thetis dipped the infant Achilles in the River Styx to make him immortal or invulnerable. Because she held him by one heel, that point remained untouched and vulnerable. The evidence notes that it is unclear whether this precise version was known earlier. [S2]

Britannica presents the Styx episode as the explanation for Achilles’ single weakness, but also emphasizes that the wider legend varies. The heel narrative should therefore be distinguished from the Iliad itself: it is a later legendary explanation, not an event narrated in Homer’s poem. [S2] [S3]

Achilles before the central action of the Iliad

Achilles is said to have been raised in Phthia alongside his childhood companion Patroclus and taught by Chiron. The available evidence also associates him with Deidamia and Briseis and names Neoptolemus and Oneiros as his children, although it does not supply a continuous narrative for all of those relationships. [S2]

Some versions prophesy that Achilles will die if he fights at Troy. Britannica’s summary treats this foreknowledge as one of several variable elements in the legend rather than a detail common to every telling. [S3]

The Iliad: withdrawal from the war

The Iliad and Odyssey emerged from a long oral tradition of Trojan War narratives and were written down around the eighth century BCE. Although both were traditionally attributed to Homer, the supplied evidence reports that most modern scholars do not believe they were composed or recorded by the same author. Within that tradition, the Iliad is the principal early literary source for Achilles and Patroclus. [S4]

Achilles and Patroclus share quarters in a tent near the Greek fleet. After Agamemnon disrespects Achilles, the warrior refuses to participate in the fighting. Agamemnon sends representatives to persuade him to return, but the embassy fails. In Book IX, Odysseus and Ajax find Achilles playing the lyre and singing with Patroclus present. [S4]

The refusal is not a minor personal absence: Achilles’ reputation and ability make his participation crucial to the Greek forces. The poem’s crisis arises partly from the consequences of a powerful leader directing his anger away from the enemy and against his own coalition. [S2] [S4]

Patroclus enters battle

As Trojan pressure mounts, Achilles sends Patroclus to speak with Nestor. Nestor recalls that Patroclus is older even though Achilles is of nobler birth and urges him to counsel Achilles. He also proposes that, if Achilles will not fight, Patroclus might wear Achilles’ armor so that the Trojans will believe the feared warrior has returned. [S4]

When the Trojans breach the defenses protecting the Greek ships, Patroclus confronts Achilles over his continued refusal to fight and asks permission to use the armor. Achilles agrees but orders him to do no more than drive the Trojans away from the ships. Achilles then rallies the Myrmidons and prays to Zeus for Patroclus’ success and safe return. [S4]

Patroclus initially accomplishes the intended deception and pushes the Trojans back. He also kills Sarpedon, a son of Zeus, but exceeds the limited mission and is ultimately killed by Hector. [S4]

Grief and return to combat

Antilochus brings Achilles the news of Patroclus’ death. Achilles is overwhelmed: he tears his hair, covers himself with ash, and causes Antilochus to fear that he may take his own life. Achilles later embraces Patroclus’ body and fasts, recalling his earlier expectation that Patroclus would outlive him and bring Achilles’ son home to receive his inheritance. [S4]

Patroclus’ death becomes the decisive reason for Achilles’ return. He tells Thetis that he does not wish to continue living after he has avenged Patroclus, even though he has been warned that killing Hector will cost him his own life. His renewed participation is consequently both a return to heroic action and a conscious movement toward death. [S4]

Achilles’ pursuit of vengeance is relentless. Book XXI includes his confrontation with the river god Scamander as he seeks to reach Hector. In Book XXII, Achilles defeats and kills Hector, strips away his armor, and promises to remember Patroclus for the remainder of his life. The killing of Hector outside Troy is identified as Achilles’ most celebrated battlefield feat. [S2] [S4]

Achilles and Patroclus: relationship and dispute

The relationship between Achilles and Patroclus is fundamental to the Trojan War tradition. Homer portrays a bond of exceptional emotional depth: Achilles is tender toward Patroclus even while appearing arrogant or unfeeling toward others, and Patroclus’ death transforms his behavior and purpose. [S4]

The precise nature of the relationship has remained disputed since antiquity. The Iliad does not explicitly label Achilles and Patroclus as lovers. Nevertheless, classical Greek writers and artists frequently interpreted them that way; Aeschylus, Aeschines, and Plato are among the cited literary examples. Xenophon, by contrast, described the bond as an intense but non-sexual friendship. Ancient discussion also considered whether the pair fitted Greek models of pederasty. [S4]

Medieval scholars generally characterized the relationship as non-sexual and sometimes suppressed elements of Achilles’ conduct that could receive a homoerotic interpretation. Since the nineteenth century, critics have renewed the debate. Some classicists and queer-studies scholars read the relationship as homosexual, homoerotic, or implicitly so, while other scholars argue that the Homeric text provides no evidence of a sexual relationship and that theories of repressed homosexuality cannot be tested. [S4]

A careful reference account must therefore separate what the Iliad directly depicts from later interpretation. The poem clearly establishes intimacy, shared life, profound grief, and Achilles’ willingness to die after taking revenge; it does not explicitly define the pair as sexual partners. Both erotic and non-erotic readings have substantial histories of reception. [S4]

Death of Achilles

The Iliad ends without showing Achilles’ death. Other sources agree broadly that Paris kills him near the end of the Trojan War by shooting him with an arrow. Some versions add that Apollo guides Paris’s shot to Achilles’ vulnerable heel. [S2] [S3]

The sources consequently preserve a distinction between the basic death tradition and its later elaboration. Paris as the archer is broadly reported, while Apollo’s intervention and the heel as the fatal target belong to particular tellings. The claim that every version describes death through the heel would overstate the evidence. [S2] [S3]

Defining traits and themes

Martial excellence

Achilles is consistently presented as the foremost Greek fighter at Troy. His command of the Myrmidons, the Greek dependence on his participation, and his defeat of Hector establish his exceptional status within the war narrative. [S2] [S3]

Anger and leadership

His anger is both personal and collective in consequence. The refusal to fight follows Agamemnon’s insult, but it exposes the Greek ships and soldiers to greater danger. The proposed etymological link between Achilles’ name and the distress of a people reinforces the poem’s concern with power that can either protect an army or turn destructively against it. [S2] [S4]

Grief and attachment

Achilles’ response to Patroclus reveals a character capable of extraordinary tenderness and devastation. His mourning overturns his previous refusal to fight and makes revenge more important to him than survival. [S4]

Glory, mortality, and vulnerability

Achilles embodies a tension between martial glory and inevitable death. He returns to combat despite being warned that killing Hector will bring his own end. Later myth converts this larger human vulnerability into a physical symbol: a nearly indestructible body with one fatal weakness. [S2] [S4]

Cultural and linguistic legacy

The expression “Achilles’ heel” means a limited but potentially ruinous weakness in an otherwise powerful or resilient person or thing. It derives from the later story that the Styx protected every part of Achilles except the heel by which Thetis held him. [S2] [S3]

The Achilles tendon is likewise named for the heel legend. Both usages preserve the central paradox of Achilles’ later reception: unmatched strength accompanied by one point through which destruction becomes possible. [S2]

The relationship between Achilles and Patroclus has also generated a long interpretive legacy. Classical, medieval, and modern audiences have repeatedly revisited whether their bond is best understood as friendship, erotic love, or a form of intimacy that does not fit a single later category. [S4]

Chronology at a glance

1. Achilles is born to Peleus and Thetis; differing traditions explain why the goddess married a mortal. [S2]
2. In the later Styx tradition, Thetis attempts to make him invulnerable but leaves one heel unprotected. [S2] [S3]
3. Achilles grows up in Phthia with Patroclus and receives instruction from Chiron. [S2]
4. He joins the Greek campaign against Troy and commands the Myrmidons. [S2]
5. After being dishonored by Agamemnon, he withdraws from the fighting. [S4]
6. Patroclus wears Achilles’ armor to repel the Trojans but is killed by Hector. [S4]
7. Achilles returns to avenge Patroclus and kills Hector outside Troy. [S2] [S4]
8. After the events narrated in the Iliad, Paris kills Achilles with an arrow; some versions involve Apollo and the vulnerable heel. [S2] [S3]

Frequently asked questions

Was Achilles a god?

Achilles was a mythological hero born to the mortal Peleus and the sea nymph or Nereid Thetis. The traditions presented here do not describe him as fully divine. [S2] [S3]

Is Achilles invulnerable in the Iliad?

The famous Styx-and-heel story is not part of the Iliad. The supplied evidence associates that version explicitly with later legend, including Statius’s first-century CE Achilleid, and notes uncertainty over whether it existed earlier. [S2]

What is Achilles’ greatest feat?

His best-known battlefield achievement is killing Hector, the Trojan prince who had killed Patroclus, outside the gates of Troy. [S2] [S4]

Why does Achilles stop fighting?

He withdraws after Agamemnon disrespects him and rejects an embassy sent to persuade him to return. His absence leaves the Greeks exposed to the Trojan advance. [S4]

Why does he return?

Achilles returns specifically to avenge Patroclus. He does so despite knowing that killing Hector will lead to his own death. [S4]

Were Achilles and Patroclus lovers?

Homer does not explicitly call them lovers. Some ancient authors and many later interpreters have read the relationship erotically, while Xenophon and other scholars have understood it as an exceptionally close but non-sexual friendship. The question remains disputed. [S4]

Who kills Achilles?

Tradition identifies Paris as the archer who kills Achilles near the end of the Trojan War. Some versions say Apollo guides the arrow to Achilles’ heel. The death is not narrated in the Iliad. [S2] [S3]

What does “Achilles’ heel” mean?

It means a weakness capable of causing downfall despite otherwise formidable strength. The phrase comes from the later myth that Achilles was invulnerable everywhere except the heel left untouched by the River Styx. [S2] [S3]