Achilles hero of ancient Greece. The meaning of the word Achilles in the dictionary-reference book myths of ancient Greece
Researchers put forward the theory that initially in the mythology of the ancient Greeks, Achilles was considered a demon of the underworld. Other ancient Greek heroes, for example, also belonged to this category of characters. In defending this point of view, researcher Hommel refers to early classical Greek texts, where Achilles is already transformed into an epic hero, but still demonstrates the functions characteristic of demons of the underworld.
Myths and legends
Like other Greek heroes, Achilles was born from the marriage of a mortal and a goddess. Such characters in ancient Greek mythology have capabilities exceeding human ones, enormous physical strength, but are not endowed with immortality, like the gods. The hero's calling is to bring justice to people and fulfill the will of the gods. And heroes are often helped by divine parents in performing feats.
Achilles' mother, the sea nymph Thetis, wanted to make her son immortal. To do this, Thetis, according to different versions, either placed the baby in the forge of the god, then immersed him in fire, or in the waters of the Styx - the rivers of the kingdom of the dead. In all cases, the mother held the baby by the heel during dipping, so that the heel remained the hero’s only vulnerable spot. Later, the Trojan killed Achilles, hitting him in the heel with an arrow.
As a child, the hero had a different name, but after one incident when his lips were burned by fire, he received the name Achilles, which means “lipless.” The hero was raised on the slopes of Mount Pelion by the centaur Chiron. The centaur taught Achilles the art of healing. The hero found a certain herb with which he could heal wounds.
Achilles later joined the Greek campaign against Troy. The king of Ithaca persuaded the hero to do this. Achilles acted at the head of fifty ships. A childhood friend, whom some authors call Achilles' lover, went on a hike with the hero.
One of the myths says that Achilles’ mother, the nymph Thetis, wanted to protect her son from participating in the fatal war. To do this, the nymph hid the young man on the island of Skyros, with the local king Lycomedes. Achilles was dressed in women's clothes, and in this form the hero hid among the king's daughters.
The cunning Odysseus arrived there, pretending to be a merchant, and laid out jewelry in front of the girls, and laid out weapons along with the trinkets. Then the people, persuaded by Odysseus, made a noise and began to make war cries. Achilles grabbed his weapon and thereby gave himself away to the girls.
After this revelation, the hero had to go to Troy. When the campaign began, Achilles was only fifteen years old. The first shield for the hero was forged by the god Hephaestus himself.
The Trojan War lasted 20 years. The siege of the city was long, and during this time the hero managed to make many raids on neighboring cities. It was already the tenth year of the siege when Achilles captured the beautiful Trojan Briseis. The man quarreled with Agamemnon over her. The Mycenaean king demanded that Briseis be given to him; in response, Achilles became angry and refused to further participate in the battles.
The Greeks began to lose and began to beg the hero to return to battle, but this did not help. When the Trojans, led by Hector, invaded the Greek camp, the still angry Achilles did not enter the battle himself, but allowed Patroclus to come to the aid of the Greeks along with a detachment. To make the enemies afraid, Achilles ordered Patroclus to put on his Achilles armor. The Trojan hero Hector killed Patroclus and took Achilles' armor for himself as a trophy.
Only after this did Achilles appear on the battlefield in person. Seeing the hero, the Trojans began to flee. The next morning, the god Hephaestus forged new armor for the hero, and Achilles rushed into battle, burning with a thirst for vengeance. The hero was able to push the Trojans back to the city gates, and at the same time killed Hector and dragged the corpse to the Greek camp. After a magnificent funeral feast for Patroclus, the hero returned Hector’s body to the Trojans for a large ransom.
Achilles fell in a battle at the city gates, struck down by the archer Paris, whom he himself led. The shooter hit Achilles in the only vulnerable spot - the heel. According to another version, Apollo himself took on the appearance of Paris in order to defeat the hero. This is where the hero's life story ended.
Achilles did not have a wife, but he had several lovers, among whom was Deidamia, the daughter of King Lycomedes. From her the hero had a son, Neoptolemus.
Greek bas-reliefs depict Achilles as a muscular youth with curly hair. The hero can also be seen on vases, where he is depicted in armor.
Film adaptations
In 2004, the action adventure film Troy was released, based on Homer's poem The Iliad. The role of Achilles in this film was played by the actor.
In the film, Achilles helps the Mycenaean king Agamemnon subjugate the cities of Greece. Agamemnon dreams of destroying the rebellious Troy, and then an opportunity arises. The king's brother, the Trojan Paris, stole his wife, and Menelaus appears to Agamemnon, demanding revenge.
To seduce Achilles to go to fight at Troy, the cunning Odysseus, king of Ithaca, comes to the hero. And the hero on his ship joins the Greek army, although his own mother predicted Achilles’ death under the walls of Troy.
Achilles' warriors are the first to land on the Trojan shore and enter the battle, completely destroying a detachment of Trojan warriors. King Agamemnon, however, publicly insulted Achilles when he saw that the hero released Hector, the leader of the Trojan detachment, without wanting to engage him in battle.
After this incident, Achilles and his men do not join the battle with the rest of the Greeks, but only watch the battle from the sidelines. Without Achilles, the Greeks are unable to defeat the Trojans in battle, and during negotiations they refuse to accept Agamemnon’s terms. The Trojan Hector nobly refuses to finish off the defeated Greeks and concludes a truce with them. Achilles is going to return home and start a family there and live peacefully.
Still from the film "Troy" Later, the Trojans attack the Greeks under the cover of darkness, and Achilles's squad also goes into battle, thinking that the leader is with them. It turns out, however, that it was Achilles’ brother Patroclus who entered the battle wearing Achilles’ helmet, so that at night both his own and his enemies mistook him for Achilles. Hector defeats Patroclus in battle and kills him.
After this, Achilles' plans change. Instead of sailing home, the hero goes to the walls of Troy and challenges Hector to battle. Having defeated him in a duel, Achilles rides to the Greek camp, and Hector’s body, tied by the legs, is dragged behind the chariot.
Hector’s father, the king, sneaks into the Greek camp and begs Achilles to give up his son’s body. Achilles agrees to this. Later, when Troy has already been captured, Achilles rushes around the city in search of the Trojan Briseis, daughter of Priam, with whom the hero is in love. Achilles saves his beloved from his own compatriots, but at this time Achilles himself is shot from a bow by the Trojan Paris.
The plot of the Iliad is greatly distorted in the film. Some heroes are missing, such as the Trojan prophetess Cassandra and the priest who tried to warn their compatriots. The costumes of the Greeks are not historical, as are the fighting techniques used by the heroes.
Many heroes die in the wrong place and in the wrong way. For example, Homer’s King Agamemnon was killed by his own unfaithful wife after returning from Troy. In the film, Agamemnon was stabbed to death by Briseis while the Greeks were plundering Troy.
Achilles himself in the Iliad does not run around the dying city in search of a girl and does not die ingloriously on a neat lawn. In Homer, Paris struck Achilles with an arrow at the city gates, and a terrible battle broke out for the hero's body. The Greeks did not want to leave the hero’s body to the enemies for desecration, and a real dump took place around Achilles until the dead hero was taken out of the battlefield.
In 2003, the two-part film Helen of Troy was released in the United States, also based on the Iliad, where the role of Achilles was played by actor Joe Montana. Here Achilles is a minor character who appears in the fight scene with Hector and pins him to a post with a spear. Achilles later attacks Paris, but Paris is shot in the heel by Achilles.
In 1997, the director shot in the United States a two-part film “The Odyssey” - a free interpretation of the Homeric poem of the same name, which deals with the return of the king of Ithaca home after the Trojan War. The supporting role of Achilles is played here by Richard Truett.
Achilles also appeared in the Doctor Who episode "The Myth Makers", which aired in the autumn of 1965. The Doctor's TARDIS ship materializes beneath Troy at the exact moment Achilles fights Hector. The Trojan is distracted, and Achilles kills him, and the Doctor, who comes out of the TARDIS, mistakes him for the supreme god, who pretended to be an old beggar.
Still from the series "Doctor Who" Achilles calls the imaginary "Zeus" to go with him to the Greek camp. There, King Agamemnon demands that “god” help the Greeks against the Trojans, and the cunning Odysseus believes that he is not a god, but a Trojan spy. The role of Achilles is played by actor Cavan Kendall.
Quotes
“Go home, prince. Drink wine, caress your wife. Tomorrow we will fight."
“Do you love me, brother? Will you protect me from enemies?
“You asked me questions like this when you were nine and stole your father’s horse.” What have you done now?
“Last night was a mistake.
- And the night before that?
“I made a lot of mistakes this week.”
Lapteva Anna
Achilles
Summary of the myth
Achilles (Greek) or Achilles (Latin) - in the heroic tales of the ancient Greeks, he is the bravest of heroes, the son of King Peleus and the sea goddess Thetis.
Zeus and Poseidon wanted to have a son from the beautiful Thetis, but the Titan Prometheus warned them that the child would surpass his father in greatness. And the gods wisely arranged the marriage of Thetis with a mortal, the son of the king of the Myrmidons, Peleus. In an effort to make her son invulnerable and thus give him immortality, Thetis tempered him in fire at night and rubbed him with ambrosia during the day. One night, Peleus, seeing his young son on fire, snatched him from his mother’s arms. According to another version, Thetis bathed Achilles in the waters of the underground river Styx in order to make him invulnerable, and only the heel by which she held him remained vulnerable. Insulted by Peleus' interference, Thetis left her husband, and he gave Achilles to be raised by the wise centaur Chiron, who fed him with the entrails of lions, bears and wild boars, taught him to play the sweet-sounding cithara and sing.
Achilles at the court of King Lycomedes
Greek bas-relief, 240
Achilles grew up to be a fearless warrior, but Thetis, knowing that her son was still destined to die at Troy, sought to save him and, for this purpose, hid him in the palace of King Lycomedes on the island of Skyros. There Achilles lived dressed in women's clothing among the daughters of Lycomedes. Here, from the secret marriage of a young man with the daughter of Lycomedes, Deidamia, a son, Pyrrhus, was born, later nicknamed Neoptolemus. When the Achaean leaders learned the prediction of the priest Kalkhant that without the participation of Achilles the campaign at Troy was doomed to failure, they sent an embassy to Skyros led by Odysseus. Arriving at the king disguised as a merchant, Odysseus laid out women's jewelry mixed with weapons in front of those gathered. The inhabitants of the palace began to look at the jewelry, but suddenly, at a sign from Odysseus, an alarm sounded - the girls ran away in fear, and the hero grabbed his sword, giving himself away completely. After the exposure, Achilles, willy-nilly, had to sail to Troy.
During the long siege of Ilion, he repeatedly launched raids on various neighboring cities. According to version, he wandered the Scythian land for five years in search of Iphigenia. In the tenth year of the siege of Ilion, during one campaign he captured the beautiful Briseis. According to one version, she served as a bone of contention between Achilles and Agamemnon, who laid claim to the possession of Briseis.
Fresco "Achilles and Briseis"
1st century National Museum
Naples
Inflamed with anger, Achilles refused further participation in battles. Thetis, wanting to take revenge on Agamemnon for the insult inflicted on her son, begged Zeus to grant victory to the Trojans. Neither the disaster of the Greeks, nor the pleas and promises of the embassy, which, on the advice of Nestor, Agamemnon sent to him, could soften the hero’s anger. Only when the Trojans, led by Hector, invaded the Greek camp itself, did he allow his friend Patroclus to lead the Myrmidons to their aid and, to further intimidate the enemies, ordered him to put on his armor. But Patroclus fell at the hands of Hector, and only his naked corpse was recaptured by the Greeks from the Trojans, while the armor of Achilles went to Hector as a spoil. Then Achilles, unarmed and accompanied by Athena, appeared on the battlefield, and one formidable appearance of the hero put the enemies to flight.
The next morning, burning with vengeance, the hero rushed into battle and drove the Trojans to the city walls; Hector alone dared to oppose him here; Pursuing the killer of his friend, Achilles drove him around the walls three times, finally killed him and, tying his naked corpse to his war chariot, dragged him with him to the camp. Having magnificently celebrated the funeral feast for his fallen friend Patroclus, he returned Hector’s corpse for a rich ransom to his father, King Priam, who entered his tent with a prayer.
Training of Achille Pompeo Batoni, 1770
After the battles in which Achilles defeats the Amazon queen Penthesilea and the Ethiopian leader Memnon, who came to the aid of the Trojans, he breaks into Troy and here, at the Scaean Gate, dies from two arrows from Paris, directed by the hand of Apollo: the first arrow, hitting the heel, deprives Achilles of the opportunity rush at the enemy, and Paris kills him with a second arrow in the chest. For seventeen days, Achilles was mourned by the Nereids led by Thetis, the muses and the entire Achaean army. On the eighteenth day, the hero's body was burned, and the ashes in a golden urn made by Hephaestus were buried along with the ashes of Patroclus at Cape Sigei. The soul of Achilles, according to the beliefs of the ancients, was transferred to the island of Levka, where the hero continued to live the life of the blessed.
Images and symbols of myth
Achilles, first of all, appears as an invulnerable, fearless hero who brought death to his enemies, largely thanks to his mother. But on the other hand, his image can be interpreted without attaching importance to invulnerability as such, but presenting him as the bravest and strongest of the heroes solely because of his personal qualities. And then he appears in the form of a warrior, knowing that he is destined for a short life, and striving to live it in such a way that the glory of his unparalleled valor will be preserved forever among his descendants.
Achilles kills Penthesilea
OK. 540-530 BC e.
Since the myth of Achilles relates to battles and conquests, the symbols associated with it also relate to military themes. The main symbol of the myth is Achilles' heel, the only unprotected place of this hero, in which he was mortally wounded by Paris. Currently, the expression “Achilles' heel” means a weak side, a “sick”, vulnerable spot of something.
Shield of Achilles
(silver dish)
Late 4th - early 5th century
Achilles shield- a wonderful shield that Hephaestus forged for Achilles, it was not only intended to protect against enemies, but was a real work of art. The shield had a center with a slight elevation, which symbolized the firmament of the earth, which, according to the ancients, had the shape of a shield with a middle mountain, the “navel of the earth.” On the shield, Hephaestus depicted the earth, sky, stars, as well as numerous episodes of urban and rural life and the Ocean River on the rim. According to myths, no one had such a shield: neither the Trojan and Achaean warriors, nor the deities who descended from Olympus. Using his shield, Achilles could find any place: the land of the Myrmidons, whose ruler was his father Peleus, and Troy, where he, at the head of a detachment, defended the honor of Menelaus.
The myth of Achilles features river Styx. It was its waters that made Achilles invincible and, therefore, can be a symbol of divine miraculous power, granting invulnerability. In ancient Greek mythology, Styx is the personification of primeval horror and darkness from which the first living beings arose. The River Styx flows in Hades, and in historical times it was seen in a stream near Nonacris (in northern Arcadia). According to legend, Alexander the Great was poisoned with water from this river.
Communicative means of creating images and symbols
Achilles among the daughters of Lycomedes
Sarcophagus, III century.
St. Petersburg, State Hermitage Museum
Achilles was widely known among the ancient Greeks, as evidenced by the large number of references to him in various sources. That is why there are many options for the ending of the myth of Achilles, about how his life ended, and where he ended up after death. The Greeks erected a mausoleum for him on the banks of the Hellespont, and here they, in order to pacify the shadow of the hero, sacrificed Polyxena to him. According to the Odyssey, Achilles is in the underground kingdom, where Odysseus meets him, and he is buried in a golden amphora, which Dionysus gave to Thetis, which was also written about by the Greek poet Lycophron and the Western Greek poet Stesichorus. But another ancient Greek epic poem, “Ethiopida,” tells that Thetis took her son away from the burning fire and transferred him to the island of Levka (Snake Island at the mouth of the Istra Danube), where he continues to live in the company of other idolized heroes and heroines. This island served as the center of the cult of Achilles, as well as the mound that rises on the Sigean hill in front of Troy and is still known as the tomb of Achilles. There were also his temples in Elis, Sparta and other places. The great popularity of Achilles is evidenced by the fact that he is called “reigning over the Scythians,” and people believed that the ghost of Achilles appeared in Troy, hunting animals.
The spear of Achilles was kept in Phaselis in the temple of Athena. His funerary monument was in Elis. And the statues of naked ephebes with spears began to be called Achilles. By origin, Achilles was originally a local Thessalian hero, whose cult also spread to various regions of Greece. In the Laconian city of Prasia there was a temple of the hero, in which an annual celebration took place. His cult was also brought to the Greek colonies in Sicily in Southern Italy (Tarentum, Croton and other cities). The burial mound of Achilles and Patroclus at Cape Sigei was revered as a place of worship. Alexander the Great, and later the Roman Emperor Caracalla, held funeral games here. Thus, there are a huge number of temples, altars and sites dedicated to Achilles. In addition, he was the ideal of the great commander of antiquity, Alexander the Great. Up to the present day, based on the myth of Achilles, artists have painted paintings, composers have composed musical works, and playwrights have also turned to his image. There are also feature films in which we meet this hero. All this made Achilles one of the most popular characters in ancient art.
Social significance of the myth
Chiron teaches Achilles to play the lyre
Fresco in Pompeii. 1st century BC.
Achilles personifies greatness, invulnerability, strength given by the gods and reinforced by his own strong-willed character, zeal for glory, desire to accomplish great deeds and clear ideas about honor, goodness and devotion. But in ancient Greek mythology there are many similar images, because in almost every myth you can find a valiant hero who defends goodness and justice. Nevertheless, Achilles can be called one of the most famous, because despite his invincibility, he still has one weak spot - his heel, which distinguishes him from other mythological heroes and sets him apart from the general series. It is this feature that makes his image extraordinary and memorable, thanks to which even today there are hardly many people who have not heard this name.
The story of Achilles may be the personification of the fact that even the strongest and most fearless heroes have weaknesses and therefore have no right to consider themselves invincible. On the other hand, by performing great deeds, you can ensure the eternal memory of your descendants and thus extend your life into infinity.
In the Dnepropetrovsk region, in Nikopol, scientists discovered the bones of the legendary warrior of antiquity - Achilles. The son of the ruler of the Myrmidons Peleus and the sea goddess Thetis, who bathed the baby in the waters of the underground river Styx, thanks to which he was known as simply invulnerable in the Trojan War. Alas, Achilles’ “unbeaten streak” of victories was interrupted by Paris’s arrow, which hit the hero right in the heel. It was this heel with traces of an arrow wound that archaeologists discovered.
The Institute of Archeology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine is not inclined to connect the remains found near Nikopol with the legendary warrior. However, less authoritative, but numerous falsifiers of world history are quite rubbing their hands. They say that Schliemann was wrong: Troy should actually be sought not in Asia Minor, but... in Ukraine! In particular, where the ruins of the legendary Olbia are located, not far from the glorious hero city of Odessa.
The correspondent, naturally, could not ignore such a loud discovery. Therefore, I immediately contacted the Nikopol State Museum of Local Lore.
– Is it true that the expedition with your participation discovered the tomb of Achilles?– I ask the museum’s deputy director for scientific affairs, Miroslav Zhukovsky.
- Not true.
– ?…
– What is written in some Moscow newspapers is not entirely true. Today we can assume that we have an “Achilles heel”. Part of a body that belonged to an ancient warrior.
– Judging by the noise created around it, is the find fresh?
– How can I tell you... The burial, which supposedly contained a warrior similar to Achilles, was discovered in February 2007.
– Why didn’t anyone know about him before?
– You see, the 2006-2007 season was a “fruitful” one for Ukrainian archaeologists, because of this, in Kyiv, at the Institute of Archeology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, a long “queue” formed to submit anthropological material for serious scientific examination. And in the capital it is the only qualified body engaged in anthropological examinations. While we were waiting for the result, we thought that only one person was buried (after all, we arrived at an already destroyed burial place...); It turned out that there were three bodies.
– Why do Ukrainians so defend the version about the specific “star” affiliation of the remains of an unknown warrior?
– As you probably know, the information available today about Achilles is drawn exclusively from epics and myths. The classics of ancient and world literature in general cite, in fact, one single concrete fact: that Achilles died from an arrow fired by Paris on the advice of Apollo.
Any anthropologist who has studied ancient burial sites knows: people died, say, from being hit by a stone, being hit on the head with a hammer, or being hit by an arrow. These same arrows were found in vertebrae, bones, and limbs. But never until now has any of my respected colleagues been able to confirm or deny that a person can die from an arrow strike in the heel.
The discovery we are talking about is precisely that the person died from just such a blow. This is the first aspect.
Second aspect: for some reason, the cult of Achilles was very widespread in our area. 20 km from the place where we discovered the find, there are the ruins of a Scythian city, the so-called Chertomlyk mound, explored in the 19-20 centuries. A golden goret (an arrow quiver lining) was found there. This gold plate depicts scenes from the life of Achilles by an unknown top jeweler.
Similar bronze matrices were found in the Melitopol mound in the 70s, as well as in Greece, in a tomb attributed to Philip the Second of Macedon.
– Can we say that Achilles was not only a mythical person?
– The same doubts may arise regarding Homer himself, the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey: did the blind poet actually exist, in what period did he work, is he the sole author of the poems, or were they actually written by a group of authors under a generalized “ epic name"?
– In the burial in question, in addition to the warrior, there are other remains...
– The man fatally wounded in the heel by an arrow was 40-45 years old, the young woman was 18 years old, and another adult whose gender could not be determined. During his lifetime, the warrior was very physically developed...
– Like Brad Pitt, who played the role in the film “Troy”?
– I wouldn’t compare them. If only because it is still a feature film. Nevertheless, the fact cannot but be thought-provoking.
Let me emphasize once again: we found the “Achilles heel” of a man who died from an arrow strike, but not the grave of Achilles itself. However, such coincidences do not happen very often. Today it is actually the first...
– It is known that on the island. Serpentine, near Romania, once housed the largest temple of Achilles in Europe. It was there, according to legend, that the warrior’s soul went after his “treacherous death”...
– In my opinion, this is another reason to defend Zmeiny as an integral territory of Ukraine.
– Weren’t you embarrassed by the fact that a burial was discovered on the site of a cesspool?
– And here the newspapers lied a little! In fact, the excavator was digging a hole for future sewerage equipment. But I ended up at this particular burial. In my opinion, there is nothing surprising in this. The entire right, “indigenous” bank of the Dnieper from the central part of Nikopol (current Victory Park) right up to the village. Alekseevka, that is, Chertomlyka, is 14 km, known in the world scientific literature as the “Nikopol Kurgan Field”. There were hundreds, or even thousands of graves here, from the most ancient burials of the Neolithic times to the “bronze” of the legendary Aryans and nomads. In 2000, our expedition discovered in Victory Park, literally 300 meters from the museum, an unlooted burial of a 12th-century Polovtsian woman. We carefully removed the amber and untouched bones and sent them to Kyiv for examination, which confirmed that they belonged to the buried one.
When the Nikopol Pipe Plant was being built, the ability to explore the area was difficult. Only some of the mounds, the largest ones, managed to be “worked out.” In addition, the peasants, wanting to increase their own areas for crops, did not hesitate to destroy 3- and 4-meter mounds.
– Aren’t you afraid that crowds of “black archaeologists” will pour into your region?
“They walk around here all the time anyway, looking for places where they can make money. I can’t say where the law enforcement agencies are looking... We regularly hand over to them documents about the discovered traces of grave robberies - we either receive no answers at all, or they answer: “Due to the lack of corpus delicti, the initiation of a criminal case was refused.”
Achilles, or Achilles, is one of the greatest heroes of the Trojan War, the son of the ruler of the Myrmidons Peleus and the sea goddess Thetis. His mother bathed the baby in the waters of the river Styx in the underworld to make the boy immortal. Only the heel by which she held him remained vulnerable. According to legend, Achilles died at the Scaean Gate from an arrow from Paris that hit him in the heel.
Achilles(ancient Greek Ἀχιλλεύς, Achilleus) (lat. Achilles) - in the heroic tales of the ancient Greeks, he is the bravest of the heroes who undertook a campaign against Troy under the leadership of Agamemnon. Name a-ki-re-u(Achilleus) was recorded in ancient Knossos, worn by ordinary people.
Myths about Achilles
Achilles' childhood
From the marriages of the Olympian gods with mortals, heroes were born. They were endowed with enormous strength and superhuman capabilities, but did not have immortality. Heroes were supposed to carry out the will of the gods on earth and bring order and justice into people's lives. With the help of their divine parents, they performed all kinds of feats. Heroes were highly revered, legends about them were passed down from generation to generation.
Thetis immerses Achilles in the waters of the Styx
(Rubens, Peter Paul (1577-1640)
The legends unanimously call Achilles the son of a mortal - Peleus, king of the Myrmidons, while his mother, the sea goddess Thetis, belongs to the host of immortals. The earliest versions of the birth of Achilles mention the oven of Hephaestus, where Thetis, wanting to deify Achilles (and make him immortal), laid her son, holding his heel. According to another ancient legend, which Homer does not mention, Achilles’ mother, Thetis, wanting to test whether her son was mortal or immortal, wanted to plunge the newborn Achilles into boiling water, just as she did with her previous children, but Peleus opposed this. Later legends tell that Thetis, wanting to make her son immortal, plunged him into the waters of the Styx or, according to another version, into fire, so that only the heel by which she held him remained vulnerable; hence the proverb still used today—“Achilles’ heel”—to denote someone’s weakness.
Baby Achilles is given to Chiron to be raised
As a child, Achilles was named Pyrrhisias (translated as “Icy”), but when fire burned his lips, he was called Achilles (“lipless”). According to other authors, Achilles was called Ligiron in childhood. Such a change from a child’s name to an adult’s, associated with injury or feat, is a relic of the initiation ritual (cf. the change of the child’s name “Alcides” to “Hercules” after the hero killed the lion of Kiferon and defeated King Ergin).
The Training of Achilles (James Barry (1741-1806)
Achilles was raised by Chiron on Pelion. He was not Helen's fiancé (as only Euripides calls him). Chiron fed Achilles the bone marrow of deer and other animals, from here, supposedly, from a-hilos, and his name came from “fedless,” that is, “not breastfed.” According to one interpretation, Achilles found a herb that could heal wounds.
The education of Achilles and the beginning of the War of Troy
Achilles received his upbringing from Phoenix, and the centaur Chiron taught him the art of healing. According to another legend, Achilles did not know the art of medicine, but nevertheless healed Telephus.
At the request of Nestor and Odysseus and in accordance with the will of his father, Achilles joined the campaign against Troy at the head of 50 ships (or 60), and took with him his teacher Phoenix and childhood friend Patroclus (some authors call Patroclus the beloved of Achilles). According to Homer, Achilles arrived in the army of Agamemnon from Phthia. According to Lesha's poem, the storm brought Achilles to Skyros.
Identification of Achilles among the daughters of Lycomedes (Bray)
The legend of the post-Homeric cycle conveys that Thetis, wanting to save her son from participating in a fatal campaign for him, hid him with Lycomedes, king of the island of Skyros, where Achilles in women's clothes was between the royal daughters. The cunning trick of Odysseus, who, under the guise of a merchant, laid out women's jewelry in front of the girls and, mixing weapons with them, ordered an unexpected battle cry and noise, discovered the sex of Achilles (who immediately grabbed the weapon), as a result, the exposed Achilles was forced to join the Greek campaign.
According to some authors, Achilles was 15 years old at the beginning of the campaign, and the war lasted 20 years. The first shield of Achilles was made by Hephaestus, this scene is depicted on vases.
During the long siege of Ilium, Achilles repeatedly launched raids on various neighboring cities. According to the existing version, he wandered the Scythian land for five years in search of Iphigenia.
At the beginning of the war, Achilles tried to take the city of Monenia (Pedas), and a local girl fell in love with him. “There is nothing strange in the fact that he, being amorous and intemperate, could zealously study music.”
Achilles in the Iliad
The main character of the Iliad.
In the tenth year of the siege of Ilion, Achilles captured the beautiful Briseis. She served as a bone of contention, which forced Astynous to return his captive to her father Chryses, and therefore laid claim to the possession of Briseis.
Achilles receives ambassadors from Agamemnon
(Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres (1780-1867)
The angry Achilles refused to further participate in battles (compare with the similar refusal to fight of the insulted Karna, the greatest hero of the Indian legend “Mahabharata”). Thetis, wanting to take revenge on Agamemnon for the insult inflicted on her son, begged Zeus to grant victory to the Trojans.
Angry Achilles (Herman Wilhelm Bissen (1798-1868)
The next morning, Thetis brought her son new armor, forged by the skillful hand of Hephaestus himself (in particular, the shield is described in the Iliad as a marvelous work of art, a description that is important for the original history of Greek art). ; Hector alone dared to resist him here, but still fled from Achilles.
Achilles duel with Hector
Pursuing the murderer of his friend, Achilles forced Hector to run around the walls of Troy three times, finally overtook and killed him, and tied him naked with him to the Greek camp. Having magnificently celebrated the funeral feast for his fallen friend Patroclus, Achilles returned Hector’s corpse to his father, King Priam, for a rich ransom, who came to the hero’s tent to beg him about it.
Priam asking Achilles for the body of Hector, 1824
(Alexander Andreevich Ivanov (1806-1858)
In the Iliad, 23 Trojans, named by name, for example, Asteropeus, died at the hands of Achilles. Aeneas crossed arms with Achilles, but then fled from him. Achilles fought Agenor, who was saved by Apollo.
Death of Achilles
The legends of the epic cycle tell that during the further siege of Troy, Achilles killed in battle the queen of the Amazons and the Ethiopian prince, who came to the aid of the Trojans. Achilles killed Memnon, avenging his friend Antilochus, the son of Nestor. In Quintus' poem, Achilles killed 6 Amazons, 2 Trojans and the Ethiopian Memnon. According to Hyginus, he killed Troilus, Astynome and Pylemenes. In total, 72 warriors fell at the hands of Achilles.
Having defeated many enemies, Achilles in the last battle reached the Scaean Gate of Ilion, but here the hero died. According to some authors, Achilles was directly killed by Apollo himself, or by the arrow of Apollo, who took the form of Paris, or by Paris, hiding behind the statue of Apollo of Thymbrey. The earliest author to mention the vulnerability of Achilles' ankle is Statius, but there is an earlier depiction on a 6th-century amphora. BC e., where we see Achilles wounded in the leg.
Death of Achilles
Later legends transfer the death of Achilles to the temple of Apollo at Thimbra, near Troy, where he came to marry Polyxena, the youngest daughter of Priam. These legends report that Achilles was killed by Paris and Deiphobus when he wooed Polyxena and came to negotiate.
According to Ptolemy Hephaestion, Achilles was killed by Helenus or Penthesilea, after which Thetis resurrected him, he killed Penthesilea and returned to Hades
Subsequent legends
According to the current version, Achilles' body was ransomed for an equal weight of gold from the gold-bearing river Pactolus.
Shield of Achilles 
The Greeks erected a mausoleum for Achilles on the banks of the Hellespont, and here, in order to pacify the shadow of the hero, they sacrificed Polyxena to him. According to Homer's story, Ajax Telamonides and Odysseus Laertides argued for the armor of Achilles. Agamemnon awarded them to the latter. In the Odyssey, Achilles is in the underworld, where Odysseus meets him. Achilles was buried in a golden amphora (Homer), which Dionysus gave to Thetis (Lycophron, Stesichorus).
But already “Ethiopida,” one of the epics of the epic cycle, tells that Thetis took her son away from the burning fire and transferred him to the island of Levka (called Snake Island at the mouth of the Istra Danube), where he continues to live in the company of other idolized heroes and heroines . This island served as the center of the cult of Achilles, as well as the mound that rises on the Sigean hill in front of Troy and is still known as the tomb of Achilles. The sanctuary and monument of Achilles, as well as the monuments of Patroclus and Antilochus, were at Cape Sigei. There were also his temples in Elis, Sparta and other places.
Philostratus (born in 170) in his essay “On Heroes” (215) cites a dialogue between a Phoenician merchant and a winegrower, telling about the events on Snake Island. With the end of the Trojan War, Achilles and Helen married after death (the marriage of the bravest with the most beautiful) and live on the White Island (Levka Island) at the mouth of the Danube on the Pontus Euxine. One day, Achilles appeared to a merchant who had sailed to the island and asked him to buy a slave girl for him in Troy, indicating how to find her. The merchant fulfilled the order and delivered the girl to the island, but before his ship had time to sail far from the shore, he and his companions heard the wild screams of the unfortunate girl: Achilles tore her into pieces - she, it turns out, was the last of the descendants of the royal family of Priam. The screams of the unfortunate woman reach the ears of the merchant and his companions. The role of the owner of the White Island, performed by Achilles, becomes understandable in the light of the article by H. Hommel, who showed that even in the 7th century. BC e. this character, who had long ago turned into an epic hero, still acted in his original function as one of the afterlife demons.
Called “reigning over the Scythians.” Demodocus sings a song about him. The ghost of Achilles appeared in Troy, hunting animals.
The spear of Achilles was kept in Phaselis in the temple of Athena. The cenotaph of Achilles was in Elis, in the gymnasium. According to Timaeus, Periander built the fortification of Achilleus against the Athenians from the stones of Ilium, which Demetrius of Skepsis refutes. Statues of naked ephebes with spears were called Achilles.
Origin of the image
There is a hypothesis that initially in Greek mythology Achilles was one of the demons of the underworld (which included other heroes - for example, Hercules). The assumption about the divine nature of Achilles was expressed by H. Hommel in his article. He shows on the material of Greek early classical texts that even in the 7th century. BC e. this character, who had long ago turned into an epic hero, still acted in his original function as one of the afterlife demons. Hommel's publication caused an active discussion, which has not yet been completed.
Image in art
Literature
The protagonist of Aeschylus's tragedies "The Myrmidons" (fr. 131-139 Radt), "Nereids" (fr. 150-153 Radt), "The Phrygians, or the Ransom of the Body of Hector" (fr. 263-267 Radt); the satyr dramas of Sophocles “The Worshipers of Achilles” (fr. 149-157 Radt) and “The Companions” (fr. 562-568 Radt), the tragedy of Euripides “Iphigenia in Aulis”. The tragedies “Achilles” were written by Aristarchus of Tegea, Iophon, Astydamas the Younger, Diogenes, Karkin the Younger, Cleophon, Evaret, Chaeremon had the tragedy “Achilles - the killer of Thersites”, from the Latin authors Livy Andronicus (“Achilles”), Ennius (“Achilles according to Aristarchus "), Aktii ("Achilles, or Myrmidons").
art
The plastic art of antiquity repeatedly reproduced the image of Achilles. His image has come to us on many vases, bas-reliefs with individual scenes or a whole series of them, also on a group of pediments from Aegina (kept in Munich, see Aegina art), but there is not a single statue or bust that could be attributed to him with certainty.
One of the most remarkable busts of Achilles is kept in St. Petersburg, in the Hermitage. The sad and at the same time indignant head is crowned with a helmet, which ends in a crest hanging forward, mounted on the back of the sphinx; at the back this ridge curls like a long tail. On both sides of the crest there is a sculpture in flat relief along the fingerboard; they are separated by a palmette. The front supra-frontal plaque of the helmet, ending in curls on both sides, is also decorated with a palmette in the middle; on either side of her are a pair of sharp-faced, thin-tailed dogs with long, flat ears, wearing collars (apparently a pair of hunting dogs sniffing the ground). The facial expression is reminiscent of a bust kept in Munich. It must be assumed that this captures the moment when they had already put the armor on the hero, chained by Hephaestus, and now his face was already ablaze with anger, a thirst for vengeance, but sadness for his dear friend still trembles on his lips, like a reflection of inner heart longing. This bust apparently dates back to the 2nd century AD. e. to the era of Hadrian, but its design is too deep for this era, poor in creative thought, and therefore we can only assume that this head, like the Munich one, is an imitation, the original of which could have been created no later than Praxiteles, that is, no later than IV-III V. BC e.
In cinema
In 2003, a two-part television film “Helen of Troy” was released, where Achilles is played by Joe Montana.
Brad Pitt plays the role of Achilles in the 2004 film Troy.
In astronomy
The asteroid (588) Achilles, discovered in 1906, is named after Achilles.
(Quintus of Smirnsky. Posthomerica)
After the burial of Antilochus, Achilles again decided to take out the death of his friend on the Trojans. Despite all the failures, they, carried away by fate, again entered into battle, trying to save Ilion. But after a short skirmish, Achilles and his brave squad drove them back to the city. A few more moments, and, having broken down the Scaean gates, he would have killed all the Trojans in the city. Then Apollo came down from Olympus, terribly angry with the Achaeans for the disasters of the Trojans, and went to meet Achilles; his bow and quiver rang terribly on his shoulders, the earth shook from his steps, and the silver-bowed god exclaimed in a terrifying voice: “Get away from the Trojans, Pelid, and stop being fierce, otherwise one of the immortals of Olympus will destroy you.” But Achilles, furious from the battle, did not move away, did not heed the command of God, for gloomy fate was already standing next to him; he boldly exclaimed: “Phoebus, why do you challenge me against my will to a battle with the gods and stand up for the arrogant? You have already deceived me once and distracted me from Hector and the Trojans. Now go to the other gods, otherwise I will hit you with a spear, although you and God." Having said this, he rushed at the Trojans, who were still running scattered across the field; and the angry Apollo said: “Woe! How furious he is! None of the immortals, not even Zeus himself, would have allowed him to indulge in rage and resist the immortals for so long.” And, covered with a thick cloud, he shot a deadly arrow.
The arrow hit Achilles in the heel. Suddenly a strong pain penetrated to his very heart, and he fell like a tower toppled by an earthquake. “Who is it,” exclaimed Achilles, looking around, “who shot a destructive arrow at me? Let him come against me, let him openly fight with me, and my sword will immediately tear his insides apart, and he will be thrown bloody into Hades. I know that "No mortal can defeat me in open battle, but the cowardly lies in wait for the strongest. Let him come forward, even if he is a celestial! Yes, I feel that this is Apollo, clothed in darkness. My mother has long predicted to me that I will fall under his destructive arrow near Scae gate: she spoke the truth." So said Achilles and took the arrow from the incurable wound; Blood flowed in a black stream, and death reached the heart. Achilles angrily threw a spear, which the wind immediately carried to the hands of Apollo, who returned to Olympus to the meeting of the gods. Hera greeted him with words full of bitterness: “What kind of destructive deed have you done today, Phoebus? After all, at the wedding of Thetis and Peleus, you played the zither among the feasting gods and begged the newlyweds for a son: you killed this son today. But this will not help your Trojans. ": soon the son of Achilles will arrive from Skyros, equal in valor to his father, and he will break out in disaster over them. Fool, with what eyes will you look at Nereus' daughter when she appears at our Olympian meeting." Thus she spoke, blaming God; Apollo did not answer, fearing his father’s wife, and, lowering his gaze, sat silently away from the other gods.
Death of Achilles. Sculpture by Christophe Veyrier, 1683
Achilles had not yet lost his courage; his blood, greedy for battle, boiled in his powerful limbs. None of the Trojans dared to approach him, prostrate on the ground: so timid the villagers stand at a distance from the lion that the hunter was struck in the heart and, with rolled-up eyes and clenched teeth, struggles with death. So the angry Achilles, like a wounded lion, fought against death. Once again he rose up and with a raised spear rushed towards the enemies. He pierced Oriphaon, Hector's friend, in the temple, so that the tip of the spear penetrated into the brain, and he gouged out the eye of Hippothois; then he defeated Alkithos and many others of the Trojans, who fled in fear. But little by little Achilles’ limbs grew cold and his strength disappeared. However, he resisted and, leaning on his spear, shouted in a terrible voice to the fleeing enemies: “Woe to you, cowardly Trojans, and after my death you will not escape my spear, my avenging spirit will reach you all.” The Trojans fled at the last click, thinking that he was not yet wounded; but Achilles, with stiff limbs, fell among other dead bodies, heavy as a rock; the earth shook and his weapon hummed. This is how death befell Achilles.
The Trojans saw the death of Achilles, but, trembling, they did not dare to approach his body, like sheep timidly running away from a predatory beast killed near the herd. First of all, Paris dared to exhort the Trojans to approach the fallen man: would it be possible, he thought, to steal the body with armor and bring it to Ilion to the joy of the Trojans and Trojans? Finally, Aeneas, Agenor, Glaucus and many others, who had previously been fearfully running from Achilles, rushed forward together with Paris; but Telamonides Ajax and other strong friends of Pelides opposed them. A terrible battle ensued over the body and armor of the fallen: corpses were piled up in hills all around, and the blood of the dead flowed in streams. The battle lasted all day, until the evening. Then Zeus rushed between the combatants in a stormy whirlwind and allowed the Achaeans to save their body and weapons. The strong Ajax carried Achilles' body on his shoulders from the battle, while the cautious Odysseus pushed back the advancing enemy. The Achaeans safely carried the body of Achilles to the ships, washed and anointed it with myrrh; then, having clothed him in thin and delicate garments, they laid him, lamenting and weeping, on a bed and cut off his hair.
Ajax carries Achilles' body out of the battle. Attic vase, ca. 510 BC
Having heard the sad news of the death of Achilles at the bottom of the sea, Thetis with all her Nereid sisters sailed to the Achaean camp, filling the air with such loud cries that the roar from them carried far above the waves, filling the hearts of the Achaeans with fear. The unfortunate mother and the maidens of the sea, lamenting, stood in mourning clothes around the bed of Achilles; a choir of nine muses descended from Olympus and sang funeral songs in honor of the deceased, while the saddened army grieved and cried around them. It took seventeen days and seventeen nights for both the immortal gods and people to honor their beloved hero, kidnapped by death, with tears and funeral songs. On the eighteenth day, they placed the body, dressed in precious garments, on a fire and burned it with many slain sheep and bulls, with honey and myrrh; throughout the night, armed Achaean heroes solemnly walked around and around the blazing fire of Achilles. Early in the morning, when everything was destroyed by fire, they collected the ashes and white bones of the hero and put all this, along with the ashes of Patroclus, in a golden urn made by Hephaestus, which Dionysus presented to Thetis. This was the wish of the friends. Then they placed the urn of Achilles in the tomb, which had already been built on the Scaean Cape, on the shores of the Hellespont, to Patroclus; There they placed the ashes of their friend Antilochus and above all this they poured a high mound - a monument for future generations: this mound is visible from afar, from the Hellespont. After the burial, Thetis, in memory of the death of Achilles, organized a funeral feast in the Achaean army with a splendor never before seen by mortals. The first heroes of the army showed their strength and dexterity in various games, and received the most beautiful gifts from the hands of Thetis.
Based on materials from the book by G. Stoll “Myths of Classical Antiquity”
