Achilles

, the son of Peleus and Thetis, was the bravest of all the ♦ Greeks in the Trojan war. During his infancy, Thetis plunged him in the Styx, and made every part of his body invulnerable, except the heel, by which she held him. His education was entrusted to the centaur Chiron, who taught him the art of war and made him master of music, and by feeding him with the marrow of wild beasts, rendered him vigorous and active. He was taught eloquence by Phœnix, whom he ever after loved and respected. Thetis, to prevent him from going to the Trojan war, where she knew he was to perish, privately sent him to the court of Lycomedes, where he was disguised in a female dre , and, by his familiarity with the king’s daughters, made Deidamia mother of Neoptolemus. As Troy could not be taken without the aid of Achilles, Uly es went to the court of Lycomedes, in the habit of a merchant, and exposed jewels and arms to sale. Achilles, choosing the arms, discovered his sex, and went to the war. Vulcan, at the entreaties of Thetis, made him a strong suit of armour, which was proof against all weapons. He was deprived by Agamemnon of his favourite mistre , Briseis, who had fallen to his lot at the division of the booty of Lyrne us, and for this affront, he refused to appear in the field till the death of his friend Patroclus recalled him to action, and to revenge. See: Patroclus . He slew Hector the bulwark of Troy, tied the corpse by the heels to his chariot, and dragged it three times round the walls of Troy. After thus appeasing the shades of his friend, he yielded to the tears and entreaties of Priam, and permitted the aged father to ransom and to carry away Hector’s body. In the 10th year of the war, Achilles was charmed with Polyxena; and as he solicited her hand in the temple of Minerva, it is said that Paris aimed an arrow at his vulnerable heel, of which wound he died. His body was buried at Sigæum, and divine honours were paid to him, and temples raised to his memory. It is said, that after the taking of Troy, the ghost of Achilles appeared to the Greeks, and demanded of them Polyxena, who accordingly was sacrificed on his tomb by his son Neoptolemus. Some say that this sacrifice was voluntary, and that Polyxena was so grieved at his death that she killed herself on his tomb. The The alians yearly sacrificed a black and a white bull on his tomb. It is reported that he married Helen after the siege of Troy; but others maintain, that this marriage happened after his death, in the island of Leuce, where many of the ancient heroes lived, as in a separate elysium. See: Leuce . When Achilles was young, his mother asked him, whether he preferred a long life, spent in obscurity and retirement, or a few years of military fame and glory? and that, to his honour, he made choice of the latter. Some ages after the Trojan war, Alexander going to the conquest of Persia, offered sacrifices on the tomb of Achilles, and admired the hero who had found a Homer to publish his fame to posterity. Xenophon , On Hunting .— Plutarch , Alexander ; De facie in or be Lunæ ; De Music a ; De amicorum multitudine ; Quæstiones Græcæ .— Pausanias , bk. 3 , ch. 18 , . — Diodorus , bk. 17 .— Statius , Achilleid .— Ovid , Metamorphoses , bk. 12 , fable 3, . ; Tristia , bk. 3 , poem 5, li. 37 , . — Virgil , Æneid , bk. 1 , lis. 472, 488; bk. 2 , li. 275 ; bk. 6 , li. 58 , . — Apollo dor us , bk. 3 , ch. 13 .— Hyginus , fables 96 & 110.— Strabo , bk. 14 .— Pliny , bk. 35 , ch. 15 .— Maximus of Tyre , Oration 27.— Horace , bk. 1 , ode 8; bk. 2 , odes 4 & 16; bk. 4 , ode 6; bk. 2 , ltr. 2 , li. 42 .— Homer , Iliad & Ody ey .— Dictys Cretensis , bks. 1, 2, 3, . — Dares Phrygius. — Juvenal , satire 7, li. 210 .— A poll on i us , bk. 4 , Argonautic a , li. 869 .――There were other persons of the same name. The most known were—a man who received Juno when she fled from Jupiter’s courtship――the preceptor of Chiron the centaur――a son of Jupiter and Lamia, declared by Pan to be fairer than Venus――a man who instituted ostracism at Athens――Tatius, a native of Alexandria, in the age of the emperor Claudius, but originally a pagan, converted to Christianity, and made a bishop. He wrote a mixed history of great men, a treatise on the sphere, tactics, a romance on the loves of Clitophon and Leucippe, . Some manuscripts of his works are preserved in the Vatican and Palatinate libraries. The best edition of his works is that in 12mo, Leiden, 1640. ♦ ‘Geeeks’ replaced with ‘Greeks’