A Literary History of Alabama: The Nineteenth Century (1979)
A central character in Homer's Iliad, he was the son of the Nereid Thetis and Peleus, king of Phthia and famous Argonaut
Achilles was raised in Phthia along his childhood companion Patroclus and received his education by the centaur Chiron
In the Iliad, he is presented as the commander of the mythical tribe of the Myrmidons
Achilles' most notable feat during the Trojan War was the slaying of the Trojan prince Hector outside the gates of Troy
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
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
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
Alluding 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
The Achilles tendon is named after him following the same legend
Etymology 

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 grief or distress of the people is a theme raised numerous times in the Iliad (and frequently by Achilles himself)
Achilles' role as the hero of grief or distress forms an ironic juxtaposition with the conventional view of him as the hero of   ("glory", usually in war)
Furthermore, laós has been construed by Gregory Nagy, following Leonard Palmer, to mean "a corps of soldiers", a muster
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
The poem is in part about the misdirection of anger on the part of leadership
Some researchers deem the name a loan word, possibly from a Pre-Greek 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
Birth and early years 

Achilles was the son of Thetisa Nereid and daughter of the Old Man of the Seaand Peleus, the king of the Myrmidons
For this reason, the two gods withdrew their pursuit, and had her wed Peleus
Thetis, although a daughter of the sea-god Nereus, was also brought up by Hera, further explaining her resistance to the advances of Zeus
Zeus was furious and decreed that she would never marry an immortal
It is not clear if this version of events was known earlier
In another version of this story, Thetis anointed the boy in ambrosia and put him on top of a fire in order to burn away the mortal parts of his body
She was interrupted by Peleus and abandoned both father and son in a rage
None of the sources before Statius make any reference to this general invulnerability
To the contrary, in the Iliad, Homer mentions Achilles being wounded: in Book 21 the Paeonian hero Asteropaios, son of Pelagon, challenged Achilles by the river Scamander
He was ambidextrous, and cast a spear from each hand; one grazed Achilles' elbow, "drawing a spurt of blood"
In the few fragmentary poems of the Epic Cycle which describe the hero's death (i.e
In the later vase paintings presenting the death of Achilles, the arrow (or in many cases, arrows) hit his torso
Peleus entrusted Achilles to Chiron, who lived on Mount Pelion and was known as the most righteous of the Centaurs, to be reared
In some accounts, Achilles' original name was "Ligyron" and he was later named Achilles by his tutor Chiron
According to Homer, Achilles grew up in Phthia with his childhood companion Patroclus
Homer further writes that Achilles taught Patroclus what he himself had been taught by Chiron, including the medical arts
Thetis foretold that her son's fate was either to gain glory and die young, or to live a long but uneventful life in obscurity
Achilles chose the former, and decided to take part in the Trojan War
According to Photius, the sixth book of the New History by Ptolemy Hephaestion reported that Thetis burned in a secret place the children she had by Peleus
When she had Achilles, Peleus noticed, tore him from the flames with only a burnt foot, and confided him to the centaur Chiron
Later Chiron exhumed the body of the Damysus, who was the fastest of all the giants, removed the ankle, and incorporated it into Achilles' burnt foot
Physical description 
In the account of Dares the Phrygian, Achilles was described having "
a large chest, a fine mouth, and powerfully formed arms and legs
His head was covered with long wavy chestnut-colored hair
Though mild in manner, he was very fierce in battle
His face showed the joy of a man richly endowed." Homer described Achilles, along with numerous other characters, as being blond
There, Achilles, properly disguised, lived among Lycomedes' daughters, perhaps under the name "Pyrrha" (the red-haired girl), Cercysera or Aissa ("swift")
With Lycomedes' daughter Deidamia, with whom he had begun a relationship, Achilles there fathered two sons, Neoptolemus (also called Pyrrhus, after his father's possible alias) and Oneiros
According to this story, Odysseus learned from the prophet Calchas that the Achaeans would be unable to capture Troy without Achilles' aid
Odysseus went to Skyros in the guise of a peddler selling women's clothes and jewellery and placed a shield and spear among his goods
When Achilles instantly took up the spear, Odysseus saw through his disguise and convinced him to join the Greek campaign
In another version of the story, Odysseus arranged for a trumpet alarm to be sounded while he was with Lycomedes' women