The Infamous Achilles’ Heel
Is the story of the Achilles heel even real? Let’s back up, and I’ll explain. Achilles was the son of the goddess Thetis and King Peleus of Phthia. Achilles is most known for his role in the Trojan war, fighting for the side of the Greeks. This war led to his demise and, whether or not you realize, you probably already know the story. The story of Achilles’ death begins from his childhood. When Achilles was a young boy, his mother Thetis was told by the oracle a prophecy about her son.
The prophecy told how Achilles would die young. In a trivial attempt to preserve her son, Thetis took infant Achilles to the River Styx to make him immortal. The story goes that a dip in the river, which flows into the underworld, would make the mortal body immortal. Thetis held him by the heel above the Styx and dipped him in, missing the tip of his heel where she held him. This would serve as Achilles’ weak point and eventually his death.
At the age of around twenty (it is disputed), despite his prophecy of youthful demise, Achilles joined the war effort against Troy, knowing that he would die. Yet Achilles, being the hero he is, refused to stay home, for his honor and glory would be lost. To the Greeks, dying in battle was the most honorable act, and Achilles was most honorable of the Greek warriors.
As it was, near the end of the ten year Trojan War, Achilles met his demise by the arrow of Paris. It is understood that the god of Archery, Apollo, assisted Paris’ aim in order to punish Achilles for murdering the god’s son. And divine intervention in the Trojan War was very common. Regardless, Paris struck Achilles in the heel, the one body part attaching Achilles to the confines of the mortal world.
But the story of how Achilles gained his immortality is disputed. Although the River Styx version is most known, more classical myths tell of how Achilles came to his state through a treatment of the godly food, Ambrosia, and his mother’s use of fire to burn away his mortality, except for at the heel where she held him.
In fact, the myth of Achilles’ ‘immortal’ body might not be truthful anyways. The story of his death that we all know, more or less, might be misleading. Achilles’ invulnerability was not discussed in the Iliad, the story of much of the Trojan War. In fact, some works of ancient art portray Achilles with an arrow striking and killing him by the torso. From this, we can gather that the story of Thetis and the River Styx might not be the original version of Achilles’ story.
To further this point, the expression “Achilles heel” only dates to relatively very modern times, the 1840s. So the story of Achilles’ dip, whether it be in the river or the fire, might be recent fabrications altogether. Either way, Achilles will never be forgotten in contemporary art and rhetoric, as his heel represents the fatal flaws within us all.
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