Achilles Achilles.
 For other uses see Achilles disambiguation.
In Greek mythology  transliterated to Akhilleus or Achilleus in Roman letters Latinized from this ancient Greek to Achilles appearing in Etruscan as Achle was a hero ancient Greek heros defender of the Trojan War the greatest and the most central character of Homer's Iliad.
The Name
The very first two lines of that magnificent and defining poem of ancient Greek culture indeed probably of the preceding Indo European culture read in transliteration.
 Menin aeide thea Peleiadeo Akhileos
 oulomenen he muri' Akhaiois alge' etheken.
 Sing Muse the wrath of Achilles the son of Peleus. the destructive wrath that brought a thousand griefs upon the Achaeans.
In these lines we see the name Akhilleus Peleides which is a praenomen and a patronymic the latter being formed from Peleus with the suffix ides Achilles the son of Peleus The system is similar to the names used by Scandinavians before modern times such as Leif Erikson It is no doubt much older than either culture.
Similarly Peleus' name would be Peleus Aiakides Peleus the son of Aiakos There is no nomen gentile as among the Romans indicating that clan names might not be Indo European after all.
There is a very strong derivation of Achilles devised by Leonard Palmer and expostulated in the first work cited below by Gregory Nagy The name is Indo European whose laos has akhos where laos is a corps of soldiers and akhos is grief.
As it is used in the poem which is stuffed full of irony there is a double entendre when the hero is functioning rightly his men bring grief to the enemy but when wrongly his men get the grief The poem is in part about the misdirection of anger on the part of leadership.
Birth
Achilles was the son of the mortal Peleus king of the Myrmidons in Phthia southeast Thessaly and the sea nymph Thetis Zeus and Poseidon were rivals for the hand of Thetis That is until Prometheus the fire bringer revealed that if one of these gods wed Thetis she would bear a son greater than his father For this reason the two gods withdrew their pursuit When Achilles was born Thetis had tried to make Achilles immortal by dipping him in the river Styx but forgot to wet the heel she held him by leaving him vulnerable See Achilles' tendon.
Homer however deliberately makes no mention of this Achilles cannot be a hero if he is not at risk Homer however does mention his being wounded although not seriously in the Iliad In an earlier and less popular version of the story Thetis anointed the boy in ambrosia and put him on top of a fire to burn away the mortal parts of his body She was interrupted by Peleus and abandoned both father and son in a rage Peleus gave him together with his young friend Patroclus to Chiron the Centaur on Mt Pelion to raise.
Achilles in the Trojan War
Telephus
When the Greeks left for the Trojan War they accidentally stopped in Mysia ruled by King Telephus In the battle Achilles wounded Telephus The wound would not heal and Telephus asked an oracle who stated that he that wounded shall heal.
According to others' reports about Euripides' lost play about Telephus he went to Aulis pretending to be a beggar and asked Achilles to help heal his wound Achilles refused claiming to have no medical knowledge Alternatively Telephus held Orestes for ransom the ransom being Achilles' aid in healing the wound Odysseus reasoned that the spear had inflicted the wound and the spear must be able to heal it Pieces of the spear were scraped off onto the wound and Telephus healed This is an example of sympathetic magic.
During the Trojan War
 The Rage of Achilles by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo
Achilles is one of the only two people described as god like in the Iliad He shows a complete and total devotion to the excellence of his craft and like a god has almost no regard for life Not his own clearly he does not mind a swift death so long as it is glorious kleos and not really of others His anger is absolute.