The Achilles From Greek Mythology
- Before Achilles was born, a prophecy concerning him was given that espoused he would grow up to be greater than his father, but die young. At first Zeus (King of the Gods) and Poseidon (God of the Sea) were both chasing the beautiful Thetis (Achilles' mother to be) but after Prometheus warned the brothers of the prophecy, the brother Gods orchestrated circumstances so that Achilles’s father would be a mortal. In the end King Peleus became Achilles’s father, even though Thetis, his mother was a sea-nymph.
- In total Thetis had 7 children, but grew frustrated with their mortal shells. The children kept dying in infancy when she would test them against the elements that a god or at least a demi-god could withstand. Thetis, in being a sea-nymph could breathe underwater, but her children couldn't and so as she tested their marine suitability she sent each of them to their watery deaths. One day she took Achilles to the River Styx (the river of the dead) and dipped Achilles into it as it was supposed to grant immortality. Finally getting her wish for some sort of ability in one of her children, she made his body invulnerable to harm…except for the heel part of his foot that she had to hold him with. In some accounts it is said that she also rubbed him each day with ambrosia (food of the gods) and each night she laid him upon a hearth fire, that is until her husband caught and scolded her for the treatment of his son.
"One day she took Achilles to the River Styx (the river of the dead) and she dipped Achilles into it, as it was supposed to grant immortality."
- After Thetis abandoned her husband and son, Achilles was sent away to learn and study from a great warrior, a centaur called Chiron. Chiron was a very skilled warrior, healer, astrologer and had also trained many other famous warriors including Jason of the Argonauts. Chiron fed Achilles on the innards of lions, wild swine, and the marrow of she-wolves, all of which was to make him tougher and more aggressive - this is the supposed reason for his ferociousness as a warrior.
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