Who Is Achilles (Achilleus)?
The greatest Greek hero of the Trojan War
Achilles is the main hero of Homer's Iliad and the strongest warrior among the Greeks who fought in the Trojan War. He is the son of Peleus, a mortal king, and Thetis, a goddess of the sea, and he leads the soldiers known as the Myrmidons.
In Episode 1, during the debate over how to end the plague, the commander Agamemnon takes away Briseis, the woman given to Achilles as his share of the spoils. Achilles is so enraged that he starts to draw his sword, but the goddess Athena stops him. He swears he will fight no more and shuts himself away in his tent. Then, on the shore, he calls to his mother Thetis and begs her to ask Zeus to make the Greeks suffer, so that his honor will be restored.
The famous story of his weak heel (the origin of the "Achilles' heel") and his death by an arrow from Paris do not appear in the Iliad itself. They come from later traditions.
