The Death of Achilles: An Echo

The Death of Achilles by Peter Paul Ruben

           The Death of Achilles really seems like it was calibrated. Achilles was extraordinarily strong, courageous, loyal and everything you'd want to be as a warrior. The only thing that makes him different from the others is his mortality but still, no one thought Achilles could die anytime soon. 

     According to myths and stories composed long after the Iliad, Thetis was extraordinarily concerned about her baby son’s mortality. She did everything she could to make him immortal. She burned him over a fire every night, then dressed his wounds with ambrosial ointment; and she dunked him into the River Styx, whose waters were said to confer the invulnerability of the gods. Of all the things they tried, one seemed to work. The River Styx, the waters who were thought to be the the savior of Achilles' mortality. However, Thetis gripped him tightly by the foot as she dipped him into the river, so tightly that the water never touched his heel. As a result, Achilles was invulnerable everywhere but there.

           When he was 9 years old, a seer predicted that Achilles would die heroically in battle against the Trojans. When Thetis heard about this,  she asked the divine blacksmith Hephaestus to make a sword and shield that would keep him safe. The armor that Hephaestus produced for Achilles did not make him immortal but it was strong enough to keep him safe.

           Achilles still wasn't invincible. In the 9th year of the Trojan War, Achilles died when Paris shot him with an arrow to his heel as what the prophecy said. No matter how much his mother tried not to have her son killed in the war and even decided not to let him join the war but he did and died. The fact that he was shot in heel was really astonishing. Was it purely coincidence or another conspiracy? But either way, Paris was cool for knowing but I'm still not very fond of him though. His selfishness and insensitivity still marked my opinion towards him, though he didn't really have much of a choice when Zeus chose him to choose who is the fairest.

          To this day,people use the phrase “Achilles heel” to describe a powerful person’s fatal weakness. Everyone has an Achilles heel don't they? But besides the point, the death of Achilles still wasn't an event everyone was forseeing. I actually thought that for once, there was a change in the prophecy but that is merely impossible in Greek Mythology. That was definitely an event that surprised and amazed me at the same time. What can we learn from it? Only the fact that everyone has a weakness and someone will always be greater and lesser than us at some things. We have to accept these little mishaps in our making because that is the only way that will make us a strong, incredible and courageous person like Achilles was. 

References:

• History 2019, Achilles Available from: <https://www.history.com/topics/ancient-history/achilles> [31 October 2019]
• Ancient  Heroes 2016, How Did Achilles Die? Available from: <http://ancientheroes.net/blog/how-did-achilles-die> [31 October 2019]