Achilleus, German Achill, the strongest Greek hero in the Trojan War.
Troy, called by Homer in his epic poems Iliad, was a powerful city of Asia Minor, whose origins date back to the 3rd millennium BC. Located at the Hellespont, a long, narrow sound (Dardanelles) in front of the Bosporus, it controlled this important strait and probably demanded tribute from the merchant ships.
Achilleus, son of Peleus and Thetis, hence the name "Pelide", was immersed by his mother in the border river to the underworld Stix and made invulnerable. Except for the Achilles' heel, which is still referred to today as a weak point and thus the vulnerable point of a human being.
The wise Kentaur Cheiron, a hybrid creature with a horse's body and the trunk and upper body of a man, educated and taught him.
Since he was destined to fall before Troy or lead a long, glorious life, his mother Thetis hid him, dressed as a girl, with King Lykomedes on Skyros, where he married his daughter Deidameia. His son was Neoptolemos. Since Troy could not be conquered without Achilles after a prophecy, Ulysses found him by trickery. Achilleus went to war with them and did many heroic deeds.
When he was robbed of the beautiful slave Briseis in the 10th year of the war by Agamemnon, he withdrew from the fight full of anger. He first intervened to avenge his friend Patroklos, who was killed by Hector in the duel, and killed Hektor, the most powerful of the Trojans. Achilleus fell through a poisoned arrow of the Paris, directed by Apollon, into his heel.
The deep friendship between Achilleus? and his friend Patroklos gave rise to all kinds of speculation. In contrast to this, however, there is the vase motif of Penthesilea, the Amazon queen who died deadly injured by Achilleus and died in his arms, with whom he fell fervently in love.
Achilleus enjoyed cult worship as a hero in the Greek motherland.
Bust reproduced by a Roman statue, after Greek original.
Replica made of ceramic (high-strength special gypsum) in bronze finish
