Mark Gagnon

His mother was the goddess Thetis.

Remember her from the whole thing?

According to later legends, she had dipped him in the river Styx as an infant, making him invulnerable.

He was completely protected and virtually immortal everywhere except for the very heel where she held him.

Would you think that she would just do the whole job, right?

Get her fingers in that thing.

That's what I'm saying.

Oh, my fingertips are now invincible.

It's like, all right, both of you guys jump in headfirst.

I don't even understand.

Regardless, the famous story comes from later tradition, not from the Iliad itself.

Homer actually never mentions the River Styx or the heel or any of that stuff.

Achilles was fast and ferocious and was terrifying in general.

He was just a beast, all right?

He knew because the prophecy had told him that he had two possible fates, that he was either going to live a long, quiet life and just be forgotten, or...

He could fight a Troy and die young, but be remembered as a hero forever.

And as you can imagine, for the reasons that we're obviously talking about him, he chooses glory.

But alongside Achilles is this iconic cast of characters.

All right.

And they have made the Iliad kind of what it is, this lasting, influential piece of literature.