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Achilles was the son of the mortal Peleus and the Nereid Thetis. He was the mightiest of the Greeks who fought in the Trojan War, and was the hero of Homer's Iliad.
Thetis attempted unsuccessfully to make her son immortal. There are two versions of the story. In the earlier version, Thetis anointed the infant with ambrosia and then placed him upon a fire to burn away his mortal portions; she was interrupted by Peleus, whereupon she abandoned both father and son in a rage. Peleus placed the child in the care of the Centaur Chiron, who raised and educated the boy. In the later version, she held the young Achilles by the heel and dipped him in the river Styx; everything the sacred waters touched became invulnerable, but the heel remained dry and therefore unprotected.
According to Homer's Iliad, there was a time during the war of the Greeks against the Trojans, when Achilles was serioulsy considering to return back to Greece. One day he agreed to allow his friend Patroclus to fight in his place, wearing his armor. The next day Patroclus was killed and stripped of the armor by the Trojan hero Hector, who mistook him for Achilles. Achilles was overwhelmed with grief for his friend and killed Hector at a duel.
After the death of Hector, Achilles' days were numbered. He continued fighting heroically, killing many of the Trojans and their allies, including Memnon and the Amazon warrior Penthesilia. Finally Priam's son Paris, aided by Apollo, wounded Achilles in the heel with an arrow; Achilles died of the wound.
The statue captures
exactly Achilles' anguish of death, who has just been wounded by the lethal arrow.
The original sculpture is located in the Achilleion Residence of the 19th century Queen
Elizabeth (Sissy) of Austria in Corfu, Greece.
| # | Height | Price | |
| 41P | 18 in. (45 cm) |
$159.00 | |
| 155P | 6 in. (15 cm) |
$49.00 |
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