Unchanged by any teller — how the centuries since have seen Achilles.
The gallery
Thetis Dipping the Infant Achilles into the River Styx
Peter Paul Rubens, c. 1625
Painted around 1625 as part of Rubens's series of designs for a tapestry cycle on the life of Achilles, this dynamic oil sketch shows the sea-goddess Thetis gripping her newborn son by the heel and plunging him into the dark waters of the Styx to render him invulnerable. The three-headed hound Cerberus and the ferryman Charon's bark anchor the scene in the underworld, while the swirling Baroque composition foreshadows the hero's single mortal weakness — the heel by which his mother held him.
Achilles Tending the Wounded Patroclus
Unknown (the Sosias Painter), c. 500 BCE
The interior tondo of an Attic red-figure kylix, now in the Antikensammlung Berlin (F 2278), depicts Achilles carefully bandaging the wounded arm of his companion Patroclus. Patroclus turns his face away in pain while Achilles, bareheaded and intent, binds the dressing — a rare moment of tenderness amid the violence of the Trojan War. The vase is one of the masterpieces of late Archaic Athenian pottery and a touchstone for ancient images of the bond between the two warriors.
The Wrath of Achilles
Peter Paul Rubens, c. 1630–1635
Another scene from Rubens's Achilles tapestry series, this work dramatizes the opening crisis of Homer's Iliad: enraged by Agamemnon's seizure of his prize Briseis, Achilles begins to draw his sword, only to be checked by the goddess Athena, who seizes him by the hair from behind. The taut diagonal of the composition captures the instant of restrained fury that sets the entire epic in motion, sending Achilles into the sulking withdrawal that costs the Greeks dearly.
The Wrath of Achilles
François-Léon Benouville, 1847
This Neoclassical canvas by the French painter François-Léon Benouville, awarded a prize at the École des Beaux-Arts, isolates Achilles in a moment of brooding rage as he sits apart from the Greek camp. Idealized in the academic tradition, the hero clutches his weapons and stares fixedly ahead, embodying the menis — the divine wrath — that is the very first word of the Iliad. The restrained palette and sculptural figure exemplify mid-nineteenth-century French history painting's fascination with Homeric subjects.
On screen
Troy
Wolfgang Petersen
Brad Pitt's Achilles carries Petersen's de-godded Iliad: the wrath, Patroclus and the duel with Hector staged as blockbuster spectacle — the myth's widest cinema audience to date.
Helen of Troy
Robert Wise
Wise's widescreen epic keeps Achilles among the Greek champions — the swift-footed killer whose quarrel and return still shape the siege.
The Fury of Achilles
Marino Girolami
An Italian peplum that puts Achilles' wrath front and centre — Briseis, Patroclus and the duel with Hector compressed into sword-and-sandal Homer.
Troy: Fall of a City
Owen Harris
The BBC/Netflix cycle gives Achilles room for love, sulk and slaughter — the Myrmidon camp restaged for a streaming Iliad.
In music & on stage
Achilles Last Stand
Led Zeppelin
The galloping ten-minute opener of Presence, cut while Robert Plant was still mending from the car crash that shattered his ankle — the title a wry nod to the hero's one weak point.
Achilles Come Down
Gang of Youths
A seven-minute plea to a friend on a ledge, sung through the hero's name — Achilles as the modern figure of beautiful self-destruction.
Deidamia
George Frideric Handel
Handel's last Italian opera hides Achilles on Skyros in women's dress — the hero's choice between love and the fame that will kill him at Troy.
In play
The Song of Achilles
Madeline Miller
Miller retells the Iliad through Patroclus' eyes, from Pelion to the pyre; the novel won the 2012 Orange Prize and returned Achilles to the bestseller lists three millennia on.
Achilles' heel
English made the hero's one vulnerable spot a proverb — any fatal weakness still bears the name of the tendon Thetis failed to dip.
Hades
Supergiant Games
Supergiant's underworld rogue-like stations Achilles in Elysium as warrior and mentor — the swift-footed shade coaching Zagreus between escapes.
The Silence of the Girls
Pat Barker
Barker's Iliad from Briseis' side keeps Achilles as the terrifying centre — the wrath retold through the captive women of the Greek camp.