In Greek mythology, Peleus (Ancient Greek: Πηλεύς, Pēleús) was a hero and king of Phthia, the husband of the sea-nymph Thetis and the father of their son Achilles. His story was already familiar to Homer's audiences in the late 8th century BC. The son of Aeacus, he was reckoned among the Argonauts and is best remembered for his marriage to Thetis, whose wedding feast set in motion the events that led to the Trojan War.
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I.Biography
Peleus was the son of Aeacus, king of the island of Aegina, and Endeïs, an oread (mountain nymph) of Mount Pelion in Thessaly. He married the sea-nymph Thetis, with whom he fathered Achilles. His daughter Polymele was possibly the mother of Patroclus.
Peleus and his brother Telamon were friends of Jason and were counted among the Argonauts. In later times, the historic kings of Epirus claimed descent from Peleus.
II.Mythology: Marriage to Thetis
Peleus and Telamon killed their half-brother Phocus — by accident or in an unthinking moment — and fled Aegina to escape punishment. In Phthia, Peleus was purified by the ruler Eurytion and married his daughter Antigone, by whom he had a daughter named Polydora. During the hunt for the Calydonian boar, however, Peleus accidentally killed Eurytion and had to flee once more.
Acastus purified Peleus of this killing at Iolcus. But Acastus's wife Astydamia fell in love with Peleus, and when he rejected her she falsely told Acastus that Peleus had tried to rape her. Acastus took Peleus to hunt on Mount Pelion, where he hid Peleus's sword and abandoned him to be killed by the centaurs. The centaur Chiron (or, in another version, Hermes) returned the sword to Peleus, who escaped. He afterward sacked Iolcus and dismembered Astydamia in revenge.
After the death of Antigone, Peleus married the sea-nymph Thetis. He was able to win her with the aid of Proteus, who instructed him to hold onto her tightly through all of her shape-shifting transformations. Their wedding feast was attended by the Olympian gods, and the wedding gifts included immortal horses from Poseidon, a knife from Hephaestus, and presents from the other deities. During the feast Eris, the goddess of discord, produced the golden Apple of Discord, setting in motion the chain of events that led to the Trojan War. The marriage produced several sons, of whom only Achilles survived infancy.
III.Mythology: Rescue of Achilles
Thetis tried to make the infant Achilles invulnerable. In the well-known version she dipped him in the River Styx, holding him by one heel, which therefore remained vulnerable. In an earlier version she anointed him with ambrosia and laid him in the fire to burn away his mortal parts, but was interrupted by Peleus, leaving the heel unprotected; Plutarch records a nearly identical Egyptian story. Achilles was later killed by Paris's arrow striking this heel — the origin of the phrase "Achilles' heel."
Peleus gave Achilles to the centaur Chiron to raise on Mount Pelion, which took its name from Peleus. In the Iliad, Achilles drives his father's immortal horses and wields his father's spear.
IV.In hero-cult
No sacred enclosure (temenos) of Peleus is recorded at Aegina, even though his father Aeacus had a prominent shrine there. Two versions explain Peleus's end: Euripides' Troades has Acastus drive him into exile from Phthia, where he dies; another account holds that he was reunited with Thetis and made immortal.
According to a fragment of Callimachus, Peleus had a tomb on the island of Ikos (modern Alonissos) in the Sporades, where he was venerated as "king of the Myrmidons" with an annual celebration of the hero's return; the Greek Anthology likewise refers to his tomb there. Clement of Alexandria records a veneration involving Peleus and Chiron at Pella in Thessaly, though its historical reliability is doubted.
V.In Athenian tragedy
A tragedy titled Peleus by Sophocles is now lost. Peleus also appears as a character in Euripides' tragedy Andromache, dated to around 425 BC.