In Greek mythology, Achilles was a Greek hero. He is the chief character in Homer's Iliad. His father was Peleus, ruler of Phthia in Thessaly, his mother the sea-goddess Thetis. When only six years of age he was able to overcome lions and bears. His guardian, Cheiron the Centaur, having declared that Troy could not be taken without his aid, his mother, fearing for his safety, disguised him as a girl, and introduced him among the daughters of Lycomedes of Scyros. Her desire for his safety made her also try to make him invulnerable when a child by anointing him with ambrosia, and again by dipping him in the river Styx, from which he came out proof against wounds, all but the heel, by which she held him.
His place of concealment was discovered by Odysseus (Ulysses), and he promised his assistance to the Greeks against Troy. Accompanied by his close friend, Patroclus, he joined the expedition with a body of followers (Myrmidons) in fifty ships, and occupied nine years in raids upon the towns neighbouring to Troy, after which the siege proper commenced. On being deprived of his prize, the maiden Briseis, by Agamemnon, he refused to take any further part in the war, and
disaster attended the Greeks.
Patroclus now persuaded Achilles to allow him to lead the Myrmidons to battle dressed in his armour, and he having been slain by Hector, Achilles vowed revenge on the Trojans, and forgot his anger against the Greeks. He attacked the Trojans and drove them back to their walls, slaying them in great numbers, chased Hector, who fled before him three times round the walls of Troy, slew him, and dragged his body at his chariot-wheels, but afterwards gave it up to Priam, who came in person to beg for it. He then performed the funeral rites of Patroclus, with which the Iliad closes. He was killed in a battle at the Scasan Gate of Troy by an arrow from the bow of Paris which struck his vulnerable heel. In discussions on the origin of the Homeric poems the term Achilleid is often applied to those books (i. viii. and xi.-xxii.) of the Iliad in which Achilles is prominent, and which some suppose to have formed the original nucleus of the poem. Research Achilles
In Greek mythology, Sarpedon was a son of Zeus and Europa. He went to Asia Minor and became the king of the Lycians after helping Cilix of Cilicia to defeat them. He helped Troy in the Trojan wars before being killed by Patroclus. Research Sarpedon
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