When Thetis had got a babe by Peleus, she wished to make it immortal, and unknown to Peleus she used to hide it in the fire by night in order to destroy the mortal element which the child inherited from its father, but by day she anointed him with ambrosia.[*](This account of how Thetis attempted to render Achilles immortal, and how the attempt was frustrated by Peleus, is borrowed from Ap. Rhod., Argon. iv.869ff. Compare Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 178 (vol. i. p. 458, ed. Muller). According to another legend, Thetis bore seven sons, of whom Achilles was the seventh; she destroyed the first six by throwing them into the fire or into a kettle of boiling water to see whether they were mortal or to make them immortal by consuming the merely mortal portion of their frame; and the seventh son, Achilles, would have perished in like manner, if his father Peleus had not snatched him from the fire at the moment when as yet only his anklebone was burnt. To supply this missing portion of his body, Peleus dug up the skeleton of the giant Damysus, the fleetest of all the giants, and, extracting from it the anklebone, fitted it neatly into the ankle of his little son Achilles, applying drugs which caused the new, or rather old, bone to coalesce perfectly with the rest. See Ptolemy Hephaest., Nov. Hist. vi in Westermann's Mythographi Graeci, p. 195; Lycophron, Cassandra 178ff., with scholium of Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 178 (vol. i. pp. 455ff.); Scholiast on Hom. Il. xvi.37; Scholiast on Aristoph. Cl. 1068, p. 443, ed. Fr. Dubner; Scholiast on Ap. Rhod., Argon. iv.816. A similar story is told of Demeter and the infant son of Celeus. See above, Apollod. 1.5.1, with the note.) But Peleus watched her, and, seeing the child
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writhing on the fire, he cried out; and Thetis, thus prevented from accomplishing her purpose, forsook her infant son and departed to the Nereids.
[*](Compare Ap. Rhod., Argon. iv.875ff., who says that when Thetis was interrupted by Peleus in her effort to make Achilles immortal, she threw the infant screaming on the floor, and rushing out of the house plunged angrily into the sea, and never returned again. In the Iliad Homer represents Thetis dwelling with her old father Nereus and the sea-nymphs in the depths of the sea (Hom. Il. 1.357ff.; Hom. Il. 18.35ff.; Hom. Il. 14.83ff.), while her forlorn husband dragged out a miserable and solitary old age in the halls (Hom. Il. 18.434ff.). Thus the poet would seem to have been acquainted with the story of the quarrel and parting of the husband and wife, though he nowhere alludes to it or to the painful misunderstanding which led to their separation. In this, as in many other places, Homer passes over in silence features of popular tradition which he either rejected as incredible or deemed below the dignity of the epic. Yet if we are right in classing the story of Peleus and Thetis with the similar tales of the marriage of a man to a mermaid or other marine creature, the narrative probably always ended in the usual sad way by telling how, after living happily together for a time, the two at last quarrelled and parted for ever.) Peleus brought the child to Chiron, who received him and fed him on the inwards of lions and wild swine and the marrows of bears,
[*](Compare Scholiast on Hom. Il. xvi.37. According to Statius (Achill. ii.382ff.), Chiron fed the youthful Achilles not on ordinary victuals, but on the flesh and marrows of lions. Philostratus says that his nourishment consisted of honeycombs and the marrows of fawns (Philostratus, Her. xx.2), while the author of the Etymologicum Magnum, s.v. Ἀχιλλεύς, p. 181 says that he was nurtured on the marrows of deer. Compare Eustathius on Hom. Il. 1.1, p. 14. The flesh and marrows of lions, wild boars, and bears were no doubt supposed to impart to the youthful hero who partook of them the strength and courage of these animals, while the marrows of fawns or deer may have been thought to ensure the fleetness of foot for which he was afterwards so conspicuous. It is thus that on the principle of sympathetic magic many races seek to acquire the qualities of certain animals by eating their flesh or drinking their blood; whereas they abstain from eating the flesh of other animals lest they should, by partaking of it, be infected with the undesirable qualities which these creatures are believed to possess. For example, in various African tribes men eat the hearts of lions in order to become lionhearted, while others will not eat the flesh of tortoises lest they should become slow-footed like these animals. See Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild, ii.138ff. On the same principle the ancients believed that men could acquire the art of divination by eating the hearts of ravens, moles, or hawks, because these creatures were supposed to be endowed with prophetic powers. See Porphyry, De abstinentia ii.48; Pliny, Nat. Hist. xxx.19. So Medea is said to have restored the aged Aeson to youth by infusing into his veins a decoction of the liver of a long-lived stag and of the head of a crow that had survived nine generations of men. See Ov. Met. 7.273ff. ) and named him Achilles, because he had not put his lips to the breast;
[*](Apollodorus absurdly derives the name Achilles from α (privative) and χείλη, “lips,” so that the word would mean “not lips.” Compare Etymologicum Magnum, s.v. Ἀχιλλεύς, p. 181,; Eustathius on Hom. Il. i.1, p. 14.) but before that time his name was Ligyron.
After that Peleus, with Jason and the Dioscuri,
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laid waste Iolcus; and he slaughtered Astydamia, wife of Acastus, and, having divided her limb from limb, he led the army through her into the city.
[*](As to the wicked behaviour of Astydamia to Peleus, see above, Apollod. 3.13.3. But it is probable that the cutting of the bad woman in pieces and marching between the pieces into the city was more than a simple act of vengeance; it may have been a solemn sacrifice or purification designed to ensure the safety of the army in the midst of a hostile people. In Boeotia a form of public purification was to cut a dog in two and pass between the pieces. See Plut. Quaest. Rom. 111. A similar rite was observed at purifying a Macedonian army. A dog was cut in two: the head and fore part were placed on the right, the hinder part, with the entrails, was placed on the left, and the troops in arms marched between the pieces. See Livy xli.6; Quintus Curtius, De gestis Alexandri Magni x.9.28. For more examples of similar rites, and an attempt to explain them, see Folk-Lore in the Old Testament, i.391ff. To the instances there cited may be added another. When the Algerine pirates were at sea and in extreme danger, it was their custom to sacrifice a sheep, cut off its head, extract its entrails, and then throw them, together with the head, overboard; afterwards “with all the speed they can (without skinning) they cut the body in two parts by the middle, and then throw one part over the right side of the ship, and the other over the left, into the sea, as a kind of propitiation.” See Joseph Pitts, A true and faithful Account of the Religion and Manners of the Mohammetans (Exon. 1704), p. 14. As to the capture of Iolcus by Peleus, see Pind. N. 3.34(59); Pind. N. 4.54(89)ff. In the former of these passages Pindar says that Peleus captured Iolcus single-handed; but the Scholiast on the passage affirms, on the authority of Pherecydes, that he was accompanied by Jason and the Tyndarids (Castor and Pollux). As this statement tallies with the account given by Apollodorus, we may surmise that here, as often elsewhere, our author followed Pherecydes. According to the Scholiast on Ap. Rhod., Argon. i.224, Peleus on his return to Iolcus put to death Acastus himself as well as his wicked wife.)