Achilles in battle

When the eleven days passed and the twelfth day came, the war began again. Achilles was not satisfied with revenge. He rushed into battle and one by one he wiped out the Trojans' best lads. The Trojans were shut up in the city and Achilles came around and mocked them. They rained shuttles on him from above, but none of them hurt him.

The secret of Achilles

Achilles was invulnerable, because when he was young, his mother took him by the heel and plunged him into the Sacred Waters of Styx. And so his whole body was immortal, except his heel, which was not wet. If he was wounded in the heel, then only he would die.

The revelation of the secret

This secret was revealed by Apollo to Paris.

Paris hits Achilles

Paris was a good shot. So he hid in a hiding place near the Skye Gates, and one day, when Achilles was mocking the Trojans, he took good aim and stuck his shuttle into the Achilles' heel.

The death of Achilles

As soon as the handsome hero pulled the arrow from the wound, he uttered a loud voice and said:

- Troy, my death will bring you down too, and you'll burn.

The death of Paris

Paris came out of his hiding place, but he did not have time to rejoice. With an arrow Philoctetes shot him dead too.

Battle around the body

The Trojans then tried to take Achilles' body and a terrible battle began. But the sturdy Ajax stepped forward and took the dead Achilles and brought him to the ships of the Greeks.

Preparation for burial

There they washed his body, whose backs were like mountains, anointed it with perfumed oil, laid it on a decorated bed and mourned it.

The lament of the mother

And the sea was humming and rippling, as if it too were mourning. Thetis heard the great lamentation and understood. She came out through the waves with her sisters, the Nereids, to weep for her son.

The burial

Seventeen days the mourning lasted, and on the eighteenth day they burned him. They put his ashes in the same hydria (pitcher), where they had put the ashes of his friend, so that they would be together in the afterlife, as they were on earth.They then held games to honour the great dead man and erected a magnificent tomb on the beach.