"According to a fragment of ""The Achilleid"", written by Statius in the first century AD, when Achilles the mythological Greek hero was born, his mother tried to make him immortal by dipping him in the river Styx. Where was he left vulnerable?"
Achilles her resistance to the advances of Zeus. Zeus was furious and decreed that she would never marry an immortal. According to the "Achilleid", written by Statius in the 1st century AD, and to non-surviving previous sources, when Achilles was born Thetis tried to make him immortal by dipping him in the river Styx. However, he was left vulnerable at the part of the body by which she held him: his left heel (see Achilles' heel, Achilles' tendon). It is not clear if this version of events was known earlier. In another version of this story, Thetis anointed the boy in
Achilleid Achilleid The Achilleid () is an unfinished epic poem by Publius Papinius Statius that was intended to present the life of Achilles from his youth to his death at Troy. Only about one and a half books (1,127 dactylic hexameters) were completed before the poet's death. What remains is an account of the hero's early life with Chiron the centaur, and an episode in which his mother Thetis disguised him as a girl on the island of Scyros before he joined the Greek expedition against Troy. Based upon three references to the poem in the "Silvae", the "Achilleid" seems to