ACHILLES was the offspring of a goddess. Thetis bore him to Peleus, king of Thessaly, and was so fond of him, that she charged herself with his education. By day she fed him with ambrosia, and by night covered him with celestial fire, to render him immortal. She also dipped him in the waters of Styx, by which his whole body became invulnerable, except that part of his heel by which she held him. He was afterwards committed to the care of Chiron the Centaur, who fed him with honey, and the marrow of lions and wild boars; whence he obtained that strength of body and greatness of soul which qualified him for martial toil.
When the Greeks undertook the siege of Troy, Calchas the diviner, and priest of Apollo, foretold that the city should not be taken without the help of Achilles. Thetis, his mother, who knew that Achilles, if he went to the siege of Troy, would never return, clothed him in female apparel, and concealed him among the maidens at the court of Lycomēdes, king of the island of Scyros. But this stratagem proved ineffectual; for Calchas having informed the Greeks where Achilles lay in disguise, they sent Ulysses to the court of Lycomēdes, where, under the appearance of a merchant, he was introduced to the king's daughters, and while they were studiously intent on viewing his toys, Achilles employed himself in examining an helmet, which the cunning politician had thrown in his way.
Achilles thus detected, was prevailed on to go to Troy, after Thetis had furnished him with impenetrable armor made by Vulcan. Thither he led the troops of Thessaly, in fifty ships, and distinguished himself by a number of heroic actions; but being disgusted with Agamemnon for the loss of Briseis, he retired from the camp, and resolved to have no further concern in the war. In this resolution he continued inexorable, till news was brought him that Hector had killed his friend Patrōclus; to avenge his death he not only slew Hector, but fastened the corpse to his chariot, dragged it round the walls of Troy, offered many indignities to it, and sold it at last to Priam his father.
Authors are much divided on the manner of Achilles' death; some relate that he was slain by Apollo, or that this god enabled Paris to kill him, by directing the arrow to his heel, the only part in which he was vulnerable. Others again say, that Paris murdered him treacherously, in the temple of Apollo, whilst treating about his marriage with Polyxĕna, daughter to king Priam.
Though this tradition concerning his death be commonly received, yet Homer plainly enough insinuates that Achilles died fighting for his country, and represents the Greeks as maintaining a bloody battle about his body, which lasted a whole day. Achilles having been lamented by Thetis, the Nereids, and the Muses, was buried on the promontory of Sigæum; and after Troy was captured, the Greeks endeavored to appease his manes by sacrificing Polyxĕna, on his tomb, as his ghost had requested.
The oracle at Dodōna decreed him divine honors, and ordered annual victims to be offered at the place of his sepulture. In pursuance of this, the Thessalians brought hither yearly two bulls, one black, the other white, crowned with wreaths of flowers, and water from the river Sperchius. It is said that Alexander, seeing his tomb, honored it by placing a crown upon it, at the same time crying out “that Achilles was happy in having, during his life, such a friend as Patrōclus, and after his death, a poet like Homer.”
ATLAS was son of Japĕtus and Clymĕne, and brother of Prometheus, according to most authors; or, as others relate, son of Japĕtus by Asia, daughter of Oceănus. He had many children. Of his sons, the most famous were Hespĕrus (whom some call his brother) and Hyas. By his wife Pleione he had seven daughters, who went by the general names of Atlantĭdes, or Pleiădes; and by his wife Æthra he had also seven other daughters, who bore the common appellation of the Hyădes.
According to Hygīnus, Atlas having assisted the giants in their war against Jupiter, was doomed by the victorious god, as a punishment, to sustain the weight of the heavens. Ovid, however, represents him as a powerful and wealthy monarch, proprietor of the gardens of the Hesperĭdes, which bore golden fruit; but that being warned by the oracle of Themis that he should suffer some great injury from a son of Jupiter, he strictly forbade all foreigners access to his presence. Perseus, however, having the courage to appear before him, was ordered to retire, with strong menaces in case of disobedience; but the hero presenting his shield, with the dreadful head of Medūsa, turned him into the mountain which still bears his name.
The Abbé la Pluche has given a very clear and ingenious explication of this fable. Of all nations the Egyptians had, with the greatest assiduity, cultivated astronomy. To point out the difficulties attending the study of this science, they represented it by an image bearing a globe or sphere on its back, which they called Atlas, a word signifying great toil or labor; but the word also signifying support, the Phœnicians, led by the representation, took it in this sense, and in their voyages to Mauritania, seeing the high mountains of that country covered with snow, and losing their tops in the clouds, gave them the name of Atlas, and thus produced the fable by which the symbol of astronomy used among the Egyptians became a Mauritanian king, transformed into a mountain, whose head supports the heavens.
The rest of the fable is equally obvious to explanation. The annual inundations of the Nile obliged the Egyptians to be very exact in observing the motions of the heavenly bodies. The Hyades, or Huades, took their name from the figure V, which they form in the head of Taurus. The Pleiades were a remarkable constellation and of great use to the Egyptians in regulating the seasons: hence they became the daughters of Atlas; and Orion, who arose just as they set, was called their lover.