text: In Greek mythology, Achilles ( ) or Achilleus () was a hero of the Trojan War who was known as being the greatest of all the Greek warriors.A central character in Homer's Iliad, he was the son of the Nereid Thetis and Peleus, king of Phthia and famous Argonaut.Achilles was raised in Phthia along his childhood companion Patroclus and received his education by the centaur Chiron.In the Iliad, he is presented as the commander of the mythical tribe of the Myrmidons.Achilles' most notable feat during the Trojan War was the slaying of the Trojan prince Hector outside the gates of Troy.Although the death of Achilles is not presented in the Iliad, other sources concur that he was killed near the end of the Trojan War by Paris, who shot him with an arrow.Later legends (beginning with Statius' unfinished epic Achilleid, written in the 1st century AD) state that Achilles was invulnerable in all of his body except for one heel.According to that myth, when his mother Thetis dipped him in the river Styx as an infant, she held him by one of his heels leaving it untouched by the waters and thus his only vulnerable body part.Alluding to these legends, the term "Achilles' heel" has come to mean a point of weakness which can lead to downfall, especially in someone or something with an otherwise strong constitution.The Achilles tendon is named after him following the same legend.Etymology Linear B tablets attest to the personal name Achilleus in the forms a-ki-re-u and a-ki-re-we, the latter being the dative of the former.The name grew more popular, becoming common soon after the seventh century BC and was also turned into the female form (Achilleía), attested in Attica in the fourth century BC (IG II² 1617) and, in the form Achillia, on a stele in Halicarnassus as the name of a female gladiator fighting an "Amazon".