January 9, 2017

When it comes to mythical figures, few have greater literary fame than the pious Trojan and Roman hero, Aeneas. Son of the human prince Anchises and the Greek goddess Aphrodite, Aeneas was a demigod. There was nothing half-god about his exploits, however. Aeneas compiled such a legendary record, in fact, that he is the subject of one of the world’s greatest poems of heroic adventure, the Aeneid.

This painting shows Aeneas carrying his father, Anchises, as they flee the destruction of Troy. Credit: Aeneas Fleeing Troy oil painting by Pompeo Batoni (1708-1787), Galleria Sabauda, Turin, Italy (© Scala/Art Resource)

The powerful goddess Aphrodite (called Venus by the Romans) enjoyed making other gods fall in love with mortals. As punishment for her mischief, Zeus—the top god in Greek mythology—forced the same fate upon Aphrodite, who fell in love with a mere man, Anchises of Troy. The result of their love was Aeneas, who grew up to be a famous and powerful Trojan soldier. Largely through the protection of Aphrodite and other gods, Aeneas survived the tragedy that befell his home during the Trojan War.

According to the Aeneid (written by the Roman poet Virgil), after the fall of Troy, Aeneas fled the ruined city with his father and his son Ascanius. On nearby Mount Ida, Aeneas gathered the few other Trojan survivors and sailed away to found a new home. They stopped at various places and had many adventures. In the city of Carthage in northern Africa, Aeneas met Queen Dido. She fell in love with Aeneas, but his destiny and sense of duty (Aeneas’s descendants—namely Romulus and Remus—would found the great city of Rome) forced him to leave Carthage. Dido was so distraught that she committed suicide.

Aeneas finally arrived in Italy. There, he visited the underworld, where he learned about Rome’s future glory. Aeneas then traveled to the Italian region of Latium (now often called Lazio), where he became friends with King Latinus. Aeneas married the king’s daughter Lavinia and founded the port city of Lavinium. Aeneas later disappeared from the mortal world during a battle with a neighboring people called the Etruscans. According to some versions of the myth, he was taken to heaven and became the god Jupiter Indiges.

Aeneas never disappeared from legend, however, thanks to the great poet Virgil. He wrote the Aeneid between 30 and 19 B.C., a period of national pride for the Romans (and some 1,200 years after the Trojan War). The emperor Augustus had just united the people of the Italian peninsula to defeat Rome’s enemies in the eastern provinces. Virgil chose the myth of Aeneas to express ancient Rome’s moral and religious values and to honor Augustus, who claimed to be descended from Aeneas.

In 2017, “Monster Mondays” are replaced by “Mythic Mondays,” a series dedicated to exploring the gods, legends, and mysteries—and yes, sometimes monsters, too—of world mythology.

January 2, 2017

Sing, O Goddess, the wrath of Achilles, son of Peleus…

So begins the tragic myth of Achilles as told in the Iliad, one of the oldest and most famous epic poems of ancient Greece. Achilles was the son of Peleus, the king of Phthia in Thessaly, a region of northern Greece. According to myth, his mother was Thetis, an immortal sea nymph. Achilles was not immortal, but at birth Thetis dipped Achilles in the underworld’s River Styx. The river’s magical waters gave Achilles a giant advantage: they made him invulnerable to any weapon. Well, nearly invulnerable…

This painting, The Triumph of Achilles, is on the upper level of the Achilleion, a palace dedicated to Achilles on the Greek island of Corfu. Credit: The Triumph of Achilles (1892), by Franz von Matsch; Achilleion Palace

The Iliad describes events in the final year of the Trojan War fought between Greece and the city of Troy. Agamemnon, the Greek king of Mycenae, recruited Achilles to fight with him against the Trojans. The Iliad describes Achilles as the mightiest warrior in all of Greece. But his pride, vanity, and overwhelming desire for glory in battle also made him stubborn, petty, brutish, and easily angered.

Achilles felt he was not being adequately rewarded for his services and quarreled often with Agamemnon. Eventually, Achilles refused to fight any longer and, without him, the Greek forces were doomed. Achilles’s closest friend, Patroclus, stole Achilles’s armor and joined the battle in his place. Patroclus was then slain by Hector, the greatest Trojan warrior, who thought he had killed Achilles. Enraged, Achilles returned to battle and killed Hector. To humiliate the Trojans, Achilles tied Hector’s corpse behind his chariot and dragged the body around the walls of Troy for days. The Iliad ends with Hector’s funeral, but other Greek legends describe the fate of Achilles and the eventual fall of Troy.

Tragically, Achilles knew he was destined to die in the war. The gods had offered him a choice: he could either be remembered forever through a short life of glory, or he could live a long life without fame. Achilles did not hesitate over his choice of a short, famous life. The Trojan War went on, then, and Achilles soon met his demise. According to legend, Hector’s brother Paris killed Achilles by shooting an arrow into his one vulnerable spot: the heel. When Achilles’s mother dipped him in the River Styx when he was a baby, she held him by the heel, a spot which remained dry and, thus, unprotected. The gods came through on their promise, however. The Trojan War took place around 1200 B.C., more than 3,000 years ago, but the legend and name of Achilles lives on.

Aside from mythology, Achilles and his one vulnerable spot live on in modern anatomy. The large tendon (tissue that connects muscle to bone) at the back of your ankle is known as the Achilles tendon—a vulnerable spot for many athletes and others.