Achilles and the Caucasus - Université de Montréal

Achilles and the Caucasus (K. Tuite) — août 17, 2007 — pg. 8
Achilles tremendous speed, until one day, while he was being
pursued by Apollo, the transplanted ankle fell out. Apollo overtook
Achilles and slew him (see Frazer’s notes to Library III.xiii.6;
Waser 1901).
To judge from the textual evidence, Thetis abandoned her
infant child immediately after being interrupted by Peleus. The two
scholia to Aristophanes’ “Clouds”, line 1068 (kât’ apolipoûsá g’
autón “she [Thetis] abandoned him [Peleus]”) describe the two
events as being causally linked, and happening in quick
succession. 11 Peleus placed the child in the care of the centaur
Cheiron, who raised him in the mountains on a diet of “the innards
of lions and wild pigs, and bear’s marrow” (… étrephe splágkhnois
leóntōn kaì suōn agríōn kaì árktōn mueloîs, Library III.xiii.6), a
curious substitute for the maternal milk he was denied. 12
When Achilles was nine years of age it was prophesied that
Troy could not be taken without him. His divine mother, knowing
that he would die if he went on the expedition, “disguised him as a
young girl and put him in the keeping of Lycomedes” (Library
III.xiii.8). It was at Lycomedes’ court that Odysseus deceived
Achilles into revealing himself by a clever ruse, and recruited him
into the expedition against Troy. I will return to this phase of
11 Dübner (1969: 124): kaì tòn ’Akhilléa oun tekoûsa epéthēken eis tò pûr: kaì
gnoùs ho Pēleùs ebóēsen. hē dè lupētheîsa ekhōrísthē. (And the mother put
Achilles in the fire; and Peleus, finding this out, screamed. She, being annoyed,
departed.)
Holwerda (1960: 630): hōs dè kaì tòn Akhilléa tekoûsa epéthēken eis tò pûr,
idōn ho Pēleùs ebóēsen. kaì Thétis mèn diazeukhtheîsa Pēléōs pròs thálassan es
tàs adelphàs ápeisi Nērēídas. Akhilléa dè hoútō sunébē paîda kataleiphthē`nai
Pēleî (when the mother put Achilles in the fire, Peleus, seeing [this], screamed.
And Thetis parted from Peleus [and] returned to the sea to her sisters the
Nereids. Achilles, [still] being a child, she thus left-behind with Peleus.)
12 According to a folk etymology recorded by Apollodorus (Library III.xiii.6),
Achilles received his name (Akhilleús < a [not] + kheîlos [lip]) because he never
put his lips on his mother’s breast (Escher 1893). The diet of Achilles during his
sojourn in the mountains is described by other classical authors (Sergent 1996:
292): honeycomb and fawn’s marrow (Philostratus Heroica, XX.2), deer’s
marrow (Etymologicum Magnum, s.v. Akhilleus).