caftus, unwilling to violate the laws of hospitality by killing Peleus, ordered him to be tied to a tree in a wood, that he might perish by wild beafts. But Jupiter, knowing his innocence, fent Vulcan to loofe him. Peleus foon after, having collected his friends, took Iolcos, and having dethroned Acaftus, put to death Aftydamia, and poffeffed himfelf of the kingdom, Apollodor. iii. 13. 3.; Horat. od. iii. 7. 17.

Peleus married the fea goddess THETIS; (Conjux Dea contigit uni, fc. nepotum Jovis, Ovid. Met. xi. 220.) whofe confent he found it difficult to obtain, Ib. 235. whence he is called gener NEREOS, Stat. Theb. v. 437. Jupiter himself is faid to have been fond of her, but avoided asking'her, because he learned it was determined by the fates, that her fon fhould excel his father in bravery, Ib. 224.; Hygin. 54. The nuptials of Peleus and Thetis were celebrated with great magnificence, Catull. Ixii. in a cave of mount Pelion, Stat. Achill. ii. 341. All the gods and goddeffes were invited to the feaft, except the goddefs DISCORD. She, offended at this neglect, during the entertainment, threw into the middle of the affembly, a golden apple with this infcription, TO THE FAIREST, (detur PULCHRIORI. QUE SIT FOR MOSISSIMA, ADTOLLAT.) All the other goddeffes yielded their pretenfions except three, Juno, Minerva, and Venus. Jupiter, unwilling to determine between them, referred the affair to Paris, then a fhepherd on mount Ida. His determination in favour of Venus, occafioned the deftruction of Troy, and all the calamities which followed it, Stat. Achill. ii. 335. &c.

ACHILLES.

ACHILLES was the fon of Peleus (Pelides) and of Thetis ; called from his grandfather ACIDES; and from his father's two principal towns, Phthia and Lariffa, PтHIUS ACHILLES, Horat. od. iv. 6. 4. VIR PHTHIUS, Propert. ii. 13. 38*. LARISSEUS ACHILLES, Virg. Æn. ii. 197. xi. 404.

Thetis plunged her fon while an infant in the river Styx, whereby he was rendered invulnerable in every part of his body except the heel, by which the held him, Stat. Achill. i. 269. This circumftance is no where mentioned by Homer, and appears to have been invented pofterior to him. Achilles was educated by the Centaur Chiron, the fon of Saturn and Philyra, (Philyrides), Virg. G. iii. 550.; Plin. vii. 56.; Paufan. iii. 18. who taught him the art of war and mufic, Juvenal.

So PHTHIAS, -adis, a woman of Phthia, Ovid. ep. vii. 165.

Juvenal. vii. 210. and to render him strong, fed him with the marrow of wild beasts, Stat. Achill. ii. 381.—ad fin. Of Chiron he is faid to have itood greatly in awe, Ib. & Ovid. Art. Am. i. 14. Phoenix, the fon of Amyntor, his tutor and companion, taught him eloquence, Cic. Orat. iii. 15.; Homer. ll. ix. 443. whom he always treated with great refpect, Ib. & Stat. Silv. ii. 1. 91. iii. 2. 96.

Thetis, knowing that if her fon went to the Trojan war he fhould perifh in it, carried him to the court of LYCOMEDES, king of the ifland Scyros, where he was concealed in a female drefs, among the daughters of that prince, Horat. od. i. 8. 13. &ibi Scholiaft. one of whom, Deidamia, Stat. Achill. i. 296. had a fon to him, called PYRRHUS, because Achilles was called PYRRHA among the king's daughters, from his yellow or reddish hair, Hygin. 96. and also NEOPTOLEMUS, because he went young to the war, (ad bellum ductus eft PUER,) Serv. in Virg. Æn. ii. 263.; Apollodor. iii. 13. 8. His body is called by Hermione through contempt, Scyria membra, Ovid. ep. viii. 112. --As Troy could not be taken without the aid of Achilles, the leaders of the Greeks, hearing that he was with Lycomedes, fent to require him. The king, denying that he was there, gave the ambaladors leave to fearch for him; which they did, but without fuccefs. Ulyffes, however, who was one of them, not difcouraged, thought of the following contrivance. He went to the palace of Lycomedes, under the guife of a pedler, with various kinds of goods to fell; among the reft were arms mixed with female ornaments. Whilft the princeffes attentively examined the jewels, the necklaces, and the like; Achilles was attracted by nothing but the arms. Ulyffes, obferving this, ordered Agrrtes, a trumpeter he had with him, fuddenly to found an alarm. Achilles, conceiving it to be an enemy, inftantly tore his female robe, and grasped a fhield and a spear. Thus Ulyffes having difcovered who he was, forced him to the war, Ovid. Met. xiii. 165. Lycomedes wished to retain him, but in vain. His warlike ardour could not be reftrained. Cicero applies this to Neoptolemus, Amic. 20. Statius relates the story differently, Achill. ́ii.

After taking the city of Lyrneffus in Phrygia, Achilles obtained the beautiful Briseis, as his fhare of the prey, Ovid. ep. iii. 45. whence the is called LYRNESSIS, -idis, Ovid. Trift. iv. 1. 15.

The fpear of Achilles was fo heavy, that it could not be wielded by any other of the Grecks: hence when Patroclus went against Hector in the armour of Achilles, he did not take the Spear, Homer. I. xvi. 141. The afh of which it was made

grew.

grew on the top of mount Pelion; hence it was called PELIAS HASTA, (genit. Peliădis.) Ovid. ep. iii. 126. Met. xiii. 109. Plin. xvi. 13. f. 24. It was given in a prefent to Peleus by the Centaur Chiron, Homer. ib. 144. and Paufanias fpeaks of it as pointed with brass, and existing in his time, in the temple of Minerva at Phasėlis, iii. 3.--When TELEPHUS, the fon of Hercules, and Auge, king of Myfia, (Myfus juvenis, Propert. ii. 1. 63.) who being fon in law to Priam, opposed the paffage of the Greeks through his country, had been grievously wounded by Achilles; he was told by the oracle, that the weapon which had inflicted the wound, could alone cure it. Upon which he came to the Grecian camp, and applied to Achilles for relief. But Achilles refufed, alledging he was no phyfician. Being however prevailed on by Ulyffes, as the assistance of Telephus was neceflary to the fuccefs of their expedition, he fcraped a little ruft from his fpear, and, applying it to the wound, cured it, Hygin. 101.; Ovid. Met. xiii. 171. Whence Ovid fays, Vulnus in Herculeo que quondam fecerat hofte, Vulneris auxilium Pelias hafta tulit, Rem. Am. 47. So Id. Trift. v. 2. 15.; Propert. ii. 1. 63. Claudian makes Telephus to be healed by herbs, which Achilles learned the ufe of from Chiron, Epigr. i. 46.; Stat. Achill. ii. 444. hence a certain herb was called TELEPHION, Plin. xxvii. 13. f. 110. Telephus, on account of his connection with Priam, would not accompany the Greeks to Troy, as they requested, but gave them a free paffage through his country, (eos deduxit.) Hygin. ibid. and pointed out their way, Cic. Flace. 29.

Achilles, being deprived of his mistress Briseis by Agamemnon, on account of his vehemence in demanding that Chryseis fhould be restored to her father, fee p. 407. in difguft withdrew himself from the war. The confequence was, that the Greeks were repeatedly defeated by Hector and the Trojans, and many of them flain. of them flain. At laft, after the restoration of Briseis, he was fo far mitigated as to permit his friend Patroclus to affume his armour, and go out to battle with his foldiers the Myrmidons. The death of Patroclus, who was flain and ftript of his arms by Hector, roufed the indignation of Achilles. He therefore now determined to oppofe Hector in perfon. Thetis procured for him new armour from Vulcan, who engraved on his fhield the earth, the fea, and the heaven; the fun, moon, and stars, cities and men, and their various occupations, Homer. Il. xviii. 478. &c. hence Ovid calls it CLYPEUS vafti calatus imagine mundi, Met. xii. 110. & 290. Achilles flew Hector, and having tied his dead body to his cha

riot, dragged it thrice round the walls of Troy, Virg. Æn. i. 483. ii. 272. to confole the manes of Patroclus, Stat. Silv. iv. 4. 105. Having thus gratified his revenge, he restored it to Priam, who came fecretly by night to the tent of Achilles, under the conduct of Mercury, Horat. ed. i. 10. 13. to ranfom the body of his fon from Achilles. The Iliad of Homer ends with the funeral of Hector.

After this Achilles fell in love with Polyxena, one of the daughters of Priam; and while he was celebrating his nuptials with her in the temple of Apollo at Thymbra, (hence called THYMBREUS, Virg. Æn. iii. 85.) near Troy, he was flain by Paris, who having concealed himself behind the image of that god, wounded Achilles in the only vulnerable part of his body, the heel, with an arrow directed, according to Virgil, by Apollo himself, n. vi. 57. After the taking of Troy, Polyxena was facrificed by Pyrrhus on the tomb of his father to pacify his manes, Serv. in Virg. Æn. iii. 321. which the ghost of Achilles, appearing to Agamemnon, is faid to have demanded, Ovid. Met. xiii. 439. &c.; Paufan. i. 22. Hyginus fays, there was a voice uttered from the tomb of Achilles requiring this to be done, Fab. 110.; fo Ovid, Met. xiii. 448. Polyxena submitted to her fate with wonderful fortitude, Ib. 455. &c. Achilles himfelf had fet the example of a like cruelty, by flaying twelve Trojan captives, and throwing them into the fune ral pile of Patroclus, Homer. Il. xxi. 27. xxiii. 175. -- Achilles was buried at Sigæum, where many ages after Alexander the Great, when he firft landed in Afia, offered facrifices to him, together with the other Grecian heroes, Plutarch. & Diodor. xvii. 17. and crowned his tomb with garlands, as Hepheftion did that of Patroclus; intimating, that he was beloved by Alexander, as Patroclus had been by Achilles, Elian. xii. 7. Alexander efteemed Achilles happy chiefly in two refpects, that he had found fuch a friend as Patroclus while alive, and fuch a poet as Homer to celebrate his virtues after death, Plutarch. in vita ejus. There was a tumulus inanis erected to Achilles at Olympia, where particular honours were paid to him on the first day of the Olympic games, Paufan. vi. 24.

There was an island in the Euxine fea, nearly half way between the rivers Tyras and Borifthenes, called LEUCE, facred to Achilles, where his tomb was supposed to be, and where a temple was confecrated to him, Strab. vii. 306.; Met. ii. 7.

* This action Virgil difparages by calling it a fale; Ter circum Iliacos raptaverat Hectora mures, Exanimumque auro corpus VENDEBAT ACHILLES, Æn. 1.483.

Paufanias

Paufanias fays, this island was near the mouths of the Ister, iii. 19. Here the poets reprefent the fouls of heroes enjoying happiness after death, as in a feparate Elyfium; and here Achilles was fuppofed by fome to have married Helen, Paufan. iii. 19. Near Leuce was a peninfula called Hylaa, and in it a place called CURSUS ACHILLE US. Herodot. iv. 55. & 76.; Plin. iv. 12. J. 26. or DROMOS ACHILLEOS, lb. & Mel. ii. 1. 51.; Strab. vii. 307.

The circumftance by which Achilles is chiefly distinguished in Homer, is nimblenefs of feet, (ποδας όκυς Αχιλλευς;) το which he was trained by Chiron, Stat. Achill. ii. 395. thus Ovid, velox cantatus ACHILLES, Amor. ii. 1. 29. He is defcribed by the Latin poets, as proud, infolent, cruel, inexorable, &c. Horat. art. p. 120. od. ii. 4. 2.; Virg. Æn. i. 30. ii. 29. but as fcorning artifice, Horat. od iv. 6. 13. &c. hence called MAGNANIMUS, Ovid. Met. xiii. 298. MAGNUS, Virg. ecl. iv. 36. and HONORATUS, i. e. MAGNIFICUS, fays the old fcholiaft on Horace, art. p. 120. but this epithet may more properly exprefs his being greatly celebrated by Homer and others. Achilles was put for any brave man; thus L. Siccius Dentatus was called the Roman Achilles, Gell. ii. 11. and Turnus is faid to be, Alius Latio jam partus ACHILLES, Virg. Æn. vi. 89.

The moft illuftrious action of Achilles next to his conquering Hector, was that of flaying MEMNON the son of Tithōnus and AURORA, the leader of the Ethiopians, (Eōa acies) that came to the affiftance of Priam *; who killed ANTILŎCHUS the fon of Neftor, in fingle combat, and was himself in like manner flain by Achilles, Hygin. 112. Paufanias fays, that Memnon came, not from Æthiopia, but from Susa in Perfia, x. 31. A number of birds are faid to have fprung from his funeral pile, which dividing into two parties, fell a fighting with one another, (parentali Marte,) fo that one half of them fell down dead among the ashes, as an atonement to his manes, Ovid. Met. xiii. 610. &c. These birds, called from him MEMNONIDES, were fuppofed to come ever after annually from Æthiopia to Ilium, and fight near the tomb of Memnon, and to do the fame in Ethiopia every fifth year at his palace, Plin. x. 26. f. 37.; Paufan. ibid. Ifidore tells this ftory fomewhat differently, xii. 7. There was a wonderful ftatue of Memnon at Thebes in Egypt, whether of this Memnon or not is uncertain, which uttered vocal founds every morning when firft ftruck by the

Hence called NIGER, Virg. Æn. i. 489. & 751. and color Memnonius is put for black, Ovid. Pont. iii. 3. 96. 3 L

rays