Of all the Greek warriors it was surely Achilles who was the greatest, as the outstanding hero of the war against Troy. He’s also the best documented, with much of Homer’s Iliad devoted to him, together with other surviving fragments of the Epic Cycle, and later stories as well.

Achilles was part of Zeus’s plan leading to the Trojan War. The god had taken a fancy to the sea nymph Thetis, for whom he may have been competing with Poseidon. However, Zeus was warned of the prophecy that Thetis would bear a son who would be stronger than his father. The implication for Zeus was dire, that he couldn’t risk getting Thetis pregnant. She would therefore marry the mortal Peleus, who won her over in a bizarre wrestling contest, in which she demonstrated her skills in shape-shifting but had to accept defeat.

The wedding of Peleus and Thetis was marked by a feast involving all the Olympian gods, and some of the more junior. Zeus used it to launch the next step in his plan, a beauty contest between three of the goddesses to be judged by Paris. This was set up by Eris, Discord, with her prize of a golden apple. As Zeus had intended, soon after their wedding, Thetis fell pregnant, and her son Achilles was born.

The much later death of Achilles poses a problem: according to older accounts, its cause was an arrow piercing his foot or ankle, neither of which seem plausible as sites of fatal wounds. Yet no source before the Roman poet Statius explains his vulnerability. It has been claimed that Statius invented the myth that, when Achilles was a young child, his mother Thetis immersed him in the water of the river Styx, to make him invulnerable. However, she had to hold him by part of his body, the left heel, which was therefore left as his only weakness, his Achilles Heel.

Rubens included this oil sketch in his Achilles series, showing Thetis Dipping the Infant Achilles into the River Styx (1630-35). This is seen taking place in the foreground, while in the middle distance Charon is seen ferrying the dead across the River Styx into the Underworld. Rubens complies with Statius’ story in making Achilles’ left heel the one left vulnerable.

Nearly thirty years after Rubens’ death, Jan-Erasmus Quellinus painted his version of Thetis Dips Achilles in a Vase with Water from the Styx (1668). It’s set not on the bank of the River Styx, but at a temple, where Achilles undergoes a baptismal procedure in a huge pot, at the lower left. Thetis appears to be holding the infant, who is almost completely immersed, by his left foot, again in compliance with Statius.

Antoine Borel’s more traditional account of Thetis Immerses Her Son Achilles in Water of the River Styx was painted at least a century later, in the late eighteenth century, and again has Thetis hold Achilles by his left foot.

When Achilles was growing up, his father Peleus engaged the centaur Chiron as his son’s tutor, a story that fascinated Eugène Delacroix.

In the Poetry cupola of the Library of the National Assembly in Paris, Delacroix painted The Education of Achilles. This shows the young Achilles with a bow and arrow, riding on the back of his tutor Chiron the centaur, on the steep slopes of Mount Pelion.

Delacroix’s last known pastel painting, and one of his finest, is The Education of Achilles, painted in about 1862, showing the same scene of the ‘wisest and justest of all the centaurs’ Chiron teaching Achilles to hunt.

At some time during his childhood, Achilles became a close friend of Patroclus, who was also to become a leading warrior in the war against Troy.

Accounts of Achilles during the mounting and departure of the Greek fleet against Troy are confusing and contradictory. When the massed fleet of a thousand ships had assembled at Aulis, their departure was delayed by unfavourable winds. Their commander Agamemnon was told the only way to secure their safe departure was to sacrifice his daughter Iphigenia, a horrific act that has also been attributed to Agamemnon’s need to appease Artemis fir his own transgression, as told in Euripides’ play Iphigenia in Aulis.

Jacques-Louis David’s Anger of Achilles from 1819 follows Euripides’ account, with Iphigenia already promised by her father as a bride to Achilles. Thus the announcement of her impending sacrifice throws Achilles into a rage. Achilles, at the left, reaches for his sword in an uncomfortable manoeuvre with his right arm. A rather masculine and tearful woman just to the right of him is Queen Clytemnestra, Iphigenia’s mother, and her right hand rests on her daughter’s shoulder. Iphigenia is dressed as a bride, and looks wistful, staring into the distance, her face empty of outward emotion. At the right, Agamemnon looks emotionless, but indicates firmly to Achilles for him to restrain his emotions.

At some stage, either before the fleet departed or shortly afterwards, it was discovered that Achilles had gone missing. His mother Thetis was aware of the prophecy that her son would die before the fall of Troy. So to protect him, she sent Achilles to the court of King Lycomedes of Skyros, where he lived in disguise as Pyrrha, an adopted daughter of the king. Odysseus and other leaders knew another prophecy, saying that they wouldn’t triumph over the Trojans without Achilles, so visited Skyros to reclaim him.

During his time at court, Achilles had raped Deidamia, one of the king’s daughters, and she became pregnant as a result. Her son was named Neoptolemus, and he too joined the Greek forces at Troy rather later.

There is of course a chronological problem here, in that Achilles must have already reached the age of twenty by this time, making this event at least twenty years after the wedding of Peleus and Thetis. The period between Achilles’ stay on Skyros and Neoptolemus joining the Greek forces at Troy must have been another twenty years or so, but time often doesn’t proceed linearly in epics.

Odysseus used a cunning trick to get Achilles to reveal himself: he offered jewellery and other gifts to the women of the court. When they were distracted by this, his companions made noises of the island being attacked, including a trumpet call. At that, Achilles instinctively drew a sword from among the gifts, then admitted his real identity when challenged by Odysseus.

A collaboration between the young Anthony van Dyck and Peter Paul Rubens, Achilles Discovered by Ulysses and Diomedes (1617-18) shows Odysseus’ trick, as Achilles, looking fetching in a red dress, holds a sword aloft, as others sort through the gifts brought by Odysseus.

Artemisia Gentileschi painted Ulysses Finding Achilles at the Court of King Lycomedes late in her career, in 1641. Its narrative isn’t as clear, although it appears that Achilles is second from left.

Nicolas Poussin was another latecomer, painting Discovery of Achilles on Skyros in about 1651. There’s no doubt about who is Achilles here: that left foot looks like a warrior’s, and aren’t those arms well-muscled?

Adrien Dassier’s Achilles Amongst Lycomede’s Daughters (1669) chooses the same moment of peripeteia.

It’s hard to tell which of the figures in Gerard de Lairesse’s Achilles Discovered among the Daughters of Lycomedes (c 1685) is the warrior.

With Achilles safely recovered to the fleet of a thousand ships, he was soon in action against the Trojans.