Achilles' heel

In the myths surrounding the war, Achilles was said to have died from a wound to his heel,[5][6] ankle,[7] or torso,[5] which was the result of an arrow—possibly poisoned—shot by Paris.

[8] The Iliad may purposefully suppress the myth to emphasise Achilles' human mortality and the stark chasm between gods and heroes.

[9] Classical myths attribute Achilles's invulnerability to his mother Thetis having treated him with ambrosia and burned away his mortality in the hearth fire except on the heel, by which she held him.

[11] As an expression meaning "area of weakness, vulnerable spot", the use of "Achilles' heel" dates only to 1840, with implied use in Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "Ireland, that vulnerable heel of the British Achilles!"

In his widely used text Corporis Humani Anatomia he described the tendon's location and said that it was commonly called "the cord of Achilles".

Statue of Achilleas Thniskon ( Dying Achilles ) at the Corfu Achilleion .
Oil painting ( c. 1625 ) by Peter Paul Rubens of the goddess Thetis dipping her son Achilles in the River Styx , which runs through Hades . In the background, the ferryman Charon rows the dead across the river in his boat.