Thetis - Thetis as goddess, Thetis and the other gods, Thetis, Achilles and the Trojan War

In Greek mythology, a nereid destined to bear a son greater than his father. This was the secret known to Prometheus. She was married to Peleus, and was the mother of Achilles.

Greek deities series
Primordial deities
Titans and Olympians
Chthonic deities
Personified concepts
Other deities
Aquatic deities
Poseidon Oceanus Ceto Nereus Glaucus Thetis Amphitrite Tethys	Triton Ophion Proteus Phorcys Pontus Oceanids Nereids Naiads

This article is about the Greek sea nymph.

Thetis as goddess

While most extant material about Thetis concerns her role as mother of Achilles, and while she is largely a creature of poetic fancy rather than cult worship in the historical period, a few fragmentary hints and references suggest an older layer of the tradition in which Thetis played a far more central role in the religious practices and imagination of certain Greeks.

In Iliad I, Achilles recalls to his mother her role in defending, and thus legitimizing, the reign of Zeus against an incipient rebellion by three Olympians, each of whom has pre-Olympian roots:

"You alone of all the gods saved Zeus the Darkener of the Skies from an inglorious fate, when some of the other Olympians—Here, Poseidon and Pallas Athene—had plotted to throw him into chains.

Quintus of Smyrna, recalling this passage, writes that Thetis once released Zeus from chains;

In one fragmentary hymn by the 7th century BC Spartan poet Alcman, Thetis appears as a demiurge, beginning her creation with poros (πόρος) "path, track" and tekmor (τέκμωρ) "marker, end-post". Given that she is the mother of Achilles, the Greek youth par excellence, it may be that Thetis once presided over the all-important realm of aristocratic adolescence.

Thetis and the other gods

Apollodorus writes that Thetis was once courted by both Zeus and Poseidon — she was given to the mortal Peleus only because of the prophecy by Themis or Prometheus or Calchas that her son would become a man greater than his father.

When Hephaestus was thrown from Olympus, whether cast out by Hera for his lameness or evicted by Zeus for taking Hera's side, the Nereids Eurynome and Thetis caught him and cared for him on the volcanic isle of Lemnos, while he labored for them as a smith, "working there in the hollow of the cave, and the stream of Okeanos around us went on forever with its foam and its murmur" (Iliad 18.369).

When Dionysus was expelled by Lycurgus with the Olympians' aid, he took refuge in the Erythraean Sea with Thetis in a bed of seaweed.

Thetis, Achilles and the Trojan War

Thetis is the mother of Achilles by Peleus, king of the Myrmidons.

The wedding of Thetis and Peleus was celebrated on Mount Pelion and attended by all the deities: there the gods celebrated the marriage with feasting.

Thetis worked her magic on the baby Achilles by night, burning away his mortality in the hall fire and anointing the child with ambrosia during the day, Apollonius tells. compare the myth of Meleager.)

Because she had been interuppted by Peleus, Thetis had made her son physically invulnerable, save his heel, which she was about to burn away when her husband stopped her.

In a variant of the myth, Thetis tried to make Achilles invulnerable by dipping him in the waters of the Styx (the river of Hades).

Prophecy said that the son of Thetis would have either a long but dull life or a glorious but brief life. When the Trojan War broke out, Thetis was anxious and concealed Achilles at the court of Lycomedes, disguised as a girl.

When Achilles was killed by Paris , Thetis came from the sea with the Nereids to mourn him, and she collected his ashes in a golden urn and raised a monument to his memory and instituted commemorative festivals.