Achille's tendon

[Son_of_a_Rich]

The Trabek thread reminded me of this nagging question. Achille’s only vulnerable spot was his tendon, and it was a arrow to the tendon which brought him down. Since when is a wound to the Achilles tendon fatal? Did they use poison tipped arrows?

[Alessan]

Yes.

[BrainGlutton]

It was the heel, not the tendon.

In Greek mythology, when Achilles was a baby, it was foretold that he would die in battle from an arrow in the foot. To prevent his death, his mother Thetis took Achilles to the River Styx which was supposed to offer powers of invincibility and dipped his body into the water. But as Thetis held Achilles by the heel, his heel was not washed over by the water of the magical river. Achilles grew up to be a man of war who survived many great battles. But one day, a poisonous arrow shot at him was lodged in his heel, killing him shortly after. Still, Achilles is remembered as one of the greatest fighters who ever lived.

The Achilles tendon was named by association.

[mlees]

I kinda liked the way the movie “Troy” dealt with this.

Achilles (Brad Pitt) is hit several times in the chest with arrows, as well as once in the heel. It is these torso hits that do the most damage, not the heel hit. Achilles was bad-ass enough to rip out the chest arrows before expiring. Late comers to the scene only see the one arrow (the one in the heel), and thus the myth was born.

[Chronos]

You could die of blood loss or infection to a wound anywhere in the body. All the more so, in the days before superglue and sulfa.

[garygnu]

There is one theory that the heel legend came from period armor. Supposedly one of the few unguarded places was the back of the foot.
I can’t seem to find more details from Google, which is returning too many hits on the literary source of the phrase for me to sift through right now.