Thetis

Thetis was a sea goddess, one of the Nereids, the daughters of the sea god Nereus and Doris. She was the wife of the mortal Peleus and the mother of Achilles, and in the Iliad she goes to Zeus and to Hephaestus on her son’s behalf. Zeus and Poseidon had both wanted her, but a prophecy about her son made the gods give her to a mortal.

Thetis’ Family

Hesiod lists Thetis among the children of Nereus and Doris, the daughter of Ocean (Theogony 240–244), and says that the goddess Thetis, “of the silver feet”, was subdued by Peleus and bore Achilles (Theogony 1006–1007). In the Iliad she lives in the depths of the sea beside her old father (Iliad 1.357–358), and she tells Hephaestus that of all the sea goddesses Zeus gave her to a mortal, Peleus the son of Aeacus, and that she endured his bed against her will (Iliad 18.429–434). Hera says in the Iliad that she herself raised Thetis and gave her to Peleus (Iliad 24.59–61).

Zeus, Poseidon and the Prophecy

Pindar says that Zeus and Poseidon strove for Thetis’ hand, but that Themis told the gods that she was fated to bear a son mightier than his father, one who would wield a weapon more terrible than lightning or the trident if she lay with Zeus or one of his brothers. Themis advised that she be given to Peleus, son of Aeacus, and see her son fall in war (Pindar, Isthmian 8.26–47). Apollodorus gives this version and a second, in which Prometheus warned Zeus that the son of Thetis would be lord of heaven. He adds that some say Thetis refused Zeus because Hera had brought her up, and that Zeus in anger decided that she should have a mortal husband (Apollodorus, Library 3.13.5). The Cypria also says that Thetis avoided union with Zeus to please Hera, and that he swore she would be the wife of a mortal (Cypria fr. 4).

Thetis and Peleus

On the advice of Chiron, Peleus seized Thetis and held her fast, although she changed her shape, into fire, water and a wild beast, until she took her own form again (Apollodorus, Library 3.13.5). Pindar also says Peleus held her fast in the struggle (Nemean 3.35–36). They were married on Mount Pelion, and the gods came to the feast; Chiron gave Peleus an ash spear, and Poseidon gave him the immortal horses Balius and Xanthus (Apollodorus, Library 3.13.5; Cypria fr. 5). In Hyginus, Eris, the one god not invited, threw an apple into the feast “for the most beautiful”, and the quarrel of Hera, Athena and Aphrodite over it led to the judgment of Paris and then to Helen (Hyginus, Fabulae 92).

Thetis and Achilles

Thetis wished to make her child immortal. According to Apollonius and Apollodorus she hid the infant in the fire at night to burn away his mortal part and anointed him with ambrosia by day; Peleus saw the child writhing in the flames and cried out, and Thetis, thus stopped, left her son and returned to the Nereids (Apollonius, Argonautica 4.866–879; Apollodorus, Library 3.13.6). The story that she dipped him in the river Styx is told only by later writers; in Statius, Thetis speaks of having armed her newborn son with the stern river Styx (Achilleid 1.133–134, 1.269–270). Neither Homer nor Apollodorus mentions a heel that the water did not touch. Apollodorus says that when Achilles was nine, Calchas declared that Troy could not be taken without him, and Thetis, foreseeing that he would die if he went to the war, dressed him as a girl and left him with Lycomedes (Apollodorus, Library 3.13.8).

Thetis in the Iliad

Thetis is the person Achilles turns to in the Iliad. After Agamemnon takes Briseis, he weeps by the sea and tells his mother, who goes up to Olympus to ask Zeus to honor him (Iliad 1.348–430, 1.495–530). She reminds Zeus of a favor: when the other gods wanted to bind him, she brought the hundred-handed Briareus to Olympus to sit beside him, and the gods did not dare bind him (Iliad 1.396–406). Zeus nods his assent and Olympus shakes (Iliad 1.528–530). Achilles says that his mother Thetis told him of two fates, a short life with undying glory or a long life with no glory (Iliad 9.410–416). When Patroclus is killed, she comes with the Nereids to mourn and tells Achilles that his doom is ready right after Hector (Iliad 18.35–96). She then goes to the house of Hephaestus, who made the new armor for Achilles and who says that Thetis and Eurynome took him in when he had fallen far through the will of his mother, who wished to hide him because he was lame, and that he worked nine years in their cave making ornaments (Iliad 18.395–405). At the end of the poem, Zeus sends Thetis to Achilles to tell him to give back Hector’s body (Iliad 24.74–142).

The Death of Achilles

Hector, dying, foretells that Paris and Apollo will kill Achilles at the Scaean gates (Iliad 22.359–360); Apollodorus says that Achilles was shot in the ankle with an arrow by Paris and Apollo at the Scaean gate (Epitome 5.3). In the Odyssey, the shade of Agamemnon describes the funeral: Thetis came out of the sea with the Nereids, and the nine Muses sang the lament. His bones were laid in a golden urn, which his mother gave, a gift from Dionysus made by Hephaestus, mixed with those of Patroclus. Thetis asked the gods for fine prizes and set them in the games held in his honor (Odyssey 24.47–94). In the Aethiopis, as summarized by Proclus, Thetis came with the Muses and her sisters to mourn him, then snatched her son from the pyre and carried him to the White Island (Proclus, summary of the Aethiopis).

Thetis Sources

Homer, Iliad 1.348–530, 9.410–416, 18.35–96, 18.395–434, 22.359–360, 24.59–61, 24.74–142; Homer, Odyssey 24.47–94; Hesiod, Theogony 240–244, 1006–1007; Pindar, Isthmian 8.26–47 and Nemean 3.35–36; Cypria frr. 4–5 and Proclus’ summary of the Aethiopis (Epic Cycle); Apollonius, Argonautica 4.866–879; Apollodorus, Library 3.13.5–8 and Epitome 5.3; Hyginus, Fabulae 92; Statius, Achilleid 1.133–134, 1.269–270.

See Also: Nereids, Nereus, Doris, Zeus, Poseidon, Peleus, Achilles, Trojan War, Eris, Hephaestus, Eurynome, Styx