Achilles
3 of the 7 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Achilles. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
a-kil'lez, a legendary hero of the expedition against Troy. Homer makes him the hero of the Iliad. Pieced together from various sources, the story of Achilles may be outlined briefly. He was the son of the sea goddess Thetis, who dipped him in the river Styx to render him proof against wounds; but the heel by which she held him was unwet by the water. To prevent his going to war, she sent him disguised as a girl to be brought up among the daughters of a neighboring king. Crafty Ulysses, desiring to enlist the young man for the Trojan War, and suspecting his place of concealment, presented himself as a peddler or traveling merchant with a pack of finery and ornaments, among which he included a shield and spear. The ruse worked well. The handsomest young lady among them all disregarded the articles of feminine attire and turned to the weapons with undisguised admiration. Ulysses gave a cry of alarm, at which the girls shrieked and fled; but Achilles seized shield and spear and put himself in a posture of defense against the supposed approach of an enemy. After this, disguise was no longer possible; he returned home, manned fifty ships with his troops, the Myrmidons, and joined the Greek forces against Troy. During the siege he became offended at the overbearing conduct of Agamemnon, and withdrew his forces into camp. Later at the intercession of the Greeks, now hard pressed, he loaned his armor to his best friend Patroclus. The well known helmet and crest of Achilles put new courage into the Greeks and daunted the Trojans; but Trojan Paris was so far unfortunate as to kill Patroclus. In his grief Achilles, provided with new armor by Vulcan, put himself at the head of his Myrmidons, and assailed the Trojans on the plain before the city. Killing Hector in a personal combat, he dragged him behind his chariot about the walls of Troy, yet yielded the dead body to the aged King Priam, who came in person to the Greek camp to beg the sad boon of burying his son. Later, while endeavoring to storm the Scaean gate, an arrow of Paris, directed by Apollo, reached the vulnerable heel of the hero and caused his death. See Troy ; Hector
1000 Classical Characters (1900)
The son of Peleus, king of Phthiotis, in Thessaly, and the Nereid Thetis . On account of a prophecy of Calchas that Troy could never be taken without Achilles' assistance he was sent by his mother at an early age to the court of Lycomedes , where he lived some time disguised in female attire. Ulysses , however, visited Lycomedes in the garb of a traveling merchant and offered for sale various articles of female attire, mingling among them some pieces of armor. Achilles disclosed his sex by eagerly seizing the arms, and then accompanied Ulysses to the Trojan war. In the last year of the war, Achilles, who was the greatest hero on the side of the Greeks, being deprived by Agamemnon of his favorite Briseis , retired enraged to his tent and refused any longer to assist the Greeks. Zeus, at the request of Thetis, granted that the Greeks should suffer defeat at the hands of the Trojans until the insult offered to Achilles had been atoned for. Patroclus, his dearest friend, who wore Achilles' own armor, was killed, and the armor was taken by Hector. Then Achilles, in his grief for the loss of his friend, forgot his anger, and, clad in a new suit of armor made for him by Vulcan at the request of Thetis, went forth once more to battle with the Greeks and defeated the Trojans and killed Hector, whose corpse he fastened to his chariot and dragged around the walls of Troy under the eyes of Priam and all the Trojans. Achilles was afterward killed in the battle at the Schaean Gate; though a later tradition maintains that he was killed by Paris with a poisoned arrow which wounded him in the heel, the only part of him which remained vulnerable after his mother Thetis had dipped him in the river Styx.
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
son of Peleus, king of the Myrmidons, in Thessaly, and of Thetis, da daughter of Nereus. He joined the Grecian army, in which he was preeminent in valor, strength, swiftness, and beauty. Before Troy a quarrel broke out between him and the general-in-chief, Agamemnon, which led him to with draw entirely from the contest. In consequence, the Trojans reduced the Greeks to extreme distress. The Greek council of war now sent its most influential members to soothe the anger of Achilles, and to induce him to return to arms, but without effect. Rage and grief, caused by the death of his friend Patroclus, slain by Hector, induced Achilles to return to battle. At the close of a day of slaughter he killed Hector, and dragged him at his chariot wheels to the camp. Here ends the history of Achilles, so far as it is derived from Homer. By later authors, a variety of fable is mixed up with this simple narrative. Thetis is said to have dipped him, while an infant, in the Styx, which rendered him invulnerable except in the heel by which she held him, and he was killed at last by a wound in the heel.