Achilles' heel
A single point of vulnerability in an otherwise invincible whole.
An Achilles' heel is a term for a critical weakness in an otherwise strong person or system, one that can lead to downfall. The phrase originates from the mythological hero Achilles, whose invulnerability was compromised at a single point on his body. It is now used idiomatically to refer to any attribute or quality that may prove fatal.
Quick Facts
- Anatomical term first recorded
- 1693
- Anatomical text
- Corporis Humani Anatomia
Facts from the source article.
The classical myth
Achilles' death is not depicted in Homer's Iliad, though Hector foretells it there; later Greek and Roman poetry and drama set after the Iliad describe his fatal wound. In those accounts, Paris shoots an arrow—possibly poisoned—that strikes Achilles in the heel, ankle, or torso. The Iliad may have deliberately omitted this death to stress Achilles' human mortality and the divide between gods and heroes. Later Hellenistic myths tell of Thetis attempting to make her son immortal by anointing him with ambrosia and burning away his mortality in a hearth fire, but Peleus interrupted the ritual, leaving the process incomplete. A later tradition says Thetis dipped the infant Achilles in the river Styx while holding his heel, making him invulnerable except where her fingers covered him. Recent research notes that ancient sources refer to the talus, or Greek astragalos, as the vulnerable point.
Anatomy
The large tendon of the calf muscles—the gastrocnemius, soleus, and plantaris—is called the tendo achilleus, or Achilles tendon. This structure is commonly linked to the site of Achilles' death wound. The Flemish/Dutch anatomist Philip Verheyen provided the oldest known written record of the name in 1693, in his work Corporis Humani Anatomia, where he noted it was commonly called 'the cord of Achilles'. Tendons are avascular, so an arrow wound there would be unlikely to be fatal unless the arrow was poisoned.
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