Thetis

Also known as: silver-footed Thetis · Family: gods · Role: mother of Achilles · First appears: BOOK I

🌐 Also appears in: Greek Mythology — A Family Orrery (as Thetis) · The Odyssey (as Thetis) · The Metamorphoses of Ovid (as Thetis) · Greek Tragedy — The Same Myth, Three Voices (as Thetis)

In Book I, Thetis appeals to Jove on behalf of her son Achilles, asking him to secure honor and riches for him; Jove promises to make the Trojans victorious until the Achaeans restore that honor. In Book VI, she comforts Bacchus when he takes refuge in the sea.

By Book XVIII, Thetis hears Achilles’s cry from the sea, where she sits beside her father Nereus. She tells her son that his death will follow soon after Hector’s, and promises to bring him new armour from Vulcan before he returns to battle. She appeals to Vulcan for the armour, and when he finishes it, carries it away. She is married to Peleus against her will, and calls her Nereid sisters to her: Glauce, Thalia, Cymodoce, Nesaia, Speo, Thoe, Halie, Cymothoe, Actaea, Limnorea, Melite, Iaera, Amphithoe, Agave, Doto, Proto, Pherusa, Dynamene, Dexamene, Amphinome, Callianeira, Doris, Panope, Galatea, Nemertes, Apseudes, Callianassa, Clymene, Ianeira, Ianassa, Maera, Oreithuia, and Amatheia.

In Book XIX, Thetis protects Patroclus’s body from decay by placing ambrosia and nectar in his wounds. In Book XXIV, Juno identifies her as the goddess she reared, and Jove sends Iris to summon her; he orders that Achilles accept Priam’s ransom and surrender Hector’s body, and Achilles agrees.