Thetis

Also known as: Achilles' mother / Bride of Peleus / Nereid / Nereus' Child / Nereus' child / Peleus' bride / Sea-queen / Thetis sable-stoled / silver-footed Thetis / the Aeacid hero's mother / the Nereid / the Nereid Queen / the Nereid starry-eyed · Family: Gods · Role: Nereid and Achilles' mother · First appears: Book II · Part 3

Thetis was given to Peleus as an unwilling bride, though Zeus had pledged her a godlike son and lord of war. Achilles became “mightiest / Of men.” Poseidon later promised that Achilles would become a god on a holy island in the Euxine Sea, and brought this to pass; after Achilles’ death, Thetis and the Nereids sank beneath the sea mourning him.

At Achilles’ funeral-games, Thetis came from the sea and set out prizes for the Argive champions. She gave handmaids to Diomedes and Ajax son of Telamon, and distributed spoils among the contestants, including a cup once belonging to Eetion, a breastplate belonging to Polydorus, and gear from Asteropaeus. She also laid Achilles’ immortal arms before the Argives, offering them to whoever had rescued his body from the enemy. Later, she sent a wind from the sea to consume Ajax son of Telamon’s body on the pyre, and made the Greeks’ sea route straight, sending a driving wind to speed their ships.

Thetis had sheltered Dionysus from Lycurgus, welcomed Hephaestus when he fell from heaven, and once released Zeus from bonds. She gave arms to Idomeneus, Agapenor, Euryalus, Menelaus, Agamemnon, and Sthenelus, and later rejoiced at the strength of her grandson Neoptolemus, “with a joy / As great as was her grief for Achilles slain.”