Achilles' heel

The Achilles' heel comes as a term from Greek mythology: The right heel was the only point at which the legendary hero Achilles was vulnerable. The term is now used primarily as a metaphor and refers to a vulnerability of a system or tactics.

Description

As the son of a human father and a divine mother, the sea goddess Thetis, Achilles was mortal. Thetis tried to make him at least invulnerable and bathed him in the river Styx, which separates the underworld from the world above. The point at the heel, where it held Achilles by hand, but remained on the water of the river unwetted and thus became the only weak spot.

In the best-known versions of Achilles ' death, he was hit by Apollo himself or by an arrow of Paris, which was guided by Apollo, in the vulnerable Achilles heel. Although this imposes the question of whether a wound Achilles heel can lead to death, the Achilles heel of the mythology of the name giver of the human Achilles tendon was.

The motif can be found among others in the Nibelungen saga again. This covers a lime leaf a point of the back of Siegfried when he bathed in the dragon's blood to become invulnerable. It was on this only weak spot he is assassinated later in the saga of Hagen with a spear behind.