ACHILLES TROY HELM (IR80667)
KEY FEATURES: * High carbon steel * Replicates an original * Perfect for the collector or reenactor
MEASUREMENTS: DIMENSIONS: 15" x 7" x 8" CIRCUMFERENCE: 26 WEIGHT: 6 lbs

ACHILLES AND HIS ARMOR
In Greek mythology, Achilles was a Greek hero of the Trojan War, the central character and the greatest warrior of Homer's Iliad. Achilles was regarded as the handsomest, the swiftest, the strongest and the bravest of the Greeks who fought in the Trojan War. Achilles wore his father's immortal armour as well as a spear made by Cheiron, from a tree in Mount Pelion. In Greek mythology, the Trojan War was waged against the city of Troy by the Achaeans (Greeks) after Paris of Troy stole Helen from her husband Menelaus, the king of Sparta. The war is among the most important events in Greek mythology and was narrated in many works of Greek literature, including the Iliad and the Odyssey by Homer. Later legends (beginning with a poem by Statius in the first century AD) state that Achilles was invulnerable in all of his body except for his heel. Since he died due to an arrow shot into his heel, the "Achilles' heel" has come to mean a person's principal weakness.

Achilles' armor was the object of a feud between Odysseus and Telamonian Ajax (Ajax the greater). They competed for it by giving speeches on why they were the bravest after Achilles to their Trojan prisoners, who after considering both men came to a consensus. Odysseus won. Furious, Ajax cursed Odysseus, which earned the ire of Athena and eventually lead to his death. Odysseus eventually gave the armor to Neoptolemus, the son of Achilles. A relic claimed to be Achilles' bronze-headed spear was for centuries preserved in the temple of Athena on the acropolis of Phaselis, Lycia, a port on the Pamphylian Gulf. The city was visited in 333 by Alexander the Great, who envisioned himself as the new Achilles and carried the Iliad with him.