Spear of Achilles — Greek Mythology

No story clearly explains the origin or maker of the Spear of Achilles. In the surviving narrative, the earliest clearly visible full episode appears in The Greeks Mistakenly Attack Mysia: Achilles wounds Telephus with it, and later someone scrapes filings from the spearhead to apply as medicine, ultimately healing the wound. This episode gives the weapon a vivid place in the tradition.

What it is

The Spear of Achilles is one of the main weapons Achilles uses on the battlefield. It is not merely an ordinary weapon, but is closely tied to Achilles’ martial fame. In the related stories, it can inflict a grave wound and also preserves the distinctive memory of a weapon that wounds and then becomes part of the cure.

Bearer and use

In the surviving narrative, this spear is always linked with Achilles. When the Greeks mistakenly attack Mysia, Achilles wounds Telephus with it. Later, an oracle declares that the one who wounded him can also heal him, and filings are scraped from the spearhead and applied to the wound, curing Telephus.

Variant accounts and reliability

• In The Greeks Mistakenly Attack Mysia, the spear’s function is clearest: it first wounds Telephus, and later filings from its spearhead are used in the healing.
• No story clearly explains how it was forged, and no separate origin for it is plainly preserved.
• The available material emphasizes its connection with Achilles more than it presents the spear as a famous object with an independent mythic origin.