ancient beliefs

Achilles was the greatest and the central character of Homer's Iliad.  He was the son of Peleus, king of the Myrmidons in Phthia (southeast Thessaly), and the sea nymph Thetis. Zeus and Poseidon had forced her for her hand until Prometheus the fire bringer revealed she would bear a son greater than his father, whence they wisely chose to give her to someone else. According to legend, Thetis had tried to make Achilles invincible by dipping him in the river Styx, but forgot to wet the heel she held him by, leaving him
vulnerable so he could be killed by a blow to that heel.

Achilles is one of the only two people described as "god-like" in the Iliad.  In the Trojan War Achilles has killed many of the Trojans. He also defeated Memnon of Ethiopia, Cycnus of Colonae and the Amazonian warrior Penthesilia (with whom Achilles also had an affair in some versions).  But as predicted by Hector with his dying breath, Achilles was thereafter killed by Paris — either by an arrow to the heel, or in an older version by a knife to the back while visiting Polyxena, a Trojan princess.  

Zeus or Dios ("divine king") is the leader of the gods and god of the sky and thunder in Greek mythology.  
Zeus played a huge role in the Olympic pantheon. He fathered many of the heroes and heroines (see
list at bottom of article) and was featured in many of their stories. Zeus is the continuation of Dyeus, the
supreme god in Indo-European religion, also continued as Vedic Dyaus Pitar (cf. Jupiter), and as Tyr in
Germanic and Norse mythology.  In addition to his Indo-European inheritance, the classical Zeus also
derives certain iconographic traits from the cultures of the ancient Near East,.  Zeus was equivalent to
the Roman god Jupiter (from Jovis Pater or "Father Jove") and associated in the syncretic classical
imagination with various other deities, such as the Egyptian Ammon and the Etruscan Tinia. He (along
with Dionysus) absorbed the role of the chief Phrygian god Sabazios in the syncretic deity known in
Rome as Sabazius.

Eros was the god responsible for lust, love, and sex; he was also worshipped as a fertility deity. His
name is the root of words such as erotic. His Roman equivalent was Cupid, "desire", also known as
Amor, "love". He was often associated with Aphrodite. He was like Dionysus, sometimes referred to as
Eleutherios, "the liberator".

Athena, is the armed warrior goddess in Greek mythology.  She is the goddess of wisdom,
strategy, and war associated by the Etruscans with their goddess Menrva, and later by the Romans
as Minerva.  She is attended by an owl, wore a goatskin breastplate called the Aegis given to her by
her father and is accompanied by the goddess of victory, Nike. Athena is also a goddess
associated with mentoring heroes.  Pallas is sometimes thought to be her father, hence the
epithet Pallas Athena.  Athena was already a goddess in the Aegean before the coming of the
Greeks. A-ta-na-po-ti-ni-ja (Mistress Athena) is referred to in the Knossos