Introduction
Peleus was a mortal king of Phthia who won the sea-nymph Thetis as his wife after wrestling her through numerous shape-changing forms — a marriage the gods themselves arranged and attended.
Family
- Children: Achilles
The Wedding That Started a War
At Peleus and Thetis's wedding feast, the goddess Eris (Strife), left off the guest list, threw a golden apple inscribed "for the fairest" among the assembled goddesses. The resulting dispute between Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite led to the Judgment of Paris, and from there to the abduction of Helen and the Trojan War — meaning the marriage that produced Achilles is, in Greek tradition, the same event that indirectly caused the war in which he would die.
As with all figures of Greek heroic legend, sources diverge on many particulars; the account above follows the most widely transmitted classical tradition.