Achilleid

Achilleid
by Statius
Chiron teaching Achilles how to play the lyre, a Roman fresco from Herculaneum, 1st century AD.
Writtenc. 94—96 CE
LanguageLatin
Genre(s)Epic Poetry
MeterHexameter
Lines1,127

The Achilleid (/ˌækɪˈlɪd/; Latin: Achillēis) is an unfinished epic poem by Publius Papinius Statius that was intended to present the life of Achilles from his youth to his death at Troy. Only about one and a half books (1,127 dactylic hexameters) were completed before the poet's death. What remains is an account of the hero's early life with the centaur Chiron, and an episode in which his mother, Thetis, disguised him as a girl on the island of Scyros, before he joined the Greek expedition against Troy.