The Single Vein

Apollodorus describes the design flaw plainly: one vein running from neck to ankle, closed at the end by a bronze nail, and ichor inside it instead of blood. Everything about him is unbreakable except the place where he was finished off. The Argonautica has Medea work on him from the deck of the Argo without ever touching him — she fixes him with her eyes, calls up the death-spirits, and he grazes his ankle against a rock. What runs out of him does not stop. The accounts differ on the method; nearly all of them keep the ankle.