Fearing for the life of King Priam, Zeus commanded his son Hermes to meet Priam on the plain and escort him to Achilles. Hermes assumed the guise of a mortal man and told Priam that he was a henchman of Achilles and that he had been sent to escort the king and the ransom to Achilles's shelter.chilles was the son of King Peleus and the Nereid, Thetis. His birth was the result of the union between a mortal [Peleus] and an Immortal [Thetis], which made Achilles semi-divine.