In reply to Adrienne Mayor.

Of course, now I'm curious if there are references in classical literature to the importance of ankles besides those of Talos and the famous anatomical weakness of Achilles?
There were also the winged sandals (Latin talaria, which have a seemingly close lexical relationship to the name Talos) of Hermes.

I suspect it's also not surprising that we call the anklebone the talus either.