Nancy Perdomo
English 2332
Dr. Andrade
February 11, 2000

Portrait of a Hero

Homer's Iliad has challenged and captivated audiences for 2,500 years. This masterwork of the ancient world enthralls readers with its valiant heroes who fight for the glory of Greece amidst the chaos and roar of battle, beautifully juxtaposing the passion and pageantry of life with the brutal finality of death. The Iliad, however, is not just a story of war; it is also a story of individuals. Through the characters' words and actions, Homer paints portraits of petulant Achilles and vain Agamemnon, doomed Paris and Helen, loyal Patroclus, tragic Priam, versatile Odysseus, and the whole cast of Gods. Ironically, the most complete character in the epic is Hector, enemy hero, and Prince of Troy. Hector is in many ways the ideal Homeric man: he is a man of compassion and piety, a man of integrity and bravery, a man who loves his family, and above all, a man who understands and fulfills his social obligations under the stringent rules of the heroic code.

Hector, returning to the city from a series of ferocious setbacks at the hands of the Acheans, is introduced as a man of compassion and piety. His behavior as a hero and as a son is markedly different from the behavior exhibited by Agamemnon and Achilles. When he enters the Scaean Gates, he is immediately surrounded by "the wives and daughters of Troy…asking about their sons, brothers, friends and husbands" (VI, 150-151). The very fact that the women approach Hector, intimidating as he must be in his bloodstained armor, is revealing. Up to this point, the women in the story have been silent victims of the raging tempers of the men around them. In contrast, the women of Troy display confidence in Hector's character by approaching him without fear. Though he himself is exhausted and discouraged, Hector patiently responds to the anguished women, demonstrating the compassion he feels for his fighting men and their families. So many have died that day, and so many are yet to die. One by one, he tells them simply, "Pray to the Gods" (VI, 152). Had Agamemnon demonstrated the same sort of compassion towards the supplicant Chryses, the Greeks would have been spared the wrath of Apollo. Hector's compassion and his respect for the gods, engenders the trust and respect of his people, and makes him an ideal leader.

Hector continues on to the palace, where he is embraced by his mother Hecuba, who offers him wine with which to refresh himself and to honor the Gods. Hector politely answers, "Mother, not now-I'd lose my nerve for war. And I'd be ashamed to pour a glistening cup to Zeus with unwashed hands. I'm splattered with blood and filth-how could I pray to the lord of storm and lightning?" (VI, 179-183). He then recommends that his mother "go with offerings to Athena's shrine" to make sacrifices for the success of the Trojans. Hector's respectful address to his mother, his humility before the Gods and his understanding of the appropriate forms of supplication, stand in sharp contrast to Achilles' earlier whining and self-serving demands made to Thetis. Once again, in the matter of piety as well as compassion, Hector is the superior man.

Nowhere in the Iliad is Hector's superiority more obvious than when he is contrasted with his brother Paris, the man who bears the sole responsibility for the chaos and terror that engulfs Troy. Hector finds Paris "polishing (and) fondling his splendid battle-gear, his shield and breastplate, turning over and over his long curved bow" (VI, 243-245). Paris' superficial adoration of the accoutrements of war insults the man who stands before him, covered in the blood and sweat of their common enemy. Hector shouts at him, "What on earth are you doing? Oh how wrong it is…your people dying around the city, dying in arms-and all for you…Up with you-before all Troy is torched to a cinder here and now!" (VI, 250-257). He urges Helen, "Rouse this fellow, won't you? My hear races to help our Trojans-they long for me, sorely, whenever I am gone" (VI, 296-298). Hector has fought for ten years, will fight ten more years, will fight an entire lifetime if necessary to defend his city and his people. Hector's sense of integrity and his bravery keep him returning to the battlefield day after bloody day.

Leaving Paris and Helen and the chaos of their "killing doom" behind him, Hector goes in search of his beloved wife, Andromache, and their infant son (VI, 290). He finally finds them up on the ramparts, where Andromache has been frantically scanning the morass of fighting men for some sight of her husband. Rushing to embrace them, "the great man of war breaking into a broad smile, fixed his gaze on his son" (VI, 345-346). This is Hector, the family man, the strong and confident protector. He tries to comfort his young wife, who has been gripped by a terrible premonition of his death. Andromache's fears are all too real; should Hector die and the city be overrun, she will be enslaved by some Greek warlord, perhaps even her husband's murderer, and her infant son will likely be thrown from the city walls to the rocks below. Hector is her only source of protection from the chaos and danger of the outside world. She beseeches him, "You, Hector-you are my father now, my noble mother, a brother too, and you are my husband, young and warm and strong! Pity me, please!" (VI, 375-377). The threat that the war represents to his family is Hector's greatest, perhaps his only fear. He lifts their baby in the air and prays, "Zeus, all you immortals! Grant this boy, my son, may be like me, first in glory among the Trojans, strong and brave like me, and rule all Troy in power and one day let them say, 'He is a better man than his father!'" (VI, 434-437). Then handing the child back to his wife, he gently strokes her hair and reassures her, "Andromache, dear one, why so desperate? Why so much grief for me? No man will hurl me down to Death, against my fate. And fate? No one alive has ever escaped it" (VI, 444-448). Hector's compassion for his wife, and his tenderness towards her, mirrors his compassion for his people and reinforces the image of him as a good and just leader.

Yet in spite of the love he feels for his wife and child, Hector is unable to turn his back on the fighting. He tells Andromache, "But I would die of shame to face the men of Troy and the Trojan women trailing their long robes if I would shrink from battle now, a coward. Nor does the spirit urge me on that way" (VI, 387-391). He continues to say that he is compelled, as a man, and as a hero, "To stand up bravely, always to fight in the front ranks of the Trojan soldiers, winning my father great glory, glory for myself." (VI, 393-395). This is the contract between the hero and society: in return for his protection he will be granted glory, both in the abstract and the material sense. This is the hero's obligation; an obligation that he must fulfill, or die trying.

In the rigid world of the heroic code, all personal virtues, compassion and piety, integrity and bravery, love for one's wife and child, were secondary to the attainment of the social good. Yet the audiences of Homer's time had come to realize that the hero without personal virtues was an empty, if brilliant shell of a man. Hector's positive qualities serve as a foil against the cruelty, arrogance, and self-indulgence that cripples some of the other heroes in the Iliad. To the Greeks of Homer's time, Hector stands out as a symbol of what might have been… and a model for what could be.