Hector

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Image:Xanthus.jpg In Greek mythology, Hector ( Ἑκτωρ, "holding fast"), or Hektor, was a Trojan prince and one of the greatest fighters in the Trojan War, equal to Ajax and surpassed only by Achilles.

Early Life

He was the son of Priam and Hecuba, his younger brother being the less brave Paris (Paris is commonly looked upon as a cowardly lover, who brought on the downfall of the kingdom of Troy over an affair with Helen). With his wife, Andromache, he fathered Astyanax. He had a horse named Lampos and friends named Misenus and Poludamas. His charioteer was Cebriones, his half-brother.

In the Iliad, Homer calls him "breaker of horses," largely to maintain the meter of his lines and because Troy in general was known for horse raising. Another epithet applied to him is "of the flashing helmet".

Hector The Hero, Common Traits With Achilles

Hector provides a stark contrast for Achilles, who was from first to last a man of war. Hector represents Troy and what it stood for. Some modern scholars have even suggested that he, not Achilles, is the true hero of the Iliad. Hector was fighting not for personal glory, but in defense of his homeland.

His rebuke to Poludamas, "Fight for your country — that is the first and only omen" became a proverb to patriotic Greeks. Through him we can see glimpses of what life in Troy and elsewhere in the Bronze Age Mediterranean civilization depicted by Homer might have been like in more peaceful times. The scene where he bids farewell to his wife Andromache and his infant son is one of the more moving scenes in the Iliad.

Hector vs Achilles

However, Hector still shares some of the same faults as Achilles, and does have a great amount of pride that proves to be disastrous for the Trojans. Both were their armies' greatest champions, and both serve as the driving force of the morale for their armies.

Hector was a great warrior. During the Trojan War, Hector killed Protesilaus and was wounded by Ajax during combat. In the portion of the war described in the Iliad, he fights with many of the Greek warriors and usually (but not always) succeeds in killing or wounding his opponent. When, with the assistance of Apollo, he kills Patroclus and throws the entire Greek force into disarray, it seems that the war has reached a turning point.

Nonetheless, Hector's personal fate, as decreed by Zeus early on in the story, is never in doubt. Achilles, enraged over the death of his long time best friend Patroclus, challenges Hector, and in a long fight Achilles kills him and drags his body around the walls of Troy out of spite.

Ultimately, with the assistance of the god Hermes, Priam convinces Achilles to permit him to allow Hector his funeral rights. The final passage in the Iliad is his funeral, after which the doom of Troy is just a matter of time. In the final sack of Troy, as described in Book II of the Aeneid, his father and many of his brothers are killed, his son is hurled from the walls in fear that he would avenge Hector, and his wife is carried off by Achilles' son Neoptolemus to live as a slave.

According to the Greek travel writer Pausanias, who lived in the mid-second century A.D., the city of Thebes sent a delegation to Troy to recover the giant bones of Hector.

Homer, Iliad; Apollodorus, Bibliotheke III, xii, 5-6; Apollodorus, Epitome IV, 2.

In the Middle Ages Hector's legend was held so highly that Jean de Longuyon included him as one of the Nine Worthies. In the Divine Comedy Dante sees the shade of Hector with the other noble Roman and Trojan personages in the portion of Limbo reserved for the most virtuous pagans.

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