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Prince Hector the eldest son of PRIAM, king of Troy, and HECUBA, though he was sometimes said to be the son of APOLLO. He was the husband of ANDROMACHE and the father of ASTYANAX, and the greatest of the Trojan champions. Although he deplored PARIS’ irresponsible seduction of Helen which plunged Troy into the protracted TROJAN WAR, nevertheless it was Hector who killed PROTESILAUS, the first Greek to set foot on Trojan soil, and he remained the bulwark of the Trojan army until his death in the tenth year of the war.
In the Iliad, Homer depicts Hector as noble and compassionate, much loved by his fellow-Trojans, and makes him a key figure in the action of his epic. When ACHILLES retires from battle, full of wrath because his concubine Briseis has been taken from him by AGAMEMNON, it is Hector whom he names as the Trojan fighter who will bring the greatest suffering to the Greeks, now that their own finest warrior is off the battlefield. He swears a great oath to Agamemnon (1.240–4):
One day a longing for Achilles will come on the sons of the Achaeans, on all of them, and then, for all your sorrow, you will be able to do nothing to help, when many of them drop and die before man-slaying Hector. And then you will eat your heart out in anger that you did no honour to the best of the Achaeans.
When Achilles still refuses to fight, even after many losses have been sustained by the Greeks, it is Hector who kills his dearest comrade PATROCLUS when he goes into battle in his friend’s place. After this, when Achilles re-enters the fighting to avenge Patroclus, slaughtering countless Trojans, it is his killing of Hector that is the climax of his revenge. And in the final book of the Iliad, it is Priam’s recovery of Hector’s body from Achilles that leads to the supremely moving scene of pity and reconciliation between enemies with which Homer ends his epic.
Hector first appears leading the Trojans out to battle (2.807–18). He reproaches his brother Paris for being afraid to fight MENELAUS, who is eager to do battle with the man who stole his wife, then arranges the truce and the indecisive single combat between the two of them (3.38–120). He takes a major part in the fighting of Books 5 and 6, so that even the mighty DIOMEDES quails before him (5.590–606). Here occurs one of the most famous scenes of the Iliad (6.369–502), when Hector goes back into the city to arrange for offerings to be made to the gods, then meets Andromache and Astyanax near the Scaean Gate. Andromache begs him not to carry on risking his life in battle, and his reply shows his sense of duty that keeps him fighting in what seems to be a hopeless war (6.441–9):
I would be ashamed before the Trojans and the Trojans’ wives, with their trailing robes, if like a coward I skulk away from the fighting. My spirit will not let me do it, for I have learnt always to be brave and to fight among the foremost Trojans, winning great glory for myself and for my father. But this I know full well in my mind and in my heart: the day will come when sacred Troy shall perish, and Priam, and the people of Priam of the good ash spear.
So Hector returns to battle, and there he challenges any Greek hero to single combat. At first the Greeks are hesitant, which underlines Hector’s excellence as a warrior; but finally he is met by AJAX in a duel that is inconclusive, although Ajax has rather the better of it before night stops the contest. They part in friendship with an exchange of gifts, Hector giving a sword and Ajax a sword-belt (7.44–312). Sophocles would later make dramatic use of these gifts in his Ajax, where Ajax kills himself by falling on the sword, and Hector (in a version different from that of Homer) has been dragged to his death while lashed to Achilles’ chariot with the sword-belt.
In Book 8 Hector drives the Greeks back to their camp by the ships and when night falls bivouacs with his men on the plain – for the first time since the Greeks landed more than nine years earlier. In the long battle of Books 11 to 17 he takes a prominent part, leading the main attack against the fortifications of the Greek camp. When POLYDAMAS interprets an eagle dropping a gigantic, blood-red snake among the Trojans as a sinister portent, Hector famously replies (12.237–43):
You tell me to trust in the long-winged flight of birds, but I care nothing for these and give them no thought, whether they fly to the right, to the dawn and the sunrise, or fly to the left, towards the mist and the dark. No, let us trust to the will of mighty Zeus, who is king over mortals and immortals alike. One omen is best, to fight in defence of your country.
A fierce fight between Greeks and Trojans develops around the ramparts, and finally Hector breaks through the gates by hurling a huge stone and smashing them open (12.462–71):
Then glorious Hector leapt inside, his face like the onset of night. He gleamed in the fearful bronze that girded his flesh, and brandished two spears in his hands. No one but a god could have come against him and stopped him as he burst through the gates, his eyes blazing with fire. Turning, he shouted to the mass of Trojans to climb over the wall, and they obeyed his order. Some climbed the wall and others poured in through the strong-built gates. The Greeks fled in fear among their hollow ships, and the clamour rose unceasing.
During the battle Hector is felled by a stone flung by the Great Ajax (14.402–39), but Apollo restores his strength and urges him back to the fighting, to which he goes with enthusiasm (15.263–70):
As when a horse, stabled and corn-fed at the manger, breaks his rope and gallops in thunder over the plain to where he likes to bathe in a sweet-flowing river, exulting. He holds his head high and his mane streams out over his shoulders; knowing his splendour, he is carried on swift knees to his loved pastures. So Hector swiftly moved his feet and his knees, rousing his horsemen, when he heard the voice of the god.
He leads his men against the Greek ships, and after a mighty battle succeeds in setting fire to one of them. At this, Patroclus goes into the fighting in Achilles’ place: with his friend’s blessing, and clad in his armour, he leads out the MYRMIDONS. He beats back the Trojans from the ships, then carries on fighting and killing until he is himself slain by Hector with the help of Apollo (16.712–863). Despite the efforts of the Greeks, Hector strips Patroclus of his armour, then himself puts it on. When Achilles learns of his comrade’s death, he appears on the edge of the battlefield and three times gives a great shout that has the Trojans scattering in panic (18.207–38). Even so, Hector is full of confidence and again bivouacs with his men on the plain, even though this is against the advice of Polydamas. He will live to regret his folly when all too many of his fellow-Trojans are killed.
On the following day Hector’s last moments are at hand, for Achilles rejoins the battle, appearing in new armour made for him by Hephaestus. He slaughters vast numbers of Trojans in his lust for revenge, all the while seeking Hector, the slayer of his beloved friend. He kills POLYDORUS, another son of Priam, and Hector tries to avenge his brother, knowing full well that Achilles is the better man and likely to kill him: “I know that you are brave,” he says, “and that I am far weaker than you. But all this rests on the knees of the gods, and I may yet, even though I am weaker, rob you of life with a cast of my spear, since my weapon too has been found sharp enough in the past” (20.434–7). He lets fly his spear, which through Athena’s intervention drops harmlessly to the ground. He is now at Achilles’ mercy, but Apollo delays the fatal moment by shrouding Hector in a thick mist, and Achilles tries in vain to reach him before once again creating carnage among the Trojans.
The surviving Trojans flee back into their city, all except Hector, who alone stands his ground outside the walls and waits for Achilles, even though his parents beg him to come inside the city to safety. He is determined to atone for his folly in keeping his men out too long on the plain, and thus causing much unnecessary loss of life. Achilles approaches, brandishing his terrible spear, his armour blazing like a great fire or the shining sun, and the terrifying sight is too much for Hector: he turns and flees, and Achilles runs after him. They run around Troy, past the two well-springs “near which are fine broad washing-troughs made of stone, where the Trojans’ wives and their lovely daughters used to wash their bright clothes, in the old days, when there was peace, before the coming of the Greeks” (22.153–6) – a pathetic reminder of a peace now forever lost, since Hector is about to die, and without Hector, the city’s champion, Troy must fall and the Trojan women be taken into slavery.
Three times the two adversaries run around Troy. Hector cannot escape, but nor can Achilles catch up with him, for all his fleetness of foot, since Apollo, helping Hector “for the last, the very last time”, endows him with strength and speed. “A fine man fled in front, but a far better man swiftly pursued him, for they were not trying to win a beast for sacrifice nor an ox-hide, which are given as prizes in a foot-race, but they were running for the life of Hector, tamer of horses” (22.158–61). But when for the fourth time they come to the well-springs and the washing-troughs, then Zeus on Olympus lifts up his golden scales and weighs the fates of the two men. Hector’s is the heavier, sinking down towards Hades and death. Now Apollo forsakes him. And now Athene comes to help Achilles. She tells him to halt, then goes to Hector, taking the form of DEIPHOBUS, another of Priam’s sons, and tricks him into thinking that his brother has come to his aid. She encourages him to fight Achilles, saying that the two of them will stand fast against him side by side. So Hector stops and faces his enemy.
“No longer, son of Peleus, shall I run from you,” he says, “as before I fled three times around the great city of Priam and had not the courage to withstand your attack. But now my spirit stirs me to stand and face you. I may kill you or may myself be killed” (22.250–3). Achilles hurls his spear at Hector, but misses, and Athene snatches it up and returns it to him. Now Hector throws, but his spear bounces harmlessly back from his opponent’s god-made shield. He calls to Deiphobus to hand him another spear – but there is no Deiphobus, for Athene has disappeared. Finding himself alone, Hector all too late realises the truth (22.297–301):
So the gods have indeed summoned me to death. I thought the hero Deiphobus was standing close beside me, but he is inside the walls, and Athene was tricking me. And now evil death is at my side, no longer far away, and there is no way out.
“Now my fate is upon me,” he adds, “but at least let me not die without a struggle, ingloriously, but in doing some great deed which men in the future will hear of.” He goes bravely towards certain death (22.306–12):
He drew his sharp sword, huge and sturdy, from by his side, and gathering himself he swooped like a high-flying eagle, who darts to the plain through the dark clouds to seize a tender lamb or a cowering hare; even so Hector swooped, swinging his sharp sword, and Achilles rushed at him, his heart within him full of savage wrath.
They meet, and Achilles drives a spear into Hector’s throat, wounding him mortally. With his dying breath, Hector prophesies Achilles’ own death at the hands of Paris and Apollo. He also begs that his body be returned to his parents, but Achilles, still overcome with rage and hatred, bitterly rejects his plea (22.345–54):
Do not entreat me, you dog, by knees or parents. I only wish that my wrath and fury might drive me to hack your flesh away and eat it raw, for the evil you have done me. So no one can ward off the dogs from your head, not if they bring here and set before me ten times and twenty times the ransom, and promise even more; not if Dardanian Priam should offer your weight in gold; not even so shall your lady mother lay you on the death-bed and mourn the son she bore. No, the dogs and birds shall utterly devour you.
Hector dies, and the other Greeks run up and stand marvelling at his stature and beauty. They stab at him with their spears, declaring “See this, Hector is certainly softer to handle now than when he burned our ships with blazing fire” (22.373–4). Achilles pierces Hector’s body at the ankles and fastens it with thongs to his chariot, then drags it in the dust behind him. “And a cloud of dust arose as Hector was dragged, and his dark hair spread around him, and all in the dust lay the head that had been so handsome; for now Zeus had given him over to his enemies, to be defiled in his own native land” (22.401–4). When the Trojans look down and see that their defender is dead, their cries of grief echo and re-echo through the city. “It was as if the whole of towering Troy had been torched, and was burning top to bottom”, says Homer (22.410–11) – a true vision of what now must happen.
Achilles’ rage and his refusal to give up his victim for burial continue for eleven days, but the gods pity Hector and keep his body safe from harm, however much Achilles maltreats it. On the twelfth day they intervene to arrange that Hector be ransomed. Priam comes to the Greek camp by night, bringing gifts, to beg for the return of his son (24.189–676), and at last Achilles’ wrath is eased and replaced by pity. They weep together, then Achilles accepts Priam’s gifts and gives him back his son. The two enemies eat together in peace, and sleep. Then Priam returns to Troy, where Hector is mourned by Andromache, Hecuba and Helen. There is an eleven-day truce in which he can be given the full honours of death, and the Iliad ends with his funeral, the burial of a noble Trojan (24.784–804):
For nine days they gathered piles of wood, then when the tenth dawn brought its light to men, they carried out brave Hector, their tears falling, and set his body on a towering pyre, and lit it. When rosy-fingered Dawn appeared next day, they all collected around glorious Hector’s pyre. And when they had assembled there together, they first with gleaming wine put out the burning, where fire still had strength, and then his friends and brothers gathered his white bones, mourning, while tears flowed down their cheeks. They took the bones and laid them in a golden urn, shrouding them in soft crimson robes, and straightway set it in a hollow grave, piling on huge stones laid close together. Quickly they heaped a mound, with look-outs set on every side, for fear the well-greaved Achaians might soon attack. They heaped up the grave-mound and went away, then met together and held a glorious feast in the house of Priam, the god-ordained king. Thus they buried Hector, tamer of horses...
- Jenny March, Dictionary of Classical. Mythology.
