Hector

Hector was born the eldest son of King Priam and Queen Hecuba of Troy, the heir apparent to a city that stood at the crossroads of trade between Europe and Asia, its walls built by the gods Apollo and Poseidon in ages past. He grew to manhood in a palace crowded with siblings -- some said Priam had fifty sons and many daughters by various wives -- but Hector stood apart from the rest. While his brother Paris was beautiful and charming, Hector was strong and grave, a man who understood that the fate of Troy rested upon his shoulders. He married Andromache, daughter of Eetion, king of Thebe in Cilicia, a princess whose seven brothers and her father had all been slain by the hero Achilles in a single raid before the war began. She brought him no dowry but grief, yet their love was renowned throughout the ancient world. She bore him a son, Scamandrius, whom the people of Troy called Astyanax -- "Lord of the City" -- because his father was the city's defender and his future its king.

When the Trojan War began -- the ten-year siege that followed Paris's abduction of Helen, the most beautiful woman in the world and wife of the Greek king Menelaus -- Hector did not want it. He had seen the omens and heard the prophecies that foretold Troy's destruction. Yet when the Greek fleet of a thousand black ships beached upon the shores beneath his city's walls, he accepted his duty without complaint. He led the Trojan armies from the front, fighting duels with the greatest Greek champions and holding his own against them all. In one famous encounter, he fought the giant Ajax, son of Telamon, the greatest warrior among the Greeks after Achilles, for an entire day until darkness forced them to part. They exchanged gifts -- Hector gave Ajax a silver-studded sword, and Ajax gave Hector a purple war-belt -- a gesture of respect between enemies that would later haunt both men's fates. Hector was not merely a fighter but a commander who inspired loyalty. His cousin Aeneas, the son of the goddess Aphrodite and the mortal Anchises, served as his second-in-command, and the Trojan army followed Hector with a devotion that no Greek leader could match, not even Agamemnon, the high king who commanded the combined forces of Greece.

The defining episode of Hector's life came when Achilles, the greatest of the Greek warriors, withdrew from battle in a rage against Agamemnon. Without Achilles and his Myrmidons -- the fierce tribe from Phthia who fought beneath his command -- the Greeks began to lose ground. Patroclus, Achilles' closest companion since boyhood, begged to borrow his friend's divine armor and lead the Myrmidons into battle to turn the tide. Achilles reluctantly agreed, warning Patroclus to drive the Trojans from the ships but not to pursue them to the walls of Troy. Patroclus forgot this warning. He swept through the Trojan ranks like a god, killing warriors left and right, until he came face to face with Hector himself. The prince of Troy, aided by the god Apollo who struck Patroclus from behind and the Trojan warrior Euphorbus who wounded him first, slew the man in Achilles' armor. As Patroclus died, he prophesied Hector's own death: "You yourself are not one who shall live long, but now already death and powerful destiny are standing beside you, to go down under the hands of Aiakos' great son, Achilles." Hector stripped the divine armor from the corpse -- armor forged by Hephaestus, the smith god of Olympus, for Achilles' mother Thetis -- and wore it himself, a gesture of triumph that the gods regarded as the act of a man already marked for death.

When Achilles learned of Patroclus's death, his grief turned to a madness that shook the earth. Thetis, his sea-goddess mother, brought him new armor from Hephaestus's forge -- a shield that showed the whole world upon its surface, from cities at peace to cities at war, from ploughing fields to dancing youths. Achilles cut through the Trojan ranks like a reaping blade, killing so many that the River Scamander itself rose up in protest, its waters choked with corpses. Hector's parents, King Priam and Queen Hecuba, begged him from the walls to take shelter within the city, but Hector refused. He had ignored the counsel of his wise advisor Polydamas the night before, choosing to camp outside the walls rather than retreat, and the Trojans had suffered terribly for his pride. Now he could not hide. He waited outside the Scaean Gates while Achilles approached, his heart failing him, and when the demigod drew near, Hector ran. Achilles chased him three times around the walls of Troy, the greatest runner in Greece pursuing the greatest defender of Troy, while the gods watched from above. Zeus weighed their fates in his golden scales, and Hector's side sank down. Athena, the goddess of wisdom and war, took the form of Hector's favorite brother Deiphobus and stood beside him, promising to fight at his side. Hector turned to face Achilles, proposing that whoever won would return the other's body for proper burial. Achilles refused with words of burning hatred: "There are no trustworthy oaths between men and lions, nor wolves and lambs have spirit that can be brought to agreement, but forever these hold thoughts of hate for each other." He threw his spear; Hector dodged, but Athena returned the weapon to Achilles' hand unseen. Hector threw his own spear, which struck Achilles' shield but did not pierce it. He turned to Deiphobus for another weapon, and found no one there. In that moment he knew the gods had abandoned him. He drew his sword and charged, and Achilles drove his spear through the gap in the armor at Hector's throat -- the one place the divine breastplate did not cover, where Patroclus had worn it loose. Hector fell, and with his last breath he prophesied Achilles' own death at the hands of Paris and Apollo.

Achilles was not satisfied with killing Hector. He slit the dead man's heels and threaded the war-belt that Ajax had given him through the slits, then tied the body to his chariot and dragged it three times around the walls of Troy while Hector's parents watched from the battlements and Andromache fainted in grief. For twelve days Achilles dragged the body each dawn around the pyre of Patroclus, yet the gods would not let Hector be defiled. Apollo and Aphrodite preserved the corpse from decay, from dogs, from tearing, so that it remained as whole and beautiful in death as Hector had been in life. The gods grew weary of this desecration. Zeus sent Thetis to Achilles with a command: he must release the body. And he sent Iris, the rainbow messenger goddess, to King Priam with a promise of safe passage through the Greek lines. Priam, an old man who had buried many children, loaded a wagon with treasure -- twelve robes, twelve mantles, ten bars of gold, two tripods, a golden cup -- and drove through the night to Achilles' tent. He knelt before the killer of his son and kissed his hands, the hands that had slain Hector, begging for the return of the body. Achilles wept, reminded of his own father Peleus, and the two enemies shared grief as men rather than enemies. Achilles lifted Hector's body onto a bier, washed it, anointed it with oil, and wrapped it in a soft robe. He promised Priam a twelve-day truce for the funeral rites. The Trojans built a great pyre upon the headland and burned Hector's body, then placed his bones in a golden urn and buried them with a mound of earth. Homer, the blind poet who sang these events, ends his Iliad not with the fall of Troy but with the funeral of Hector, the breaker of horses, the tamer of horses, the man who had been the city's last true defense.