“Leaving his friends in haste, Akhilleus [Achilles] wept, / and sat apart by the grey wave, scanning the endless sea. / Often he spread his hands in prayer to his mother:” When the readers first meet Achilles, he is in the midst of a situation which called for someone to step up and be a leader, or act like a hero. The situation does not turn out the way Achilles would have liked, and he responds in a less than heroic manner, weeping and essentially calling his mother. This was the first impression that young men of Athens got when reading about Achilles, and yet he was still regarded as a great hero of the Greeks. His actions do not seem heroic instantly, and for much of The Iliad, his actions do not align with today’s notion of heroism. When pitted against Hector, the hero for the Trojans, it is seemingly impossible to deem either one of these men a particular hero by the standards someone may use today.
There are thousands of definitions of a hero, but that which is accepted by Greek culture is inadequate. Greek myth asserts that “heroes were humans, male or female, of the remote past, endowed with superhuman …show more content…
He had a wife and a son, and all that he wanted was the best for both of them, particularly his son. Though he knew that his son had no chance of surviving Troy’s fated fall, it was evident that if he could have changed his son’s fate, he would have. This is made obvious in his interaction with his son before he goes out to battle. He prayed this prayer for him, “O Zeus / and all immortals, may this child, my son, / become like me a prince among the Trojans. / Let him be strong and brave and rule in power / at Ilion; then someday men will say ‘This fellow is far better than his father!’ / seeing him home from war, and in his arms / the bloodstained gear of some tall warrior slain / making his mother proud.” Hector had someone in his life whom he loved. He was leaving a family
There are thousands of definitions of a hero, but that which is accepted by Greek culture is inadequate. Greek myth asserts that “heroes were humans, male or female, of the remote past, endowed with superhuman …show more content…
He had a wife and a son, and all that he wanted was the best for both of them, particularly his son. Though he knew that his son had no chance of surviving Troy’s fated fall, it was evident that if he could have changed his son’s fate, he would have. This is made obvious in his interaction with his son before he goes out to battle. He prayed this prayer for him, “O Zeus / and all immortals, may this child, my son, / become like me a prince among the Trojans. / Let him be strong and brave and rule in power / at Ilion; then someday men will say ‘This fellow is far better than his father!’ / seeing him home from war, and in his arms / the bloodstained gear of some tall warrior slain / making his mother proud.” Hector had someone in his life whom he loved. He was leaving a family