Hector Vs. Achilles the Noblest Essay

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War is a fact of life, a terrible fact of life, but when it is willed by the gods it cannot be ignored.

Achilles does have some positive moral characteristics: although he spends much of the Iliad retreating from the fighting, he is clearly not a coward, in contrast to the Trojan Paris. He wants to fight, but his honor is too bruised. Furthermore, Achilles harbors a deep and abiding affection for his friend Patroclus, and the Greeks idealized this type of male friendship often more than husband-wife relationships. When Hector kills Patroclus in battle, because he believes him to be Achilles, Achilles is thrown into a frenzy of grief. He puts aside the slight done to him by Agamemnon, and vows to kill Hector.

Still, unlike Hector, who is repeatedly shown rallying the Trojans to fight in more glorious ways through his wise leadership, Achilles' bravery is often emotional, rather than measured, balanced, and temperate. His inaction combined with his known potential for military greatness inspires Patroclus to fight wearing his armor when the other, less skilled fighter should not. Achilles only fights when his friend is dead and must be avenged, not in the name of other Greeks or Greece itself. Although it pains Hector to do so, he tells Andromache and Astyanax that their needs cannot come first -- Achilles places his feelings first for Briseis, then for Patroclus, above the material needs of the rest of the Greek warriors.

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The greatest distinction between Achilles and Hector, however, emerges after Hector's death. It is hard to imagine Hector attempting to deny another great fallen warrior a decent burial. Hector knows that death is an inevitable and terrible part of war, and it is useless to be angry at someone from the opposite side for doing what they are bound to do by the rules of combat. However, until Hector's father Priam begs Achilles to give him back the body of his son, Achilles drags Hector's corpse behind the wheels of his chariot, as if Hector began the fight and thus was alone to blame for Patroclus' death. After all, Patroclus would have done the same to Hector in combat, had he been the better fighter.

The Iliad ends, not with a triumphant picture of Greek victory -- the Trojan horse is not even included in the tale -- but with Achilles and Priam, Greek and Trojan, sitting together in mourning over the futility of war and their own future deaths. This shows the sadness and inevitability of war that Hector alone, throughout the Iliad, seemed to understand. This is also why Hector's death is such a fitting backdrop to the final realization of Achilles and Priam that the war that took Hector's life is not glorious, but tragic and pitiable in nature. Hector's valor combined with his philosophical astuteness and self-sacrifice is what makes this Trojan hero the ideal 'Greek' Homeric warrior......

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