get killed.
During the Iliad the gods travel far and wide, but they always converge on Mount Olympus. There they
have their homes each built by Hephaestus, though they usually meet to feast and converse in the great
palace of Zeus. It is an immortal world of feasting and splendour. The gods are deeply involved in the
Trojan war and are not untouched by the sufferings of city, camp and plain below; but the contrast is still
extreme. For the gods there are no crucial turning-points in past or future; their life is diluted by
immortality.
Homer is abundant, and there are many aspects which I have scarcely touched on yet. The most pressing
is perhaps the Iliad's creation of memorable and persuasive human portraits. Quite apart from the scores
of minor figures, there is a spread of some two dozen finely individualized major characters. I shall select
only the two most important, Achilles and Hector. It would be too simple to claim Achilles as the hero (as
was seen by -whoever it was who early on titled the poem Iliad-The Poem of Troy). Achilles occupies the
second half of the first line, but Hector occupies the same place in the last. The balance and contrast
between these two connect revealingly with the underlying themes already sketched.
Thus Achilles is a young adventurer away from home, out to win loot and glory. His closest bond (apart
from his parents) is with Patroclus, his fellow warrior who looks after his horses. Achilles sleeps with
captured women-though there is a poignancy in the hints that had he returned home he would have
properly married Briseis. Achilles' loyalties and responsibilities are only to those friendships and
relationships which he chooses to stand by, and to himself.
Hector, on the other hand, is the greatest of Priam's sons-'but one was left me who guarded my city and
people' (24.499). He fights before the eyes of his parents, brothers, and whole family. His fellow citizens
depend on him: if he falls, they all fall. As he makes clear in Book 6 (44off.) and again in 22 (99ff.), it is
his sense of responsibility for them that keeps him in the front line and in the end sends him to his death:
Now, since by my own recklessness I have ruined my people,
I feel shame before the Trojans and the Trojan Women ...(22. 104-5)
His closest relationship is not with another man, but with his wife Andromache (she even looks after his
horses-see 8. 185-90). Their meeting in Book 6, one of the great scenes, must also serve as their farewell,
since they do not meet again in the poem. Their small son is the bond between them and their reason to
look to the future; and yet he epitomizes the 'heroic paradox'. Hector prays for him:
Zeus, and you other immortals, grant that this boy, who is my son,
may be as I am, pre-eminent among the Trojans ..
... and let him kill his enemy
and bring home the bloodied spoils, and delight the heart of his mother.