Homer, Iliad 7.81-93

“But I kill one of you—and Apollo grants me glory,
Then once I strip off your weapons, I will take them to holy Troy
And I will hang them on the temple of far-shooting Apollo.
But I will return the body to the well-benched ships,
And the Achaeans with the long hair will bury him.
They will heap him up a sign on the broad Hellespont
And then someone of the people who are born later will say
As they sail on the wine-dark sea in a many-benched ship,
“This is the grave of a man who died long ago,
Someone whom shining Hektor killed when he was the best”
So someone will say some day, and my fame will never perish”
So he spoke and everyone stayed quiet in the silence.
They were ashamed to refuse, but afraid to accept.”

εἰ δέ κ’ ἐγὼ τὸν ἕλω, δώῃ δέ μοι εὖχος ᾿Απόλλων,
τεύχεα σύλησας οἴσω προτὶ ῎Ιλιον ἱρήν,
καὶ κρεμόω προτὶ νηὸν ᾿Απόλλωνος ἑκάτοιο,
τὸν δὲ νέκυν ἐπὶ νῆας ἐϋσσέλμους ἀποδώσω,
ὄφρά ἑ ταρχύσωσι κάρη κομόωντες ᾿Αχαιοί,
σῆμά τέ οἱ χεύωσιν ἐπὶ πλατεῖ ῾Ελλησπόντῳ.
καί ποτέ τις εἴπῃσι καὶ ὀψιγόνων ἀνθρώπων
νηῒ πολυκλήϊδι πλέων ἐπὶ οἴνοπα πόντον·
ἀνδρὸς μὲν τόδε σῆμα πάλαι κατατεθνηῶτος,
ὅν ποτ’ ἀριστεύοντα κατέκτανε φαίδιμος ῞Εκτωρ.
ὥς ποτέ τις ἐρέει· τὸ δ’ ἐμὸν κλέος οὔ ποτ’ ὀλεῖται.
῝Ως ἔφαθ’, οἱ δ’ ἄρα πάντες ἀκὴν ἐγένοντο σιωπῇ·
αἴδεσθεν μὲν ἀνήνασθαι, δεῖσαν δ’ ὑποδέχθαι·

This speech comes near the beginning of Iliad 7 as Hektor is challenging one of the Greeks to fight him in single combat. Its position and content speak directly both to the characterization of Hektor, some problems of the structure of the Iliad, and the metapoetics of kleos (or, more appropriately, the occluded poetics of the epic “kleos function”). Let me try to address them in order.

First, Hektor is using this language not 45 minutes in performance time from his encounter with Andromache and Astyanax on the wall of Troy where he ends by praying for his son to be better than his father and to delight his mother’s heart by returning from nettle with another man’s weapons just as Hektor hopes for himself now (6.479-81). There as well, Hektor engages with what some have called “tis-speech” imagining the future words of others (de Jong 1987). Hilary Mackie refers to these moments as vignettes and notes that all but one of them appear in Hektor’s speeches (6.460-1; 6.479-50; 7.88-91; 7.300-2; and 22.107). For Mackie, these support Hektor’s tendency towards “an inward focus and absorption in the scenes he is creating” (1996, 98-99). This separation from reality, the rumination and the accompanying verbal tic of moving between a harsh assessment of reality (Hektor’s statements that he will in fact die) and flights of fancy, is supportive of a character in distress, I believe. Hektor is engaging in classic rumination, in delaying tactics, as he pushes against the reality of his situation. His decisions and his actions may be shaped by trauma. (Or, to put it less aggressively, his characterization may be such that it allows others to see him as responding erratically as one in a traumatized state may do.)

In a way, Hektor is a complement for Achilles’ contemplation of heroic valor and the promise of eternal fame. But he approaches it from a more shame-based perspective. (See Schein the Mortal Hero, 177-178 for more on hector as a hero shaped by shame and Redfield, Nature and Culture 119-126 for Hektor’s heroism as a function of responsibility and obligation.) In nearly every major speech that indicates a decision or a resistance/regret for one being suggested (see Hektor in book 6 and 22), Hektor worries of shame and reputation which may be considered part of the rhetoric of fame, since the latter is shaped to an extent by the meaning of the former. Hektor, as Richard Martin has noted (1989, 133), is particularly concerned with winning a reputation. This concern expands beyond the boundaries of the poem (in time and space) in a manner that is really only achieved elsewhere by Achilles. When he refuses Andromache’s plea to stay within the walls in book 6, he immediately claims he fears feeling shame in front of the Trojans and predicts, using language that recalls this speech, that some day someone will see Andromache enslaved and crying and that her pain will rise anew from the loss of a husband who can no longer save her.

The projections of objects into the future that attest to Hektor’s absence, his success in gaining fame, and his failure to protect his wife, must in some way hang together in the mind of the audience. While we often take Hektor’s comments in book 7 as signal words on Homeric fame, they are words shaped by the public context that is in and of itself about the shame of people witnessing your excellence or commemorating one’s fall. When Hektor speaks to Andromache a book earlier, he projects her into the future as a different sêma (marker) of his absence, but one that correlates to his failure. The personal, intimate nature of this and Hektor’s expression of pain—that he would rather the earth cover over him than have to hear her crying (6.459-465) both underscores Hektor’s conflicted feelings and also undermines the significance of his later claims.

Yet, perhaps this too is an overstatement. Hektor’s bluster in public is a function of his refusal to reject shame, to stand down or seem less-than in front of his people and his enemies. In the intimate wish to his wife, he doesn’t mention glory or a grave, but instead wishes for oblivion, to be covered by the earth and to have no news of the horrors that continue after his death. If anything, rather than being an indication of an inconsistent character, these two vignettes point to an emotional coherence and a deep complexity to Hektor’s character.

And I am so bold as to imagine that the structure of books 6 into 7 reflect this. Why does the Iliad need a second duel between heroes in its first half? Why, 10 years into the war, should Ajax and Hektor face each other in a single combat that is ultimately meaningless? And why, of all possible moments, have this be the one when Hektor points to the sema of his own grave as the guarantee of the continuity of memory for his own kleos? I may be as yet and as ever too modern in saying this, but I suspect the futility and the mundanity of the scene is the point. Hektor’s duel—and his fame to come—impact nothing of the world he cares about and may, at best, preserve a kleos that is as much a record of this as of all he could not protect.

The incoherence of the events that follow may support the coherence of this characterization. Hektor’s challenge inspires fear—and the response reported by the narrator echoes Hektor’s own concern with shame (αἴδεσθεν μὲν ἀνήνασθαι, δεῖσαν δ’ ὑποδέχθαι, 93). Nestor follows with the language shame reminds the Achaeans of their own boasts, Menelaos gets frustrated and is said by the narrator to be about to die (7.104) if he faces Hektor, only for Ajax to win a random drawing to face Hektor. Despite their fear of Hekor, Ajax seems to acquit himself quite well, save for an intervention by Apollo (7.272-273). The ‘draw’ is a stepping back from the conflict that has the Trojans relieved that Hektor survived and Agamemnon delighted at Ajax’s “victory” (7.312).

Throughout Hektor’s characterization in the Iliad we find a tension between the man we are told he should be and the figure we actually see in action. After returning to this speech again, I think that such tension is a direct function of Hektor’s relationship to kleos as clarified by his contrast with Achilles: he does not fight by choice, like Achilles; but he fights by obligation. His imagined futures change depending on whether they are public or private as he tries to play the part of a warrior prince who has learned to fight and die for his people while still struggling with the human part of knowing what his failure means for his city, spouse and child. Together, Achilles and Hektor can provide reflections on the limits of epic kleos and the conditions under which it matters and cannot. We just need to hear them as speaking in dialogue with each other, and us.

Short bibliography on Hektor

n.b this is not an exhaustive bibliography. If you’d like anything else included, please let me know. Follow-up posts will address kleos and Trojan politics

Clark, Matthew. “Poulydamas and Hektor.” College Literature 34, no. 2 (2007): 85–106. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25115422.

Combellack, Frederick M. “Homer and Hector.” The American Journal of Philology 65, no. 3 (1944): 209–43. https://doi.org/10.2307/291490.

Farron, S. “THE CHARACTER OF HECTOR IN THE ‘ILIAD.’” Acta Classica 21 (1978): 39–57. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24591547.

Horn, Fabian. “The psychology of aggression: Achilles’ wrath and Hector’s flight in Iliad 22.131-7.” Hermes, vol. 146, no. 3, 2018, pp. 277-289. Doi: 10.25162/hermes-2018-0023

Irene J. F. de Jong. “The Voice of Anonymity. Tis-Speeches in the Iliad.” Eranos 85 (1987) 5-22.

Lynn Kozak, Experiencing Hektor: Character in the Iliad. Bloomsbury Classical Studies Monographs. London; New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016. xiv, 307. 

Hillary Mackie. Talking Trojan: Speech and Community in the Iliad . Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1996.

Van der Mije, Sebastiaan Reinier. “Bad herbs: the snake simile in Iliad 22.” Mnemosyne, Ser. 4, vol. 64, no. 3, 2011, pp. 359-382. Doi: 10.1163/156852511X505079

W. R. Nethercut. “Hektor at the Abyss.” Classical Bulletin 49 (1972) 7-9.

Oele, Marjolein. “Priam’s despair and courage: an Aristotelian reading of fear, hope, and suffering in Homer’s « Iliad ».” Logoi and muthoi : further essays in Greek philosophy and literature. Ed. Wians, William. SUNY Series in Ancient Greek Philosophy. Albany (N. Y.): State University of New York Pr., 2019. 297-317.

Pantelia, Maria C. “Helen and the Last Song for Hector.” Transactions of the American Philological Association (1974-) 132, no. 1/2 (2002): 21–27. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20054056.

Pucci, Pietro. “Divine protagonists in the « Iliad »: Hector’s death in book 22.” Yearbook of Ancient Greek Epic, vol. 1, 2017, pp. 175-205.

Ready, Jonathan L.. “Iliad 22.123-128 and the erotics of supplication.” The Classical Bulletin, vol. 81, no. 2, 2005, pp. 145-164.

James Redfield. Nature and Culture in the Iliad: The Tragedy of Hektor. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1975.

Scott, John A. “The Parting of Hector and Andromache.” The Classical Journal 9, no. 6 (1914): 274–77. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3287165.

Scott, John A. “Paris and Hector in Tradition and in Homer.” Classical Philology 8, no. 2 (1913): 160–71. http://www.jstor.org/stable/262449.

Traill, David A. “Unfair to Hector?” Classical Philology 85, no. 4 (1990): 299–303. http://www.jstor.org/stable/269583.

Book 7, as discussed in the introductory post, can be split into the following subsections: the divine orchestration of the duel, the duel between Hektor and Ajax, assemblies of the Trojans and the Greeks, and the building of the Achaean wall and the divine response. These events are part of an “analeptic” {retrospective or flashback)  movement in the epic’s first third, as the Iliad attempts to evoke the themes of the first nine years of the Trojan War. The assemblies in the latter half of the book provide a unique opportunity to compare Greek and Trojan political organizations.

As others have written, the political institutions in the Iliad reflect the basic organization of many Greek city-states: a small, mostly aristocratic/oligarchic council for governing and decision-making, and a larger public assembly for the adjudication of disputes and the performance of political relationships. The three distinct political groups in epic–the Achaeans, Trojans, and the Gods–all provide various versions of these institutions and the ‘success’ of each polity partly hinges on how they work.

Elsewhere, I have outlined the major ‘political’ activities in the Iliad. Apart from the repeated engagement between Poulydamas and Hektor, Antenor’s speech in book 7 is one of the few times the Trojans encounter dissent. The significance of these scenes is often missed between the more famous dual and the divine response to the construction of the Achaean walls.

Antenor is an interesting figure: in a way, he is positioned as something of an equivalent to Nestor. The larger poetic tradition, however, notes that he was known as being friendly to the Greeks and provides some ground for suspicion. 

Schol bT Il. 3.205a ex. 1-5

When they were coming out of Tenedos as ambassadors with Menelaos, Antênôr, the son of Hiketaos received them and saved them when they were almost killed through deceit. For this reason, during the sack of Troy, Agamemnon ordered that the household of Antênor be spared, and he signalled this by hanging a leopard’s skin in front of his home. 

ὅτε ἐκ Τενέδου ἐπρεσβεύοντο οἱ περὶ Μενέλαον, τότε ᾿Αντήνωρ ὁ ῾Ικετάονος ὑπεδέξατο αὐτούς, καὶ δολοφονεῖσθαι μέλλοντας ἔσωσεν· ὅθεν μετὰ τὴν ἅλωσιν τῆς Τροίας ἐκέλευσεν ᾿Αγαμέμνων φείσασθαι τῶν οἰκείων ᾿Αντήνορος, παρδάλεως δορὰν ἐξάψας πρὸ τῶν οἴκων αὐτοῦ.

 Schol. in Il. bT 7.335a ex. 1-4

Another Trojan assembly: for it was necessary to look at what should be done since the sons of the king were being beaten, the city was imperiled by Diomedes and, because of the transgression, they were in dire straits. [as] There was Nestor among the Greeks, the Trojans had Antênor.

Τρώων αὖτ’ ἀγορή: ἔδει γὰρ τῶν τοῦ βασιλέως υἱῶν ἡττωμένων καὶ κινδυνευσάσης τῆς πόλεως ὑπὸ Διομήδους, δυσελπίδων ὄντων διὰ τὴν παράβασιν, σκοπεῖν τι τῶν ἀναγκαίων. ἔστι δὲ ἐν τοῖς ῞Ελλησι Νέστωρ, ἐν δὲ Τρωσὶν ᾿Αντήνωρ.

Schol. in Il. bT 7.347a ex. 1-3

Antênor stands among them because he is was a patron of the Greeks, a public speaker, and a god-fearing man. And Hektor was silent because he is ashamed to end the war, lest he appear to be afraid because he was just defeated.

ex. τοῖσιν δ’ ᾿Αντήνωρ: ὡς πρόξενος ῾Ελλήνων καὶ δημηγορῶν καὶ θεοσεβής. ῞Εκτωρ δὲ σιωπᾷ αἰσχυνόμενος διαλύειν τὴν μάχην, ἵνα μὴ δοκῇ δεδοικέναι διὰ τὸ νεωστὶ ἡττῆσθαι.

What I find most interesting in the scenes that follow is how Priam is forced to accommodate Antenor’s dissent alongside Paris’ recalcitrance. Of course, Antenor’s suggestion to return Helen is against the poetic tradition and ultimately possible. At some level, there’s no reason for this scene to exist at all, unless it reflects in some way on the themes of this particular version of Achilles’ rage. As I argue in an article from a few years back, the exchanges in book 7 function as an index of the “limits on advice and deliberation” in the Trojan polity.

In the sequences of speeches below, note how Priam attempts to acknowledge the ‘plans’ of both speakers and then directs the herald Idaios to take the complex messages to the Achaeans. Rather than delivering Priam’s speech verbatim, Idaios modifies it, especially in the delivery of Paris’ proposals.

Opening of the Trojan Assembly, 7.345-353

Then the Trojan assembly was held on the city peak of Ilium,
terribly disordered, alongside the doorways of Priam’s home.
Among them prudent Antenor began to speak publicly:
‘Hear me Trojans, Dardanians, and allies
so that I may speak what the heart in my chest bids.
Come now, let us give Argive Helen and her possessions too,
to the sons of Atreus to take away; now we fight
even though we made false the sacred oaths; thus I do not expect
that anything advantageous for us will happen unless we do this.’

Paris’ Response, 7.354-64

‘Antenor, no longer do you speak these things dear to me—
you know how to think up yet another mûthos better than this.
If you say this truthfully in public and earnestly indeed,
then the gods themselves have surely already obliterated your wits.
But I will speak out publicly among the horse-taming Trojans:
I refuse this straight-out; I will not hand over the woman;
but, however many things I took from Argos to our home
I am willing to give them back and to add other things from my household.’

Priam’s Intervention, 7.365-79

And saying this he [Paris] sat down and among them rose
Dardanian Priam, a counselor equal to the gods—
well-intentioned towards them he spoke publicly and spoke among them:
‘Hear me Trojans and Dardanians and allies
so that I may say those things the heart in my chest bids.
Now, take your dinner throughout the city as you have before
and be mindful of the watch and keep each other awake.
At dawn let Idaios go to the curved ships
to repeat the plan of Alexandros, on whose account this conflict has arisen,
to Atreus’ sons, Agamemnon and Menelaos—
and also to propose this wise plan, if they wish
to stop the ill-sounding war until we have burned the corpses;
we will fight again later until the god separates us
and grants victory to one side at least.’
So he spoke and they all heard him and obeyed.

Idaios’ Report to the Achaians, 7.382-398

[Idaios] found the Danaans, Ares’ followers, in assembly
by the prow of Agamemnon’s ship. Then standing among them
in the middle the loud-voiced herald spoke:

‘Sons of Atreus and the rest of the best of all the Achaians,
Priam and the rest of the illustrious Trojans bid me
to speak, in the hope that it might be dear and sweet to you,
the múthos of Alexandros, on whose account this conflict has arisen:
However many possessions he took in the hollow ships
to Troy—I wish he had perished before that—
all those things he is willing to return and to add others from his household.
But the wedded-wife of glorious Menelaos
he says he will not give back—although the Trojans ask him to.
And they also ordered me to speak a speech—if you wish
to stop the ill-sounding war until we have cremated the corpses;
we will fight again later until the god separates us
and grants victory to one side at least.’

In a blend of original message and framing for his audience that is similar to Iris’ speeches to Poseidon in book 15 of the epic, Idaios reveals internal dissent about Paris’ stance. Such subtlety rings of a political realism, despite the heroic nature of epic. The suffering of the city and its people is laid at the feet of a selfish prince and a political organization incapable of restraining him.

On Homeric (and Trojan) politics

n.b this is not an exhaustive bibliography. If you’d like anything else included, please let me know. Follow-up posts will address kleos and Trojan politics

Barker, Elton T. E. “Achilles’ Last Stand: Institutionalising Dissent in Homer’s Iliad.” PCPS 50 (2004) 92-120.

—,—. Entering the Agôn: Dissent and Authority in Homer, Historiography and Tragedy. Oxford, 2009.

Christensen, Joel P.. “Trojan politics and the assemblies of Iliad 7.” Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, vol. 55, no. 1, 2015, pp. 25-51.

Clay, J. S.  Homer’s Trojan Theater: Space, Vision and Memory in the Iliad (Cambridge, 2011)

Donlan, Walter. “The Structure of Authority in the Iliad.” Arethusa 12 (1979) 51-70.

—,—. “The Relations of Power in the Pre-State and Early State Polities.” In The Development of the Polis in Archaic Greece. Lynette Mitchell and P. J. Rhodes (eds.). London, 1997, 39-48.

Elmer, David. The Poetics of Consent: Collective Decision Making and the Iliad. Baltimore, 2013.

Esperman, L. 1980. Antenor, Theano, Antenoriden: Ihre Person und Bedeutung in der Ilias. Meisen Heim am Glam.

Hall, Jonathan M.  “Polis, Community, and Ethnic Identity.” In H. A. Shapiro (ed.). The Cambridge Companion to Archaic Greece. Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press, 2007: 40-60.

Hammer, Dean. “‘Who Shall Readily Obey?” Authority and Politics in the Iliad.” Phoenix 51 (1997) 1-24.

—,—. “The Politics of the Iliad.” CJ (1998a) 1-30.

—,—. “Homer, Tyranny, and Democracy.” GRBS 39 (1998b) 331-360.

—,—. The Iliad as Politics: The Performance of Political Thought. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2002.

Létoublon, Françoise. “Le bon orateur et le génie selon Anténor dans l’ Iliade : Ménélas et Ulysse.” in Jean-Michel Galy and Antoine Thivel (eds.). La Rhétorique Grecque. Actes du colloque «Octave Navarre»: troisième colloque international sur la pensée antique organisé par le CRHI (Centre de recherches sur l’histoire des idées) les 17, 18 et 19 décembre 1992. Nice: Publications de la Faculté des Lettres, Arts et Sciences Humaines de Nice, 1994, 29-40.

Lohmann, Dieter. Die Komposition der Reden in der Ilias. Berlin: de Gruyter, 1970

Mackie, Hillary. Talking Trojan: Speech and Community in the Iliad . Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1996.

Raaflaub, Kurt A., Josiah Ober, and Robert W. Wallace. Origins of Democracy in Ancient Greece. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007.

—,—. “Homer and the Beginning of Political Thought in Greece.” Proceedings in the Boston Area Colloquium Series in Ancient Philosophy 4 (1988) 1-25.

Redfield, James. Nature and Culture in the Iliad: The Tragedy of Hektor. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1975.

Sale, William M. “The Government of Troy: Politics in the Iliad. GRBS 35 (1994) 5-102.

Schulz, Fabian. Die homerischen Räte und die spartanische Gerusie. Berlin: Wellem, 2011.

Scodel, Ruth.  Listening to Homer: Tradition, Narrative and Audience. Ann Arbor: University of 

Sealey, R. “Probouleusis and the Sovereign Assembly.” CSCA 2 (1969) 247-69.