Hector

Family: Troy · Role: warrior · First appears: Sophocles, Aias — Scene 4

Hector, warrior of Troy, worked with Aeneas against the Greeks and chose caution in the night assault, deciding, “I will send a spy Among the Greeks” and assigning Dolon to investigate their fleet. He offered Dolon marriage to a daughter of Priam, but Dolon refused; when Rhesus arrived from Thrace with a vast army, Hector welcomed him as Troy’s ally, having earlier raised him to a wide-extended throne, and later resolved to honor his fallen ally with a tomb and funeral rites. He also faced Achilles, Odysseus, and Diomedes as enemies, while Pan was blamed for frightening the Trojan host.

Hector was the brother of Polydorus, Polyxena, Paris, and Cassandra, the son of Priam, and the husband of Andromache. Their son was Astyanax, and Hector’s death left Hecuba and Andromache bereft; Greece then condemned Astyanax and tore him from them. Andromache later described Hector’s death during Troy’s destruction, saying, “I saw My husband Hector by Achilles slain,” while elsewhere Hector died when the Greeks landed on Ilion’s coast, and Troy and his life ended together.

In the account of Aias, Hector was his arch-enemy, yet Aias gave him a girdle. Hector was fastened by it to a chariot and dragged to death: “Hector, whose gift from Aias was a girdle, Tight-braced therewith to the car's rim, was dragged And scarified till he breathed forth his life.”