Source Verification: Hector
Every claim below is either what a named ancient source attests, in its own line or section, or a point where the sources themselves disagree.
What the Sources Attest
How does Hector actually die in the Iliad?
Athena disguises herself as Hector's brother Deiphobus and persuades him to stand and face Achilles rather than retreat inside the walls, then secretly abandons him once the fight begins. Achilles's first spear-throw misses, but his second finds the one gap in Hector's armor at the throat, and Hector falls, begging unsuccessfully for his body to be returned to his family.
Source: Homer, Iliad 22.248-290
Did Hector really kill Patroclus single-handedly?
Not according to Patroclus's own dying words. As Patroclus lies fatally wounded, he tells Hector that the god Apollo struck the armor from his shoulders and the spearman Euphorbus wounded him first, and that Hector is only the third to strike him and finishes what the other two began.
Source: Homer, Iliad 16.818-850
What did Achilles do to Hector's body immediately after killing him?
Achilles pierces the tendons of both of Hector's feet, ties the body to his chariot by the ankles, and drags it back toward the Greek camp in full view of the mourning Trojans watching helplessly from the city walls above.
Source: Homer, Iliad, Book 22
How was Hector's body eventually returned to Troy?
After days of Achilles dragging the corpse around Patroclus's tomb, the gods intervene, and King Priam travels to the Greek camp in person, alone but for a herald, to beg Achilles for his son's body. Achilles, moved by the old man's grief, agrees to a truce and releases the body for burial.
Source: Homer, Iliad, Book 24
How does Homer's Iliad end, as far as Hector is concerned?
The poem closes with Hector's funeral: nine days spent gathering wood, the body burned on the tenth, his bones gathered into a golden urn wrapped in purple cloth, and a mound raised over the grave while the Trojans hold a funeral feast in Priam's palace.
Source: Homer, Iliad 24.776-800
Does the Iliad say what happened to Hector's family after Troy fell?
No. Homer's Iliad ends with Hector's funeral, years before the city itself falls, and never narrates the sack of Troy or the fate of his wife Andromache and infant son Astyanax. Those events survive only in much later prose summaries such as Apollodorus's Epitome.
Source: Apollodorus, Epitome
Where Accounts Differ
- patroclus-death-hector-not-sole-killer
- astyanax-fate-absent-from-iliad
- Patroclus's own dying words in the Iliad credit the god Apollo and the spearman Euphorbus with striking him down first, naming Hector only as the third and final blow; this entry follows that account rather than treating Hector as Patroclus's sole killer.
- Homer's Iliad ends with Hector's funeral and never narrates the fall of Troy or the fate of his family; the death of his son Astyanax is preserved only in later summaries such as Apollodorus's Epitome, composed centuries after Homer.
Sources
- Homer, Iliad 7.206-312
- Homer, Iliad 16.818-850
- Homer, Iliad, Book 22
- Homer, Iliad 22.248-290
- Homer, Iliad, Book 24
- Homer, Iliad 24.776-800
- Apollodorus, Epitome
- Timothy Gantz, Early Greek Myth (1993)