Vilifying the Trojans; Beginning of the End

What we had previously seen in book 10 was the beginning of the Trojans undergoing vilification. Though the Iliad is a book of war, usually it portrays all sides with stories. Mostly everyone—with the divine exception of Achilles—is human and therefore behave as mortals do, with vices and virtues. Driving the point home, everybody has a story, a motivation. However, the Trojan antagonists really focus on Hector and how his hubris leads to the downfall of Troy.

In book 11, his hubris shows when the retreat of Agamemnon has Hector saying, “Their best man is gone, and Zeus has granted me/A great victory. Drive your horses/Directly at them and win the power and glory.” (308-310) Then the following passage describes how Hector “set [the soldiers] on the Greeks/The way a hunter sets his grinning dogs/On a boar or a lion, leading the way himself.” (311-313) If anyone has the inclination or the common sense when it comes to hunting, hunters do not ever lead the way. Not only should liability be taken into account but also the fact remains that it is unsafe for the hunter to commit such a thing. The simile takes a turn from victorious into malevolent with this turn. Honestly though, his pride is misplaced as it was Zeus who manipulated the battle in the first place for the battle to turn. Hector himself had nothing to do with it. Homer is a tease as he Homer builds dramatic tension by juxtaposing this prophecy with vivid descriptions of the Achaeans’ sufferings and setbacks. He constantly tempts us with the expectation of Trojan defeat while dashing this prospect with endless examples of the Trojans’ success under Zeus’s partiality.