The Wall of Troy, Noblest of the Doomed
Crown prince of Troy and the pillar of the whole city. He knew the war his brother’s elopement had started was lost, yet donned his armor and marched out day after day. Homer gives this "enemy commander" the tenderest scene in the poem: on the city wall, his son cries at the sight of his helmet, and Hector laughs, takes it off, and lifts the boy in blessing.
Before battle his wife Andromache came to the gate holding their infant son: "You are my father, my mother, my brother, and my husband." Hector answered that he could not learn the shame of shrinking from battle. He blessed his son to grow up stronger than his father — and every listener knew the boy would have no future.
After Patroclus’s death, Achilles returned to the field calling for Hector by name. The whole army withdrew inside the walls; Hector alone stayed outside. Fear seized him and he fled three times around the city before he stopped to face Achilles and died on his spear. His body was dragged behind a chariot around the walls — until his old father knelt in the night to beg for it back. The Iliad’s final line is his funeral.
Below are how modern works borrow or reinterpret this name or story — not the original material. The two differ, so keep them apart.
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