Unchanged by any teller — how the centuries since have seen Hector.
The gallery
Hector Taking Leave of Andromache
Angelica Kauffman, 1768
Oil painting by Angelica Kauffman, a founding member of the Royal Academy, now in the National Trust collection at Saltram in Devon. Hector, armed for battle, parts from the weeping Andromache and their infant son Astyanax — the farewell of the sixth book of the Iliad, where husband and wife meet for the last time before he returns to the fighting.
Andromache Mourning Hector
Jacques-Louis David, 1783
The history painting with which Jacques-Louis David was received into the Académie royale in 1783, now in the Louvre, Paris. Andromache grieves beside the body of Hector laid out on his bier as the child Astyanax clings to her — an echo of the laments that end the Iliad, where Andromache leads the wailing of the Trojan women over her husband.
Triumphant Achilles
Franz Matsch, c. 1892
Monumental fresco by the Austrian painter Franz Matsch in the main hall of the Achilleion, the palace built on Corfu for Empress Elisabeth of Austria. Achilles drives his chariot in triumph before the walls of Troy, dragging the lifeless body of Hector in the dust behind him as the Trojans watch from the ramparts.
On screen
Troy
Wolfgang Petersen
Eric Bana's Hector is the film's moral centre — the defender who fights for a city and a family, not a goddess's vanity — until the duel with Achilles ends the Iliad's greatest warrior on a beach of sand and CGI.
Helen of Troy
Robert Wise
Wise's widescreen epic keeps Hector as Troy's shield: the prince who holds the wall while Paris' choice unravels the house of Priam.
Troy: Fall of a City
Owen Harris
The BBC/Netflix cycle gives Hector room to be husband, brother and captain — the farewell with Andromache staged again for a streaming age.
In music & on stage
Les Troyens
Hector Berlioz
Berlioz's epic opens with Hector's ghost warning Aeneas to flee — the defender of Troy returning as shade to send Troy's remnant toward Rome.
King Priam
Michael Tippett
Tippett's Iliad opera makes Hector the moral weight of Priam's house — husband, son and captain before Achilles ends the war's greatest Trojan.
In play
Troilus and Cressida
William Shakespeare
Shakespeare's bitter Troy play keeps Hector as the honour the Greeks and Trojans both fail — the duel with Achilles staged as anti-heroic slaughter.
Andromache
Jean Racine
Racine's tragedy is haunted by the dead Hector — Andromache's fidelity to his memory driving the court of Epirus toward catastrophe.
The Silence of the Girls
Pat Barker
Barker's camp narrative keeps Hector as the wall the women watch fall — Troy's shield seen from the Greek tents that hold his city's captives.