The Iliad

Achilles and Hector are both great warriors, however, they have their differences. Achilles put more value on winning than on anything else. He would rather let his army die so that he could get farther in battle, than trying to keep them alive as best he could. He was also stubborn. In the beginning of the first book he does not want to give Chryses back to her father for ransom, he would rather keep her as a token of winning. Hector on the other hand cares for his army. On page 196 he says “My heart is out there with our fighting men.’ He would rather fight to the death with his army then watch them die and take the credit of the win.

After Achilles breaks Greek standard and drags Hector’s body around he “snaps back into reality’ when he starts to listen to his mother. He realizes that he needs to do the right thing and go return Hector’s body so that he can receive the proper burial. This transformation shows that when in battle people don’t think in the same kind of way as when they are sitting at home around their family (i.e. their mothers’). This transformation has significance because it shows that even though he went crazy in battle he snapped back and remembered his morals again.

The Warrior Code and The Familial Code are not mutually exclusive. They overlap at times. For instance people who are in the Army must sometimes deploy even if they are working on raising a family. One example from the text is how Hector tells his wife that he must go to battle. He is sacrificing the relationship between his wife and him in order to fulfill the Warrior Code.