It's a gross oversimplification, even a gross misreading, to call all the Greeks "thugs and sociopaths." A sociopath doesn't care for anybody other than himself. But we often see Greek heroes keenly feeling their comrades' suffering: look at Patroclus, or Ajax. And the reader feels the suffering of both sides, even at the death of minor characters.
Sure, I was grossly oversimplifying. On the other hand, while technically you're right that a sociopath cares for no one but himself, it's far from unusual for sociopaths to put on a show, frequently an overwrought show, of grief over a lost someone. While I wasn't especially fond of the show past the first season,
THE SOPRANOS did an excellent job of capturing a rarely expressed fact about mobsters: they're ludicrously, but very selectively, sentimental, especially about family. In fact, on the show they were always going to funerals and waxing on tearfully about terrible losses and wonderful guys, then in the next breath shooting someone or slitting their throats - even people very close to them - without a second thought, and often because it was their duty to "the family."
Look at Achilles, especially in book 9 (the key book of the epic). He sees that the life to which he has been born and bred is meaningless. But he can't escape it- he searches for, and fails to find, an alternate system of values (all revolving around kleos, or "honor"). And he almost succeeds, but he can't do it. That's his tragedy.
As I recall, Achilles is given the opportunity to escape the whole thing and live an obscure life but chooses to live fast, die young and leave a good looking legend. He opts for glory. It's not that he
can't escape his fate, he just doesn't. He wants a life of A, B & C without D, but that can't happen, but he won't abandon A, B & C to jump to E.
Y'know, that might make an interesting parallel story: the story of Achilles were he to have taken the way out and never gone to Troy.
Hector's tragedy is that he fails as a son, husband and father.
Hector's tragedy is that he makes the same mistake as Achilles, in different fashion. Both try to have it all, when the components of "all" are inherently contradictory. Hector fails as husband and father (to protect and preserve his family) because he also desires to succeed as son and champion. He's trapped into an inherent contradiction he can only escape by abandoning selected roles placed on him, but this would also mean abandoning honor and accepting shame (as with Achilles). The difference being that Hector's obligation to fight is thrust on him by his role by birth in Trojan society. Unlike Odysseus, Achilles is under no special compulsion to go off to war, though refusing certainly wouldn't ingratiate him with Agamemnon and Meneleus, but he sees war as a path to glory and fame, to being eternally remembered. (And given that we're talking about him now, who's to say it was the wrong choice?)
In Irish mythology, this is called a "geis," the duty - the hero's strength is often tied to it - to uphold specific, usually contradictory obligations, and failing to do so will bring shame and divine retribution. CuChullain, the "Irish Achilles," is the exemplar of ths: he has two geis to follow - he cannot refuse a meal offered and he cannot eat his namesake (the flesh of a dog, "CuChullain" meaning "The Hound Of Chulainn." On his way to his greatest battle, he passes the campfire of a hermit who offers him a bowl of stew, but the stew's made with dog meat, so he's forced to break one geis or the other, and is crippled as a result. He still goes to battle with his strength halved, and still manages to single-handedly fight off an enemy army, but dies in the doing. This is obviously a more extreme and arguably less poetic example than the Achilles story, but it basically says the same thing. Achilles goes to war because he wants glory, but glory means he dies. He wants glory, he wants life, and he can't have them both. But he tries to and fails.
Look at his conversation with Andromache in book 6. He knows that Troy will fall, and that his son will be killed and his wife raped and enslaved. But he also wants to see his son to grow up to be a better man than his father was. His heroic background creates a cognitive dissonance that he isn't able to escape. And unlike Achilles, he doesn't even see that there might be a plausible alternative to life as a hero.
I would suggest that as the heir to the Trojan throne (Hector's the oldest son, right?) and as a prince of the realm, he really doesn't have an alternative. Any move away from the role socially thrust on him is treason. He can save his family through an act of treason, but that's effectively subjecting them to lives as outcasts, if they're not all put to death anyway. Like I said, Hector feels the need to fulfill the duties he has taken on, whether entirely of his own choosing or not, and those duties become contradictory.
So would you say Agamemnon's motivation is to avenge the insult to him and his brother, since Agamemnon arranged the marriage of Helen & Meneleus and the theft of Helen is also a challenge to his authority as high king, or is Agamemnon really more interested in the wealth of Troy, with the theft a convenient justification, when he opts for war?
- Grant
