stion that Achilles is indeed the "best of the Achaians" in combat, but since he is the son of a goddess and blessed with invulnerability in battle, it is hardly his heroism that makes him a great warrior. His counterpart among the Trojans, Hektor, is in truth a much nobler character-- loving to his parents, wife and children, fearless in battle, and willing to sacrifice everything for his people. In comparison with Hektor, Achilles seems to be a mama's boy; in fact, we see him crying to his mother Thetis that the gods have not done enough for him by punishing the Greeks. Sounding like a little boy, he tells her,I wish you had gone on living then with the other goddesses/ of the sea, and that Peleus had married some mortal woman./As it is, there must be in your heart a numberless sorrow for your son's death, since you can never again receive him/ won home again to his country (Lattimore, 1967:377).There is great irony in Achilles' obsessive desire to kill Hektor and revenge the death of his friend Patroklos, since as Thetis reminds him, "it is decreed your death must come soon after Hektor's." As a demigod, Achilles does not possess immortality, and the fatal flaw in his makeup (his mother held him by the ankle when she dipped him in the water) means that he must someday die. Yet after killing Hektor in the great fight scene that concludes his struggles, Achilles does not hesitate to defy the gods and sneer at the threatened curse of Apollo: "Die: and I will take my own death at whatever time/ Zeus and the rest of the immortals choose to accomplish it" (Lattimore, 1967:445). Like Achilles, Odysseus has weaknesses of character, but behind them lies a keen intelligence, wit, and steadfastness of purpose. In the Trojan War, Odysseus had been a secondary character, notable mainly for his role in the episode of the Trojan Horse. In The Odyssey, however, Odysseus assumes the dimension of a true epic hero, surviving a long string of adventur...
