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Hello on the fuels of Troy a fallen soldier pleaded with Achilles the great hero of all the Greeks to spare his life

According to Homer Achilles replied

Do you not see what a man I am how huge how splendid and born of a great father and the mother who bore me immortal

Yet even I have also my death and strong destiny and there shall be a dawn or an afternoon or a noon tide

When some man in the fighting will take the life from me also either with a spear cast or an aller or an arrow flown from the bow string

With that Achilles killed him

Heroes have special attributes, but not necessarily humility or compassion

How did the Greeks define their heroes what place did the hero have in classical society in Renaissance and in romantic times?

And what do the modern ideas of her as him owed to the heroes of the golden age with me to discuss her as him in Western culture is

Angie Hobbs lecture in philosophy at the University of Warwick an author of Plato and the hero AC Grayling

reading philosophy at Birkbeck College University of London and Paul Cartilage professor of Greek history at the University of Cambridge

Angie Hobbs nearly miss my first question there

Where does the word hero come from and when does the notion of the hero first appear?

Well, we first see it in Homer where the word hero

Sir applies to usually applies to warriors of great abilities which are of use to their communities

So they are usually men of extraordinary courage and strength and skill at fighting

It can also be applied to more generally to other characters such as Bards and Messengers even now after Homer

We start to see other layers of meaning

accruing to the this general word heros in Hesiod for instance

Heroes refer to a specific age

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