The Iliad
Characters in The Iliad
10 characters, main characters first.Main characters
Achilles
The greatest of the Achaean fighters. His quarrel with Agamemnon and the rage that follows it are the poem's subject from its opening line.
Antagonists
Hektor
Eldest son of Priam and the chief defender of Troy; the most sympathetic of the poem's warriors and the one Achilles is set against.
Supporting characters
Ajax
Son of Telamon and, after Achilles, the strongest of the Greek fighters; the army's mainstay while Achilles stays out of the battle.
Agamemnon
King of Mycenae and commander of the Greek expedition, whose seizure of Briseis provokes Achilles' withdrawal.
Priam
The aged king of Troy and father of Hector, who crosses the enemy camp alone to ransom his son's body in the poem's final book.
Odysseus
King of Ithaca, valued among the Greeks as their most persuasive speaker and negotiator.
Helen of Troy
Wife of Menelaus, taken to Troy by Paris; the cause of the war, and one of the few voices in the poem to judge herself.
Andromache
Hector's wife, whose farewell to him at the Scaean Gate is among the poem's best-known scenes.
Briseis
A captive woman awarded to Achilles and taken from him by Agamemnon, the immediate cause of the quarrel.