In The Iliad, Homer suggests alternate senses of heroism each with their own advantages and disadvantages. Achilleus and Hektor represent the two characters with the most heroic characteristics in The Iliad: glory, familial loyalty, wealth, and power. Heroism is shown by Achilleus through glory, and heroism is shown by Hektor through familial loyalty, wealth, and power. Achilleus believes heroism reveals itself in the quest for the ultimate glory and intrinsic integrity among the gods. Hektor, the defender of the Trojans, believes heroism to belong to the principle of family and city. In historical life, if people wish to rise to the level of heroic action they must incorporate these principals into one's self. However, those principles are not enough alone. Those who desire to be heroic must give themselves in the service of other people's needs which is done by Hektor.
             According to Homer, power and wealth have no relation to heroism. This reigns true, unless, however one's power and wealth are used to aid those who are less fortunate financially, so as to give them the necessities of human nature: food, clothing, an shelter; thus, giving up what one has to benefit others. Achilles' sense of heroism rises from the glory of having his name remembered by the gods. This sense of honor shows itself in early youth, when he explicitly rejects the option of having a long, uneventful life for a short, but glorious one. His sense reveals itself in the poem when he prays to his mother, the sea-nymph Thetis, to ask Zeus, king of gods, to punish the Achaeans.
             Since my mother, you bore me to a man with short life, therefore Zeus of the loud thunder on Olympos should grant me honour at least. But now he has given me not even a little. Now the son of Atreus, powerful Agamemnon, has dishonourd me, since he has taken away my prize and keeps it.' (Iliad I, 352-56)
             Here, one can see that Achilleus cares more for his sens...