Leader and prince of the Trojans Hector was the eldest son of Priam and Hecuba. He was Troy's greatest warrior.  He is a descendant of immortal blood on his mother's side by his grandmother, the nymph Eunoe. On his father's side, his grandfather Laomedon built the great walls of Troy with Apollo and Poseidon as his laborers to punish them for revolting against Zeus, and was given the throne to the city by Heracles. Popularly, however, Hector was called a 'son of Apollo', one of the patron deities of the city, a tribute to his stature, lineage, and ability.

            Hector was the brother of Paris, Helenus and Cassandra. He married Andromache, the daughter of Eëtion (Eetion), king of Thebes. Hector was the father of Astyanax (Scamandrius). Hector's name means 'prop' or 'stay', and only the near-immortal Achilles could press his defenses hard enough to threaten the city, and without Achilles Troy scored victory after victory against the Greeks.  Hector even almost managed to turn Achilles against the Greeks by offering to marry his sister Polyxena in exchange, but the deal ultimately could not be made.

            In the last year of war, with withdrawal of Achilles from battle because of his quarrel with Agamemnon, Hector's prowess in battle rose to great height, inspired by the gods, Zeus and Apollo. He challenged the Greeks to fight him in single combat. Many heroes volunteered, including Diomedes and Odysseus, but drawing lots, Ajax won the right to fight Hector. In a single combat against Ajax, he fought to a draw. Although, he was the best warrior on the Trojan side, Ajax and Diomedes had bested him in their few meetings. The height of his heroism happened when he smashed the gates of the Greek field fortification around the camp. The second peak of his career was when he set one of the Greek ships on fire.

His rash bravery and over-confidence often clouded his judgment. Another time Hector didn't listen to the wise counsel from his brave friend, Polydamas, his decisions led to disastrous results. Polydamas advised him to leave the horses behind when they breached the Greek gate; he did not listen. After Hector fired one of the ships, Patroclus in Achilles' armor brought reinforcement, which routed the Trojans and drove them back outside the Greek camp. Many of the Trojans trying to escape drove their chariots through the gate and in their hasty retreat many crashed into one another and died.

            Hector's death was finally brought about while facing Achilles in single combat wearing Achilles' own armor that he stripped from Patroclus. He tried to exhaust him by racing him around the walls of Troy, but inevitably he fell to the nigh-invincible Greek, according to his fate. Not satisfied with simply killing Hector, Achilles flouted his dying wishes and mutilated his body by dragging it around Troy's walls day after day from the back of his chariot. Zeus, who had allowed Hector to fall as a necessary step toward the ultimate sack of Troy, despised this atrocity and preserved the honored warrior’s corpse with divine ambrosia, until Priam ransomed it back for proper burial. The Iliad ends with Hector’s funeral and a tribute to his bravery.

After the fall of Troy, the Greeks murdered his son Astyanax, while his wife, Andromache, became concubine of his killer's son, Neoptolemus. Neoptolemus, in turn killed his father, King Priam.

Hector lives on in our language, like many Greek figures, as a noun (a hector), verb (to hector), and adjective (hectoring), each referring to someone who bullies or relentlessly antagonizes another; a nemesis.