The Iliad

Through their mutual suffering, Priam and Achilles leave the social sphere of the Homeric world behind and enter the divine sphere of human understanding. With new insight, Achilles begins his purification; he begins anew to understand his world and his relationship to the world and its social mores. As Priam's character is reviewed, one sees a figure for whom she can feel much sympathy. There is often the feeling that he does not deserve all that happens to him. Priam is apparently a good man who follows social norms and who worships the gods as he should. However, his son Paris presents a problem when he asks his father to condone the violation of a social norm by kidnapping a married Greek woman and thus violating the concept of "hospitality is obligatory." By forcing Priam to accept Helen into his own house, Paris causes Priam to accept the wrong Paris committed. Paris' action tests the social norm of the Trojans and ultimately brings total destruction to Priam's family, to the whole social structure of Troy, and to Troy itself. What Paris did was wrong. But no one can say that Priam himself is evil; it can be said, simply, that he was unwise to violate a social norm so fraught with contradictions that no answer other than total destruction was possible.