Paris is one of the main characters in the Iliad; at least he is the one who is responsible for the war, in author"s opinion and in mine also. First, one of the most valuable for us, characteristic of Paris we can read in Book 3 (38-57). This is a description of Paris by Hektor - his own brother. Words of hate were said not somewhere in the forest, not to some god or human, but directly to Paris. We can assume that it wasn"t the first time when Paris heard it from his brother. We can also understand from Hektor"s words that not only simple people of Troy hated Paris, but also his own relatives: "better had you never be born, or killed unwedded". From Hektor"s words we can also understand that Hektor doesn"t think that Paris is a brave man. We don"t have any reasons not to believe Hektor in this, we can rely on his words as on respectable source.

             What else we can understand about Paris from Hektor"s words? Paris is beautiful, desirable to women. Paris likes women, likes to dance and rest. Homer shows all these qualities from negative side; we can understand that they were not respectable in Ancient Greek society. Nevertheless, Homer shows that even such a man as Paris had some honor – Paris agrees to fight, and he knows he has very little chance to win.

             Agreeing to fight (3.58-75) Paris shows that even after all that evil which was done by him – he still tries to rebuild his Honor. But, we must remember that he agreed to this fight after 9 years of war; 9 years it took him to get up the courage.

             After the fight (6.350-353), we, from Helen"s words, recognize some new but not surprising Alexander"s quality: "I wish I had been wife of a better man this is, one who knew modesty and all things of shame that man say". I think, that in these two passages (3.38-57 and 6.350-353) Homer, expresses all his hate to Paris. Probably, it is supposed that ancient Greeks who had listened to Iliad should have hated Paris after this as much as Homer did.