Podcast launch date: Monday, June 14, 2010.

First episode: The Iliad 20-30 minute podcast.

Hector takes leave of his wife and son before going into battle. Already in mourning, Andromache reminds her husband that her father, mother, and seven brothers were long ago killed and he is her only family. She pleads with him. From the Richmond Lattimore translation:

Hektor, thus you are father to me, and my honoured mother,
you are my brother, and you it is who are my young husband.
Please take pity upon me then, stay here on the rampart,
that you may not leave your child an orphan, your wife a widow…..

The baby cries with fear at the horsehair crest on the peak of Hector’s helmet. Hector, laughing, takes it off. One of the most poignant scenes in The Iliad. Find out the fate of Hector, Prince of Troy, in the maiden podcast of Ancient World Now.