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Paris is the son of Priam and Hecuba, the brother of Hector, and one of the figureheads of the Trojan army. He is crucial to the backstory of The Iliad; his abduction of Helen, the beautiful queen of Sparta and the wife of Menelaus, is what sparked the Trojan War.
Paris serves as Menelaus’s foil, a literary technique in which two characters are contrasted in order to highlight key characteristics. The two are connected by Helen, inviting this comparison; Menelaus welcomed Paris into his home in keeping with the Greek custom of hospitality known as xenia, and Paris, in contrast, violated that same custom by stealing Helen away. Though both men rely on their more gifted warrior brothers, Menelaus is at least competent in battle, honorable, and dedicated to the war effort and his men; Paris, it’s made clear, is not.
Throughout The Iliad, Paris is characterized as self-centered and unmanly. Despite starting the war in the first place, Paris is largely uninterested in fighting. Instead, he consistently chooses to let Hector and the rest of the soldiers fight the Greeks while he remains with Helen in his rooms, far away from any danger. There are also several moments throughout the epic in which Hector and/or Helen have to stop Paris from fleeing out of cowardice and convince him to fight. When he does fight, as in his duel with Menelaus in Book 3, he is humiliated and nearly killed. He is then further emasculated when he is whisked off the battlefield by Aphrodite, the goddess of love, referred to in Book 5 as the “coward goddess,” and dropped back into bed with Helen. His egregious retreat to Helen’s bed, which is an affront to the heroic code of conduct, enrages everyone from Hector to the common foot soldiers who “hated [Paris] like death.” Paris can also be considered a foil to his brother Hector, who, though he considers running away, bravely stands to fight Achilles despite realizing the gods have abandoned him. Paris’s cowardice appears stark in contrast. Even his weapon of choice, a bow and arrow, is considered less manly than a sword or spear. It is, however, the bow and arrow that will ultimately allow Paris to defeat Achilles, though this event isn’t depicted in The Iliad, merely alluded to.
