ACHILLES AND HECTOR: THE HOMERIC HERO, by Seth Benardete. South Bend, IN: St. Augustine's Press, 2005, 140 pp., $17.00 cloth, $10.00 paper.


Seth Benardete (1930-2001) was one of the twentieth century's premiere scholars of the classical world. His prominence was largely due to his technical excellence in both ancient philosophy and classical philology, a rare combination that allowed him to become, as Harvey Mansfield has written, "Our greatest student of the relation between poetry and philosophy." He wrote groundbreaking discussions of Greek literature (especially the tragedies) and the Platonic dialogues. His work culminated in his study of The Odyssey, The Bow and the Lyre (1997), a book that compared the plot of epic poetry to the development of a Platonic dialogue.