Brewer's: Hector

Eldest son of Priam, the noblest and most magnanimous of all the chieftains in Homer's Iliad (a Greek epic). After holding out for ten years, he was slain by Achilles, who lashed him to his chariot, and dragged the dead body in triumph thrice round the walls of Troy. The Iliad concludes with the funeral obsequies of Hector and Patroclos.

The Hector of Germany.
Joachim II., Elector of Brandenburg (1514-1571). You wear Hector's cloak. You are paid off for trying to deceive another. You are paid in your own coin. When Thomas Percy, Earl of Northumberland, in 1569, was routed, he hid himself in the House of Hector Armstrong, of Harlaw. This villain betrayed him for the reward offered, but never after did anything go well with him; he went down, down, down, till at last he died a beggar in rags on the roadside.
Hector

(A). A leader; so called from the son of Priam and generalissimo of the Trojans.

Hector

(To). To swagger, or play the bully. It is hard to conceive how the brave, modest, noble-minded patriot came to be made the synonym of a braggart and blusterer like Ajax.

Source: Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, E. Cobham Brewer, 1894
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