# Hero and anti-hero



## Ben Jamin

Is there a Latin (or neo-Latin) word for an *anti-hero*?


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## jaws965

The world simply doesn't exist in Latin, but an ancient Roman would have understood anti-heros because anti is an ancient greek prefix.


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## Ben Jamin

*<New question added to earlier thread.  Cagey, moderator>*


Hello!
I was asked by a friend what "hero" was in Latin, and I answered: "heros". Then the question was : "and what would you call an antithesis of a hero, a person who definitely is not a hero".
Does anybody know the answer?


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## djmc

In Greek drama the first actor is protagonistes, and this has been adopted into English as protagonist even for characters such as Satan in Paradise Lost by Milton. This dose not seem to be taken up by Latin, however Latin does use antagonista - main opponent, so you could justify this. The chief character is a protagonist, the opponent is an antagonist. This is the case for English, one could justify it in Latin.


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## metaphrastes

Ben Jamin said:


> "and what would you call an antithesis of a hero, a person who definitely is not a hero".


While I cannot answer about a Latin word for "anti-hero", I have to disagree with the very concept of _anti-hero _as expressed above.
An _anti-hero _is not - in modern usage - the opponent or the arch-enemy of a hero. He is simply a human character, full of shortcomings and contradictions, but who nonetheless has some very special qualities and find, under certain particular circumstances, strength to act, say, heroically. It is a kind of character more frequent in modern dramaturgy where, instead of idealized, perfect, invulnerable, all-powerful heroes, as the demi-gods of old or the traditional heroes of comic books, is full of vulnerabilities.

Sure, even the heroes of comic books or movies are following this trend and are becoming, more and more, anti-heroes.

However, being in a sense a modern concept, I don't think old languages would have an exact equivalent to that. Unless, sure, we consider that Achilles' heel make him a kind of anti-hero, but...


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## Casquilho

metaphrastes said:


> However, being in a sense a modern concept, I don't think old languages would have an exact equivalent to that.



I remember Northrop Frye saying that Aeneas, despite all the best efforts of Virgil, is almost an anti-hero.


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## metaphrastes

Casquilho said:


> I remember Northrop Frye saying that Aeneas, despite all the best efforts of Virgil, is almost an anti-hero


Yes, I agree, and one might find in the old mythological heroes lots of shortcomings, and for that reason I said that "in a sense" it is a modern concept.
However, the issue here is: had the ancients any name for that? The imperfections of old heroes, sure, made them more human and real, and closer to us. But had they any anti-hero, say, as a Woody Allen's character?


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