Heroes are heroes because they are heroic in behavior

"It is impossible to read a historian's analysis without questioning the inferences: we know that Hannibal and Hitler were mad in their pursuits, as Rome is not today Phoenician speaking and Times Square in New York currently exhibits no swastikas. But what of all those generals who were equally foolish, but ended up winning the war and consequently the esteem of the historical chronicler? It is hard to think of Alexander the Great or Julius Caesar as men who won only in the visible history, but who could have suffered defeat in others. If we have heard of them, it is simply because they took considerable risks, along with thousands of others and happened to win. They were intelligent, courageous, noble (at times), had the highest possible obtainable culture in their day - but so did thousands of others who live in the musty footnotes of history. Again I am not contesting that they won their wars - only the claims concerning the quality of their strategies. (My very first impression upon a recent rereading of the Iliad, the first in my adulthood, is that the epic poet did not judge his heroes by the result: heroes won and lost battles in a manner that was totally independent of their own valor; their fate depended upon totally external forces, generally the explicit agency of the scheming gods (not devoid of nepotism). Heroes are heroes because they are heroic in behavior, not because they won or lost. Patrocles does not strike us as a hero because of his accomplishments (he was rapidly killed) but because he preferred to die than see Achilles sulking into inaction. Clearly the epic poets understood invisible histories. )"