All art is communication, and through the medium of their art - whether it be musical, visual or narrative - the artist endeavors to transmit their message, their essential truthful statement about the world, something that is both hidden to the casual eye and omnipresent upon revelation. I've said this before, but it's a very important thing to say, bears repetition. This is why people read and keep reading the same stories over and over for generations, centuries and millenia on end. People superficially engage themselves for the clever plots and the dynamic characters and the spectacularly graphic sex, but they put those books down with the other Dan Brown novels and never pick them up again. The stories that mean the most are the ones who speak to the human spirit even when separated from their original culture. And the strength of the Iliad is that it can give the same message to people today as it did when it was written: In whatever age, the story is about how a civilized man should act.
To do this, we'll have to look at three of the central characters, Paris, Hector, and Achilles. When Paris stole Helen, he was committing a breach of hospitality, and hospitality was the most sacred law to the ancient Greeks. As was the custom of the time, Paris could have avoided conflict by returning Helen, and if he didn't, the Greeks would have no choice but to go to war with him, and therefore with Troy. Paris is seen as a cultural millstone around the neck of every Trojan. He uses a bow instead of a spear, indicating that he is a coward, not a brave man; he spends the whole war either in his bedroom attempting to seduce Helen or getting punched in the face; and even his own brother Hector constantly berates him for being a tremendous sack of tears and failure. He's an example of everything the Greeks would have decried in a man, one who violates the law, avoids responsibility and leeches off his betters for his very survival.
Hector is his exact opposite, and he's the most honorable person in the entire poem. He's devoted to his family and children, he fights for the honor of his city and his brother, standing by them even though they may be in the wrong, and bravely leads his men into battle against a far superior force, even overcoming his fears and battling Achilles despite being certain of death. He exemplifies all the values expected of an honorable ancient Greek man. And he dies for it. The Iliad is often referred to as the Tragedy of Hector, because despite all his efforts he falls victim to a tragic flaw he has no control over - being the older brother of a colossoal throbbing dickhead.
Finally, Achilles is a fighter, he's a warrior destined for greatness in battle, he's strong and invincible and pretty much the only man in the entire Greek army who can actually make a dent in the Trojan forces without a deity backing them up, but yet he shies away from war at every opportunity. Before the war he dressed up as a court maiden to avoid conflict, and the very first thing we do is have a hissy fit becuase Agamemnon stole his love-slave. He then cries to his mother because the king was being mean to him and spends the rest of the epic having a sulk in his tent. As a direct consequence of this, his lover Patroclus tries to fight in his place and gets killed for it, which is the only thing that gets him to stop sulking, reconcile his differences with Agamemnon and start doing his damn job of fighting Trojans.
Some have said that Hector is the hero of the Iliad, and that could be true, both Achilles and Hector could be seen as heroic people, but Achilles is clearly the protagonist, because the actions of the narrative are centered around his character growth. A man can't solve his problems by avoiding them, he has to go and take the proper action. If a problem can be talked through and resolved peacefully, it should be, and let the peace of a civilized society continue. Conversely, if violence should erupt, it has to be met and not shied away from, for to submit in the face of violence leads to death, whether the death of the individual or the death of the society. In a more compact, elegant statement, a man is one who takes action.
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