I use the discussion question about the nature of conflicts between characters in the Iliad as a frame for this blog post. I chose not to answer the entire question as it is asked by Professor Miller, instead, I pay attention to a single conflict, which reveals interesting facts about the gods’ behavior. The passage I focus on is on page 243, from line 549 to 559 (Book I). At this point, Thetis asks Zeus, who owes her a favor, to help her son Achilles.
Zeus is the god of the sky and the ruler of Olympian Gods. In other words, there is none above him in the hierarchy. With this status, we can expect him to be above any conflict of interests which would prevent him from making perfectly sound decision. Nevertheless, he really hesitates to meet Thetis’ request because it would cause a conflict with his wife, Hera. “You’re going to force me in a conflict with Hera.” (Book I 549-550). This is a very human type of reaction, and the reader does not expect such a reaction from the chief of Gods. Instead, we could expect Zeus to hesitate because it would be fairer to let fate decide. In this case, it would picture him as a wise god, who tries to make his job correctly. But even though gods are pictured as wiser than mortals, the situation in which he put himself is clearly at the level of a regular human being.
In the second part of this passage, Zeus begs Thetis to leave before Hera notices her presence. “Please go back the way you came. Maybe Hera won’t notice you came.” (Book I 553-554). This suggests that he plans to hide what happened between Thetis and him from Hera. Again, it seems to be a foolish decision that a wise god would not make. In addition, gods are usually pictured as example for mortals, thus, it is surprising to see Zeus planning on lying to his wife.
Because of his foolish decisions, Zeus is facing a dilemma where he has the choice between; ignoring the favor he owes Thetis and stay out of trouble with Hera; and honoring his contract with Thetis but lying to his wife and entering in a conflict with her. The fact that Zeus put himself in such a situation is interesting because it reveals that treason, lies, and conflict of interests are not only specific to mortals, but also common among divinities.
It’s a nice summary of an event, where Zeus had to return the favor to
Thetis and that’s without his wife’s (Goddess Hera) knowledge. Zeus knew Goddess Hera would comment on the meeting, so he chose to nod his head for granting his support to Thetis. The title “ the human behavior of Gods in the Iliad” is somehow conflicting to me at that period as we look from the Bible point of view. As mentioned in The Hebrew Bible, God created Adam and Eve and left them in a place with abundance of everything. Serpent encouraged them to eat the forbidden fruit saying “ for God knows that on the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will become as Gods knowing good and evil”(Book I 160). They ate the fruit and they were aware about everything.
Humans got all those qualities from God. There has always been conflict among Gods. Zeus became the king overthrowing his father and his father overthrew his grandfather. Other Olympian Gods respected Zeus as he was the powerful God and no one dares to go against him. Being the king of the God, he went to mortals and had baby. He got in lots of conflict among the Gods. It’s human who followed the God. Even though he got into conflict with his wife, he solved the issue with a simple nod of his head.
“The human behavior of Gods” is quite an interesting title. It’s interesting to me because I never considered comparing Zeus and his character to human like behavior. Zeus is considered to be the greatest God in the hierarchy; therefore whatever he says goes. With this in mind, I didn’t think you could compare him to human like characteristics since he answers to one. But this text clearly states otherwise.
I agree that when he said “You’re going to force me in a conflict with Hera.” and “Please go back the way you came. Maybe Hera won’t notice you came.”; he seemed more as human that a God who is supposed to be the wisest of them all.
In addition to what both commenters have said, it is definitely unusual how Zeus decided to take a step back and really think about the consequences. As Gods, we usually think of them as unstoppable; doing the unthinkable as well as unattainable. Within this poem, the readers have this sense of how Fate and the power of Gods are two different powers. Reading the passage as well, it seems as if the Gods are having conversations as typical humans would when discussing pros and cons. Zeus says, “She’s already accuses me of favoring the Trojans. Please go back the way you came” (I.552).
From this quote alone, it almost seems as a couples quarrel and how Zeus must consider the feelings of others if he were to follow this wish. Zeus has thought about and considered the consequences of overriding Agamemnon’s decision for Achilles dethroning.
I agree to your thought that Zeus’s behavior is more like human than gods in other great literature. I believe this is because of the culture of the period of time “The Iliad” was written. The author, Homer wrote this poem during Hellenistic period which believed the mankind are in the middle of the world. Therefore, God’s human like behavior can be the impact from the culture. When Zeus was nervous and said “You’re going to force me in a conflict with Hera”, He definitely sounded like a human husband. For me, God becomes more familiar with human through the “the human behavior”. And Homer might wanted readers to feel same as me. Instead of almighty and authoritative God, that we usually meet in other contexts, Homer’s Greek Gods interact and communicate more with human.
However, even though his characteristic in the story has lots of similarities with mankind, Zeus’s power is not. While human beings are in the middle of the war, they do not seem to have power to control the war. The consequence always occurred from gods’ action. Gods helped whoever in their favor to against the opposite side.
Overall, Zeus’s actions are similar to human’s behavior, but his power and existence are far different from human’s.
I just want to add something to the last comment mentioning the conception of divinities in ancient times (by g.nam). A part of the point I make in my first post is about perceptive. I take as a given fact that divinities are above all not only because of their influence on the world, but also by their exemplary wisdom and rationality. From there, I state that it is surprising to see Zeus behaving like an average man. My knowledge about this subject is limited, but it is very likely that some religions don’t picture gods in the same way as most modern western religions. Similarly, people probably perceived divine characters differently than most of us do now. Thus, it is only surprising to see Zeus behaving this way if we look at the scene from a point of view shaped by current major religions.
Ancient Greeks’ conception of Gods is certainly the result of many factors, but the polytheistic nature of ancient Greek religion seems to be an important aspect. Unlike major religion (Judaism, Islam, and Christianity), which are monotheistic religions, ancient Greek religion was formed by many different gods and goddesses. As it is described in The Iliad, this plurality, but also hierarchy, creates tension between divinities. As a result of those interactions, gods are drawn into making poor, human-like decisions. Such thing is less likely to happen in a monotheistic religion because the one and only god does not have to deal with any conflict of interests, and thus, is in good position to make perfectly sound choices.
According to what I found, The Iliad was written around 800BC, and the Hellenistic period started only around 350BC. So, I don’t know if Hellenism is the reason why Greek gods are pictured almost as human living in a small society, but it would be interesting to research the roots of this idea.
It’s a good post because it brings my interests to read “human behavior of god”. In human world, all people have problems of dealing with things that multiple people require. In other words, people cannot handle everything together. It leads to chaos. However, Zeus is the chief of every god as you described. He should be able to solve the conflicts because he is above all. However, he is not able to fix the problems between Thetis and his wife. This is a mortal problem because human cannot handle everything, and human will be affected by their emotions. Similarly, Zeus, the chief God, also cannot deal with the same situation as well as human.
To be specific, I believe the author tries to tell that Zeus cannot handle things outside and inside of his home because he wants to return the favor to Thetis, but he also doesn’t want his wife to know the favor that he owes to Thetis. On the other hand, human beings perform the same dilemma between inside and outside of their family.
In conclusion, Zeus might have special power over human, but his immortal life is also full of dilemma because he cannot make things run same as he wishes.
g.nam: “While human beings are in the middle of the war, they do not seem to have power to control the war. The consequence always occurred from gods’ action. Gods helped whoever in their favor to against the opposite side. ”
This is one of the major causes of events in the book. By the Gods acting selfishly and wanting to prove that they are bigger than one another, they start the war with Troy. They plot on ways to trick each other,influence warriors in battle, and even fight in the war themselves and these are all examples of the Gods acting like mortals.
In the very beginning of the book, Chryses asks Apollo to send a plague to the Greeks as a retaliation for Agamemnon taking away his daughter to become a personal slave. Apollo sought to send a harsh plague to the Greek camp which greatly affected the Greek side of the war by killing many soldiers.
Another example of Gods acting like mortals and influencing the war is on page 243 line 535, Thetis asks Zeus to give Trojans the upper hand in the war because she felt sorrow for Achilles’s lack of honor from the Greeks. Achilles wept while telling Thetis that Agamemnon gets all the praise and the loot while Achilles does all the work. He wanted her to convince Zeus to strengthen the Trojans so the Greeks can realize how valuable he was. Zeus was reluctant to favor the Trojans at first but Thetis eventually convinced him. This caused the Greeks to be on the brink of losing the war which eventually made them realize how valuable Achilles was to the army.