Role Of Gods In The Iliad

The gods of The Iliad are shown to have tremendous power beyond the realm of human ability. However, this power is not without its limits. In The Iliad, Homer depicts a pantheon of Greek gods with human-like limitations, both in their interactions with humans and each other, and in their dealings with fate. This serves to expose the human condition, by showing that the origin of life is not unlike life itself. Homer depicts the limitations of the gods with regards to human interaction in a number of ways. According to Emily Kearns in The Gods in Homeric Epics, Homer shows the gods as interacting with humans in ways that “seem less plausible, more fantastic, and which at the same time evoke Gods who are more like humans [such as] sexual and

In The Iliad: An Unpredictable Classic Donald Lateiner says that the gods “involuntarily comment on their own mental and emotional foibles and fallibility in their horseplay and interplay with the ephemeral bodies of human toys and pets” (21). Certainly this is the case with regards to Zeus, who is described as commonly falling into sexual temptation with mortal women (Homer 14.354-368). In addition, Hera’s anger drives her to seduce Zeus (14.182-190), Athena spurs on Diomedes to attack Aphrodite (5.148-153), and Dione says she will kill Diomedes because he attacked Aphrodite, even though it was Athena who gave him permission (5.466-476). While some of these actions may be seen as the right of the gods, they all have consequences for other members of the story and can be classified as wrong. The ease with which these deities fall into temptation is a major limitation that keeps them from being truly omnipotent. If Zeus were not so susceptible to Hera’s charms, he would have been able to prevent the turning of the battle, at least for a time. By depicting the gods as not fully omnipotent, Homer reminds readers that even gods are not immune from the temptations of mortal man. All will be tempted, and all will occasionally fall; that is part of being

However, because they sometimes know what fate has ordained, they have the ability to manipulate it, or use it for their own purposes. For example, Athena (as instructed by Hera) does not want Achilles to kill Agamemnon (1.220-230). Instead, she gives him instructions to back out of the war, tantalizing him with the promise of even greater riches (1.242-252). As Margo Kitts says in What’s Religious about the Iliad, “We, the audience, know the cruelty in her promise of three times the riches to come, given the sacrifice of Patroklos which ultimately will impel Achilles to fight, win those riches, and then face death” (228). While Athena gets what she wants—Agamemnon alive and the fall of the Trojans at the hand of Achilles—the humans pay the price. However, even though the gods may be able to make use of fate to meet their desires, they cannot overrule it. This is clear when Zeus watches Sarpedon die, because it is fated to happen. Although he would prefer to save his son, in order to “avoid disturbing fate and unleashing a clash of meddling parent-gods, [Zeus] must settle for spiriting away the corpse and weeping down divine tears of blood” (Kitts 227). These limitations are similar to those that keep humans from changing fate. While mortal man may know what fate has ordained—through prophesy or revelation, perhaps—he cannot change it. He may, however, use it to his advantage. For instance,