As spectators we are normally passive onlookers of the action taking place. The only influence we can have over the outcome is by making the participants aware of our support by cheering, or of our anger and frustration at an action by chanting and booing. We place our trust in the officials and referees to ensure that strict guidelines and rules are adhered to throughout the action. As spectators we are also commentators expressing our opinions regarding the actions of the participants and the officials. As spectators we can empathise with the emotions of the participants and feel extreme jubilation or extreme disappointment depending on whether you are supporting the winning or losing side. In this essay I will be discussing whether the gods in the Iliad conform at all to this definition of a spectator. In the Iliad, the action we are witnessing is a war between the Achaeans and the Trojans supported on each side by different gods, with Zeus supposedly acting as the impartial referee ensuring that the rules of honourable conduct are adhered to. The poem opens during a ‘time-out’ in the nine year war and the losing Achaeans are blaming their poor performance on the actions of their ‘captain’ Agamemnon, who has upset the other side’s main supporter Apollo. But in appeasing Apollo, Agamemnon disrespects the honour of Achilles, and in retaliation he refuses ‘to play’ for his side until his honour is restored. It is at this point in the action that Zeus’s impartiality is compromised by a promise to Thetis that the Trojans will have the advantage until the Greeks acknowledge the worth of their ‘star player’ Achilles. When the action resumes in Books 2-7 each of the gods gives their support to their favourites on the first day of fig... ... middle of paper ... ... watching from high Pergamos was angered and called aloud to the Trojans: “Rise up, Trojans, breakers of horses, bend not from battle”(4.507-508). He goes on to admonish them for their poor performance especially as Achilles is not ‘playing’. But in contrast, as Apollo is calling out from the citadel as a spectator, Athene ‘drove on the Achaians, any of them she saw hanging back as she strode through the battle’ (5.515-516). Apollo’s relegation to a spectator maybe because the actions of the Trojan archer Pandarus, carried out in the name of Apollo, were considered dishonourable in warfare and Apollo wanted to distance himself from those actions. Apollo is again seen as a spectator in Book 5 as he and Aphrodite ‘take their ease and pleasure’ (5.760) on Mount Olympus, but this is only after he has taken direct action in saving Aeneas during a fight with Diomedes.
The subject of Homer’s epic poem, the Iliad, is very clearly stated--it is “the rage of Peleus’ son Achilles.” The reader remains continually aware of the extent of Achilles’ rage, yet is never told the reason why Achilles remains angry and unreconciled. There is no definitive answer to this question. Achilles is not a static character. He is constantly changing; thus the question of why he remains angry solicits different answers at various stages throughout the poem. To find an answer, the reader must carefully examine Achilles’ ever-changing dilemma involving the concepts of mortality and honor. At its simplest, Achilles’ dilemma is that if he goes to war, he will die. But he will die with glory.
The Iliad begins with the clash between Achilles and Agamemnon. Agamemnon has little, if any, respect for the gods. This is displayed by his irreverent behavior towards the priest, Chryses. Agamemnon refuses to release the princess even when the Achaean soldiers suggested "`Respect the priest, accept the shining ransom!' But it brought no joy to the heart of Agamemnon" (104). Achilles is, unlike Agamemnon, respectful of and revered by the gods. In order to expose the cause of Apollo's wrath against the Argive army, Achilles uses the prophet, Calchas. Achilles already knows why Apollo is angry, but decides the fact should be stated by someone other than himself. He knows that Agamemnon will become angry once the truth is revealed. I believe that in this instance he is trying to keep his rage in check by avoiding a direct confrontation with Agamemnon. Calchas also fears for his life because he also knows Agamemnon's fury is unyielding at times. However, with a great deal of encouragement from Achilles, Calchas "spoke out, bravely: `Beware-The god's enraged because Agamemnon spurned his priest'" (106). When the truth is exposed, Agamemnon be...
In this essay, I hope to provide answers to how the actions of Hippolytus and Phaedra relate to the gods, whether or not the characters concern themselves with the reaction of the gods to their behavior, what the characters expect from the gods, how the gods treat the humans, and whether or not the gods gain anything from making the humans suffer. Before we can discuss the play, however, a few terms need to be defined. Most important would be the nature of the gods. They have divine powers, but what exactly makes the Greek gods unique should be explored. The Greek gods, since they are anthropomorphic, have many of the same characteristics as humans.
The text supports a means of judging character and extends it to cultural elements such as the gods who define the faith and belief of the people. Iliad upholds warlike deities, including Athena, for admiration among the modern civilization. In the ideal epic world, the comic is vital in creating relief as seen with the timidity of Artemis and Aphrodite. Moreover, fighting seems as a way of proving honor and integrity, while avoiding warfare is a demonstration for laziness and misaligned
Throughout the Iliad, Homer portraits the extent to which honor plays a role in the lives of Greeks and the manner in which they are willing to sacrifice in order to reach their goals. The Iliad is set during the Trojan War, a particularly long and bloody war, fought not over boundary disagreements, and not over political conflicts, and not to protect the nation. Rather, it was a war fought to defend the personal honor. The possession of women was important to a man’s standing and honor. Paris’ theft of Helen struck a huge blow to the honor of Menelaus and becomes the initial cause of the Trojan War. Consequently, Menelaus, the Spartan ruler, called upon his brother Agamemnon to gather the Greek forces to launch the war against Paris demanding the return of Helen and reinstating the honor for the king. The war lasted for ten years and cost innumerable Greeks’ lives and brought incurable pain upon their families. To Greek heroes, honor is more important than their life as much as that life would be meaningless without it, and they even willingly sacrifice their lives in order...
The Role Of Zeus in Homer's Iliad. & nbsp; In the era of Homer, divine intervention was thought to be typical, and one of his. foremost works, The Iliad, reflects this. Nearly all of the Greek gods are involved in the outcome of the Trojan War, which happens to be the background story of this epic poem.
The Greek army has been camped out on the shores of Troy for a very long, so they do not have much supplies, and much fewer tokens to show their honour, so honour itself is also running out. When Agamemnon says that he will need something to replace the prize that he has lost at the start of the poem, Achilles replies, “...how shall the great-hearted Achaians give you a prize now? There is no great store of things lying about I know of.” (Homer, Iliad 1.124) The men need to continually add to their honour, and without a large victory, they are not able to do so, so there is tension, and the tension is made worse when Agamemnon takes what Achilleus thinks is more than his fair share. ...
Achilles, the greatest of the Greek warriors, is portrayed as a hero in some ways but, on the other hand, performs some controversial acts in the Iliad. Throughout the entire Trojan war, Achilles spent most of his time pouting in his tent after Agamemnon kidnapped his prized maiden, Chryseis.
Throughout Homer’s epic poem, The Iliad, gods are presented as remarkably human in almost every way. While it is assumed that gods are divine entities incapable of human transgression, they are portrayed with all the flaws of mortals in The Iliad. The gods are a manifestation of human emotions consequently helping to explain the behavior of the humans in The Iliad. The actions of the heroes are what determine their fate, not divine intervention. Ultimately, the humans in The Iliad have inherent characteristics that provide the driving force behind their actions: the gods simply act in concert with them, allowing the human beings to exercise free will of
The Iliad is a classic epic poem written by Homer about the Trojan War and the rage of an Achaean warrior, Achilles. The book introduces the reader to the war and the personal battle between Achilles and King Agamemnon; because of this argument between these two major characters, Homer introduces the role of the gods when Achilles asks his mother, Thetis, to go to Zeus and beg for his interference on Achilles’ behalf. The major role the gods play in the Iliad is their interference in the Trojan War as immortal versus immortal and mortal versus immortal.
Achilles is introduced into The Iliad getting into a debacle with the leader of the Greek army, Agamemnon, during the last year of the Trojan War. Achilles starts a quarrel with Agamemnon because he has demanded possession of Achilles’ woman, Briseis, in consolation for having to give up his woman, Chryseis, so that the gods will end their plague upon the Greek soldiers. Achilles does all he can to get his loved one back, but he knows that nothing will waver Agamemnon’s decision. This is when Achil...
One of the most compelling topics The Iliad raises is that of the intricate affiliations between fate, man and the gods. Many events related by Homer in his epic poem exhibit how these three connections interweave and eventually determine the very lives of the men and women involved in the war. Homer leaves these complex relationships slightly unclear throughout the epic, never spelling out the exact bonds connecting men's fate to the gods and what can be considered the power of fate. The motivation for the ambiguousness present in The Iliad is not easily understood, but it is a question that enriches and helps weave an even greater significance of the results into Homer's masterpiece. I feel that the interaction between man, god, and fate can be shown to be one great fluidity that ultimately leaves life mysterious, giving much more depth and complexity to the bonds between the three.
Homer’s The Iliad: Book XX features a battle between the Trojans and Achaians, shortly after Patroklus’ death (Lattimore Book XVI), where the gods must intervene in order to restrain Achilleus’ destructive nature that becomes amplified due to the grief and wrath as a result of the loss of his cousin/lover. The divine foresaw an early fall of Troy caused by the intensified destructive nature of Achilleus, therefore they interfered in the battle to protect a bigger ideal of fate, a fate of a nation, by manipulating smaller ideals of fate, the fates of people’s lives(Lattimore 405). At the beginning of the battle, after the gods descended from Olympus, they decide to sit and just watch how their mortal teams will fend for themselves until Apollo takes form as Lykoan and coerce Aeneias to challenge Achilleus, thus establishing the first act of divine intervention (Lattimore 406-407). When Achilleus is inches away from killing Aeneias, Poseidon takes sympathy upon him and whisks him off to safety (Lattimore 407-411). The last interference occurs during the confrontation between Hektor and Achilleus, where Achilleus is about to murder him and Apollo saves Hektor (Lattimore 416). Hektor’s rescue in this battle is an important event in the Iliad because Achilleus’ and Hektor’s fates are interrelated, further meaning that if Hektor die...
Greek mythology has systematically included the intervention of gods and goddesses in matters of the mortal world, and Homer’s The Iliad is no different. The story is littered with divine intervention, with both positive and negative outcomes for the humans involved.
Throughout the Iliad, a conflict develops through the process of each chapter which rests on the surface over a Maiden. The disagreement is caused due to one person or the other feeling far more powerful or superior than the other and is left to sense as if they should receive what is rightfully theirs even if it is not a fair exchange. This conflict is seen between two leaders who view each other with different status: Agamemnon the Argive leader of the expedition to Troy, who had inherited the role of king through his father, and Achilles the leader of Myrmidons. As the dispute develops, it is apparent that the discord between Agamemnon and Achilles is more than something about women; it seems to be their mindset distracting them from having a dispute between their views on power, honour, glory and pride amongst themselves.