Homer and the Will of Zeus_Wilson

Homer and the Will of ZeusWilson, Joseph P., 1956-

College Literature, 34.2, Spring 2007, pp. 150-173 (Article)

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After reading the Homeric poems, andindeed after reading interpretations ofthem, I cannot help asking about Homerand wondering what he thought he wasdoing. (Ford 1992, 1)

Andrew Fords question haunts all whoundertake the study of Homer, thatmost illusive of figures, endowed withnone of the ordinary predicates of existence,the putative author, singer, or monumentalcomposer of the incomparable Iliad and/orthe Odyssey, or neither.1 R. Martin has sug-gested that, in the midst of the intense revi-sionism that has beset tragedy and comedy,Homeric studies are still fairly removed fromcritical controversy (1988, 2). Martin seemsoptimistic, especially in light of the workdone in the decade subsequent to the publi-cation of his own book, during which thesplit between pure oralists and virtuallyeveryone else seems to have grown moreextreme.2

Still, Fords question, while undeniablychallenging, at least offers those who would

Homer and the Will of Zeus

Joe Wilson

Joe Wilson is professor of

Classical Studies at the

University of Scranton. He has

written extensively on Greek

and Latin literature, especially on

Homer and Sophocles. His book,

The Hero and the City

(1997).

attempt to answer it some hope, no matter how faint, of success, as opposedto questions of authorship and composition, which have raged unresolvedfor centuries.After all, as Martin observed, however the Iliad may have comeinto existence, it is now a text, and that has made all of the difference(1988, 1). A text can be analyzed, if not to discern the putative will of itsauthor, at least to disclose its own methodology.3And we can perhaps dobetter than that. In my fathers house there are many rooms. Even thedensest, least skilled, and most haphazard (and I do not mean to suggest thatthe Iliad reflects any such ineptitude) of architects must have included a fewof them in the original plans.4

Like Ford, I would like to examine what Homer was doing when hecomposed/wrote the Iliad.5 Yet that question, baldly stated, seems too broadfor the scope of the current discussion. Alas, we possess no detailed notesfrom the poet on his methodology. It remains the most axiomatic of axiomsin Homeric studies that the poet never injects himself into his work, andefforts to uncover a historical Homer invariably founder.6 We do, howev-er, have his poem, and we do have his plot. As Nagy observes (and repeatsoften [1979, 35-36, 97-99]), and Nimis (1987, 90) and Richardson (1990)also confirm, the plot of an epic poem is simply the will of Zeus.An inves-tigation of Homers (or the texts) own intentions can with profit begin there.Moreover, as Redfield carefully argues, following the logic of AristotlesPoetics 1451b27-29, the invention of the plot is the invention of a narrativepoem (1994, 58). Homer or the tradition invents the plot of the work; wemay therefore assume that the will of Zeus conforms rather exactly to thewill of the poetin that the will of Zeus in the Iliad operates to guarantee thehonor of Achilles, the will of the poet must be to do the same. Moreover, thehonoring of Achilles will then condition all of the poets decisions on the dis-tribution of kleos, the glory (from kluein,to hear), gained from oral poetry.7

We can carry the discussion still further.To quote the cogent summaryof Mark Edwards:

Fate, of course, is the will of the poet, limited by the major features of thetraditional legends. . . . In an obviously artistic, not religious, motif, Zeusholds up his scales to determine the decree of fate, and the gods act toensure the fulfillment of such a decree; Poseidon rescues Aeneas for this rea-son, as it is fated that through him Dardanus line shall continue (20.300-308). On two occasions Zeus considers the possibility of saving a hero fromthe death that fate has decreed (his son Sarpedon, 16.433ff., and the belovedHector, 22.167-81), but both times another deity declares this to be excep-tional and a bad policy, and Zeus gives up the idea.(Edwards 1987, 136)

I offer a slight refinement to Edwardss initial observation: fate is not thewill of the poet, but the poetic tradition, to which the poet must in most

151Joe Wilson

instances conform, lest he lose all of his authority.8 The poet, however, deter-mines the plot of the poem, and the poets metaphor for that determinationis the will of Zeus. For example, when Zeus must reluctantly allow the deathsof Sarpedon and Hector, we have a metaphor for the poet acknowledginghis allegiance to a tradition, a tradition to which he must, in crucial specifics,adhere, in order to maintain his own credibility. Should Sarpedon escape theonslaught of Patroclus, or Hector fall to Ajax instead of Achilles, the poetwould compromise, perhaps fatally, both his tale and his status as a Singer ofTales, to borrow Lords phrase.

Poetic favor, of course, offers no protective talisman to the characters.Zeus directs his affections precisely to those characters for whom the poetexpresses the greatest interest, and yet, as Griffin observes,Zeus loves Hectorand Sarpedon, Patroclus and Achilles; but by the end of the Iliad three of thefour are dead, and the fourth will be slain very soon.(1980, 86). Zeuss lovesare the crucial figures around whom the poet fashions his tale, the menwhose death in battle will earn them the kleos aphthiton,undying fame, thatepic confers.9

These observations still leave us with a technical problem. How does thewill of Zeus actually operate in the poem, and how, specifically, does it relateto the program of the poet? How does it guarantee that Achilles will be hon-ored? The will of Zeus makes its memorable first appearance in Book 1:

Sing, Goddess, of the destructive wrath of

Achilles, son of Peleus, which laid pains without

number on the Achaeans, and sent many strong

souls of heroes down to death and rendered their

bodies carrion for the dogs and birds, and the

will of Zeus [boule Dios] was accomplished, from

the time when [ex hou] the son of Atreus, the lord of

men, and godlike Achilles first fought in strife. (Iliad I.1-9)The boule Dios, and the ex hou, offer the initial difficulty. Some ancient

commentators suggested that ex hou was causal, and should be taken in con-nection with the Kypria, in which Zeus is blamed (credited?) for starting theTrojan war in order to relieve the world of excess population.10 Aristarchusrejected this interpretation of the neoteroi and argued that the boule Dios refersmerely to the promise of Zeus to Thetis in Book I (Kirk 1985, 53).The Iliad,at first glance, appears to lend support to Aristarchuss view: the will of Zeusdoes not seem to enter into the story until the end of Book I, when Zeuspledges to Thetis that he will honor Achilles. Indeed, that may explain therather independent role of Athena and Apollo in the first book. In subsequent

152 College Literature 34.2 [Spring 2007]

books, the two are sent (or their interference at least tolerated) by Zeus tointervene on behalf of the Greeks or the Trojans, or, in the case of Athenaseffort in Book IV to break the truce, on behalf of Zeus himself, (should thetruce endure, the poem would be over). In Book I, however, the prayer ofChryses motivates Apollo to unleash a plague upon the Greek camp (I.43-52), while Athenas intervention in the quarrel between Agamemnon andAchilles comes at the behest of Hera,who loves you both, (I.208-10).11

The other view, however, does find support from both the Iliad and theOdyssey: Agamemnon claims that Zeus stole his wits away in the quarrelover the girl, and Achilles does not contradict him. Indeed, he had suggest-ed the very same thing at IX.377.As Dodds observes, this is no mere use ofthe gods as a facon de parler (1951, 3-5). Nor can we simply dismissAgamemnons remark as a facile apology: he does not deny his own respon-sibility for his actions. Clearly, on Agamemnons analysis, Zeus has manufac-tured this episode in the Trojan War as a function of a general plan to workhavoc on the Greeks.The suggestion that Zeus started the Trojan War forhis own purposes finds additional support from the subsequent epic: in theOdyssey Zeus is described as conjuring up a great wave of disasters forGreeks and Trojans alike, at a time before the action of the Iliad, indeed,before the Greeks ever left for Troy (8.81-82).12 The same plan is ascribedto Zeus the summary of the Kypria in Proclus and in the Hesiodic Catalogueof Women.13

There is a way to reconcile the two possibilities. Homer employs the willof Zeus as the motivation for the action of the poem because the traditionof epic, which recorded the afflictions wrought by Zeus on Trojan and Greekalike, mandated it.14 Thus he affirms his membership in the tradition.At thesame time he claims his own originality by taking the traditional boule Diosand altering it to fit his own story and provide not merely the plot of his epic,but a mechanism for the poet to enter into the story.15 The poet neverdeparts from the traditional view that Zeus wants to kill Greeks and Trojansalike, but he demonstrates his mastery over that tradition by changing theterms under which the slaughter takes place.As Scodel notes:

Since, in his Iliad, the plan of Zeus is in effect the plan of Achilles, the tra-ditional theme of the Trojan War as the cause of many deaths has beenadapted to the wrath. Homer is not ignorant of the Cyclic and Hesiodicexplanations of the war, but he turns them to his own purpose. (Scodel1982, 47)16

Lynn-George, for his part, reminds us of just how open the entire bouleDios is.In all its possibilities this plan of Zeus possesses a powerful indeter-minacy, a might which is a function of its mystery (1988, 38).As he goes onto observe, there seems to be a boule already at work at the outset of the

153Joe Wilson

poem, yet at the beginning of Book II we see Zeus still considering whatthat boule might be. Hence,Throughout the structuring of epic there is dis-continuity and yet also an unpredictable indissociability of irreconcilablepositions.All is both predetermined and open to choice in a narrative whichis fixed forever and constantly refashioned (41).What else accounts for suchdetermined indeterminacy but Homers decision to work within the Cyclictradition and coordinate it with the specific plan of the honoring of Achilles?

The logical upshot of such coordination is that nothing within thework can truly lie outside the plan of Zeus. Zeus himself allows the delayof the accomplishment of his promise to Thetis, both when he permits theinterference of Athena in Book VIII, to keep the rout of the Greeks fromhappening too quickly, and again when he tacitly permits Poseidons inter-ference, by going off to the land of the Thracians at the beginning of BookXIII, and in the apate Dios (the deception and seduction of Zeus by Hera)of Book XIV. In each instance, the Iliadic plan seems derailed; but the gen-eral epic plan, the slaughter of Greek and Trojan alike, moves forward whenthe Achaeans rally and prolong the battle. Hence, nothing in the Iliad dif-fers from the Plan of Zeus, and thus the plan of Zeus stands revealed as thewill of the poet. As a consequence of this, we should pay very close atten-tion to the will of Zeus, since the poet has invested the metaphor with theclaim to his own authority.17 Indeed, Morrison sees just this type of oper-ation in the Iliad. On 18 of 33 occasions in which Homers plot might havegone off in a different direction, a god intervenes to keep the story ontrackand the gods are very often working for Zeus (1992, 62-71). Evenwhen they seem to be working against Zeuss plan to honor Achilles, aswhen Poseidon rallies the Greek troops in Books XIII-XIV, they are in factserving Zeuss other plan, to slaughter Greeks and Trojans alike. Quite sim-ply, Homer lays claim to both plans to structure the plot of his poem(Richardson 1990, 187f).

Whether we accept that argument and see the will of Zeus acting onevents from a time prior to the Iliad, or only posterior to the initial quar-rel between Achilles and Agamemnon, the will of Zeus guides most of theaction from the end of Book I on to the ransoming of Hectors body byPriam in Book XXIV.We can see how closely Zeuss will conforms to thepoetic program of honoring Achilles by examining those initial passages inwhich Zeus consents to the desires of that hero. (The Iliad does honorAchilles, and Achilles alone, and does so rather unambiguously. He alone,in Homers account, is responsible for the destruction of Troy, by killingHector, the man on whose life the fate of Troy rests. He speaks the mostlines in the poem. His dominance is absolute, from his repeated humilia-tions of Agamemnon to the assertion of his authority over all of the Greeks


at the funeral games of Patroclus, and to his final mastery over the van-quished Priam.)

After the quarrel between Agamemnon and Achilles over Briseis, ahumiliated Achilles demands the help of his mother in gaining revenge overthe Greeks. He cites the fact that Zeus is indebted to Thetis for her help inrescuing the king of the gods from an ignominious imprisonment at thehands of the other Olympian deities (I.348-406).18 He continues:

Persuade him to aid the Trojans, to pin

the Achaeans back against their ships, trap

them around the bay and mow them down. (Iliad I.408-10)

Thetis relays the request in terms that are somewhat more ambiguous andless bloodthirsty:

Father Zeus, if among the immortals

I have aided you by word or deed, fulfill

this prayer. Honor my son, doomed to

meet his fate more quickly than all

other. But now the lord of men Agamemnon

has dishonored him. For he has taken

and kept his prize. But you honor him,

Wise Zeus of Olympus. Give strength to

the Trojans, until the Achaeans honor

my son and even increase his honor. (Iliad I.503-10)The request of Achilles to Thetis specified slaughter: tous de kata prumnas

te kai amph hala elsai Achaious kteinomenous,push back the dying Achaeans totheir ships and to the sea.19 Thetis, however, suggests only that Zeus titheikratos,give strength to the Trojans, until the Greeks restore his honor (Kirk1985, 96).20 In theory, the terms of Thetiss more general request may beconsidered fulfilled by the action of Books VIII-IX; the Trojans have won asubstantial victory and the Greeks have selected delegates to offer Achillesmore than adequate compensation. But Thetiss version of the story is not theone that carries authority: Zeusa own plan agrees with Achilless initialrequest, rather than the mediated version of his mother.21 The poet depictsZeuss rather bloodthirsty intent at the beginning of Book II:

Sweet sleep did not hold Zeus, but rather

he weighed in his mind how he might honor

Achilles and destroy many of the Achaeans

next to their ships (Iliad II.2-4)

155Joe Wilson

The will of Zeus is identical with the will of Achilles himself. Zeus conjuresup a plan by which olese{i} de poleas epi neusin Achaion, he might destroymany of the Achaeans by the ships, (II.4). Moreover, we should note that theplan of Zeus will operate in its own good time.The first day of battle (BooksII-VII), does not lead directly to the slaughter of the Greeks among theirships. If anything, the long day achieves nothing and ends in a draw.To derivepoetic intent from the apparent gap between Zeuss conception of the spe-cific plan to honor Achilles and its operation, which does not truly beginuntil the beginning of Book VIII,Homer wants us to understand that the willof Zeus encompasses the action of the entire poem, for without the first dayof battle, with the aristeia of Diomedes, his fights with the gods, theCatalogue, the Teichoskopia, and the intimate portrayals of family and citylife in Troy, the Iliad would lose much of its force and nearly all of its appeal.Books II through VII recapitulate the long and bloody stalemate of the firstten years of the war. Homer introduces the Greek and Trojan forces in theCatalogue and frames the actual day of battle with two inconclusive duels:Menelaus and Paris (perhaps to demonstrate that Homers war is a poeticconstruct, and like any poetic construct, not accountable to practical consid-erations), and Hector and Ajax, whose inconclusive brawling marks the mid-dle books, before Patroclus, the ritual substitute of Achilles, and then Achilleshimself take the field.All things, even those that do not immediately work toZeuss desire, work to the gods advantage, as the poet condenses the futilityof ten years into the space of a single day.

Zeus elects to send the dream in the form of Nestor to Agamemnon,a dream that initiates the first day of battle described in the work. Thechoice of Nestor is hardly coincidental: Nestor, besides being the greatcounselor of the Greeks, occupies a prominent role as a quasi-poet in thework, providing, along with Phoenix, Priam, and a few other characters(Glaucus, for example) a deeper poetic tradition from which the poet candraw material.22 What better way for the poet (Homer) to assert the poet-ic authority of Zeuss deception than by using a character who is a virtualaoidos himself (Nestor) to convey the information that will deceive theclueless Agamemnon.

Only the third day of battle, from Books XI-XVII, in which the Greekwall is pierced and the fighting takes place along the ships, actually fulfillsthe will of Zeus as stated in its rather limited form (and thus accounts forAchilless final rejection of the embassy in Book IXshould Achilles haveaccepted the offer of the Achaeans, the will of Zeus, as well as his own,would have been left unfulfilled).23 Zeus makes clear his own will in coun-sel with the Olympians and subsequently confirms it at the beginning ofBook IV. After the Greeks and Trojans agree to settle the quarrel over


Helen by single combat between Paris and Menelaus (a battle that weknow will be inconclusive, since such an outcome would contradict thepromise of Zeus in Book Ihence, the interference of Aphrodite to saveParis is not really germane to the plot), Zeus asks his fellow divinities if thewar should end:

Let us consider how this work will be,

whether we stir up evil war and the din

of battle, or we bring both sides together

in friendship. If this seems good and

pleasant to all, then the city of Priam

might remain inhabited, and Menelaus

might take back Argive Helen. (Iliad IV.14-19)

The goddesses are not pleased, but only Hera raises her voice against thedivine plan. Zeus states quite definitely that he holds no personal grudgeagainst the Trojans, and he compels Hera to surrender one of her favoritecities of the Greeks to him at some future time (recalling once more thedivine plan suggested in the Kypria: the destruction of the Greeks as well asthe Trojans seems to be an ineluctable part of the plan of Zeus). He thenemploys Athena, now as his own agent, to attempt to break the truce:

Go quickly among the Trojans and the

Greeks, and attempt to make the Trojans

first violate their oaths and attack

the Achaeans. (Iliad IV.70-72)So Zeus rejects (or more properly, fails to seize) an opportunity to end

the war and instead instructs Athena to encourage the Trojans to becomeoath breakers. Homer could not make his point more clearly: Zeuss realinterests are served by more slaughter, as are the poets (times of peace beingnotoriously difficult to distill into good epic). Zeus, by accepting from Herathe right to destroy Argos, Mycenae, or Sparta at some future date, seemsdetermined to continue the slaughter of the Greeks, as the Kypria suggests.24

However, he is equally willing to accept the destruction of Troy, a city thathe finds quite innocent of wrongdoing, for Zeus in Book IV evaluates thebehavior of the Trojans not by a standard of human justice, but by a standardof divine expedient.The crimes of stealing and then keeping Helen concernhim not at all.The Trojans are, in his view, a just people:

Never has my altar lacked a fair feast,

or drink, or burnt-offering.We have

always received our due. (Iliad IV.48-49)25

157Joe Wilson

Zeus desires not peace, just or otherwise, but war; he is not swayed by thecounsels of others.26 Rather, he employs the gods to justify the continuationof the war, in the absence of which the poet has no story, and Zeus cannotkeep his initial promise to Thetis.

Confirmation of Zeuss emotional investment in continuing the war canbe detected in the numerous instances in which Zeus is shown as delight-ing in war. One of the most striking instances occurs in Book XX, as Zeusunleashes all the gods to fight on whatever side they choose:

I still care about those who are going

to die. But I will remain on a cliff of

Olympus, from which I will look on and

take pleasure in my heart (phrena terpsomai).

The rest of you may go and enter into

the midst of the Trojans and Greeks,

bearing aid to either side, as the

mind of each of you desires. (Iliad XX.21-30)

The detached concern evinced by Zeus here accords well with the notionthat his will is not merely the plot of the poem, but also a metonymy for thewill of the poet. For what else has the poet evinced throughout the work butthis same paradoxical attitudean unflinching description of the worst hor-rors of war, offset to a certain extent by the brilliant similes that restorehumanity, if ever so briefly, to those who have been brutalized and slain inthe course of the poem.

Indeed, the proper way of relating the line in the Kypria that claims thatZeus engineers the Trojan War to rid the world of excess population is toread it as metaphor for the poets choice of war as the subject for the worksin the epic cycle.The Cycle, which almost certainly began as oral poetry, maytake war, with its varied fortunes and routine changes in circumstance, as ametaphor for oral poetry itself?

After Pandarus breaks the truce, the two armies prepare for battle.Homer devotes Book V primarily to the great aristeia of Diomedes, whichculminates in the wounding of Ares at the hands of Diomedes and Athena.Zeus is content to let events take their course, as befits the general action ofBooks II-VII, books which serve as a kind of synopsis of events that logical-ly should have taken place before the 10th year of the war.Only at one point,Diomedess aristeia of Book V, do we see some conclusive fighting; as befitsthe action of a true aristeia, a divinity assists the hero.27 Indeed, the presenceof the god at an action simply gives divine sanction to that action, and byextension, guarantees that a significant action has occurred as part of the


poetic will. Diomedess aristeia demonstrates what a hero can accomplishwith a god on his side: nothing less than the ability to break the lethal stale-mate encapsulated in Books II-VII and symbolized in the two futile singlecombats (Paris and Menelaus in Book II,Ajax and Hector in Book VII) thatbegin and end the day of battle. But Diomedes is not destined to slay Hector,as Achilles is, so he must be content with wounding not one but two gods.28

In effect, he serves as a sort of demonstration blast for the poet, a preparationfor Achilles.29 Diomedes and Achilles lead strangely parallel existences in theIliad, and in the epic tradition. Both fight with gods; both are wounded byParis; both fight with Aeneas. In the Iliad we can see that Diomedes is, ineffect, poetrys first hero, placed on the Iliadic stage by Homer to demon-strate to his audience a model for poetic heroism, in which the mortal war-rior finds confirmation for his actions by the help and presence of the gods.The gods who assist the mortal warriors in their aristeiai must therefore betaken as metaphors for the poets themselves, who assign to the select war-riors the kleos appropriate to their deeds. Indeed, the same pattern can be dis-cerned in the subsequent aristeiai of Hector (who has been inspired, literally,by Apollo), Patroclus (who has been inspired by Achilles himself), andAchilles, who is assisted by Athena herself.

In Book VIII, the poet, having used his first day of battle to telescope thewar to date, and having alerted his audience to the possibilities inherent inthe poet-god-hero nexus, opts to change the war from a futile stalemate tothe first stage of the honoring of Achilles. Predictably, Zeus calls the gods intoconference and administers orders that none of them are to interfere in thebattle on either sidehe himself will employ force, if necessary, to see thathis orders are obeyed:

No goddess nor god should attempt to

contravene my instructions, but let all

pay attention, in order that I accomplish

[teleuteso] these things as quickly

as possible.Anyone I see wishing to

defy heaven and aid the Trojans or the

Greeks will return to Olympus stricken,

or I will hurl him into murky Tartarus . . .

(IliadVIII.7-13)

In theory, the will of Zeus, the wholesale slaughter of the Greek troops,should begin today. But we also see how thoroughly the will of Zeus is iden-tified with that of the poet when Zeus relents slightly when Athena com-plains: the poet has hardly shown everything he wants to, so he allows Zeus

159Joe Wilson

to appear to change his mind a bit, thereby providing a rationale for a moreprotracted accomplishment of the boule Dios. Zeus will allow a bit of inter-vention by the goddess:

Take heart,Tritogeneia, my dear child.

I do not speak fully what is in my mind

or heart, and I wish to be kind to you. (IliadVIII.43-45)

The phrase ou nu ti thumo{i} prophroni mutheomai, literally, I do not nowspeak with full forethought of my purpose, as ever reveals that the will ofZeus stands too closely allied to the interests of the poet to be merely thebare outline of the poetic tradition. Homer construes the Plan of Zeusbroadly enough to encompass the encouraging omens that Agamemnon andAjax receive, as well as the interference of Athena and, later, Poseidon.Thewar must continue and the Greeks must not abandon Troy, or both parts ofZeuss plan, the general slaughter of men, particularly the race of Homericheroes (the hemitheoi of Book XII), and the honoring of Achilles, will cometo naught.

In Book VIII, the process by which he will honor Achilles has now beenactivated. Lest any of the poets audience miss the point, Homer makes itabundantly clear when Zeus employs his thunderbolts to terminate the furi-ous attack of Diomedes, the first poetic hero (i.e., the first recipient of an aris-teia), and drive him from the field:

And now they would have been forced back

to Ilium, penned in like lambs, if the

father of gods and men had not quickly

realized what was happening.

Thundering terribly he let loose his fearsome

silvery thunderbolt, and he struck the earth

in front of the horses of Diomedes. (Iliad VIII.131-34)

Nestor persuades Diomedes to withdraw, but Hectors taunting proves toomuch for the son of Tydeus to endure, so he wheels his horses again to re-engage in battle. But Zeus thunders three times from Ida, signaling onceand for all to Diomedes that his time as poetic hero has ended (VIII.139-71).When next we see him in battle, he is doing nothing more heroic thanslaughtering sleeping Thracians.

Zeus, having encouraged the Trojans, obliges the desperate Agamemnonwith an omen of his own: an eagle drops a fawn on the altar on which theGreeks sacrifice. Zeuss will lies not in ending the war in Book VIII, butrather in continuing it as long as possible, allowing slaughter to mount up onboth sides before he unleashes Achilles. Indeed, although he will let the


Greeks regroup, he will not permit Athena and Hera to turn the tide of bat-tle, sending Iris to the recalcitrant pair to inform them of the punishment,should they attempt to drive the Trojans back to their city:

I will maim their swift horses before their

chariots, and I will knock them from the car,

and I will shatter their chariot. Nor will

they recover from their wounds for ten years,

if my thunderbolt strikes them. (IliadVIII.402-05)

Let me reiterate: Book VIII could, in theory, have been sufficient for the ful-fillment of Thetiss request to Zeushowever, Zeuss plan exceeds therequest made by Thetis, and conforms to the original request of Achilles andto the tradition of the Cycle: not merely to allow the death of many Greeks,but to create havoc sufficient to make a poem. Nor could Zeus allow theTrojan successes to come to naught because of a timely intervention byAthena: he would, on the next day, make matter far worse for the Greeks:

At dawn, ox-eyed queen Hera, you will see,

if you wish, the mighty son of Cronos

destroy more of the army of the Achaean

spearmen. For terrible Hector will not

leave off from war until the swift son

of Peleus rouses from his ships, on the day

that they battle with the deadliest force

by the prows of the ships over the fallen

Patroclus. For so it is decreed by heaven

[thesphaton]. (IliadVIII.470-77)

Thesphaton, literally, god-spoken, confirms that the most important actionof the plot is solely the will of Zeus, far more so than the will of Achilles,who certainly did not want his best friend killed.

In Book XI the will of Zeus takes a slightly different turn, as he sendsIris to discourage Hector from engaging Agamemnon during the Achaeankings aristeia:

Go, swift Iris, and tell this to Hector:

As long as he sees Agamemnon, shepherd

of the host, fighting in the forefront,

slaying rank after rank of men, so

long hold off from engaging him, and

161Joe Wilson

let the rest of your army battle with

him with their spears. But after he

has withdrawn in his chariot, wounded by

spear or arrow, then I will give him

strength to slay, until he comes to

the well-benched ships and the sun

sets and holy night comes on. (Iliad XI.186-94)

This passage may seem, at first glance, to represent the traditional use of thegods as facon de parler: after all, it is only good sense to avoid a fighter who ishaving a particularly good day. But the warning (or advice) cuts deeper on apoetic level. Zeus warns Hector, in effect, not to ruin the plot of the poem.A premature death, before he has led the Trojans in firing the ships, violatesthe promise of Zeus and hence the plot of the poem.30

Agamemnon eventually leaves the field after receiving a painful buthardly lethal wound from Coon. Paris wounds Diomedes with an arrow tothe foot, while Odysseus is skewered in the latissimus dorsi by Socus.We alsosee in Book XI the beginning of the role of Ajax as the personal foil to thewill of Zeus. Gradually, all the great warriors of the Achaeans leave the field,save Ajax, who will battle, often alone, against the onslaught of the Trojans tosave his comrades and their ships.31Ajax receives no wound: he is rather takenout of the battle directly by Zeus, a peculiar erasure of the hero. After all,as Nestor says later, the best (aristoi) of the Achaeans have been wounded,(XI.658-59), but Ajax, who certainly ought to be among the best of theAchaeans, given that he is the second best after Achilles (II.768-69) is notwounded, nor does Nestor mention him in his subsequent list of those whohave fallen to the Trojans (XI.660-64). As Nimis observes, he has beenreplaced here by Eurypylus (1987, 53-54).32 Zeus forces only one Achaean,Ajax, to withdraw from the field directly; all the others, even Eurypylus andMachaon, retire only after being wounded.33

The identity of interest between Zeus and the poet and their metony-mous existence seems clear.Two test cases will demonstrate the extent of theidentification.

Zeus and the Tradition 1: The Wall of the Achaeans

The battle becomes increasingly more desperate for the Greek side inBook XII, as the Trojans break the wall around the Greek camp. The wallmerits and has received much discussion.34 The Greeks build the wall at theend of Book VII: tacit acknowledgment that the inconclusive day of battlehas rendered them equal to the Trojans.The poet demonstrates how futile theday has been by assigning virtually the same verses to the Greeks and the


Trojans when he describes the collecting of the dead and the mass funeralsheld by either side:

Then they [Trojans and Dardanians] prepared

themselves, quickly, for either task, some

to collect the dead, and some to gather wood.

And the Argives on their side hastened from

their ships, some to collect the dead, some

to gather wood.

The sun was now striking the fields, climbing

the heavens from the deeps of the soft-gliding

Ocean.The two sides met face-to-face.Then

it was a difficult thing to recognize the

face of each man. But washing away the clotted

blood with water, and shedding hot tears,

they loaded them on wagons. But great Priam

allowed no crying; so in silence, sick at

heart, they heaped the corpses on the fire.

And when they had burned them all, they

went away to holy Ilium.And in the same

way the well-greaved Achaeans, sick at heart,

heaped the corpses on the fire.And when

they had burned them all they went to the

hollow ships. (IliadVII.417-32)

To accent the equivalence that had developed between the Greek andTrojan forces now that Achilles was no longer on the field, Homer hasNestor, weaving a metis (uphainein metin), recommend that a wall be builtfrom the funeral mound to protect the camp (VII.324-43).35 The wall isclearly a poetic construct.The wall gives structure to the day of battle andmarks the equivalence between the two sides. Moreover, the existence of thewall enables Homer to emphasize the superiority of the Trojans, backed byZeus, when they break through the fortifications in Book XII.The besiegershave become the besieged.

Moreover, as Poseidon complains, the wall gives a variety of kleos, incompetition with the fame of his own deed, when he and Apollo built thewalls of Troy for Laomedon (VII.446-53). But Zeus is the final arbiter ofkleos, just as the poet is the final arbiter of poetry. Kleos cannot be earned; it

163Joe Wilson

must be given.And Zeus will not permit the kleos of the wall to remain. Zeusanswers Poseidons complaint:

Wide-ruling Earthshaker, what are you

saying.Another god might fear this

device, but only one who is weaker than

you by far in strength of hand and

might. But your kleos will extend

as far as the dawn. Come.When the long

haired Achaeans have gone home with

their swift ships to their dear homeland,

then break the wall and carry it into

the sea, and cover the beach with

sand, so that the wall of the Achaeans

may be brought to naught. (IliadVII.455-63)

The defensive wall of Troy shall be remembered, the kleos of Poseidonhonored.The defensive wall of the Greeks shall be obliterated. Homer doesnot like defense; Hector fails when he retreats. Defense stands in the way ofpoetry, and stationary fortifications, like static texts, hold no interest for theoral poet. It is hardly coincidental that his real hero, Achilles, earns the fre-quent epithet swift-footed, while Diomedes, Patroclus, and Hector, all flyabout the battlefield in chariots.The hero of the later epic wins the footracein Book XXIII, to forewarn Homers audience that the swiftness ofOdysseuss mind is nearly matched by that of his feet.

In Book XII, Homer steps outside of his narrative to describe the even-tual destruction of the wall at some time posterior to the Trojan War, butprior to Homers own time.The positioning of the account cannot be coin-cidental; it stands almost at the dead middle of the text.The whole passage hasbeen much discussed, but the last part is most significant for my purposes:

Zeus rained continuously, in order to

overwhelm the wall with the salt sea.

The Earthshaker, carrying the trident in

his hands, led the way, and swept

away in the waves the foundations of

wooden beams and stones that the Achaeans

had constructed with such toil, and made

all smooth again along the stream of the

Hellespont, and again covered the beach


165

with sand, when he had swept away the

wall. (Iliad XII.25-32)

The works of man are rendered obscured by the processes of weatherand time (the turning post for the chariot race in Book XXIII affords anoth-er instance), unless they are elucidated by the poet.What the poet chooses toignore we forget, or never learn; like the wall, which is destroyed by the nat-ural processes of rain, wind, and earthquake, that which the poets decrees suf-fers oblivion. Men, affairs, events, all will be memorable only so long as poetschoose to remember them.The poet shows Zeus, the poets metonym, tak-ing an active part in demonstrating the impermanence of human endeavor.Even Schliemann, perhaps, was defying the will of Zeus: Troy the city wasless important than Troy the city of poetry, and, as it has worked out, some-what less impressive.

Ford has written eloquently about the wall, suggesting that Homer hererenders a judgment on the impermanence of the written text.Writing is ulti-mately an unintelligent sema, without the oral poet to elucidate the contentsand contexts, and the flimsy new technology of writing cannot match thewisdom of the oral poet (192, 152-57). A written text, like the wall, is preyto any mischance, and no match for the collective wisdom of the traditionsof oral poetry.

Zeus and the Tradition 2: The Death of Sarpedon

In Book XII, Homer puts in the mouth of Sarpedon the famous ration-ale for the heros life:

Glaucus, why are we two honored above all

with seats and meat and full cups in Lycia,

and why do all look upon us as gods?

We possess a great tract of by the Xanthus,

a lovely orchard, and wheat fields.We must

now stand among the first ranks of the

Lycians and take our part in the blazing

battle, so that one of the Lycians may

say,our kings that rule us are not

without fame [aklees], who eat fat sheep

and drink the select, honeyed wine.Their

might is most noble, since they fight among

the foremost of the Lycians. Friend, if

Joe Wilson

we could escape from the battle and live

forever, ageless and immortal, then I

myself would neither fight among the foremost

nor would I send you into the battle for

glory. But the myriad fates lead us to

death, which no mortal can escape or avoid,

so let us go, either to give glory

to another, or to gain it for ourselves. (Iliad XII.310-28)

Kleos is the compensation for death, the kleos aphthiton of poetry thatthose who die in battle earn.Telamonian Ajax stabs at Sarpedon, piercing hisshield and driving him back. But Zeus kept death from his son, that he notbe killed at the prows of the ships, (XII.402-03). Homer instead reserves theglory of killing Sarpedon for Patroclus, the ritual substitute, as Nagy termsit, of Achilles, killing the man who best expresses the rationale for the mar-tial ethos in his speech to Glaucus in Book XII; Tlepolemos, the son ofHeracles, had been denied the chance to kill Sarpedon earlier, and now Ajaxwill be denied the same glory, which instead will go to the son of Menoitius:if Achilless is the poems hero, Patroclus is poetrys substitute.

The death of Sarpedon is traditionally considered one of the most mov-ing scenes in the poem. He has best articulated the heroic code in hisspeech to Glaucus in Book XII, and his willingness to embrace the risks oflife and death later guarantees him heroic status, cult worship, and of coursepoetry itself.

As Patroclus advances towards Sarpedon, Zeus addresses Hera:

My heart is divided in two as I consider, do

I save him still alive, snatching him up and

removing him from the tearful war and place

him in the rich land of Lycia, or do I

slay him now at the hands of the son of

Menoitius? (Iliad XVI.435-38)

At one level, Zeus merely confronts the question that other divinities whospare favorites must confront.There are additional considerations, however.When Aphrodite saves Paris in Book III, or Aeneas in Book V, we do not seemerely a goddess saving a fallen favorite: rather, the maintenance of the poet-ic tradition, or even the poem itself. If Paris falls to Menelaus, the Iliad mayend too soon. Similarly, if Achilles kills Hector when they first meet in BookXX, the aristeia of Achilles will end too quickly. Zeus has tolerated the inter-ventions of the gods in order to protract the action of the work, so he finds


the intervention of the gods in saving a favorite here and there acceptable.Moreover,Aeneas, saved again in Book XX, must live to carry on the Trojanname. Hence, there must have been a tradition in which Aeneas survived, atradition that the monumental composer of the Iliad feels bound to respect.Similarly, when Apollo stops Patroclus from storming the walls of Troy, orAthena helps Achilles to kill Hector, the issue is not one of the gods unfair-ly favoring one side or another, but the poets use of the presence of a god(each a messenger from Zeus to the Trojans and Greeks, respectively) to rat-ify the maintenance of the poetic tradition, within the boundaries of whichthe poet operates.

For Zeus, however, the situation is not quite so simple.When Zeus facesthe decision to save Sarpedon, we see how closely governed by the traditionthe poet is. As Hera points out to him, if Zeus decides to rescue Sarpedon,consequences will abound.

I will tell you this, and you lay it up

in your heart. If you send Sarpedon home,

beware lest someone of the gods should wish

to send his own son away from the fierce

battle. For their are many sons of gods

fighting around the city of Priam. (Iliad XVI.444-49)Should Zeus rescue Sarpedon, it will become open season for the gods tointervene.The right way to read this passage, I contend, is simply this. ShouldZeus, as metaphor for the poet, exercise his right to save Sarpedon, any otherpoet may in turn save any other character. Should this happen, the traditionitself, which has not been substantially threatened by the other rescues ofmortals in the work (instead, the tradition has been maintained and the poemitself has been enhanced), would collapse.36 The tradition itself apparentlysaves Aeneas, not once but twice. Homer understands himself to be workingwithin a tradition upon which he substantially improves, but upon which heis in no small part dependent. He has no interest in seeing the tradition col-lapse entirely.

Hera offers Zeus an alternative to saving his son. It is the alternative, welldiscussed by Nagy, of the glorious death of a hero:

If he is dear to you, and your heart is

heavy with grief, allow him to die in

the fierce battle at the hands of Patroclus

the son of Menoitius. But when his soul

and his life have left him, send Death

and sweet Sleep to bear him until they come

167Joe Wilson

to the wide land of Lycia.There his kin

will bury him with a mound and a stele:

for this is the reward of the dead. (Iliad XVI.450-57)

As Nagy observes, Sarpedon will now attain the status and receive the wor-ship of a cult-hero (1992, 122-42).This in no way precludes, but rather com-plements, Sarpedons status as a hero of epic, for he has achieved the kleos aph-thiton of death in battle. Sarpedon has, in effect, lived the perfect poetic life,and Zeus/Homer, having rewarded him with poetry already, now guaranteesthe consequent award of cult. Most heroes who appear in the Iliad can expectcult-hero status, whether they die at Troy or not. But the memorial of a stelealone does not suffice; without the aid of the poet, who gives the warriorskleos, a stele may not communicate anything.37

Notes1 For a synopsis of the ancient opinion on Homers date and provenance, see

Kirk (1985, 2-4).2 A careful reading of Nagy (1996, 13-63) will give a good idea of the depth of

the split. Clay (1983, 3) usefully argued that the argument over orality had improp-erly overwhelmed matters of interpretation. Pucci (1987, 27) outflanks the oralists byemploying deconstructive techniques to assert that, whatever the manner of com-position, the Odyssey and the Iliad are to be taken as texts. And Ahl and Roisman(1996, 12) have reaffirmed the essential position of Clay. Lloyd-Jones makes the bestsuggestion of all, that Without a detailed re-examination of the text of the two greatpoems, summary treatments of the complicated problems of Homeric scholarship areof very limited value (1990, 19). His comparison of the disputes between Analysts,Neo-Analysts, Unitarians, and the rest, to Passchendaele is characteristically colorfuland apt.

3 Ford (1992, 3) offers a memorable formulation of the theoretical objectionsthat New Critics, structuralists, and deconstructionists would raise against anyattempt to discover authorial intent. All those have been outdone by Nagy (1996,19-27), who lays on any discussion of Homer as author a catachetical list of stric-tures so severe that it would have gladdened the heart of Fr. Furniss.

4 Taplin (1992, 5ff.), performs an admirable service by reminding us of theextent to which the poet maintains control over his story, although he also consid-ers the role of Homers putative audience in the creation of the work. He does wellto note that the characters in the work have no court of appealtheir actions donot guarantee that the poet will grant them poetry.

5 I am intrigued by the possibility that literacy never disappeared from Greeceand the attendant impact of such a possibility on the Homeric poems. On this, seeUllmann (1927), Bernal (1990, 1-26), and Ahl and Roisman (1996, 4-8). Powell(1992) has raised excellent points on Homer and his relationship to written Greek.


6 There is no need to detail them all, but I would note that Scott, who arguesfor Smyrna as Homers birthplace, sometime around 850 B.C., is still a fairly cogentand novel argument that is now largely overlooked (1921, 3-8).

7 As Rabel observes, The poets ambiguous reference to Zeuss intentions isintended to offer a measure of legitimacy in advance to the stories told within theIliad that conflict with what is said by the Muse-Narrator (1997, 37).

8 Leaf referring to the scales of Zeus that weigh the fate of Hector (XXII.209ff),states that The poet has to acknowledge that there are certain data which he regardsas historical, as things done, with which he himself must not tamper (1915, 18).Given that the deaths of the characters were most likely the firmest element imbed-ded in the tradition, Zeuss connection to moira and aisa clearly suggests an analogybetween Zeus and the poet.

9 The matter of kleos apthiton has no doubt been too much discussed, but in thelong run, I find Nagys basic argument, made most famously in Nagy 1979 (244-55),and reiterated often since, most persuasivekleos apthiton brought by death in battleis the prize of epic poetry itself.

10 The reading is not impossible: Monro (1891, 191-92), allows that ex as causalwith the genitive is possible, citing IX.566 and 3.135 and 5.468;Pagliaro (1963, 16ff),syntactically relates ex hou to the boule dios. I owe this observation to Redfield (1994,272).

11 It is not out of place here to note the work of Bremer (1987, 32-45), that theGotterapparat in Homer are essentially poetic devices, rather than theological orphilosophical commentary.

12 This quarrel between Achilles and Odysseus has been much discussed byNagy (1979, 15-25), and other places. Nagy also observes that Hesiodic poetryattributes the tale of the destructive wars at Troy and Thebes, both subjects of epic,to the will of Zeus itself. It seems evident that the will of Zeus is simply the basis forepic poetry and the trope by which the epic poets named their own activities.

13 Hesiod, Catalogue of Women, fr.204,, 95-104; for a discussion, see Nagy (1979,219-20); For the relationship between this fragment and the plan at the beginningof the Kypria, see Scodel (1982, 39ff).

14 For the connection of Dios boule to the tradition of the Kypria, see, in addi-tion to those mentioned below, Kullmann (1956, 132-33), and Slatkin (1995, 118ff).

15 On the determination of Homer to create an original work within the exist-ing tradition, see Kakridas (1971, 65-68).

16 Scodel errs unconscionably, though, when she suggests that Homer is notconfirming this [the Cyclic] tradition (Scodel 1982, 39) in passages like XIV.84-87,in which of course Homer is doing exactly that.Authority comes from membershipin a tradition.

17 Nimis (1987, 90) mentions the difficulty of reconciling Achilless prayer forthe victory of the Trojans with his prayer for the success and safe return of Patroclus,and with Zeuss intention of honoring both requests. It is indeed difficult to recon-cile the two, unless one realizes that Homer uses the figure of Zeus to access bothplans in the Iliad.

169Joe Wilson

18 For the importance (somewhat overstated) of Thetiss rescue of Zeus, seeSlatkin (1991, especially 53-84).

19 As Kirk observes, Achilles is not unduly disturbed by the inevitable conse-quences of his request, that is, the death of friends and allies (1985, 96). Zanker(1994, 76-77), sees the passage largely in terms of Achilles conflict withAgamemnon, a reading which ignores the consequences of Achilless prayer for theGreek army in general.

20 Kirk observes the inconsistency here and suggests that Thetis has left thedetails of honoring Achilles to Zeus discretion.

21 As Achilles, enjoying the benefit of hindsight, later observes, (and Dodds[1951, 3-4], usefully cautions us against reading this as a polite absolution ofAgamemnon and the other Greeks),Perhaps Zeus wished death upon many of theGreeks, (XIX.273-74).

22 For Nestor as a singer, see MacLeod (1983, 3), and Dickson (1995, esp. 44-91).

23 Redfield (1994, 139), errs completely when he suggests that the boule Dios iscompleted in Book VIII; no Achaean has died alongside the sterns of their swiftships, since the wall around the camp is not breached until Book XII.

24 Redfield interprets Zeuss somewhat relaxed attitude:Men and cities are thecounters in a game played between the gods.The game can become absorbing, butit is never really worth a quarrel. The gods can always repair their differences byallowing the destruction of another ephemeral human thing (1994, 132).

25 Lloyd-Jones (1971, 5) notes that Agamemnon claims that Zeus will punishthe Trojans for breaking the truce, and uses the kings remark, among others, to arguethat Zeus has a genuine moral role in the Iliad; the text would suggest otherwise.TheGreeks may want Zeus to punish the Trojans for abducting Helen and other assort-ed crimes, but Zeus does not appear to be punishing the Trojans for any particularoffense.The paradox that troubles Lloyd-Jones, that the all-powerful king of the godsyields to the demands of his queen and his daughter, while at the same time, on ahuman level, he affirms basic principles of justice, disappears when we realize thatZeuss decision is a metaphor for the will of the poet.

26 Zeus, then, should not be seen as a kind of frustrated Prime Minister dealingwith an exceptionally recalcitrant cabinet, as he is sometimes portrayed. See Redfield(1994, 137).

27 For the value of the aid of a god in battle, see usefully Edwards (1987, 137),and Griffin (1980, 144-78). In the long run, Athena and Apollo are both agents ofthe Will of Zeus. Nagy (1979, 142-50) emphasizes the role that Athena plays as spe-cial antagonist to Hector, paralleling Apollos relationship to Achilles.

28 Nagy (1979, 30-31) discusses the fact that in Book V, Diomedes is called aris-tos Achaion twice.The instance at V.103, when Diomedes is wounded by Pandarus,emphasizes the parallel between Diomedes and Achilles, who was killed by an arrowshot by Paris.

29 Indeed, Diomedess aristeia has, on this day at least, made him greater thanAchilles has ever been, as the Trojans themselves acknowledge (VI.98-100). Homer


may have included these verses to distinguish his work from the previous epics. Kirk(1990, 168) suggests that Helenuss grimly flattering remarks exceeds what Homerhimself was doing, i.e., making Diomedes the equal to Achilles.

30 It is just possible that the advice is meant to cut the other way. It is general-ly taken to be a warning to Hector that he will be killed or at least seriously injuredif he engages Agamemnon during the kings aristeia. Another possibility might beconsidered: Hector might kill Agamemnon and ruin the full honoring of Achilles,since Achilles is quite prepared to humiliate a chastened Agamemnon not once buttwice, first in Book XIX, in which he disregards Agamemnons gifts, and again inBook XXIII, when, under the guise of awarding the king a prize, he prevents himfrom displaying his prowess in the spear-throw; see the cogent analysis ofPostlethwaite (1995).

31 It is just worth recalling that Vico argued that Ajax was not alone when hedefended the ships, but alone with his vassals (1984, 1.559, 4.1033).

32 Nimis in general provides a valuable discussion of the relationship of the sim-iles to the action in Book XI.

33 Possibly we see here an echo of the story of Ajaxs invulnerability, but as allour sources for this are post-Homeric, and Ajax, far from being unafraid of beingwounded, is very directly concerned over the possibility, as in XV.727 (repeated atXVI.102); it seems more likely that this is poetic intervention: Zeus is explicitlydoing something that the poet wants done. He will do it again.

34 It will be obvious how much I owe to Ford (1992, 147-57) who reminds usthat the wall is certainly more than a collection of stones. Scodel (1982, 33-53) use-fully connects the flooding and the subsequent destruction of the wall to the plan ofZeus in the Kypria to destroy the race of heroes. For doubts about the wall, see Page(1959, 315ff), who cites in support Jacoby (1944, 37ff.). Kirk (1990, 276-80) defendsboth Nestors speech in Book VII (although he allows, following Jacoby, that VII.334-35 must be an Attic interpolation) and the wall itself. Hainsworth (1993, 317) makesthe most cogent remark against Thucydides (Page, et al.) when he points out that theIliad is, after all, a work of fiction.

35 On the equivalence of weaving to the making of poetry, see Clader (1976, 7-8), Suzuki (1989, 40), on metis as a possible category encompassing the poets craft,see Ford (1992, 35).

36 It is just tempting to read Heras remark that the other gods will not agreewith you, as a coded way of saying, break the tradition, and other poets will beunhappy with you.

37 Ford (1992, 144-45) remarks upon the stele that serves as the turning post inthe funeral games of Patroclus.That stele failed its purpose, since the Greeks had noway of knowing whose marker it was, or even if it was a funeral monument.

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