THE LIMITS OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE

Accordingly, at six key moments in the poem, Homer explicitly warns against trusting in the gods. As we have seen, once he has promised to answer the prayer of Achilles and Thetis to punish the Achaians, Zeus decides to send a “destructive dream” to Agamemnon to tell him to lead the Achaians on a rash, self-destructive, frontal assault against Troy.^[173] The dream, appearing to Agamemnon in the guise of Nestor, tells him: “But now, hear me quickly.

Now, this dream sent by Zeus to Agamemnon represents the first direct intervention by Zeus into human affairs in the Iliad. And this dream is wholly deceptive. While Zeus assures Agamemnon that the Achaians will conquer Troy on this day, in truth he intends to use the Trojans to destroy many Achaians. This incident invites us to wonder, more broadly, whether Zeus merely pretends to care for and to pity the Achaians, whether he genuinely “cares greatly” for them or for the Trojans, whom he is simply manipulating here, or indeed for any human beings (apart from Achilles). Indeed, it is noteworthy that the first time in the poem that the claim is made that Zeus “cares for” and “pities” human beings is in an unambiguously deceptive and destructive dream sent by Zeus. Accordingly, Homer calls Agamemnon a “fool” for putting his trust in Zeus - the first time in the poem that Homer calls anyone a fool:

So he [the dream] spoke and went away, and left there one [Agamemnon] who believed things in his spirit that were not to be accomplished.

Homer emphasizes here that it is foolish to trust in the truthfulness of even the greatest of gods.

When Agamemnon goes on to pray to Zeus for victory over the Trojans in Book II and dedicates sacrifices to him, Homer reveals: “So he spoke, but the son of Cronus did not accomplish any of it; he accepted the sacrifices but increased the unenvied toil” (2.419-420). Later, when the Achaians and Trojans pray in Book III to all the everlasting gods that they enforce the oaths sworn by all to uphold the truce, Homer observes: “So they spoke, but the son of Cronus would not accomplish any of these things for them” (3.302).

On the fourth occasion in which Homer warns against trusting the gods, in Book 6, the prophet Helenus, a son of Priam who is, Homer underscores, “by far the best of the interpreters of birds” urges his brother Hector to leave off fighting on the battlefield against the Achaian Diomedes who is killing many Trojans and to seek instead divine assist­ance against the Achaians. Specifically, the prophet urges Hector to go within Troy and to tell his mother to assemble the old women “at the temple of owl-eyed Athena in the highest point of the city” to pray to that goddess for help against Diomedes. Now, up until this point in the Iliad, Homer’s presentation of prophetic “interpreters of birds” has been ambiguous. On the one hand, Calchas, whom Homer also identifies as “by far the best of the interpreters of birds,” has in Book I accurately revealed that, in order to end the plague sent by Apollo, Agamemnon must return the captured daughter of the priest of Apollo to him (1.68-73, 1.92-100). On the other hand, insofar as, according to Homer, all of the Achaians had already urged Agamemnon to return the captured daughter of the priest of Apollo to him, and insofar as Achilles clearly surmises that Agamemnon has provoked the plague sent by Apollo by refusing to give up the captured daughter of the priest of Apollo, it is not clear that Calchas displays divinely revealed knowledge in what he says (1.22-23, 1.59-67, 1.85-91).

When Hector later prays to Zeus and the other gods that he and the Trojans may “drive away” the Achaians, and offers a tremendous sacri­fice to them, Homer sternly remarks, “but the blessed gods would not take any part of it, nor did they wish to. For sacred Ilion, both Priam and the people of Priam of the strong ash spear, greatly incurred their hatred” (8.526-528, 8.550-552). Finally, in Book XVI, when Achilles prays both that the virtuous Patroclus win glory and that he return from battle safely, Homer tells us: “So he spoke praying, and Thoughtful Zeus heeded him. The Father granted him one [prayer], but refused him the other” (16.249-250).

Homer stresses in his narrative the capricious and whimsical character of the gods’ indifference to humans.^[174] For example, even though Zeus promises Thetis and Achilles to punish the Achaians by letting the Trojans kill many of them, he permits Athena to stop Ares from killing many Achaians.^[175] In the midst of the battle he himself has inflicted on them, Zeus mourns for Agamemnon and helps the Achaians (8.245-246). He then pities Hector and helps him and the Trojans (15.12-13, 15.220-235). Moments after thundering Zeus “gave victory to the Trojans and terrified the Achaians,” he “mourned” for the weeping Ajax and helps him and the Achaians fight the Trojans (15.593-596, 15.648-650). Zeus saves his son Sarpedon from death at the hands of his grandson Tlepolemus but not from death at the hands of Patroclus (5.630-662,16.431-507). Zeus refuses to let Patroclus return safely from battle but then feels sorry for Achilles and the Achaian elders as they grieve for the dead Patroclus (16.249-252, 19.338-341). Zeus expresses pity for human beings as a whole: “For there is nothing more full of woe than man, of all the things that breathe and crawl upon the earth” (17.446-447). But it is Zeus who decides to kill many Achaians, who wrecks the attempt by the Achaians and Trojans to end their war, who plunges both the Achaians and Trojans into “dreadful combat,” and who “was devising evils” for both Achaians and Trojans.¹⁷⁸ In the midst of the battle, “the son of Cronus raised up an evil confusion, and he sent down from on high dew drops dripping with blood out of the upper air, because he was to hurl forth into Hades many mighty men” (11.52-55).

Homer emphasizes the capricious character of the other gods as well. For example, even though both Apollo and Poseidon suffered “evils” at the hands of Troy in the past, only Poseidon hates the Trojans, while Apollo favors them.¹⁸⁰ Poseidon pities the Achaians and comes to their aid against the Trojans (13.10-38). But later he declares his compassion for the Trojan ally Aeneas and saves him from death at the hands of Achilles (20.287-340). Apollo answers the prayers of his priest Chryses but Athena refuses the prayers of her priestess Theano (1.9-52, 6.297-311). Athena deceives the Trojan Pandarus into shooting an arrow at Menelaus, in violation of the sworn truce between the Achaians and the Trojans (4.86-104). She then protects Menelaus from that very arrow and later helps Diomedes slay Pandarus (4.127-140, 5.290-296). At one point, she rebukes Diomedes for not fighting the gods, even though, as he points out, she herself ordered him not to fight them (5.799-834, 5.124-132). Athena, who hates the Trojans and works against them throughout the poem, “loved” one Trojan, Phereclus, “especially,” but declines to save him from death (5.59-68). Moreover, Athena joins with the pro-Trojan Apollo to stop the war just for a day and to arrange a duel between Hector and one of the Achaians, without any apparent purpose (7.17-43).

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¹⁷⁹ ¿¿.80-83; see also 8.49-52.

Homer, Plato, and the Homeric Education on the Gods 75 with instruction.^[181] Hera insists that the gods must help Achilles against Hector, because Achilles' mother is a goddess and Hector is purely human (24.55-63). But she sides with Achilles against Aeneas, even though Aeneas's divine mother, Aphrodite, a daughter of Zeus, would seem to have a higher stature than Thetis (20.103-131). And Hera loves the purely human Agamemnon at least as much as she loves Achilles (1.193-196). That the gods are indifferent to human beings, then, and hence that humans should not place their trust in divine providence, would seem to be a central lesson of the Homeric education.

Yet what about Homer's presentation of Odysseus, a prominent hero of the Iliad and the dominant hero of the Odyssey? Does Homer not present him in both poems as favored by the gods, especially Athena? Does Homer not teach through his example, in both poems, and espe­cially the Odyssey, that the gods do care for human beings and provide for their well-being? Does Homer not, despite all the questions he raises, ultimately vindicate, through his account of Odysseus, the pious belief in divine providence?

It is certainly true that Homer presents the gods, especially Athena, as coming to the aid of Odysseus, first, repeatedly in Iliad, in matters great and small, and then most spectacularly in the Odyssey. Three times in the Iliad Odysseus prays to Athena for help, always successfully.¹⁸² Once Athena saves his life in battle even though he does not pray for her help (11.434-438). Four different characters in the Iliad and the Odyssey testify to Athena's devotion to Odysseus. Diomedes explains, when choosing whom among all of the Achaians to take as his companion on a daring nighttime reconnaissance of the Trojan camp, “How, then would I forget the divine Odysseus, whose heart and exceedingly manly spirit are surpassingly thoughtful in all labors, and Pallas Athena loves him” (10.242-245). Ajax son of Oileus remarks of Athena when she intervenes on behalf of Odysseus against him in a foot race, “As before she stands by Odysseus like a mother and helps him” (23.7802-783). Nestor tells Telemachus, after hearing of his family's suffering at the hands of the suitors of his mother in Ithaca:

For if owl-eyed Athena would wish to love you as she then surpassingly troubled herself for glorious Odysseus, in the land of Troy, where we Achaians suffered woes - for I have not yet seen gods love so openly as Pallas Athena openly stood

by that man - if she would wish to love you and care for you in her spirit, one of those would forget entirely about marriage. (Odyssey 3.218-224)

Later, Nestor again tells Telemachus that Athena “honored your noble father indeed among the Argives” (3.378-379). Finally, Athena herself proclaims most emphatically to Odysseus that “I always indeed stand by you in all your labors and watch over you” (13.300-301) and again, “I will watch over you continuously in all your labors” (20.46-47).

In the Odyssey in particular, the gods appear to support Odysseus from the beginning to the end of Homer’s narrative, from the time when the poem opens and Zeus sends his daughter Athena to give aid and comfort to Telemachus and later sends his son Hermes to free Odysseus from his captivity on Calypso’s isle, to the last half of the poem when Athena and Zeus enable Odysseus to return home, vanquish the overbearing suitors and their outraged relatives, and recover his kingdom. In Homer’s own direct narrative in the Odyssey, we see Odysseus pray to the gods for help four times, always successfully.^[183] Most spectacularly, we see first Athena dir­ectly intervene to enable the seemingly hopelessly outnumbered Odysseus vanquish the 108 suitors and then Athena and her father directly intervene to reconcile the seemingly hopelessly outnumbered Odysseus and the angry relatives of the dead suitors and thereby to recover Odysseus’s kingdom for him. The Odyssey has a happy ending, thanks to the gods.^[184] Odysseus is the happiest of men, the one who is said to rejoice far more than any other character in either poem, and this happiness seems due to the gods.^[185] In all these ways, the Odyssey seems to vindicate the belief that, as Athena says, she always watches over Odysseus and the gods always watch over us.^[186]

The surface of the Odyssey, however, is only so supportive of the pious belief in divine providence because Homer’s narration of the poem is not chronological.^[187] In other words, even though Homer indicates in its opening lines that the story of Odysseus properly begins “once he sacked the sacred city of Troy” at the end of the Trojan War, Homer does not narrate that story from that beginning (1.2). He begins the poem instead toward the end of the story of Odysseus, ten years after the end of Trojan War, at the very moment when Zeus and Athena finally decide to provide assistance to Odysseus. In this way, Homer artfully presents, on the very surface of the poem, only a part of the story of Odysseus: Odysseus’s divinely assisted homecoming, which dramatically culminates with his divinely assisted punishment of the suitors and his divinely assisted re­enthronement in Ithaca.^[188] This narrative structure begins with Odysseus the weeping captive and, thanks to the gods, ends with Odysseus the triumphant king. It thereby presents the story of Odysseus as a vindica­tion of the belief in gods who rule justly and lovingly over human beings.

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However, through his presentation of Odysseus’s narration to the Phaiacians of his wanderings in Books IX-XII, and through remarks scattered throughout the poem, Homer obliquely points beyond this reassuring surface account of divine providence to the much more unset­tling story of the gods’ abandonment of Odysseus for ten years, from his sacking of Troy to their decision to come to his aid. During those ten years Zeus and Athena did not reward the lawful and punish the hubristic but rather deserted the lawful Odysseus, leaving him instead to the tender mercies of the hubristic and lawless Cyclopes and leaving his family to the tender mercies of the hubristic and lawless suitors.^[189] During those ten years, when Odysseus prayed and sacrificed to “Zeus, the avenger of suppliants and strangers, who accompanies strangers who are reverent” against the monstrous and “pitiless” cannibalistic Cyclops Polyphemus, who “lacks righteousness” and insolently defies the gods, Zeus “did not care for the sacrifices but pondered how all my well-benched ships and trusty companions would be destroyed.”¹⁹⁰ Indeed, the gods side with Polyphemus, for Poseidon heeds his prayer for vengeance after Odysseus blinds him, and both Zeus and Athena effectively side with Poseidon for ten years, as they acknowledge (1.64-79, 13.341-343). Throughout those ten years, beginning even before the encounter with the Cyclops, the gods, led by Athena, inflict on Odysseus and the other Achaians a “miserable home­coming” (1.326-327); the gods then allow the monstrous Lastrygonians to destroy 11 of Odysseus’s 12 ships with all of their crews; the gods, led by Zeus, destroy Odysseus’s remaining ship and companions (12.374-419); and finally they allow Odysseus to remain captive to the goddess Calypso for nine years. For ten years, with the exception of Hermes’s assistance on the isle of Aiaia, Odysseus saw no evidence of divine care and much evidence to the contrary.^[190] As Odysseus observes to Athena, when he arrives in Ithaca and she assures him that “I always indeed stand by you in all your labors and watch over you” (13.300-301):

This I know well: that in former times you were kind to me, when we sons of the Achaians were waging war in Troy. But once we sacked the towering city of Priam and went on to our ships, a god scattered the Achaians, and then I did not see you, daughter of Zeus, nor did I notice you going onto my ship, so that you might ward off some woe from me, but always I had a heart torn in my breast as I wandered, until the gods released me from evil. (13.314-321; see 6.324-327)

For ten years, Odysseus suffered the anguish of a pious man harshly and incomprehensibly deserted by the gods. The surface of this artful poem, then, is a theodicy, but the story at the heart of the poem is the story of a man who was first abandoned and even punished by the gods for no clear reason, but then finally helped by them. The story of Odysseus proves to be, not of divine providence, but of divine caprice.^[191]

Over the course of both the Iliad and the Odyssey, then, Homer reveals that the gods’ very immortality, an immortality that is essential to their nature, renders them incapable of truly understanding and caring for humans and hence incapable of providing for them. By demystifying the gods and revealing the doubtful character of their wisdom, justice, and love, Homer teaches his human audience that, rather than place their faith in the gods, they ought to turn instead to human providence, as exhibited by Odysseus (in Book II of the Iliad), Priam, and, as we shall see, Achilles. For even though humans lack the tremendous power ascribed to the gods, only humans are capable of understanding and caring for each other and themselves.