THE POWER OF GODS AND THE MORTALITY OF HUMANS
Homer’s presentation of the question of whether humans are mortal by nature or not, and whether, if they are mortal, they can be granted immortality by the gods or not, is ambiguous.
In the Iliad, Homer presents humans as being emphatically mortal beings and presents the gods as unable to grant immortality. As we will see in our discussion of Homer’s presentation of himself, through his specific references to 302 individual deaths in the Iliad, Homer repeatedly and consistently presents human life as dependent on certain vital bodily parts - the head, the throat, the chest, the heart, the belly, and the liver.[113] It is true that, in the opening lines of the poem, Homer refers to Hades and hence, apparently, to a life after death for human beings: “Sing, goddess, of the wrath of Peleus’s son, Achilles, which was destructive, which put countless woes upon the Achaians and hurled forth many mighty souls of heroes into Hades, but prepared them themselves as food for dogs and all the birds” (1.1-5). But it is not clear what the relation is between the Achaian heroes’ “souls” that are hurled into Hades and “they themselves.” There are two heroes’ deaths described by Homer - of Patroclus and Hector - in which Hades is referred to in identical language: “the end of death covered him as he spoke, and his soul went out of his limbs, flying to Hades, bewailing his fate, leaving his manhood and his youth” (16.855-857, 22.361-363). But it is not at all clear in what sense Patroclus and Hector themselves continue to exist once they die, since their souls are deprived of their “manhood” and their “youth.” Moreover, in his account of the death of Patroclus, Homer states that Hector “wrested away his spirit with his spear” (16.827) and in his account of the death of Hector, Homer speaks of the “destruction [îËåѲðî;]” of his “soul” (22.325). But what remains, then, of Hector and Patroclus if both their spirit and soul are destroyed? Achilles does see the soul and the phantom of Patroclus in a dream, but even on that occasion Achilles concludes that “there is no mind in it at all” (23.103-104). In the Iliad, then, Homer suggests that humans are essentially mortal, that they perish when they die, and even if some portion of them remains, it may not constitute their true selves since it lacks mind, youth, manhood, spirit, or soul.[114]Similarly, in the Iliad, Homer presents the gods as apparently incapable of altering the mortal nature of humans by granting them immortal- ity.[115] On three occasions, even Zeus, the greatest of gods, is unable to save humans whom he loves from death.[116] Even though Zeus loves both his beloved son, “Sarpedon, dearest to me of men,” and also Hector, “a dear man,” and considers preventing Patroclus and Achilles from killing them, both Hera and Athena respond by asking the same question: “Being a mortal man, who has long ago been set in what is his lot, do you now wish to release him, back from ill-sounding death?” (16.433-442, 22.168-180). Now, on the one hand, Zeus, Hera, and Athena all speak in these two passages as though it would be possible for Zeus to rescue Sarpedon from Patroclus and Hector from Achilles and hence to postpone their deaths (see also 15.139-141). But both Hera and Athena seem to emphasize that, “being a mortal man” - that is, being mortal by virtue of his human nature - each of the two, Sarpedon and Hector, will inevitably die, notwithstanding Zeus’s love for him. According to Achilles, Zeus was also unable to save his son Heracles, “even though he was dearest to Lord Zeus, son of Kronos,” from death (18.114-121). And of course, Thetis, who was potent enough to save Zeus himself from “destruction” at the hands of the other gods, is unable to save her son from death, “since your lot is indeed short, not at all long” (1.396-406, 1.414-418).
For even if Achilles lives a long life by human standards, in the eyes of the immortal goddess he will always be short-lived (see 1.505-506, 9.410-416, 18.95-96, 18.409-443, 21.106-113). Accordingly, the gods themselves speak of humans as inevitably mortal. Zeus remarks to Achilles’ immortal horses, who weep over the death of Patroclus: “Wretches, why did we ever give you to lord Peleus, a mortal, you who are ageless and immortal? So that among ill-fortuned men you too may have woes? For, of all things, as many as breathe and crawl upon the earth, none is at all more miserable than man” (17.443-447). When Poseidon suggests to Apollo that they fight one another over the Trojans, Apollo responds: “Shaker of the earth, you would speak to me as one who is not of sound mind, if I am to war with you for the sake of wretched mortals, who resemble leaves: at one time they are ablaze with life, eating the fruit of the earth, but another time they perish and are lifeless” (21.462-466).In the Odyssey, Homer raises more clearly the possibility that humans do not inevitably die and that the gods are capable of granting mortals immortality. For Odysseus reports to the Phaiacians that he visited Hades, and spoke to humans there who were continuing to exist after their deaths, and Homer himself gives an account of Hades in Book XXIV. On the other hand, even though the souls in Hades do not, apart from three exceptions, suffer terribly, they seem to have a virtually lifeless, twilight existence, fluttering like bats, without bodies, without intelligence - apart from the soul of Teiresias - an existence that is clearly inferior even to the life of a living person for whom “there is not much life,” according to Achilles.[117] It is true that there are in the poem three examples of gods apparently offering an immortal well-being of sorts to humans. Menelaus reports to Telemachus that the Elder of the Sea reported to him that, since he is the husband of Helen and therefore the son-in-law of Zeus:
It is not declared by the gods, Menelaus, nourished by Zeus, that you will die in Argos, where horses graze, and meet with your lot, but the immortals will send you to the Elysian Field and the limits of the earth, where fair-haired Rhadamanthus is and there is the easiest life for human beings, for there is no snow, nor much winter, nor is there ever rain.
(4.561-569)Here, it seems, the gods allow Menelaus to elude death indefinitely, but it is not clear what his immortal well-being would consist of, besides pleasant weather, and it is not even clear that he will avoid old age. The nymph Calypso claims that she would make Odysseus “immortal and without growing old for all his days,” but it is not clear what his immortal wellbeing would consist of on the island (5.135-136). The offer of an endless existence alone with her, as her consort, on her island, evidently does not at all tempt Odysseus after his eight years with her - “ since the nymph no longer pleased him” - and consequently he not only rejects her offer out of hand but he does not express any regret over doing so, even when he faces apparently certain death days after leaving her island (5.151-153, 5.203-227, 5.297-312). Finally, Odysseus reports to the Phaiacians that, when he was in Hades, he encountered the “phantom of Heracles,” who speaks to him of his life, as the other souls Odysseus encountered and conversed with, such as Antikleia, Agamemnon, and Achilles, had done. In the case of Heracles alone, however, Odysseus asserts that Heracles “himself” was not truly present in Hades but that “he himself, with the immortal gods, was delighting himself in their abundance and had beautifully ankled Hebe, the child of great Zeus and Hera of the golden sandals” (11.601-604). This is the one example in Homer - except perhaps for Ganymede[118] - of a human being who apparently came to live with the immortal gods and as an immortal god, and hence apparently became immortal. However, Odysseus’s account here is apparently contradicted by Achilles’ account of Heracles as one whom Zeus failed to save from death (Iliad 18.117-118), Odysseus does not indicate the
Homer, Plato, and the Homeric Education on the Gods 45 source of his account, and he does not clearly explain the relation between the “phantom” of Heracles in Hades and Heracles “himself” who dwells with the immortal gods.
Although Homer’s account of mortality in the Odyssey does not highlight as clearly the finality of death as his account in the Iliad, it does still emphasize in the main the essentially mortal nature of human beings. For even though Odysseus’s account of Heracles may signify that Odysseus himself cherishes a hope that a human being may be granted an immortal happiness by the gods,[122] Homer presents the goddess Athena herself declaring: “But death, being the same for all, even the gods are not able to ward it off, even from a man who is dear to them, whenever the destructive lot of leveling death brings him low” (Odyssey 3.236-238).