Theomachy

Though common enough in myth as a whole, theomachy - the gods warring against each other - is less frequent in epic (I classify Hesiod’s theomachian Theogony as creation myth and hymn to Zeus rather than epic, but see Chapter 23, by Nelson). Of the six epics under consideration only the Iliad makes significant use of theomachy, and it does so out of thematic concerns absent from the other epics. The Iliad is constructed around two strifes, the larger conflict between Greeks and Trojans, and the inner conflict that develops between Achilles and Agamemnon. The Iliads divine economy echoes both of these human conflicts. The quarrel of Achilles and Agamemnon finds a divine parallel in Hera’s resisting and contesting Zeus’ executive function, while Athena’s defeat of Ares (5.793-867; 21.391-414) thematically parallels the Greeks’ war against, and imminent victory over, the Trojans, particularly the Achaeans’ duels with Hektor (Books 7 and 22).

There are two essentially different types of theomachy, a serious type set in the distant past, often before mortals yet exist, and while the gods are still jockeying for power; and a comic type, set in the present, with lower stakes. Both of the Iliad's two sets of theo-machies, Hera's rebellion against Zeus and Athena's defeat of Ares, are of the comic present-time type. But the Iliad also includes inset narratives that suggest the other, serious, kind of theomachy. In these retrospective incidents Zeus is presented as in danger of being defeated (1.393-412; 15.18-24; see also 15.78-149), a situation reminiscent of the divine power struggles in the Theogony. Most important of these for the Iliad’s plot is the occasion when Thetis aided him long ago (1.396-406), thus securing his present favor in the opening book of the poem. Readers of the Iliad, ancient and modern, have often confused the two types, and mistakenly assume Zeus is in real danger of being defeated by other gods in the present time of the Iliad, ignoring Poseidon’s declaration that Zeus’ power is now unchallenged (Il. 8.210-11).

It is worth observing that the Iliad imposes theomachian relationships on many of the gods that they probably do not have outside of the poem. (The Homeric Hymns offer glimpses of their more typical relationships, in which they usually get along with each other.) Within the Iliad the full present-time theomachies are confined to Books 5 and 20-1. Unexpectedly, the inverted modality of the middle books (8-16, in which the Trojans achieve temporary advantage over the Greeks) removes some of the theomachian elements (other than the friction between Zeus and Hera) and allows a more typical view of the gods' relations with each other. Athena's apparent sisterly concern for Ares (15.113-42) parallels Anat’s concern for Baal in Ugaritic myth, and Aphrodite and Hera also get along (14.188-224) better than in the early or late books.

Hera's rebellion against Zeus requires further comment. At various times in the Iliad she attempts to replace Zeus atop Achilles’ epic triangle. The strife between the king and queen of the gods lacks the violence that characterizes Athena’s defeat of Ares, Hephaestus’ of the river-god Xanthos (which, as an elemental conflict, reverts to the serious, retrospective type of theomachy, and is evocative of a creation myth or hymn), or the catfights between Athena and Aphrodite (21.417-34) and Hera and Artemis (21.47096). Rather, Hera employs deception, a theme that characterizes much of the middle books of the Iliad (e. g. the spy missions in Book 10, Patroklos’ wearing Achilles’ armor in Book 16). In spite of the sex comedy, the stakes are higher here than in the violent confrontations between the other gods, because unlike those other gods, Hera contests Zeus’ executive function and temporarily usurps it. Moreover, her predilection for authority is revealed elsewhere by how frequently she delegates other deities to perform her will.

The Iliad employs this dynamic as a theme early on (1.195) when it is Hera, not Zeus, who sends Athena to contain Achilles’ anger at Agamemnon, and who again dispatches Athena to prevent the Greek flight (2.155-6) after Agamemnon tests the troops. In fact, Zeus’ very first words in the poem point to Hera’s potential to resist his decrees (1.518-19). Hera goes on to suborn Iris without Zeus’ knowledge (18.168), and, during the poem’s main theomachy, orders Hephaestus to attack Xanthos (21.328ff.). In Book 14, she usurps Zeus’ executive function outright. As a prelude to seizing power she again serves an executive function by sending Hypnos to incapacitate Zeus. Hera’s seizing power thus results both in temporarily turning the battle in the Greeks’ favor and in the temporary incapacitation of Hektor (parallel thematically to Hera’s incapacitation of Herakles at 15.26-8). Hera also takes the leading role in the divine consultation at 16.431-61, where she, not Zeus, makes the dominant suggestion regarding how to act, and Zeus follows her (16.458). This is a complete reversal of most divine councils in Homeric and other epic. However, her own approach to the executive function is portrayed as too partisan and extreme to be stable. The executive function usually arbitrates and seeks a balance between opposed divine forces (as Zeus achieves at Il. 24.65-76; cf. Od. 12.377-88; 13.128-45), and does not itself occupy an extreme position.

Because of their diametrically opposed roles in the two triangles we might expect Athena and Apollo to confront each other in a theomachy in the Iliad. Athena does refer contemptuously to Apollo as groveling before Zeus (Il. 22.220-1), but she has no face-to-face confrontation with him. But the opposed deities, the mentor and the wrathful, do not confront each other in any of the epics under discussion in this chapter. Instead the sky father (as judge of the legal triangle) mediates and adjudicates, ensuring that each of their competing or conflicting perspectives is respected.