Today is, according to many, the anniversary of the eruption of Vesuvius in the Bay of Naples in 79 CE. Pliny’s account is the most famous, but Martial had his say too (Epigrams, 4.4):
“Here is Vesuvius, just yesterday green with shading vines–
here the noble grape made filled deep pools:
these were the hills Bacchus loved more than Nysae.
On this mountain the Satyrs not so long ago led their dance.
Here was the home Venus considered more pleasing than Sparta.
This place was famous because of its Herculean name.
All of this lies covered in flames and sorrowful ash.
Not even the gods wished for this to be their right.”
Hic est pampineis uiridis modo Vesbius umbris,
presserat hic madidos nobilis uua lacus:
haec iuga quam Nysae colles plus Bacchus amauit;
hoc nuper Satyri monte dedere choros;
haec Veneris sedes, Lacedaemone gratior illi; 5
hic locus Herculeo nomine clarus erat.
Cuncta iacent flammis et tristi mersa fauilla:
nec superi uellent hoc licuisse sibi.
Mount Vesuvius is thought to have erupted #onthisday in AD 79. This fragment of a wall painting may depict the owners of a house in Pompeii pic.twitter.com/fMspVy8wXO
“It is not surprising [that ancient words have unclear meanings] since not only was Epimenides not recognized by many when he got up from sleep after 50 years, but Teucer as well was unknown by his family after only 15 years, according to Livius Andronicus. But what is this to the age of poetic words? If the source of the words in theCarmen Saliorumis the reign of Numa Pompilius and those words were not taken up from previous composers, they are still 700 years old.
Why, then, would you criticize the labor of an author who has not successfully found the name of a hero’s great-grandfather or that man’s grandfather, when you cannot name the mother of your own great-grandfather’s grandfather? This distance is so much closer to us than the period from now to the beginning of the Salians when people say the Roman’s poetic words were first in Latin.”
Nec mirum, cum non modo Epimenides sopore post annos L experrectus a multis non cognoscatur, sed etiam Teucer Livii post XV annos ab suis qui sit ignoretur. At hoc quid ad verborum poeticorum aetatem? Quorum si Pompili regnum fons in Carminibus Saliorum neque ea ab superioribus accepta, tamen habent DCC annos. Quare cur scriptoris industriam reprehendas qui herois tritavum, atavum non potuerit reperire, cum ipse tui tritavi matrem dicere non possis? Quod intervallum multo tanto propius nos, quam hinc ad initium Saliorum, quo Romanorum prima verba poetica dicunt Latina.
Teucer was a king of Salamis who was absent during the Trojan War.
Epimenides was a poet from Crete who wrote a Theogony. He allegedly went to sleep as a boy and awoke 57 years later. Here’s his strange entry from the Suda.
“Epimenides, son of Phaistos or Dosiados or Agiasarkhos and his mother was Blastos. A Cretan from Knossos and epic poet. As the story goes, his soul could leave his body for however long the time was right and then return again. When he died, after some time his skin was found to be tattooed with words. He lived near the 30th olympiad and he was among the first of the seven sages and those after them. For he cleansed Athens of the plague of Kylôneios at the time of the 44th Olympiad when he was an old man. He wrote many epic poems, including in catalogue form about mysteries, purifications, and other riddling matters. Solon wrote to him asking for the cleansing of the city. He lived 150 years but he slept for 50 of them. “The Epimenidean skin” is a proverb for mysterious writings.”
“And Socrates took home two wives: he had a son Lamprokles from Xanthippê and two sons with Myrto the daughter of Aristeides the just, Sophroniskos and Menedêmos or Menexenos, as some believe.”
This detail doesn’t fit the basic narrative of an impoverished philosopher with a nagging wife. There is an explanation in the tradition found in Diogenes Laertius’, Lives of the Eminent Philosophers 2.26
“Aristotle records that Socrates had two wives. The first was Xanthippe who gave him a son, Lamprokles. The second was Myrto, who was the daughter of Aristeides the Just, whom he married without a dowry. She gave him two sons, Sophroniskos and Menexenos. Others report that he married Myrto second. And some—including Satyros and Hieronymous of Rhodes— claim that he married both at the same time. (They assert that because the Athenians had a lack of men and wanted to increase their number, they voted that citizen may marry one woman and have children with another. This is what Socrates did.)”
Most of the anecdotes in Diogenes’ life speak of Xanthippe and not Myrto. Athenaeus repeats the detail (13.556a) and notes that if it were true, it probably would have been mentioned by the comic poets. But are there other records of legalized polygamy in classical Greece?
And what about the sons? Regardless of the mother, the number accords with what Plato has Socrates say in the Apology (34d) “I have three sons, Athenians, one an adolescent and two still children….” (μοί εἰσι καὶ ὑεῖς γε, ὦ ἄνδρες ᾿Αθηναῖοι, τρεῖς, εἷς μὲν μειράκιον ἤδη, δύο δὲ παιδία·)
[Euripides] is reported to have hated women in a rather serious way, either because he despised the company of women by nature or because he had two wives at the same time (which was the law made by Athenian decree) and was worn down by his marriages. Aristophanes also memorializes his hatred in the first version of the Thesmophoriazusae:
Now, then, I address and advise all women
To punish this man for many reasons:
He has accosted us with bitter evils,
This man raised on a garden’s bitter harvest.
And Alexander the Aitolian composed these lines about Euripides:
The strident student of strong Anaxagoras, the mirth-hater,
Addressed me and never got used to making jokes while drinking.
But what he wrote, honey or a Siren could have made.”
6 Mulieres fere omnes in maiorem modum exosus fuisse dicitur, sive quod natura abhorruit a mulierum coetu sive quod duas simul uxores habuerat, cum id decreto ab Atheniensibus facto ius esset, quarum matrimonii pertaedebat. 7 Eius odii in mulieres Aristophanes quoque meminit en tais proterais Thesmophoriazousais in his versibus:
The Liberators had not planned a seizure of power. Their occupation of the Capitol was a symbolical act, antiquarian and even Hellenic. But Rome was not a Greek city, to be mastered from its citadel. The facts and elements of power were larger than that. To carry through a Roman revolution in orderly form, in the first place the powers of the highest magistracy, the auctoritas of the ex-consuls and the acquiescence of the Senate were requisite. Of the consuls, Antonius was not to be had, Dolabella an uncertain factor. The consuls designate for the next year, Hirtius and Pansa, honest Caesarians, were moderate men and lovers of peace, representing a large body in the Senate, whether Caesarian or neutral. The Senate, thinned by war and recently replenished by the nominees of the Dictator, lacked prestige and confidence. The majority was for order and security. They were not to be blamed. Of consulars, the casualties in the Civil Wars had been heavy: only two of the Pompeians, professed or genuine, were left. Hence a lack of experience, ability and leadership in the Senate, sorely to be felt in the course of the next eighteen months. Among the survivors, a few Caesarians, of little weight, and some discredited beyond remedy: for the rest, the aged, the timid and the untrustworthy. Cicero, who had lent his eloquence to all political causes in turn, was sincere in one thing, loyalty to the established order. His past career showed that he could not be depended on for action or for statesmanship; and the conspirators had not initiated him into their designs. The public support of Cicero would be of inestimable value-after a revolution had succeeded. Thus did Brutus lift up his bloodstained dagger, crying the name of Cicero with a loud voice? The appeal was premature.
“Peleus’ knife”: this is a proverb. Aristophanes also records this: “he thinks more of himself than Peleus did with the knife”. It seems that this thing which Peleus took was a Hephaistos-made gift of prudence.”
“Peleus’ knife. Aristophanes also records this: “he thinks more of himself than Peleus did with the knife”. It seems that this thing which Peleus took was a Hephaistos-made gift of prudence.
This proverb is used for rare and extremely honored possessions. For they say that Peleus received a sword from the gods because of his surplus of prudence. It was made by Hephaistos.”
“Neither Aiakos’s son Peleus
Nor godlike Kadmos had a secure life
For of all mortals they are said to have
Have received the highest blessing of mortals
Since they listened to the Muses with golden-headbands
Singing on the mountain and in seven-gated Thebes
When one married ox-eyed Harmonia
And the other married Thetis, the famous child of wise-counseled Nereus.
The gods feasted with both of them
And they say the kingly sons of Kronos
On golden seats, and accepted from theme
Bride-gifts. Thanks to Zeus,
They made their hearts straight again
From their previous suffering.
In time, however, [Kadmos’] three daughters
Stripped him of his share of joy
with piercing pains—
even though father Zeus went to the desirable bed
of white-armed Thuonê.
And Peleus’s child, the only one immortal Thetis
Bore in Phthia, raised the mourning cry
From the Danaans as he was burned
On the pyre, after he lost his life
To war’s arrows.
If any mortal keeps
The road of truth in mind
He must suffer and obtain well
From the gods. But from the high winds
Different breaths blow different ways.
Human happiness does not last long
safe, when it turns after bringing great abundance.
I will be small in small times and then great
In great ones. I will work out the fate
That comes to me always in my thoughts, ministering to it with my own devices.
But if god were to grant me great wealth,
I have hope that I would find the highest fame afterwards.
Nestor and Lycian Sarpedon, we know from the stories of men
From honeyed words which skilled artisans
Fit together. Virtue grows eternal through famous songs.
But few find this easy to do.”
This post is a continuation of my substack on the Iliad. This post is part of my plan to share new scholarship on Homer. All proceeds from the substack are donated to classics adjacent non-profits on a monthly basis.
Do we really know why or how we make decisions? Do we want steak for dinner because of its social and cultural value or because of the evolutionary advantage of high protein diets or because of our body’s need for iron or because we just like the taste? (Ask a Homeric hero that one: they won’t share fish or vegetables with the gods!)
However we may alter the question, it ultimate becomes one of determinism vs. free will and any honest discussion of the pair will likely determine that’s it’s complicated. The distinction between the two may be a false binary and even asking the questions itself may in fact be a particular concern of a culture steeped in individualism and garnished with heroic narratives of individual (men) making the world safe and glorious through their own effort.
Homeric epic is far from disinterested in similar questions, but as Hayden Pelliccia (2011) has warned, our willingness to read such questions into Homer may be as much (if not more) a product of our culture than epic’s. But both the Iliad and the Odyssey frame their actions with statements about the relationship between human suffering and divine choice. The Iliad—perhaps problematically— announces that its events are all part of “Zeus’ will being fulfilled”. But the Odyssey changes this up just enough to be interesting: Near the beginning of the epic as he looks down on the mortal Aigisthos, who, despite divine advice to the contrary, has shacked up with Klytemnestra and helped murder Agamemnon, Zeus opines (Od. 1.32-34):
“Mortals! They are always blaming the gods and saying that evil comes from us when they themselves suffer pain beyond their lot because of their own recklessness.”
As I argue in my book on the Odyssey, I think this is a programmatic statement for the epic, inviting audiences to think about to what extent mortal decisions do impact their fate. And I don’t think this is all negative: if we can make our lives worse through our foolishness, certainly the opposite should be true, that we can ameliorate our fates through prudence. But the most important aspect of this is that the opening frame of the epic invites the audience to consider just how much human beings are partners in their fate.
In the Odyssey, I believe that the story of Telemachus is in part set up to show how mortals should work alongside gods, providing something of an ideal situation where humans work with divine sponsorship and inspiration, but choose to act on their own, attaining what psychologists have called a “sense of agency”. As many know, a sense of agency—alongside belonging—can be essential to mental health. But, to make matters more confusing, this may also be tied to cultural assumptions. (And, I use “sense of agency” to weasel my way out of worrying about free will.)
Classic debates from the 20th century about Homeric poetry from the secondary through the post-graduate level involve some variation on the relationship between fate and free will. When it comes to heroic behavior and divine intervention, this can get a bit involved: there are situations that seem somewhat clear (as when Athena pulls Achilles back by the hair in book 1 to keep him from drawing his sword and killing Agamemnon) and those that are less clear (in the same book, the narrative assertion that Hera inspired Achilles to call the assembly is not supported by any other evidence).
Evaluating these situations can be difficult for the audience external to the poem because we have nearly synoptic knowledge on what is going on. At times, we see the gods directly intervening and telling characters to do this and then the humans eventually realize they have been duped (see Athena as Deiphobos with Hektor in book 22); while in others, there are levels of obfuscation as when Zeus sends a ‘false’ dream to Agamemnon that promises him the Achaeans will be victorious on the following day, to which Agamemnon responds by ‘testing’ his army (in book 2).
Distinguishing between what the narrator reveals to us, what is revealed to internal audiences (including Homeric mortals), and what is held back helps us see that there is a lot of complexity in how and why decisions are made. Human beings are not without some agency: While everything in the Iliad may be part of Zeus’ plan, no divinity seems to cause Agamemnon to reject Chryses’ ransom and insult Achilles in book 1, even though he seems to make some claim to that effect in book 19; nor does any god inspire Achilles to ask Zeus to honor him by making the Achaeans suffer.
At a broader thematic level, then, Homeric heroes make important choices. Within the action of the epic and its interwoven plot, however, there are moments in which the gods seem more in control than others. Where Homeric characters seem ignorant of that fact, we see what scholars have called “double motivation” (or determination, or causality), following Albin Lesky. These moments offer interesting insights into Homeric views on human psychology, on theology, and on the limits of human knowledge about their own actions and motivations. On one level, we can see how human characters in the Iliad can use divine action as an excuse or explanation for their own behavior, without any clear reason for doing so. On another level, Homeric epic leaves ample room for reading different deterministic world views into the epic narrative.
This amphora pairs a scene of Dionysus with one of Herakles’ exploits: the struggle between Herakles and Apollo for the Delphic tripod. According to myth, Herakles traveled to the sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi to consult the oracle, but, when no answer was forthcoming, the hero seized Apollo’s tripod, prompting a fight between the two. Herakles, draped in his lion-skin and carrying a club, menaces a youthful Apollo, while Herakles’ protector, Athena, and Apollo’s twin sister, Artemis, remain on the sidelines. On the back, Dionysus encounters the lame Hephaestus, god of fire and metalworking, riding on a donkey as a maenad looks on.
In his 2023 Homer’s Iliad and the Problem of Force, Charles Stocking enters into this conversation through a prolonged analysis of expressions for force, especially the doublet damazo/damnemi (“to subdue, kill, etc.”). Stocking argues that the concept “co-agency” is a better way of thinking about double determination because it is “underscored by the conceptual conditions for the production of epic poetry itself and the close link between poet and Zeus” (184). Stocking provides and intricate and persuasive argument that their is a hierarchy in the use and execution of force that pairs gods with mortals, men with women, etc., positioning a stronger party to help along the action of the weaker. He suggests that “the concept of co-agency” sidesteps [the issues of determinism and free will] by focusing the discussion not on the psychological cause of action but simply on how characters view themselves as sites of co-participation in action” (185).
In essence, Stocking is arguing that our modern understanding of ancient metaphysics and epistemology has prevented us from understanding the cultural beliefs represented in Homer, concluding that we should “rethink the Homeric person, not simply as a failed self-conscious individual but as an intersubjective dividual, one constituted by human-divine symbiosis” (221). For people following along with my reading of Stocking’s book, he has used a re-reading of Weil’s analysis of force alongside a critique of Snell’s progressive argument for the development of human consciousness to posit an entirely different picture of human/divine action.
I’ll confess to liking the argument, but wondering as I often do, where performance and audiences come in. Another—not necessarily exclusive—approach is that the epics function dialogically—they invite audiences to think about the relationship between divine will and human action and as a result produce narratives that mix and match different views on the problem. The result does seem to accord with Stocking’s argument, but in a slightly more complicated way. Homer’s heroes are engaged in navigating a world where they make some choices, have some made for them, and then twist the situation in turn by claiming choice or force depending on its rhetorical convenience.
A short bibliography on Homeric decision making and ‘double motivation’
n.b this is not an exhaustive bibliography. If you’d like anything else included, please let me know.
Allan, William. “Divine Justice and Cosmic Order in Early Greek Epic.” The Journal of Hellenic Studies 126 (2006): 1–35. http://www.jstor.org/stable/30033397.
Finkelberg, Margalit (1995) “Patterns of Human Error in Homer.” JHS 115: 15-28.
Gaskin, Richard. “Do Homeric Heroes Make Real Decisions?” The Classical Quarterly 40, no. 1 (1990): 1–15. http://www.jstor.org/stable/639307.
Lesky, Albin (1961) Gottliche und Menschliche Motivation im Homerischen Epos. Winter, Universitätsverlag: Heidelberg
Pelliccia, Hayden. 2011. “Double Motivation.” Homer Encyclopedia V. 1. ed. M. Finkelberg. 218-2190
Segal, Charles. 1994. Singers, Heroes and Gods in the “Odyssey.” Ithaca.
Sharples, R. W. “‘But Why Has My Spirit Spoken with Me Thus?’: Homeric Decision-Making.” Greece & Rome 30, no. 1 (1983): 1–7. http://www.jstor.org/stable/642739.
“People of every age enter this classroom. “Do we grow old only to follow the young?” When I go into the theater as an old man and I am drawn to the racetrack and no fight is finished without me, shall I be embarrassed to go to a philosopher? You must learn as long as you are ignorant—if we may trust the proverb. And nothing is more fit to the present than this: as long as you live you must learn how to live. Nevertheless, there is still something which I teach there. You ask, what may I teach? That an old man must learn too.
But the human race still shames me every time I enter the school. Near to that theater of the Neapolitans, I have to pass that house of Metronax. There, the place is packed too as with a burning desire they judge who is the best flute player. The Greek horn and a herald bring a crowd. But in the place where we seek what a good man is, where how to be a good man may be learned, the smallest audience sits and they seem to most people to be up to no good in their pursuit. They are called useless and lazy. May such derision touch me. For the insults of the ignorant should be heard with a gentle mind. Contempt itself must be held in contempt as we journey toward better things.”
Omnis aetatis homines haec schola admittit. “In hoc senescamus, ut iuvenes sequamur?” In theatrum senex ibo et in circum deferar et nullum par sine me depugnabit ad philosophum ire erubescam?
Tamdiu discendum est, quamdiu nescias; si proverbio credimus, quamdiu vivas. Nec ulli hoc rei magis convenit quam huic: tamdiu discendum est, quemadmodum vivas, quamdiu vivas. Ego tamen illic aliquid et doceo. Quaeris, quid doceam? Etiam seni esse discendum. Pudet autem me generis humani, quotiens scholam intravi. Praeter ipsum theatrum Neapolitanorum, ut scis, transeundum est Metronactis petenti domum. Illud quidem fartum est et ingenti studio, quis sit pythaules bonus, iudicatur; habet tubicen quoque Graecus et praeco concursum. At in illo loco, in quo vir bonus quaeritur, in quo vir bonus discitur, paucissimi sedent, et hi plerisque videntur nihil boni negotii habere quod agant; inepti et inertes vocantur. Mihi contingat iste derisus; aequo animo audienda sunt inperitorum convicia et ad honesta vadenti contemnendus est ipse contemptus.
The Homer Multitext Project makes high-resolution images of every page of the Venetus A Venetus A and B manuscripts of the Iliad (along with a few others too!) available for free and to anyone. Undergraduates at multiple universities are at work transcribing these manuscripts, including some never published scholia.
. Medieval manuscripts are filled with delightful things. At the beginning of Iliad 8, Zeus calls the gods together and threatens them, at one point describing how far Tartarus is from Olympos. In the lower right corner of Folio 103 of the Venetus B, there is a simple, sweet illustration:
The Greek is pretty legible here, but if you can’t read it:
αἰθήρ [“upper air”]
ἀήρ [“sky/air”]
⊗ [circle for earth]
ἀίδης [Hades]
τάρταρος [Tartaros]
The Venetus A Manuscript offers a similar image (lower left of Folio 100 verso), but it is a bit messier:
