The Father Figure in Homer

 

The Father Figure in Homer

            The strong relationship between fathers and sons is a recurring theme in Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey. Rarely is a person mentioned in either work without that person’s lineage also being recounted. Most heroes are noted as being the son of someone who is himself the son of someone else. In ancient Greece, a person’s lineage or descent was what created their reputation, their place in society, the level of respect and influence that they engendered and the attention which their opinions or pronouncements were given. Ancient Greece was a class-driven society and family connections reinforced the level which a person occupied in that structure. The level of achievement and the reputation of one’s ancestors were critical for determining one’s place in society and rare indeed was it for a person to assume a leadership role without being able to point to a noble heritage. Hence the father/son relationship was instrumental in positioning a hero’s importance in the eyes of his peers and in establishing his honour and his legacy.

            Menelaus, the king of Sparta and on whose behalf the Trojan War was started, is referred to by Homer as the son of Atreus ten times. His brother Agamemnon, the king of Mycenae and the leader of the invading Greek army, is referred to as the son of Atreus thirty-two times. Atreus had been a king of Mycenae and was the son of Pelops and Hippodamia. The sons of Atreus have a notable lineage because the House of Atreus begins with Tantalus, who is himself the son of Zeus and the maiden Plouto. Achilles also has a noble and divine heritage which Homer emphasizes. He is the son of Peleus, the king of Phthia, and the sea nymph Thetis. In fact, Homer refers to Achilles as the son of Peleus seventy-four times. The father of Odysseus was Laertes who had been king of the Cephallenians, a realm which included Ithaca, the home of Odysseus. Laertes was the son of Arcesius and the grandson of Cephalus who was the son of Hermes. So Odysseus also had a divine background and Homer referred to him as the son of Laertes more times than can be counted. These four examples of Menelaus, Agamemnon, Achilles and Odysseus point out just how importantly Homer treated the relationship between fathers and their sons.

            In well over one hundred countries, Father’s Day is used as a holiday to honour fathers and to celebrate fatherhood, parental bonds and the influence that fathers have in society. This tradition has been going on for centuries. There are many vignettes in the Iliad and the Odyssey that Homer uses to portray the importance of fatherhood. These scenes are all integral to the story and when viewed in their totality, one can come to the conclusion that the narratives of the two epics are very much centered on the relationships that fathers have with their children. They are critical to the plot and without them the story would falter.

            Homer tells us in the first line of the Iliad that it is a story about the wrath of Achilles. We learn that this wrath has been caused by a father being wronged. Chryses was a Trojan priest of Apollo and his daughter Chryseis had been seized in a raid by the Achaeans and had been given to Agamemnon as a war-prize for his amusement. The leader of the Danaans had refused to return Chryseis to her father when he attempted to ransom her, and in return, the priest called down a plague on the Greeks. They suffered terribly as a consequence, and finally Agamemnon agreed to return the girl to her loving father. His one condition was that he be allowed to seize Briseis, a young girl who had been given to Achilles as his war-prize. Achilles was insulted by the king’s arrogance but agreed to give her up. He retired sulking to his tent and refused to participate any longer in the war and hence the wrath of Achilles. It all started with a father’s love for his daughter.

            The story of Agamemnon as a father is a brutal one. Homer does not specifically mention the sacrifice of Iphigenia by her father Agamemnon, but it is hinted at and the story does provide a backdrop for the Trojan War. The story is one of a terrible father who does the unthinkable, he kills his daughter. Agamemnon had infuriated the goddess Artemis by hunting and killing one of her sacred stags and she had retaliated by becalming the Achaean fleet and preventing the invading army from sailing to Troy. Agamemnon was advised that the goddess would relent and raise favourable winds, but only if Agamemnon sacrificed his eldest daughter Iphigenia. She was tricked into coming to Aulis with her mother Clytemnestra, under the guise that she was to marry Achilles there. Agamemnon committed the unspeakable act and the winds rose in the Achaeans’ favour. The dastardly father was repaid for his actions after the war when his wife Clytemnestra and Aegisthus, the lover she had taken during his ten year absence, murdered Agamemnon in his bathtub on the day that he returned to Mycenae from Troy. This story is not told in the Iliad, but it is interesting to note that the seer Calchas, who was the one who advised Agamemnon that he must sacrifice Iphigenia, was the same seer who advised him in Troy that he must return the girl Chryseis to her father.

            The most revered father in Homer’s Iliad was King Priam of Troy, son of Laomedon. He was thought to have been approximately eighty years of age and was the father of 50 sons and several daughters by his devoted wife Hecuba and several concubines. He was portrayed by Homer as the symbol of paternal love and wisdom. Priam stood on the ramparts of Troy with Helen and treated her as a loving father would treat his daughter. As they watched the battle rage below them, he gave her comfort.

“Come here dear child and sit with me so that you may gaze upon him who was your husband, your kinsmen and your friends. I do not blame you, but I do blame the gods who have riled up the Achaeans in terrible war against me.”

            Priam feared greatly for the safety of his son Hector and begged him not to fight Achilles on the open plain, but to come within the walls of Troy and to fight there in relative safety.

The old man wailed aloud and lifted his hands to strike himself on the head and called out a great lament and prayer to his dear son begging him to come back. But Hector stayed in front of the gates, for he was intent on doing battle with Achilles. The old man reached out his arms to him and begged him with pity. “Hector my beloved son, do not stand fast to meet this man by yourself and unprotected, or you will meet your fate under the hands of the son of Peleus, for he is much more powerful than you.”

            Later in the final book of the Iliad, we witnessed the true measure of Priam’s love as a father when he made his way to the tent of Achilles in the dead of night and begged for the release of his son’s body. He knelt at the feet of Achilles and kissed his hands.

“Remember your father O godlike Achilles, who is elderly like me and on the threshold of grievous old age. Those who live around him are likely treating him badly for there is no one around who can keep evil and havoc away from him. But I am sure he has joy in his heart when he hears that you are still alive and hopes from day to day that he will see his dear son returning from the land of Troy. But I am utterly hapless, seeing that I bore sons who were the best in all the broad land of Troy and yet now not even one of them is left.”

            We learn from later works, notably Vergil’s Aeneid, that Priam was eventually slain during the sack of the city, at the altar of Zeus in the citadel of Troy. The perpetrator was Pyrrhus the son of Achilles, who was also known as Neoptolemus.  Before killing the king with a sword blow in front of the altar, Pyrrhus first slew one of his sons. The brutal death of the Trojan father figure has been celebrated and memorialized in countless pieces of art and literary works over the centuries. His death is the ultimate symbol of the fall of Troy and the devastating impact of war.

            Priam’s son Hector was indeed the pre-eminent warrior among the Trojans but Homer also portrayed the hero as a loving father and devoted husband. In Book VI of the Iliad we find one of the most poignant scenes in all of Homer. Hector and his wife Andromache stood on the walls of Troy as they were saying farewell before the hero returned to the battlefield. While Andromache held their son Astyanax in her arms, she begged Hector not to return to battle lest she be made a widow and their son become an orphan. He told her of his fears but remained steadfast in his duty to protect the city and all its people. He then reached out to say goodbye to his child. Homer’s own words say it all.

And having spoken thus, the noble Hector reached out for his son, but the child screamed loudly and shrunk back into the bosom of his well-girdled nurse, frightened at the sight of his dear father and afraid of the horse-haired crest waving menacingly on the top of his bronze helmet. His dear father laughed, as did his regal mother. Immediately the illustrious Hector took the crested helmet off his head and lay it on the ground all glittering. Then he kissed his beloved son and fondled him in his arms and then he spoke, uttering a prayer to Zeus and all the other gods. “O Zeus and the other gods, grant me this that my son may become very great among the Trojans as I have, that he become powerful and great and indeed a ruler over Ilium. Let someone at some future time declare that he is much better than his father, as he returns from the war and let him carry away the bloody spoils of war, having killed the hostile man and let his mother rejoice for him in her heart.”

            Odysseus is presented to us by Homer as a father figure throughout the Odyssey, but an indication of his paternal instinct is found even prior to the time of the Trojan War. The story is told that Odysseus was very reluctant about making the journey to Troy and fighting on behalf of Menelaus to retrieve his wife Helen. Agamemnon sent Palamedes to Ithaca to convince Odysseus to join the war effort, but Odysseus feigned madness because he was aware of a prophecy that said it would take him a long time to return home if he ever went to Troy. He was reluctant to leave his wife Penelope and their newborn son Telemachus and so he pretended he was mad. He sowed his field with an erratic combination of an ox and a donkey hitched together and then scattered salt in the field instead of seed. Palamedes discovered he was faking insanity when he placed the baby Telemachus in front of the plow and Odysseus turned to avoid the child.

            The ongoing relationship or lack of it, between Odysseus and his son Telemachus, is an integral part of Homer’s Odyssey. Telemachus knows his father only by reputation since Odysseus left his home twenty years before when the young man was just a baby. Despite this fact, Telemachus is driven to be reunited with his father and likewise, Odysseus strives for ten years, suffering one hardship after another, to do nothing less than make his way back to Ithaca to his wife and son. Homer’s Odyssey is the story of a father searching for his son, the son searching for the father, and the final outcome when they at last meet.

            Homer makes an interesting point about fathers and sons early in the Odyssey when Athena speaks to Telemachus, having disguised herself as Mentor.

“Telemachus, from this point onwards you will be neither an inferior man nor lack understanding if you have any of your father’s spirit in you, he who did much in word and deed. Your journey shall be accomplished and not be in vain. But if you are not the child of that man and Penelope, then I have no hope that you will do what you desire eagerly. Few sons are truly like their fathers and most of them are worse and very few of them are better than their fathers.”

            Homer is telling us that sons do not become their fathers, although they are highly influenced by them. Familial traits are often passed down from one generation to the next but each succeeding generation establishes its own characteristics. In effect, Homer is telling us that human development is a combination of nature and nurture. But it is interesting to note within this context of most sons being worse than their fathers and few being better, that the line of Laertes, Odysseus and Telemachus proves the proverb incorrect.

            Odysseus stands forth as being the best of fathers as well as the best of sons. Homer clearly paints a picture of Odysseus being ‘better’ that his son Telemachus. Odysseus is the hero of the narrative, having excelled in the battle of the Trojan War, as well as having endured all things during his ten year return journey to Ithaca. In contrast, although he works to preserve his father’s kingdom and to protect his mother, Telemachus is portrayed as something of a weakling and not quite as ‘good’ as his father. If the proverb were correct, then we would expect to see the grandfather Laertes as ‘better’ than his son Odysseus. But that is not the case, for Homer paints the picture of Laertes, respected though he may be, as an old man who has cut himself off from the world, refuses to go into town, putters in his garden and forgets to wash or to change his clothes. In this case, the son Odysseus is ‘better’ than the father Laertes.

            In fact, Homer seems to position most of the heroes in his two epics as being superior to their fathers. Agamemnon and Menelaus, the sons of Atreus, outshine Atreus with their heroic deeds, although it must be admitted that Agamemnon is a terrible father who ultimately is killed by the mother of the daughter whom he sacrificed. Achilles, the son of Peleus is far greater than his father and Hector outshines his father Priam. The one exception to the rule is Paris who is by no means equal to or better than his father Priam. He is shown to be the cowardly adulterer who caused the Trojan War and ended up paying the price for his transgressions. The old sayings “like father, like son”, “chip off the old block” and “following in his footsteps” do not always hold true.

            In the Iliad and the Odyssey, Homer presents the father figure as one who represents heroes and warriors and a model for a son to follow if he wishes to become a good man in his own right. Fathers can be brave fighters, who achieve great glory on the battlefield and on the waves of the wine-dark sea, but at the same time, they can be loving and tender as when they hold their child in their arms and caress it before going off to war. A father can be absent from his son for twenty years and yet stand beside him and together take revenge on those who are intent on robbing their household and violating their women. A father can throw himself on his knees and humbly beg for the return of his son’s body, and kiss the hands of the very man who has slain him. We can summarize that Homer’s presentation of the concept of fatherhood in his two epics is an ongoing display of parental devotion. That level of devotion is what makes good fathers in the Iliad and Odyssey stand out as important and what serves to establish their ‘kleos’ or honour and their legacy.