Athena in Homer

 

 Athena in Homer

One would not stray too far off the mark, having read the Iliad, in reaching the conclusion that it is the story of the goddess Athena playing a major role as an advisor and combatant in the Trojan War, or having studied the Odyssey, saying that it is the tale of the same goddess acting as a travel consultant to Odysseus and his son Telemachus. More than any of the other gods and goddesses, Athena was featured by Homer in the narratives of the two epics. In fairness, the Iliad and the Odyssey are not solely the story of Athena, but she plays a crucial role as a divine protagonist in both epics. The Iliad primarily focuses on Achilles and the Odyssey on Odysseus, but Athena actively supports Achilles and the Achaeans in the conflict and acts as an invaluable guide to Odysseus as he makes his way home to Ithaca. Both stories would be incomplete and shallow without the divine presence of Athena.

            In Greek mythology, Athena or Pallas Athena was the daughter of Zeus and his first wife Metis. She was said to have remarkable beauty and was often referred to as clear-eyed or blue-eyed. Athena was the patron goddess of Athens and of Greek cities in general, as well as being the patron of arts and handicrafts, especially weaving and spinning. But most importantly for our purposes, she was the ancient Greek goddess of wisdom, strategic warfare and courage and a supporter of heroes. She frequently guided and advised heroes throughout their trials, a role that distinguished her from the god of war Ares, who represented chaotic violence.

            Athena and Hera, the queen of the gods, worked tirelessly to assist the Achaeans during the Trojan War. There was only one reason why they did so – revenge. We have to hearken back to the great beauty contest that decided the “fairest” and remember the Judgement of Paris. In return for being granted the most beautiful mortal on earth, Helen the Queen of Sparta, the Trojan prince Paris selected in favour of Aphrodite over the other two contenders for the title, Hera and Athena. These two never forgave Paris for the slight they had received and worked diligently to ensure his demise and that of his people, the Trojans.

            In the Iliad, Homer presents Athena to us as a fierce and highly influential warrior who took a very active part in events because of her vendetta against Paris and his Trojans. She used her wisdom, strategy and power in numerous interventions on the battlefield and in discussions about the war on Mount Olympus. On the battlefront she participated as a combatant herself as well as a mentor and advisor to various Achaean fighters. In an advisory capacity, she cautioned Achilles against drawing his sword in anger against Agamemnon after the king had insulted him.

The bright-eyed goddess Athena then answered him. “I have come down from heaven to quell your rage if you will obey me. The white-armed goddess Hera has sent me here since she loves and cherishes both of you in her heart. So cease your anger and do not draw your sword from its sheath. Taunt him with words and tell him what will happen. For I say to you that this will truly come to pass. You will receive three times as many gifts because of his insolence towards you, but you must stand down now and obey us.”

            Athena was also the one who was successful in counselling Odysseus, himself the man of many counsels, into keeping the Achaeans steadfast when it was their intention to flee to their ships when Agamemnon’s plan to rouse their fighting spirit went awry.

Standing near him, bright-eyed Athena addressed him. “Zeus-born son of Laertes, o crafty Odysseus, will you thus flee home to your beloved fatherland having rushed to your well-benched ships? And will you leave in the hands of Priam and the Trojans the trophy of Argive Helen, on whose behalf so many Achaeans perished in Troy, far away from their homes? But go now to the people of the Achaeans and do not cease to compel each man by your gentle words to stop dragging the double-oared ships into the sea.”

            Unlike Ares who was consumed with bloodlust and brute force, Athena represented the intellectual, strategic and tactical side of warfare. For example, she managed to break a truce by convincing a Trojan archer Pandarus into shooting Menelaus and thereby reignited the fighting after she had helped Menelaus rout Paris in their duel. Her interventions were often clearly manipulative and designed solely for the benefit of the Achaeans. An example of her using her persuasive powers for evil purposes was when she tricked Hector into a situation where he was forced to fight with Achilles in one-to-one combat. She impersonated his brother Deiphobus in order to accomplish this deed.

Then the flashing-eyed goddess Athena answered him. “Honourable one, indeed my father and my queenly mother and all my comrades around me beseeched me much that I should stay there, for they were all trembling before him, but my own heart within me was overwhelmed with grief. Now straightaway let us charge at him and do battle and do not let up at all with your spears, until we know whether Achilles will kill us both and bear our bloody remains to the hollow ships, or whether he himself will be overcome by your spear.” By such words and craftiness Athena led him onwards.

            Diomedes, the Achaean killing machine caused havoc on the battlefield and slew Trojan warriors almost at will. When we dig into the circumstances of his success, we find that Athena was directing and actively assisting him at every juncture. She not only gave him strength and courage, but in addition she guided his weapons in flight so that they always met their mark. Athena was a most powerful goddess and she even helped Diomedes wound Ares and get him to back off from the fighting.

            Interestingly enough, the Trojans also worshipped Athena and in fact Hector advised his mother to offer prayers and sacrifices at her temple, in an attempt to get Athena to back the Trojan side in the war. In particular, the Trojan queen prayed to be spared from the wrath of Diomedes but the vengeful goddess refused.

Making a solemn vow, she raised her prayers to the daughter of great Zeus. “Blessed Athena, protector of the city and divine one of the goddesses, we pray that you will shatter the spear of Diomedes and make him to fall prone in front of the Scaean gates, so that we may be able to sacrifice to you twelve yearling heifers which have been untouched by the goad, if indeed you will show mercy to the city of Troy and our wives and infant children.” Thus she spoke in prayer but Pallas Athena threw back her head in refusal.

            Athena’s support was very definitely on the Greek side and she and Hera took every opportunity to support the Achaeans against their Trojan foes. Athena was in the heart of the action when Patroclus was fighting. She emboldened Menelaus and assisted Achilles. Homer tells us that she imbued Achilles with great strength. By her actions she also proved herself to be stronger than Ares and Aphrodite. She struck Ares to the ground and then upbraided him and afterwards Aphrodite fared no better at the hands of Athena.

“You fool, you still have yet to learn that I am mightier than you, you who try to match your strength against mine. Now you experience the full weight of your mother’s revenge, she who plots and takes arms against you for leaving the Achaeans behind and offering aid instead to the overbearing Trojans.”

Thus she spoke and she then grabbed both the other one’s hands by the wrist with her left hand and with her right hand she took the bow and its gear from her shoulders and with these same weapons she turned around and beat her about the ears, smiling all the while as she turned this way and that and the swift arrows fell out of her quiver.

            In the final analysis, Athena treated the Trojan War as more like a game of chess. She used her power and influence to shape the destiny of mortals on the battlefield and to ensure the victory of the Achaeans, thereby satisfying her need for revenge following the slight that Paris had given to her during the beauty contest. Her actions and their consequences served the purpose of demonstrating to Homer’s listeners the fact that divine intervention played a direct role in the outcome of human affairs.

            Athena’s role in the Odyssey is similar to the part that she played in the Iliad. As the goddess of wisdom and strategy she sometimes acted indirectly in providing guidance and inspiration to Odysseus and his son Telemachus, and at other times took a more direct approach such as when she influenced the other gods to allow Odysseus to leave Calypso’s island, or when she intervened directly with Nausicaa or assisted Odysseus in his bloody battle with the suitors. If her motivation in assisting the Achaeans in the Iliad was revenge, we can rightly ask what drove her on to help Odysseus and his family in the Odyssey. The answer is quite simply that she was enamoured with Odysseus. As the goddess of wisdom and strategy, she was attracted to a mortal who displayed the qualities that she stood for. The wily and crafty Odysseus, the man of many turns and counsels, was a man who appealed greatly to her and she took on the role as his divine protector and patron.

            Athena’s first direct action in assisting Odysseus was to plead for his release from Calypso with her father Zeus. She approached him on Olympus and made her case.

Then the goddess, the bright-eyed Athena, answered him. “O father of us all, son of Cronos, you who rank highest among the gods, truly that man lies in his own destruction and so too may any other be destroyed who does the same things. But my heart is torn in two on account of the ill-fated Odysseus, who, far from his friends, has long been languishing on a sea-surrounded island somewhere in the middle of the sea. A goddess makes her home on that wooded island, daughter of the mischief-making Atlas, he who knows the depths of all the oceans and who holds up the tall pillars which separate the earth and the heavens. It is his daughter who imprisons that wretched and sorrowful man and beguiles him with sweet and soft words that he might forget about Ithaca. But Odysseus, in his desire to see the smoke rising from his own land, yearns for death. Yet your heart does not see it O Olympian. Did not Odysseus offer you unlimited sacrifices beside the ships of the Argives in the land of Troy? Why, O Zeus, do you have such anger against him?”

            Zeus assured Athena that it was not him but Poseidon who stood in the way, angered because Odysseus had blinded his son Polyphemus. But he told her that if all the immortals banded together behind her cause, Poseidon would not be strong enough to go against them all. The father of the gods agreed to have a messenger sent to Calypso and Athena achieved her goal of setting the hero free from captivity. That was just the start however, and Odysseus would never have reached his home in Ithaca without Athena’s continued involvement.

            Athena’s next action was directed towards Telemachus, the son of Odysseus. She sped down from Olympus to the palace of Odysseus in Ithaca and took on a disguise so that she could provide guidance to the boy who was desperately seeking information about his missing father.

Then she darted down from the heights of Olympus and took up her place in the land of Ithaca, outside the front doorway of the home of Odysseus on the threshold of the court and in her hand she held the spear of bronze and appeared as a guest-friend and took on the likeness of Mentes, the leader of the Taphians.

            She offered Telemachus some shrewd advice on travelling to Pylos and Sparta to seek news of his father and to develop a plan to rid his home of his mother’s suitors. To help him carry out his task, she instilled him with might and bravery. She provided the boy with the inspiration that he needed to mature and to take action and helped him to gain the confidence and experience he needed to become a man and to develop his own Kleos.

Thus he spoke in prayer and Athena came near to him and took on the likeness of Mentor in looks and voice and spoke, talking to him with winged words. “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. But since from now on you will not be inferior nor lack understanding and the wisdom of Odysseus has not abandoned you, then there is hope that your work will be accomplished.”

            Nestor confirmed to all the great love that Athena bore Odysseus. She favoured him for his intelligence, cunning and strategic mind, qualities that mirrored her own as the goddess of wisdom and battle strategy. For this reason she loved him dearly and assisted him throughout his journey. In the words of King Nestor,

“Would that the flashing-eyed Athena loved you as much as she was anxious for the glorious Odysseus in the land of the Trojans where the Achaeans suffered the most pain. For never before I have seen such love shown by the gods as Pallas Athena demonstrated for him, standing by his side. If she were to love you in such a way and care for you like that in her heart, then the subject of marriage would escape the notice of all those men.”

            It was Athena who took command of the winds and made certain that Odysseus was able to land safely on Scheria, the land of the Phaeacians.

But Athena, the daughter of Zeus, had other plans. She stopped the blowing of the other winds and ordered them all to cease and desist but she roused up the swift North Wind and broke up the waves in front of him so that Zeus-fostered Odysseus might come to the land of the Phaeacians who loved to row and thereby escape from his fate and death.

          Once he was safely on shore and had rested, Athena made sure that Princess Nausicaa came to his rescue by instilling the girl with fortitude. Only the daughter of Alcinous held her place for Athena had instilled courage in her heart and had strengthened her limbs. She did not flee but stood and faced him. The goddess went one step further and enhanced the hero’s looks so that he would become more appealing to the princess.

Then Athena the daughter of Zeus made him look even taller and stouter and made the hair on his head look even curlier, similar to the blossoms of a hyacinth flower. Just like when a workman overlays silver with gold, a skilful craftsman who has been taught his trade by Hephaestus and Pallas Athena and his work is full of grace, so did the goddess spread such grace on his head and shoulders.

         Then Athena went throughout the town disguised as the king’s herald and drummed up support for the traveler. The townspeople gathered in the assembly and were quite taken with Odysseus, for the goddess had changed his looks considerably to increase his appeal.

Many of them marvelled at the sight of the son of Laertes, a seasoned warrior, for marvelous indeed was the grace that Athena had poured over his head and shoulders and she had made him taller and stronger to look at so that he might be welcomed by all the Phaeacians and win their respect and reverence and be able to do well in all the contests that the Phaeacians would use to try Odysseus.

          When Odysseus returned to Ithaca, Athena disguised him as an old beggar so that he could safely assess the situation in the palace and develop a plan to rid his home of the suitors and regain his throne. She then conspired with Odysseus and Telemachus and advised them on the best tactics to use to overthrow the suitors. During the battle with the suitors the goddess took on an active role in the fighting by deflecting a number of the spears hurled by the enemy. Though she helped them achieve the victory, she ensured that glory in doing so rested with the father and his son and not with the goddess.

          In the final book of the Odyssey, the families of the defeated and slain suitors gather together to seek revenge against Odysseus and his son for the massacre of their relatives. In one last intervention, Athena accomplished the task of preventing further bloodshed and restored peace in the land and order in the kingdom.

Then flashing-eyed Athena spoke to Odysseus. “Zeus-fostered son of Laertes, resourceful Odysseus, restrain yourself and make an end to any strife that resembles war, lest the son of Cronos becomes angry with you, namely Zeus whose voice is heard from afar.” So spoke Athena and he was persuaded and was gladdened at heart. And then for all time to come, a solemn oath between the two sides was made by Pallas Athena, daughter of the aegis-bearing Zeus, she who bore the likeness of Mentor, both in form and in voice.

With regard to the Iliad, we said that Athena’s actions and their consequences served the purpose of demonstrating to Homer’s listeners the fact that divine intervention played a direct role in the outcome of human affairs. The same is true of the Odyssey, for Athena’s role in this epic highlighted the theme of divine intervention. She also demonstrated the importance of cleverness over brute force and this was borne out by the actions of Odysseus. In the case of Telemachus, the goddess assisted the youth in transitioning from boyhood to manhood. She helped both the father and the son each fulfill their destinies. Mortals needed to learn and grow from the choices that they made in their lifetimes, but in the case of Athena, the goddess stood ready to actively guide those whom she favoured toward their fated outcomes.