Homer’s treatment of Olympian gods and goddess in The Iliad

In the period of Homer, gods and goddess were the main elements of all kinds of literature. In the Iliad, Homer builds a temple of gods and goddess who remain in the background of the story. In this epic, Homer has anthropomorphized these gods and goddess with all human emotions anger, jealousy love etc. The only difference is that gods and goddesses are immortals while humans are mortals. In the Iliad,

we find more than a dozen gods and goddess some of whom support the Greek soldiers and some support the Trojans.

The story of the epic The Iliad is war between the Trojan and the Greek. And all the gods and goddess took part directly or indirectly in this war. Homer is utterly cynical about the gods and goddess. At the very beginning of the epic we see Zeus’ sympathy for Achilles. When Zeus became aware of Achilles discontent caused by Agamemnon’s taking away Brieseis, he immediately assure Achilles’ mother Thetis that he must punish the Achaeans for the sake of her son. When Thetis departed, Zeus entered into his place, where other gods and goddess were present. All of them stood up to show respect to Zeus.

In the Iliad the gods and goddess are too much concerned with human affairs. They are not like those of Tennyson’s who are careless of mankind. All through the poems we can notice the god’s interference in human affairs. During Trojan War, they very often held a meeting to determine the destiny of the warriors. For example in Book-IV, we find that Zeus sits in a conference with other gods and goddess and takes the decision that truce between the Trojans and the Achaeans should be broken and both the parties should involve in struggle again.

Again in Book-VIII, Zeus calls a meeting and orders all the gods and goddess not to join the human battle. But he himself favours the Trojans, so the Trojan army kills a large number of the Achaean soldiers. But Athene and Hera cannot tolerate this. They become jealous and decide to help the Achaeans. The hostility of Hera and Athena to Troy was connected originally with the story of judgment of Paris. Hearing this Zeus forbids them by sending Iris. Thus we see that gods and goddess are also jealous like man.

In the Iliad, the gods and goddess not only help the mortals by inspiring them, but also save men by taking active parts in the battle. In Book-XIII, when Zeus was sleeping on Mount Ida, the sea-god Poseidon comes to the aid of the Achaeans and disguised as Calchas. On the other hand, Ares prepares to go to the aid of the Trojans but is calmed by Athena. Zeus awakens and becomes furious. He sends Iris to order Poseidon to leave the battle and Apollo is sent to heal the wounds of Hector and to lead the Trojans in the battle. For Zeus has decided to give victory to Troy, keeping his promise to the mother of Achilles.

Homer uses gods and goddess to show the subjection of man to forces beyond human control and the edifying contrast between the frivolous but at the same time they have all too human weakness and motivations and this makes them an effective source of comic relief through out the epic.

Concisely, we would like to say that Homer has given us a distinct picture of Olympian gods and goddess on the model of a human race with Zeus of Jupiter at its head. Gods and men formed one society in the Homeric age. In many respects there ware many striking similarities between the gods and the mortals. It is what we say in common idiom: “Give and take policy.”