The gods in the _Iliad_ play a very active and human part, and indeed
they may be said in a sense to be more human than the men themselves.
They are passionate, sensual, vindictive; they have no sense of fair
play, but are always ready to help their favourites by all means, fair
or foul. When Patroclus is to die, he is stripped of his armour and
beaten half senseless by Apollo, and delivered over in this helpless
state to Euphorbus and Hector; and Hector, in his turn, is cheated and
beguiled to his death by Athene. In the chariot race which is
described in the twenty-third book Athene wrecks the car of Eumelus to
secure the victory for Diomede; and the same goddess interferes in the
foot race on behalf of Odysseus, whom she loves like a mother. We have
already remarked, in the Introduction to the _Odyssey_, that the only
humorous scenes in the _Iliad_ are those in which the gods play the
chief or sole part. And, in fact, the want of dignity and decorum
which we find in these mighty beings is simply astonishing. The battle
of the gods, which is introduced with such pomp and parade, ends in the
broadest farce. In the fifth book, Ares roars and bellows like a beast
when he is wounded by the spear of Diomede, and Aphrodite, whose hand
has been scratched, goes whimpering and whining to her mother for
comfort. Only in a few passages do we find a great and worthy
conception of the divine nature--as in the famous lines in the first
book, when Zeus nods his immortal head confirming his oath to Thetis,
and in the sublime description of Poseidon at the beginning of the
thirteenth book.
At the head of the Olympian hierarchy stands Zeus the lord of the sky,
who divides with his brothers, Hades and Poseidon, the empire of the
universe. He is the highest in power and authority, and with him rests
the final decision in all the disputes of Olympus. But this genial and
patriarchal deity is not without his troubles: he rules over a
disorderly household, and his purposes are constantly thwarted by the
lesser powers who reign under him. In his heart of hearts he favours
Priam and the Trojans, but he is a fond and indulgent father and
husband, and Hera, his wife, and Athene, his daughter, cherish an
implacable hatred against Troy and all things Trojan. The reason for
this bitter animosity does not appear: for the judgment of Paris, which
is the cause assigned by later legends, is only mentioned in one
passage, of doubtful authenticity. Hera is described as a lady of
shrewish and vixenish temper; she will never be satisfied, says Zeus,
until she has gone down into Troy and eaten Priam and all his people
raw! Her human counterpart is Hecuba, who would like, she says, to
tear out the heart of Achilles, and devour it. On the side of the
Trojans are Apollo, Artemis, Hephæstus, the river-god Scamander, and
Leto.
Such are the gods of Homer, and such the national divinities of Greece.
For the poems of Homer and Hesiod, as Herodotus informs us, are the
chief sources of the popular theology. Small wonder, then, that the
more earnest minds of a later age were much occupied by the endeavour
to raise and purify the accepted mythology, or that Plato excludes
Homer, "the great magician," from his scheme of reformed education.