Homer’s Iliad occupies an interesting space in Classical studies for a multitude of reasons, including, but not limited to, the dynamic suspense it generates as an epic with a predetermined ending. Despite the palpable inevitability of the fall of Troy, both the heroes as well as generations of witnesses hold out hope for an alternate outcome, acting as mirrors to each other. As one journeys through the Trojan and Achaean ranks, they get to experience the character’s internal struggle in making decisions that change the course of the war to no significant avail. However, by book twenty-four there is a resounding understanding that fate will play out as it is supposed to, not in spite of but due to individual actions that will always fall in line with the greater scheme.
This divine will is what Sheila Murnaghan aims to explicate in her 1997 article titled “Equal Honor and Future Glory: The Plan of Zeus in the Iliad.” She uses textual evidence from literature surrounding Homeric tradition to bring to light the strings of fate spun by Zeus as he puppeteers Achilles to accomplish his own ends. According to Murnaghan, the epic, like its peers, is set to the background of the notion of dios boulē or the “plan of Zeus” which is the mythologically cosmic level endeavor by the God to mitigate excessive earthly population. This argument is supported by an examination of the epic's structure and the Greek heroic ethos, both of which underscore the relentless yet ever elusive pursuit towards glory.
By assessing these persistent motifs, this paper will analyze Murnaghan’s scholarship and its ability to substantiate her thesis. The review will also explore the strengths and potential oversights of Murnaghan's emphasis on the interplay between divine will and human action, particularly her assertion on the synonymity of the fates and Zeus. By critically engaging with her article, the paper aims to ultimately contribute to the rich repository of academic discourse on destiny and free will in the Iliad.
Murnaghan begins by highlighting the importance of the idea of mortality within Classical mythology and underscores its role as the divisive line between humans and gods – the lack of mortality is what gives deities continuous power but it is the presence of human mortality that substantiates godly superiority. For the divine therefore, the presence of the death of individuals is as important as the persistent survival of the race as a whole. Murnaghan evidences this paradox with myths that predate the Trojan wars, stories that gave man “technology, agriculture, sexual reproduction, and the capacity to appease the gods through sacrifice” which helped his kin stay alive. Yet in each of the instances she presents, there exists the looming figure of Zeus and a show of his wrath or ultimate power which illustrates individual mortality. What these tales, like those of Prometheus and fire or Persephone’s abduction, also have in common is their lack of a decisive victory for one side or the other – humans get to keep fire despite Prometheus’s agony and Demeter gets her daughter back but only for part of the year. For Murnaghan, the tension created by compromise and a lack of clear conclusion is exactly what helps perpetuate the continuous cycle of the “plan of Zeus.”
In the Iliad, which begins with an understanding between Achilles and Zeus to avenge the former’s honor against Agamemnon, Murnaghan argues that a similar structure is seen. Despite the perceived simplicity of the agreement, it is anything but straightforward. In the chronology that succeeds the reestablishment of honor, Achilles loses his dear friend Patroclus and the momentary victory of usurping Agamemonon’s pride is clouded by intense grief. The loss of a comrade beckons Achilles to seek revenge on Hektor which ultimately foreshadows his own death. Thus, one can observe how the “plan of Zeus” functions by setting in motion a cascading series of events that all have the ultimate aim of creating as much death as possible while leaving room for further conflict.
This leads into the second theme that Murnaghan focuses on – glory. While Zeus may set in motion events that emphasize human mortality, he himself is not the agent of chaos. That role is reserved for the Archaic Greek hero who is both born into valor and must continuously prove it, living only on the hope of reaching social distinction after death. There is no respite from the churn of war, it being “fueled by an endless supply of open questions about the merits of the participants, experienced by them as a continuous deprivation of the stable sense of identity on which they depend.” The prolongation of the war is a result of this fickle social dynamic where the heroes are always charging into battle to prove or defend their superiority over the enemy. Instances of such behavior are seen in the many pauses of the fighting in the Iliad where combat is replaced by duels which were to decide a decisive victor. These moments of truce never last long, in book three Pandarus is convinced to shoot a lone arrow for an attempt at glory which reinvigorates the fight, and in book seven Nestor attacks the heroic character of the Achaeans till Ajax is chosen for the duel with Hektor that ultimately culminates in a draw.
“I were young now, as then, and the strength still steady within me; Hektor of the glancing helm would soon find his battle. But you, now who are the bravest of all the Achaians, are not minded with a good will to go against Hektor.”
In each of these instances the reader gets a glimpse into the precarious social structure that has mortals vying for a chance to “bring on their own deaths.” Murnaghan is also of the opinion that each such pause in fighting gives the combatants a chance to recuperate so that further, more intense, bloodshed may ensue.
Apart from the diplomatically agreed pauses, each camp also follows the decree of the sun and breaks for the day at dark to indulge in a post combat feast. This tradition is one built on “cooperative virtue” and marks a stark contrast from the individualistic, undying desire for glory. However, a collaborative environment does not discount the omnipresent social currents that have heroes constantly trying to establish themselves as more worthy than their peers. In this context, instead of explicit shows of strength, honor and superiority are relegated to their material domain and where virtues are demonstrated through the division of goods. Achilles, during his self imposed exile away from the Achaeans, has time to think about this culture of camaraderie that is inherently unequal – everyone gets a fair share of food regardless of whether they deserve it or not. This custom of tangible disparity goes beyond the nightly feast and is reflective in all the ransacking that punctuates the end of every antagonistic episode of war. It is exemplified very well by Agamemnon’s withholding of Briseis which sets the trajectory of the Iliad in motion because of the way the act subjugates Achilles by denying him his rightful goods. Incomplete fulfillment is what drives the hero to fight, and for Achilles, once that disillusionment is broke, war loses purpose:
“Fate is the same for the man who holds back, the same if he fights hard.
We are all held in a single honor, the brave with the weaklings.
A man dies still if he has done nothing, as one who has done much.”
This statement in book nine, as Achilles refuses Agamemnon's gifts and deference, is a good characterization of Murnaghan’s analysis of the way heroic ideals fail the mortal fighter: “No number of gifts can be equated with the loss of his life, but it is always the case that the rewards of heroic endeavor, whether material gifts, social privileges, or poetic commemoration, come in a currency markedly different from the expenditures of effort through which they are currently earned.” This assertion leads back into the larger “plan of Zeus” which uses the instability created by a social environment where one's own distinction is directly correlated with the opponents losses, to create an allure for a militaristic death over a normal one. By providing the facade that a mortality which exposes the temporality of humanity is greater than one that does not, Zeus is able to further his plan without much active involvement.
As the epic progresses, the readers gain insight into what Achilles had come to realize in the wake of the death of Patroclus: “A heroic death, however distinguished, is not ultimately different from any other death.” Murnaghan highlights this sentiment through an exposition of the final books in the Iliad where Hektor’s body is continually assaulted by Achilles in the vain hope of exacting some revenge for his late comrade – nothing will ever be equal to Patroclus’s sacrifice, not in the least the gifts of Priam. As the final truce of the epic is reached and funeral rites conducted, the audience is explicitly made aware of a pattern that Murnaghan believes to underlie the mythological cosmos as a whole where Zeus gives and takes in equal measures: “Achilles conveys the ambiguity of Zeus’s plan, which incorporates both the pressures that induce human beings to invite their own deaths and the blessings that mitigate the hardships of mortal life.” During the last moments of respite and the final Trojan ode to Hektor, there is an underlying certainty to the cruel warfare that is yet to unfold, and the deaths that are yet to come.
Furthermore, by concluding the epic with death for a Trojan rather than victory of the Achaeans, Homer implies the sequence of fate that is still impending all while mirroring the natural rhythm of life where the end is echoed by death. It showcases the fickle nature of mortality the dios boulē emphasizes and the open-ending helps situate the epic “as one more chapter in Zeus’s endless scheme.”
As one can observe in this brief iteration of Murnghan’s big arguments, she traces the running themes of glory and mortality along with an analysis of the structure of the poem to substantiate her compelling thesis on the pervasiveness of dios boulē in the classical tradition. However, despite the expansive range of her arguments she fails to account for selected instances within the epic that might refute her collusion of fate and Zeus as the same entities.
An important instance of the above issue can be seen in her omission of the issue of Sarpedon. This is especially telling since it marks the one place where Zeus was willing to make an exception to his supposed inclination towards excessive death. His desire to save his own son and present him with a long life goes against the ethos of Zeus as a force for human mortality. It would also constitute a large interference on his part since the cascade of events determined by fate posits that Sarpedon must die at the hands of Patroclus for the rest of the sequence to play out and culminate in the ultimate demise of Achilles. In book sixteen, Hera also cautions Zeus against saving his own kin:
“Majesty, son of Kronos, what sort of thing have you spoken? Do you wish to bring back a man who is mortal, one long since Doomed by his destiny, from ill-sounding death and release him?”
This particular quotation is interesting because it presents Zeus and the fates as separate entities, while Murnaghan leans towards an interpretation of the God himself controlling destiny. Whereas many scholars stand firmly in one opinion or the other, J. V. Morrison presents a reconciliation of the dichotomy Murnaghan in his paper on Kerostasia which concludes that while the Iliad presents a seemingly preordained set of events, the frequent allusion to potential alternatives and the active deliberation by the gods on these events inject a sense of contingency and offer a nuanced portrayal of agency in the epic. This suggests that the concept of fate in the Iliad is not a rigid structure but one that accommodates the gods’ deliberations and potential for change, reflecting the complexity of fate in the Classical worldview.
Another interpretation that Murnaghan fails to take into account is the way narrative structure itself forces the will of Zeus – where despite the God’s perceived agency, he is working within the constraints of an expansive epic tradition that posits certain untenable laws. Again, this is a crucial observation because of Murnaghan's continual reliance on the structure of the Iliad as evidence for the “plan of Zeus.” She uses the many pauses of combat in the tale as methods to prolong the war and increase casualties on both sides but does not attempt to consider their role as literary factors. There is indeed a case to be made for the utility of the dynamics within the poem which might have been used to disseminate contemporary ideals of moral edification or for the benefit of the many Greeks who traced their lineage back to the Achaean heroes. The scholar Joe Wilson, assesses this notion through the indifference of Zeus in book twenty. As the gods take up arms and insert themselves into battle with unfettered acceptance from their ruler, Wilson asserts that “the detached concern evinced by Zeus here accords well with the notion that his will is not merely the plot of the poem, but also a metonymy for the will of the poet. For what else has the poet evinced throughout the work but this same paradoxical attitude – an unflinching description of the worst horrors of war, offset to a certain extent by the brilliant similes that restore humanity.”
While a more nuanced consideration of the different roles Zeus takes on as he chases his larger supposed scheme would have helped solidify Murnaghan’s article, the scholarship remains compelling due to its ability to integrate discrete events within the Iliad into one large divine plan. Her refusal to treat the instances in the story the skew towards an interpretation of a more human and restricted Zeus are generally well mitigated by evidence that encompasses the entire chronology of the epic. It is worth noting that the comprehensive nature of her scholarship is what invites critique since the insistence on divine will provides a framework to benchmark counter arguments surrounding fate and inevitability in the poem. In conclusion, while Murnaghan's analysis significantly contributes to the broader understanding of Zeus's role in the Iliad, it also opens the door for further exploration into the multifaceted nature of fate, divine will, and human endeavor in classical literature.
Bibliography
- Burn, Lucilla. Greek Myths. University of Texas Press, 1990.
- Dunn, Francis M., Don Fowler, Deborah H. Roberts, and Sheila Murnaghan. “Equal Honor and Future Glory: The Plan of Zeus in the Iliad.” Essay. In Classical Closure: Reading the End in Greek and Latin Literature, 23–42. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1997.
- Heiden, Bruce A. “Structures of Progression in the Plot of the Iliad.” Arethusa 35, no. 2 (2002): 237–54. https://doi.org/10.1353/are.2002.0017.
- Lattimore, Richard. The Iliad of Homer. University of Chicago Press, 1951.
- Morrison, J. V. Homeric misdirection: False predictions in the" Iliad". University of Michigan, 1988.
- Morrison, J. V. “‘Kerostasia’, The Dictates Of Fate, And The Will Of Zeus In The ‘Iliad.’” Arethusa 30, no. 2 (1997): 273–96. http://www.jstor.org/stable/44578099.
- Wilson, Joseph P. “Homer and the Will of Zeus.” College Literature 34, no. 2 (2007): 150–73. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25115425.
Originally written Fall 2024