Free Will In The Iliad

In Song of Achilles Patroclus and Achilles face the fact that knowing their fate doesn’t scare them; it enhances their perception of the war and their relationship; while their own free will makes the book compelling and down to earth as we read it in their own perspective.

In almost all instances of war the cause has been related to greed, or the gaining of land and possessions. Greed is presented in the very first book of Homer’s “The Iliad.” It isn’t displayed by the cowards, but the “heroes” of the war such as Agamemnon, Achilles, and Pandarus. The entire cause of the Trojan War is the result of the greedy and cowardly behavior of Paris. There are many factors that had sparked the war, including the interference of the gods; however, the main factor to be blamed for the war is greed.

Free will is represented by the choices able to be made by those involved in the myth. In example, when the suitors take over the house of Odysseus, the choices they make to be disgusting, rude, and vile hits them with the violent repercussions that they deserve, meaning slaughter at the hand of Odysseus and his men. The Gods had the choice to interfere with the choices that the suitors were making, but knew that once Telemachus told Odysseus of how

The Odyssey is a good example of how fate and free will are interwoven.. In the Odyssey the gods are responsible for controlling many aspects of where the story goes, but the people still have to choose to go. The gods in the Odyssey are who held Odysseus captive for over eight years. They were responsible for his capture in the first place but then refused to let him go for 8 years. They were responsible for his capture and then refused to let him go for almost a decade. When they finally decided to let him go, they told kalypso, his captor. However Odysseus still had to chose to leave. Kalypso tried to keep him with her by offering immortality. “You would stay here, and guard this house, and be immortal” (Homer 267). Odysseus could have stayed but he chose to go. Some say that the gods knew Odysseus would not stay, and that is why they chose to let him go. However Knowledge of a fat does not take away from the fact Odysseus hose himself. That difference between having fate and accepting fate is free will.Once

Fate and free will played major parts in creating the characters and stories in many of the Greek mythologies and tragedies. The Greeks believes that the Gods and the Oracle's could predict a person's fate before or after birth, and that no one, even the Gods could intervene in that person's fate. They also believed that a person's or God could not create their own fate. This belief stems from the three fates: sisters, The Moirai or Fates were three sister deities, incarnations of destiny and life. Because of these three old women, fate could not be avoided or altered. As such with these stories, in the Iliad fate leads Achilles down his path of glory and his early demise, and cause Oedipus to sleep with his own mother and kill his father. Free will is the power of acting without constraint and fate; acting by one's own decisions. Even though Achilleus and Oedipus have fate, they both also have free will. For instance, Achilles has a double fate: if he goes home, he will live long without glory or if he stays at Troy, he will have lots of glory, but a short life. As such, in Sophocles Oedipus the King, when Oedipus was born he was fated to kill his father and lay with his mother, thought his ability of free will caused his fate to come true.

During the difficult journey Odysseus went through, he solely relied on his strong courage to get through the hard times. When Odysseus and his crew met the cyclopes, he was very intimidating, one because he was much larger than the humans and he could easily kill them all. “His hands reached out and seized two of them, and smashed them to the ground like puppies” Odysseus was surely frightened by this act but, he showed no fear and instead he made a plan to slay the “pitiless hearted” cyclopes.

Portions of modern society believe fate to be concrete and unchanging. However, in ancient times, it was believed to be influenced and guided by the actions of the gods. Similarly, in The Iliad by Homer, the actions of the gods influence the life, death, and fate of each and every individual. Gods such as Zeus, Athena and Apollo take great influence in human affairs in The Iliad. These actions cause life, death, sorrow, and triumph to befall various individuals of the story. Achilles’ fate results, solely, from these actions the gods undertake. In particular, the gods influence on Achilles’ fate shows when the gods keep Achilles from killing Agamemnon, staying out of the war, and holding onto his rage.

(Destiny, Fate and Free Will in Homer's Odyssey). Once the gods have set the “fate” of certain people they let the event unfold. The gods do interfere with the lives of the mortals, but that never fully

In both the Aeneid and the Iliad their main characters were chosen by gods because they have gained favor. Aeneas and Achilles were chosen because they were destined to fulfill a journey. The gods in both works directed the lives of mortals, but, were also very specific on who they would help. The gods determined the destiny of the mortals. Achilles and Aeneas are similar in the sense that they have become favorable in the eyes of the gods, partially because of their divine nepotism but also because they stand out from ordinary men by having a great military and physical prowess.

The events in Oedipus show that his past actions were determined by fate but what he did in Thebes, he did on his own free will. Oedipus’ actions, temper, impulsive nature and pride, as well as his erroneous judgment show free will. Personality is what decided their own free will. In Oedipus’ case, one of these was the desire for knowledge and truth about his life. This driving force in the play led to the truth of his origin. This ties in with his own aspect of free will. His free will is based on his drive for knowledge.

Greek culture's ideas on fate manifested themselves largely through their mythology.  The length of a person's life, they believed, was determined by the three Fates, Clotho (spinner), Lachesus (Apportioner), and the fearsome Atropos (Inflexible).  These aged children of Zeus and Themis-- know to the Greeks at the Moirai--would unscrupulously spin out, measure, and cut the thread of one's life.  The balance of power between these three women and their father Zeus is difficult to understand.  In Book XXVI of The Iliad, we see the king of the gods fretting over the impending death of his mortal son Sarpedon.  Unable to cope with the idea of his noble child's death, Zeus inquires of Hera "Shall I pluck [Sarpedon] up, now, while he's still alive... or beat him down at Patroclus' hands at last" (Iliad 16.519-21).  In the end, Zeus allows Sarpedon to be slain as the Fates have willed.  Though Zeus has the power to override his daughters, the great orderer of the cosmos sees that doing so in this case would be beyond reason.

Homer used pride as the tragic flaw that Achilles learned to overcome, whereas Virgil used a sense of duty as Aeneas’s tragic flaw. Homer portrayed Achilles as arrogant because he allowed his men to fight a battle he knew they could not win without him. Achilles asked his mother for Zeus to favor the Trojans so that he could regain the honor that he felt Agamemnon stripped away. Aeneas’s tragic flaw unlike Achilles was his sense of duty, which in turn he encountered pitfalls during his escape from Troy. Achilles battled for personal glory and his own honor as a warrior whereas Aeneas spent his time attempting to fulfill his mission, which forced him to invade and conquer, a duty given to him by the gods. “Virgil unites and conjoins all the virtues in the formation of his hero: He gives him religion towards the gods, piety towards his country, tenderness and friendship towards his relations, and equity and justice towards all” (Rapin). On the contrary, Homer magnified the tragic flaw in Achilles, which cost him his sanity because he became obsessive with revenge. Although Aeneas’s flaw appears minor in comparison to Achilles, it led him to be an instrument of gods, which in turn destroyed innocent lives. Mercury appeared to Aeneas to remind him of his mission and told him, “Oblivious of your own world, your own kingdom…He [Zeus] and no other sent me to you…Think of the

Homer’s epic The Iliad, is a great tale of war and glory. It takes place during the last year of the ten year Greek-Trojan war. The Greeks have been fighting with the Trojans for quite some time, and just when peace seemed like a possibility, the youngest prince of Troy, Paris, acts out selfishly and steals the beautiful wife of Menelaus, Helen. This instigates the fighting again. Throughout The Iliad, Homer tells of two heroes, both similar, but also very different in their character; the great and powerful Greek, Achilles, and the strong, loving father, Prince Hector of Troy. In Homer’s The Iliad, Hector and Achilles differ as heroes in regards to pride, duty, and family love, the latter being self-centered and prideful, while the

It is not uncommon for the gods to make appearances in the Iliad, and Achilles is no exception. He receives help from the supernatural on multiple occasions, much like an epic hero would. The most significant divine intervention Achilles received was by Athena, the goddess of wisdom. “Now let’s get tough and fight and not spare Any spears. Either Achilles kills us both…Or he goes down with your spear in his guts,” Athena said to Hector, pretending to be Deiphobus which deceives Hector into fighting Achilles (Puchner Book XXII, 270-272). There is no arguing whether or not Achilles received help from the gods, as he did on multiple occasions. Athena even helps him again in his battle versus Hector by returning his spear after a missed throw. It is the actions like these that craft Achilles into an epic hero, he isn’t asking for the help, but he receives it anyways because it is his destiny to become the epic hero. At points such as these, it seems as if mortal men don’t have much control over their destiny and that the gods are manipulating the outcomes. This can also be seen when Athena prevents Achilles from attack Agamemnon.

Central to any study of the humanities is the human condition – our nature, which has historically shown that it is equally capable of both good and evil deeds – and the problem that arises from it; specifically, why do humans suffer? Many philosophies and religions have their own account for this aspect of humanity, and we find that what the accounts have in common is each explains the human condition in terms that are similar to how that institution of thought explains the true nature of reality.