The Ancient Greek Fate : The Role Of Fate

Human factors are involved wildly in human behaviors and various social systems, including social laws and religion doctrines. Just like what I mentioned previously, scientists believe that the human life is pre-determined and human’s behavior is inevitable. They consider that if someone has all the information of one person, he or she may get to know how he or she is going to change in advance. But from the point of view throughout the history of human society people often turn to emphasize personal responsibility. Law and legal penalties for criminals act based entirely on the idea of individual “free will”. Most Jewish and Christian also believed that individuals should be responsible for the crime and suspects should be punished. We can imagine a psychology professor who believes determinism would say to a student: "You have to concentrate to your study, otherwise you will get nothing!" You can see the contradiction of human behaviors from this typical and ironic statement above, and notice that there exists a deviation between theoretical knowledge and actual human behaviors.

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.

In ancient Greek literature, fate is defined as the course a person’s life will take that is predetermined and can’t be changed by mortals or even the gods, and destiny is the outcomes that will ultimately be produced by one’s actions, social status, character, etc. Homer’s The Odyssey and Euripides’ Medea portrays their protagonists on a quest to reach their fate, but they first must take their destiny into their own hands in order to achieve this goal. The texts suggest that humans use their personal traits and values as weapons to gain control of one’s destiny instead of letting the gods or social norms dictate their lives. Both of the texts start out in a similar fashion with the

    Fate seems to defy humanity at every turn.  A man may have his life planned out to the last second, but then some random force intervenes and he dies the second after he has completed his life plan.  Some believe in fate, believing that our lives are predetermined from the moment we are born.  Other people believe that everything is random, the result of some god rolling the dice in a universal poker game.  Still other people believe that each and every person is in total control of his or her destiny, every step of the way.  Who is to say which viewpoint is false?  Every culture has a unique perception of the role of fate in our lives, and no group has the "right answer," simply a

It is consistently difficult to understand in old world literature, from Homeric epics to Virgil's work, The Aeneid, what the relation of fate is to the Pantheon of gods. There seems to be an ongoing debate within the texts discussing whether "fate" is the supreme ruling force in the universe and the controlling element of the lives of men, or whether fate is the will of the king of gods, Jupiter. In, The Aeneid, several situations and instances of the use of fate are presented to the reader. The direction and destination of Aeneas's course are preordained, and his various sufferings and glories in battle and at sea over the course of the epic merely postpone his unchangeable destiny.

In Antigone, Sophocles is teaching his audience about a human's ability to control his or her fate, as a result of Antigone and Creon having wanted to control their fate lead them to a tragic and unexpected downfall. A very important part in tragedies is fate. The characters usually alway have an end set and there are hints as to how their destinies will end as well as to when it would occur. In many cases though, a character recognizes their fate and reacts to it, in other cases the characters just learns to accept their fate because it is meaningful to them or they believe it is inevitable.

Within Homers’ The Iliad and The Odyssey, the relationship between the will of the gods, and the will of the mortals is a recurring theme. The Greek gods, who support and infuse mortals with strength, are shown to have many ideas about what the future holds. To what extent are these ideas proof of the future? If mortals are fated to do something from the gods, do they have any choice, or free will, in the matter? The gods are involved in the lives of their favorite mortals, and through that, many prophecies and seemed fates surface. Fate is a suggestion from the gods which mortals interpret with a selfish blamelessness.

Fate is an old debated concept. Do one's actions truly play a role in determining one's life? Is fate freedom to some or is it binding to others, in that no individual can make completely individual decisions, and therefore, no one is truly free. Nowadays, fate is a subject often rejected in society, as it is seen as too big, too idealistic, and too hard to wrap a persons head around. However, at the time of Antigone, the concept was a terrifying reality for most people. Fate is the will of the gods, and as is apparent in Antigone, the gods' will is not to be questioned. Much of Sophocles' work focuses on the struggle between human law and what is believed to be the god’s law. Fate was an unstoppable force and it was assumed that any

The concept of fate and the influence of gods on mortals’ lives are prominent aspects of Greek mythology. While the gods of Olympus are commonly presented as the primary manipulators of human lives, the Fates are the true creators of destiny. Gods may be able to affect human lives in monumental ways, but predetermined destiny and the Fates’ intentions ultimately reign. The gods have respect for this authority, as well, as they’re aware that a limit on their ability to intervene is necessary to maintain the order of the universe. This leaves one to question the amount of knowledge that the gods themselves have of fate, and whether they have their own free will to refrain from intervening or if they truly must submit to the authority of the Fates and their plans. The gods do have some knowledge of the Fates’ plan, but they are also wise enough to avoid too much interference and therefore don’t necessarily need to be commanded; they sometimes help guide mortals by sending them messages and symbols—and sometimes even influencing them for their own advantage—but ultimate fate cannot be avoided.

* The role of fate is an extremely important one. It determines whether we live or die. Fate is also an extremely powerful aspect of life as we can see (as demonstrated in Book XVI) that not even the gods can intervene with fate, showing us exactly how powerful it is. We can see this when Apollo prevents Patroclus from breaking through the gates of Troy.

What is fate? Fate is the development of events beyond a person's control, regarded as determined by a supernatural power. Fate for Sophocles is less about the external human being but something ingrained in them and transcendent. Prophets and higher stature characters in this play show the will of the gods and indicate future events, but the individual is the one who gives substance to the prophecies. There is an element of freedom granted to human beings, an ability to choose if the gods are powerless. A fatalistic world view, seeking in the non-human forces may be irrational and often an unhealthy force. The two views in this story, the first being negative and the second, having a fatalistic view of life. Having a fatalistic view of life

     Fate, in the Ancient Greek and Roman world, was one of the great unchangeable powers that stand above even the gods in the hierarchy of supernatural forces. The Greeks and Romans thought that the Fates were three ancient women who spun the web of destiny together. Each man’s life is a thread, and the fates would draw it out and cut it as they saw fit. The gods themselves had to obey the Fates, for even they had golden threads. Fate plays a very large role in Virgil’s epic The Aeneid. Aeneas, the central character, knows from the beginning of his journey that he will ultimately found Rome. This is not to suggest that fate has chosen him in an arbitrary manner. Aeneas is destined to be great because he

In the Aeneid, fate is an all-powerful force. While characters do have the free will to resist their destiny, it is also common knowledge that what fate decrees

Perhaps the most significant example of the importance of fate in The Aeneid happens in Book VI; the golden branch. Aeneas and his fleet arrive on the coast on Cumae in search of the Sibyl at the Temple of Apollo. Following his father’s instructions, Aeneas asks the Sibyl to gain him entrance to Dis so he may visit his father’s spirit. However, in order to enter Dis with any possibility of returning, Aeneas must first locate a sign to gain him access across the Acheron River. The Sibyl then explains to Aeneas that the sign is a golden branch in a nearby forest, if the branch breaks off the tree easily then fate awards Aeneas a pass into the underworld. If the branch does not break off then Aeneas is not destined to go.

Fate was a way for the Greeks to explain how little control humans had over their lives. Fate was not one god, in fact, fate belonged to three sisters: Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos. One spun the thread of life, the other assigned to each their destiny, and the last carried scissors to snip the thread signaling the end of life. These three sisters feature in many, if not all the Greek myths. What was clear from these stories is that nothing can alter, modify or extend your destiny, everything is decided beforehand (Guerber,