TFST: Casey Due and Beyond Destiny

    

The Center for Hellenic Studies and the Kosmos Society are hosting an on-line interactive presentation by Casey Due on Achilles and Aeneas ‘beyond fate’: An exploration of Iliad 20    The event is on Thursday, May 3, at 11:00 a.m. EDT. 

In preparation; I read the recommended pre-work.   Focusing on the hyper-morons trying to do something beyond fate.  (Sorry, I just love the pun and will say it every time I get a chance for the rest of my life.)

The opening scene in Iliad 10 is;

 “1] Thus, then, did the Achaeans arm by their ships...while the Trojans over against them armed upon the rise of the plain.” 

 Which I thought was great foreshadowing of the gods doing the same since Scroll 20 is the beginning of the Theomachy.  Instead we get a scene very similar to Agamemnon and Nestor organizing a council.

“Zeus from the top of Olympus with its many valleys, bade Themis gather the gods in council, [5] whereon she went about and called them to the house of Zeus.”

This feels like Mecone; where the gods drew lots to divide the world among themselves and also divide up their privileges and honors.  (Callimachus, frag 119; Theogony 881; Olympian Ode 7.54). This must be important.  A new dispensation?  As we will see it is the temporary suspension of a divine law.  When his brother Poseidon asked why he and Themis had called the meeting;

“And Zeus answered, “You know my purpose, shaker of earth, and wherefore I have called you here. I take thought for them even in their destruction. “

The “them even in their destruction” refers to the;

“countless tribes of men, though wide-dispersed, oppressed the surface of the deep-bosomed earth.” (Cypria - fragment 3)

Zeus continues;

”For my own part I shall stay here seated on Mount Olympus and look on in peace, but do you others go about among Trojans and Achaeans, and help either side as you may be severally disposed in your thinking [noos]”.

That’s the big announcement!  That the gods may violate the divine law that,

 “Zeus hath ordained in heaven, no god may thwart a god’s fixed will; we grieve but stand apart.” (Hippolytus 1456 (Euripides) “.

Let the melee begin!  And what desperate situation convinced him to suspend divine law?

“25 If Achilles fights the Trojans without hindrance they will make no stand against him; they have ever trembled at the sight of him, and now that he is roused to such fury about his comrade, [30] he will override fate itself and storm their city.”

 If Achilles storms the city it will be contrary to fate, so Zeus sends the gods to intervene. Their intervention consisted in the gods picking out good seats in which to watch the battle. The dark-haired god Poseidon led Hera

 “and Athena to the high earth-mound of godlike Hēraklēs, built round solid masonry...the other gods seated themselves on the brow of the fair hill Kallikolone namely Phoebus, and Arēs, the waster of cities.  (Iliad 20.115-150)

A little later Poseidon notices that Aeneas is about to be slain by Achilles;

 [300] Let us then snatch him from death’s jaws, lest the son of Kronos be angry should Achilles slay him. It is fated, moreover, that he should escape, and that the race of Dardanos, whom Zeus loved above all the sons born to him of mortal women, shall not perish utterly without seed or sign. [305] For now indeed has Zeus hated the blood of Priam, while Aeneas shall reign over the Trojans, he and his children’s children that shall be born hereafter.”

Ox-eyed Hera tells Poseidon to deal with the situation because:

 “For of a truth we two, I and Pallas Athena, [315] have sworn full many a time before all the immortals, that never would we shield Trojans from destruction,” so “Right then and there (Poseidon) shed a darkness before the eyes of the son of Peleus, drew the bronze-headed ashen spear from the shield of Aeneas, and laid it at the feet of Achilles. [325] Then he lifted Aeneas on high from off the earth and hurried him away. Over the heads of many a band of warriors both horse and foot did he soar as the god’s hand sped him”.  (Note for later that the god left the spear!)

So we three incidence of events possibly over-riding destiny: Achilles storming Troy, Aeneas dying at Troy and consequently Rome never rising, and two goddesses violating their oaths.  Maybe a fourth if the timeliness of Hector’s death is an issue to the Fates. (see below).

Two more items the maybe beyond the intended discussion

“375] But Phoebus Apollo came up to Hector and said, “Hector, on no account must you challenge Achilles to single combat... (Hector)threw his spear as he spoke, but Athena breathed upon it, [440] and though she breathed but very lightly she turned it back from going towards renowned Achilles, so that it returned to glorious Hector and lay at his feet in front of him.” (A rescuing god leaves the spear again). “Achilles then sprang furiously on him with a loud cry, bent on killing him, but Apollo caught him up easily as a god can, and hid him in a thick darkness.” [445]

Maybe unrelated to our discussion here; “Aphrodite snatched (Paris) up, hid him under a cloud of darkness, and conveyed him to his own bedchamber.” (3.380), Hephaestus used the same technique at 5.25, and in the same fashion Apollo saved Aeneas 5.343