Diomedes Nutz

Cassandra - 30s - (she/her - fae/faer) Tea drinker and Bookworm. Icon by puddleorganism.

[carygrantsbeard]

isn’t there a goddess out here willing to turn me into medusa so men can’t look at me without immediately suffering the consequences

[crazyintheeast]

Stop being lazy and relying on gods. Quick dry cement exists. Be your own Medusa

[velmajinkiesdinkley]

“If you don’t have any goddess-bestowed cement powers, store bought is fine”

[thoodleoo]

forget cursive, the real sign of the downfall of our educational system is that kids aren’t taught to read and write in boustrophedon anymore

[classicslesbianopinions]

honestly a crime that google maps doesn’t show how long it takes to get from city to city on horseback

[classics-suggestion]

the awkward moment when the guy you ditched on an island is integral to the war effort

[smsomah]

From the book Cut these words into my stone: ancient Greek epitaphs (Wolfe, Michael)

[disbander-of-armies-deactivated]

Zeus in the Iliad

Boy, the Zeus hashtag is as toxic as ever. So here’s a little idea I’ve got: A lot of people claim that Zeus is pretty much the most horrible person ever and others (rightfully!) point out that one must not confuse the Zeus of Greek mythology with the Zeus worshipped by ancient Greeks and Hellenic polytheists today. But I argue that the Zeus of Greek mythology is not nearly as bad as people make him out to be. Since the Iliad is the closest you can get to something like a canon, here are some of his positive characteristics as presented in the Iliad:

reluctant to use violence (he does threaten to use violence a few times but never goes through with it)

grants Thetis’ wish to help the Trojans (1, 523)

Athena is dear to his heart (5, 886) even though she once tried to overthrow him (1, 400)

helps his wounded son Ares even though he despises his love for bloodlust (5, 895)

considers to defy fate to save his son Sarpedon (16, 434)

comforts his daughter Artemis (21, 507)

pities Hector (22, 165) and Achilles’ horses (17, 414)

[sisterofiris]

I love this, and I think one of those passages in particular deserves more recognition: Zeus trying to save Sarpedon. When he sees Patroklos is about to kill Sarpedon, he says:

ὤ μοι ἐγών, ὅ τέ μοι Σαρπηδόνα, φίλτατον ἀνδρῶν, μοῖρ᾿ ὑπὸ Πατρόκλοιο Μενοιτιάδαο δαμῆναι. διχθὰ δέ μοι κραδίη μέμονε φρεσὶν ὁρμαίνοντι, ἤ μιν ζωὸν ἐόντα μάχης ἄπο δακρυοέσσης θείω ἀναρπάξας Λυκίης ἐν πίονι δήμῳ, ἦ ἤδη ὑπὸ χερσὶ Μενοιτιάδαο δαμάσσω.

Ah! it is fated that Sarpedon, dearest of men to me, should be killed by Patroklos son of Menoitios. But my heart is divided in two by my pondering thoughts, as to whether I should steal him away from tearful combat while he is alive, and set him down in the rich land of Lycia, or whether I should let him be killed by the hand of the son of Menoitios. (Iliad 16.433-438, transl. my own)

Zeus, lord of justice and king of the Gods, genuinely debates saving Sarpedon not just despite, but regardless of the fact that Sarpedon is fated to die. In her answer, Hera brings up another important point:

αἴ κε ζὼν πέμψῃς Σαρπηδόνα ὅνδε δόμονδε, φράζεο μή τις ἔπειτα θεῶν ἐθέλῃσι καὶ ἄλλος πέμπειν ὃν φίλον υἱὸν ἀπὸ κρατερῆς ὑσμίνης

If you send Sarpedon home alive, consider that later on, another of the Gods might want to send his own dear son away from the fierce battle. (Iliad 16.445-447, transl. my own)

In other words: Zeus does not just want to defy Sarpedon’s fate. He is at risk of overturning the entire system of mortal fate itself - if he saves his son, then there is no reason for other Gods not to save their own sons, and then fate will be completely meaningless. In the end, Zeus relents and accepts Sarpedon’s death, but his hesitation is still incredibly significant.

Again, Zeus is lord of justice and king of the Gods. He is the one who weighs the scales of fate for mortals. He is responsible for divine and mortal order.

And he considers upturning it all just to save Sarpedon, φίλτατον ἀνδρῶν, dearest of men, his son.

Not only that, it happens again with Hektor - who isn’t even related to him. Again, Zeus considers saving them, and again, he is rebuked by another deity, this time Athena. She speaks the exact same lines as Hera did for Sarpedon:

ἄνδρα θνητὸν ἐόντα, πάλαι πεπρωμένον αἴσῃ, ἂψ ἐθέλεις θανάτοιο δυσηχέος ἐξαναλῦσαι; ἕρδ᾿· ἀτὰρ οὔ τοι πάντες ἐπαινέομεν θεοὶ ἄλλοι.

A man who is mortal, who has long been fated to die, you would yet again want to free from ill-sounding death? Do it; but not all of us other Gods approve of it. (Iliad 16.441-443 and 22.179-181, transl. my own)

These lines remind us that this isn’t the first time Zeus has tried to save a mortal from their fate. As with Sarpedon, Zeus lets Hektor die as he was meant to, but the passage is still meaningful. Again and again, Zeus cares. Enough that he would go against his own justice and change the entire world, just for a mortal he loves.

[kashuan]

I’m reading this essay that’s honestly like 14 pages long about how Homer actually made Menelaus an extremely Soft Boy and I’m never going to forgive every adaption for forgetting this 

tfw the other Greeks aristeias involve them just kicking Trojan ass but Menelaus’ is specifically about protecting Patroclus’ body…

like

soft recognizing soft

TRUE ENOUGH INDEED, OP

[apenitentialprayer]

One of the things I love about The Iliad is the little biographies given to the people who are killed in battle. Pedaeus took a spear to the jaw, “teeth clenching the cold bronze,” but before that he was raised by Theano, who breastfed him like one of her own children even though he was a permanent reminder of Antenor’s infidelity. Simoisius is slashed with a spear from his nipple to the shoulder, but he’s not just a nameless enemy the Telamonian Ajax killed; he gets his name because his mother gave birth to him on the banks of the Simois, and he was a young man, full of promise, not even married yet when the dark came swirling down across his eyes. Scamandrius was killed by Menelaus, “a crack marksman skilled at the hunt” because “Artemis taught the man herself.” Did she mourn him like she did Hippolytus? The dead were people, with histories of their own, relations to others, and a depth that can’t be reduced to “killed by the heroes.”

[thoodleoo]

tired of these fake greeks

everyone in college loves to talk about ‘greek life’ but the moment i show up in a chiton to their symposia (which are terrible, by the way, there’s not even a single dining couch to recline on) and try to talk about the nuances of homer nobody’s interested in greek anymore

[9206212525158765]

Those barbarians play this game called “beer pong” , a gross and uncultured imitation of kottabos.

[thoodleoo]

appropriation tbh

[hylaia1]

#plus they're all wearing togas as if that isnt ROMAN

[thoodleoo]

one of my favorite things about homeric epithets is that some of them are really neat, like achilles’ swift-footed, and the wine-dark sea, but the word “hippodamos” (tamer of horses) is applied to hector a bunch of times in the iliad (most famously it is the last word of the epic, used at hector’s funeral), which means that one of the most important things homer thought he should tell us about hector even when hector was dead is that hector really liked horses

[thoodleoo]

i feel like i should also mention that, according to other trojan war traditions, priam had a son (who would therefore be hector’s brother) named hippodamas, which aside from basically meaning that priam named one of his kids ‘Weird Horse Girl™’ also means that apparently the entire house of priam went through a Horse Phase at some point

[publiusvergiliusmaro]

I believe it’s because, according to myth, Zeus gave he original king of Troy, Tros, some real fancy horses to recompense for his abduction of the prince Ganymede, and ever since Troy was kind of well known for its horses and the people’s love of horses ? And I guess the horse love was passed on through the generations?

[thoodleoo]

you’re absolutely right in that troy was well known for having some Pretty Fine Horses (in fact there is a line in book 4 of the iliad where the trojans as a whole are called tamers of horses, so that’s not just a Hector Thing), which is hilarious for two reasons

1. this means that troy was literally a city of Weird Horse People

2. the fact that troy fell because of a giant wooden horse is incredibly ironic and i have no doubt that odysseus planned it that way

[thoodleoo]

if you ever needed more proof that the iliad and odyssey aren’t heterosexual, just remember all of the instances where homer lovingly describes the male characters’ thighs

[chotomy]

apollo to hektor: nooo don't die ur so sexy aha

i literally posted this on twitter the other day i--

[chotomy]

stop reading my mind you guys this isn’t funny anymore

[thoodleoo]

there are only two genders

the rage of achilles, son of peleus, and the man of many ways, who wandered far and wide after he sacked the holy citadel of troy

[thoodleoo]

still thinking about how in homer’s iliad, diomedes throws a boulder after aeneas, and homer complains that not even two men from his own time could lift that boulder because they’re too weak

[mapsontheweb]

Map showing the homeland of every character in Homer’s Iliad.

[thoodleoo]

the homeric question should no longer be "who was homer, anyway?" the only homeric question that matters to me is "how the fuck did i get so many copies of the iliad and odyssey"

[thoodleoo]

the homeric hymn to hermes is so funny bc like. it's easy to forget when you're reading it that hermes is literally just a baby but then it's SO delightful to remember that fact in the middle of the poem and realize that the little asshole telling a farmer who witnessed him stealing apollo's cattle that "you didn't see anything" is like three days old. literal boss baby