Retribution is rarely direct. It does not always take the form of direct, divine
intervention (for example, through divine epiphanies), but can come through
more believable forms of intervention, more believable because they actually
happen: roofs falling in, disease, madness, or even through human agency. There
is nothing necessarily miraculous (because otherwise impossible) or ostensibly
divine about the form of the retribution. The deduction that a misfortune is
divine in origin is made on the basis either of timing (i.e., immediate, sudden, or
delayed) or appropriateness (i.e., you or your father were known on inspection
to have done such and such a terrible thing). So, for example (according to
Xenophon in his account of the march of the Ten Thousand), if Clearchus had
broken the terms of a truce and so committed perjury, his massacre would be
deserved, as it is ‘‘just that perjurers should be destroyed’’ (Anabasis2.5.38, 41).
Prayers to the gods for revenge against an enemy do not envisage any agent of
revenge but the author of the prayer (e.g. Theognis 337–50).
The gods do not punish every offence. In many cases they may be happy to leave
vengeance to other men, only stepping in when that punishment is inadequate or
excessive. ‘‘Leave the undetected sinner to the justice of the gods’’ (Demos-
thenes 19.70–1). The punishment of the Herodotean Pheretime – whose crime
had been to impale all the men of the city of Barca and to cut off the breasts of
their wives, in revenge for the death of her son Arcesilaus – revealed that ‘‘the
over-harshvengeances of men are abominated by the gods; she became infested
with worms who ate her alive’’ (4.205). (The advantage that the gods have over
men in this role of regulating human justice is that they cannot be hoodwinked:
Xenophon, Memorabilia4.4.21; cf. Archilochus fr. 177 West). In order to
sustain this rather detached regulatory role on the part of the gods, human
vengeance needs to be relied upon as the ongoing backdrop to occasional divine
intervention – hence the regular insistence of our sources on the duty of
vengeance, a duty incumbent on men from the gods (Lycurgus, Leocrates
146–50; Demosthenes 24.125, [Demosthenes] 59.116; Lysias 13.3; cf. 13.92).
Next, the gods know to look beyond single faults and punish only the pattern
of offending behavior; so, though certain single acts may be punished, there is
no point in looking for a corresponding punishment for every act. God is not
‘‘angry at mortal men for every fault’’ (Theognis 897). Proper ‘‘respect and
fear’’ of the gods, on the other hand, restrain a man ‘‘from impious deed or
word’’ (Theognis 1179–80). Xenophon’s Agesilaus, or the Ten Thousand of the
Anabasis, focus on acting consistently in such a way that the gods will be their
allies – and their enemies’ enemies (they are helped here by their enemies’
repeated perjury: Xenophon,Hellenica3.4.11,Anabasis3.121–3). This prin-
ciple gives the belief in divine retribution a crucial flexibility – and provides a
useful response to an obvious criticism, which surfaces for example in the context
of the manipulation of oaths, that divine retribution is unduly legalistic in its
workings and so allows an unjust outcome in the name of piety (e.g. Lysias
12.98).
Punishment may be delayed. The perpetrator of a crime can never be certain then
that retribution does not still await him. ‘‘The minds of men’’ according to
Theognis (197–208; cf. Solon fr. 13 West), ‘‘are misled, since the blessed gods
do not punish sin at the time of the very act, but one man pays his evil debt
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