of Zeus was the thunderbolt. Thus the divine is less observed than sensed, as for
instance Hippolytus does by its fragrance. If Odysseus had been more alert he would
have sensed that the arrival of Nausicaa to help him towards the court of Alcinous was
the result of Athene’s intervention, by disguising herself as a companion of Nausi-
caa’s. He would also have realized that his prayer to Athene (6.324–7), at a shrine of
hers that conveniently appears, was promptly answered by a strange mist protecting
him and the appearance of a young maiden carrying a pitcher to give him directions.
This is how the Olympians actually work.
So when tragedians and others speculate about the actions of particular gods, or of
‘‘the god’’ – which often means Zeus – they are not doing something mysteriously
philosophical or different from the popular religion. The mythology, the ‘‘philoso-
phy,’’ and the religion all form part of the same picture. At a temple the Greek
sacrificer does not pray facing the cult-statue; rather, he turns his back on the mythic,
anthropomorphic, god at this moment. Formal public prayer to the major gods was
typically conducted at an altar, looking upwards, hands raised to the sky. What did
they imagine was there? Perhaps a sort of notional Mount Olympus, that earth of the
gods, perhaps something of the Aeschylean god, some sense of the forces that
dominated the world they lived in and that were somehow above it but watching.
But they watch with eyes that are not ours. So free are they from the worries and
concerns of humanity that they may seem irresponsible or immoral. In a famous
Homeric cliche ́, generations of men are like leaves (Iliad6.146, 21.464; Simonides fr.
8.2 West; Aristophanes,Birds685), whereas the gods are routinely described as
‘‘gods who exist always’’ (e.g.,Iliad1.290;Odyssey5.7) and feast energetically on
Olympus (Iliad1.533–604). Achilles throws up before Priam an image of two pots
on Zeus’s threshold, from which he dispenses a mixture of good and evil to man, or
evil alone, but never apparently unalloyed good (Iliad24.527–33). Another image is
of the laughter of the gods, as Hera’s scolding of Zeus and Hephaestus’ intervention
collapse into insignificance (Iliad1.599), or as Zeus enjoys the spectacle of the gods
going to war with each other (Iliad21.389–90). Then there are the scales: un-
accountably these same all-powerful beings do have the self-imposed job of
managing us. So Zeus holds up the scales to balance out whether a hero should die
now (Iliade.g. 22.209), or debates with himself whether the fighting should go on
a bit longer (Iliad16.652). If anything, this Zeus is more frightening than the
vague power imagined by the chorus in Aeschylus’Agamemnon(367–84): there
the Trojans ‘‘have the stroke of Zeus to talk about,’’ and he hates overbearing,
over-rich houses, a description that applies as much to the doomed Agamemnon
as to dead Priam. Zeus came to power in a violent revolution, and somehow from
that elderly Chorus folk can derive a proverbial lesson about learning through
suffering (160–80).
The character of his rule is most intensely explored in epic and drama. Here we
learn of the sheer distance between man and the gods, something which leads in the
fourth century BC to Plato’s view (Symposium203a) that ‘‘god with man does not
mix,’’ and to Aristotle’s view (Magna Moralia1208b30–1) that it would be ‘‘bizarre
to say that you loved Zeus.’’ The problem therefore posed by Greek religion was
how you bridged this gap between man and the Olympian gods. Intermediary beings –
demons – became one answer, special rites or mystery religions another; and
philosophy became the doctrine of self-help: man must ascend by his own efforts.
54 Ken Dowden