temporary invisibility, instant transportation to a less dangerous spot. As with
such motifs as the invulnerable armour, the unfailing sword, the missile that
returns to its owner’s hand, fantasy-wish is realized in myth. Invisibility is half
rationalized as concealment in a conjured cloud or mist. This is a standard
service afforded by Homeric gods to their favourites (Il. 3. 381, 20. 444, 21. 6,
597; Od. 7. 14). Caílte in the Acallam na Senórach relates how he and his
companions were made invisible by a magic mist that rose about them,
enabling them to listen to the conversation of another group without being
seen (Dooley–Roe (1999), 145 f.). When the Nart Soslan rides to battle
against Totradz, the wise woman Shatana, his mother, equips him, advises
him, and sends with him a cloud to make him invisible, ‘a cloud that only
obeys a woman’. This enables him to overcome his enemy (Sikojev (1985),
297 f.).
Another familiar Homeric motif permits an important warrior in danger
to be snatched away to safety by a deity (Il. 3. 380, 5. 445, 20. 325, 443, 21.
597). Similarly in the Avestan hymn to the Fravashis, the immortal souls of
the faithful who ride like mounted warriors in the sky, we hear that when the
king is surrounded by enemies he calls upon the Fravashis and they come to
his aid and fly him home through the air like a bird.^105
Given that gods may fight in mortal guise, it is only logical that a hero who
is carrying all before him may on occasion be suspected of being really a god.
Aeneas surmises this of Diomedes, and Pandaros replies that he cannot say
for sure (Il. 5. 177, 183). The motif is paralleled in the Ra ̄ma ̄yan
̇
a, as well as in
the Egyptian poem on the Battle of Qadesh.^106
As the hero’s prowess approximates to a god’s, he may feel himself equal to
any divine opponent. Capaneus, one of the famous Seven who attacked
Thebes, declared that he would sack the city with or without God’s will, and
that not even Zeus’ thunderbolt would stop him. So at least Aeschylus tells
it (Sept. 427–31), no doubt following the tradition preserved in the epic
Thebaid. Diomedes ‘would even fight against Zeus’ in the judgment of Iris
and Apollo (Il. 5. 362, 457), and he does indeed fight against Aphrodite and
Ares with Athena’s envouragement. Dhr
̇
s
̇t
̇adyumna claims that the Pa ̄n
̇d
̇avas
are invincible, even ‘were we to face the Slayer of Vr
̇
tra (Indra) himself in
battle’ (MBh. 3. 13. 119, cf. 8. 26. 42, Rm. 2. 20. 27). Uttara, having become
Arjuna’s chariot-driver and satisfied himself of the hero’s quality, says ‘I have
found a battle companion and I can fight even with immortals’ (4. 40. 15).
(^105) Yt. 13. 69 f. The motif also appears in a pictorial story on two silver bowls of Phoenician
workmanship, one found at Praeneste, the other in Cyprus; see West (1997), 100, 211.
(^106) Rm. 6. 82. 24; West (1997), 361. In the Egyptian poem Ramesses boasts that he is taken to
be Seth and his charioteer to be Sakhmet.
484 12. Arms and the Man