The section of the ''

Iliad The ''Iliad'' (; , ; ) is one of two major Ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. As with the ''Odyssey'', the poem is divided into 24 books and ...

'' that ancient editors called the ''Dios apate'' (, the "Deception of Zeus") stands apart from the remainder of Book XIV. In this episode,

Hera In ancient Greek religion, Hera (; ; in Ionic Greek, Ionic and Homeric Greek) is the goddess of marriage, women, and family, and the protector of women during childbirth. In Greek mythology, she is queen of the twelve Olympians and Mount Oly ...

makes an excuse to leave her divine husband

Zeus Zeus (, ) is the chief deity of the List of Greek deities, Greek pantheon. He is a sky father, sky and thunder god in ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, mythology, who rules as king of the gods on Mount Olympus. Zeus is the child ...

; in her deception speech she declares that she wishes to go to

Oceanus In Greek mythology, Oceanus ( ; , also , , or ) was a Titans, Titan son of Uranus (mythology), Uranus and Gaia, the husband of his sister the Titan Tethys (mythology), Tethys, and the father of the River gods (Greek mythology), river gods ...

, "origin of the gods", and Tethys the "mother". Instead Hera beautifies herself in preparation for seducing Zeus and obtains the help of

Aphrodite Aphrodite (, ) is an Greek mythology, ancient Greek goddess associated with love, lust, beauty, pleasure, passion, procreation, and as her syncretism, syncretised Roman counterpart , desire, Sexual intercourse, sex, fertility, prosperity, and ...

. In the climax of the episode Zeus and Hera make love hidden within a golden cloud on the summit of

Mount Ida In Greek mythology, two sacred mountains are called Mount Ida, the "Mountain of the Goddess": Mount Ida in Crete, and Mount Ida in the ancient Troad region of western Anatolia (in modern-day Turkey), which was also known as the '' Phrygian Ida' ...

. By distracting Zeus, Hera makes it possible for the Greeks to regain the upper hand in the

Trojan War The Trojan War was a legendary conflict in Greek mythology that took place around the twelfth or thirteenth century BC. The war was waged by the Achaeans (Homer), Achaeans (Ancient Greece, Greeks) against the city of Troy after Paris (mytho ...

Literary issues

The peculiarities of this episode were already being discussed in Antiquity. Even early commentators were shocked by the storyline and its implications for the morality of the gods. An expression of this moral criticism is found in

Plato Plato ( ; Greek language, Greek: , ; born BC, died 348/347 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher of the Classical Greece, Classical period who is considered a foundational thinker in Western philosophy and an innovator of the writte ...

's ''

Republic A republic, based on the Latin phrase ''res publica'' ('public affair' or 'people's affair'), is a State (polity), state in which Power (social and political), political power rests with the public (people), typically through their Representat ...

''. Later, as it became fashionable to question whether certain passages of the known text of the ''Iliad'' were really composed by Homer (see

Homeric scholarship Homeric scholarship is the study of any Homeric topic, especially the two large surviving Epic poetry, epics, the ''Iliad'' and ''Odyssey''. It is currently part of the academic discipline of classical studies. The subject is one of the oldest in ...

), the genuineness of the "Deception of Zeus" was doubted. Albrecht Dihle listed the linguistic features unique to this section and "found so many deviations from the normal traditional use of Homeric formulas that he concluded that this section of the ''Iliad'' could not belong to the phase of

oral tradition Oral tradition, or oral lore, is a form of human communication in which knowledge, art, ideas and culture are received, preserved, and transmitted orally from one generation to another.Jan Vansina, Vansina, Jan: ''Oral Tradition as History'' (19 ...

but was a written composition." Richard Janko, by contrast, describes the episode as "a bold, brilliant, graceful, sensuous, and above all amusing virtuoso performance, wherein Homer parades his mastery of the other types of epic composition in his repertoire". The debate on this issue is not yet settled.

Walter Burkert Walter Burkert (; 2 February 1931 – 11 March 2015) was a German scholar of Greek mythology and cult. A professor of classics at the University of Zurich, Switzerland, he taught in the UK and the US. He has influenced generations of student ...

found that the passage "shows divinity in a naturalistic, cosmic setting which is not otherwise a feature of Homeric

anthropomorphism Anthropomorphism is the attribution of human traits, emotions, or intentions to non-human entities. It is considered to be an innate tendency of human psychology. Personification is the related attribution of human form and characteristics t ...

", and linked it to the opening of the Babylonian '' Enuma Elish'' where Apsu and

Tiamat In Mesopotamian religion, Tiamat ( or , ) is the primordial sea, mating with Abzû (Apsu), the groundwater, to produce the gods in the Babylonian epic '' Enûma Elish'', which translates as "when on high". She is referred to as a woman, an ...

, respectively the fresh and salt waters, are the primordial couple who "were mixing their waters." Like Tethys and Oceanus, Apsu and Tiamat were superseded by a later generation of gods. However, Tethys does not otherwise appear in early Greek myth and she had no established cult. Adrian Kelly argued against such Mesopotamian influence of the passage: The "naturalistic, cosmic setting" is not particularly special for the ''Iliad'', as the insurrection of the Olympians and the description of the TartarosIliad 8.13-16 can be viewed as equally "naturalistic". Seeing Okeanos and Tethys as the primordial couple as in the ''Enuma Elish'' depends on translation and interpretation of the Greek source. Burkert's proposing of Tiamat as the etymology for Tethys turns out to be wrong.

References

Sources

(1992). ''The Orientalizing Revolution: Near Eastern Influence on Greek Culture in the Early Archaic Period''. Harvard University Press. *Albrecht Dihle (1970). ''Homer-Probleme''. *

Richard Janko Richard Charles Murray Janko (born May 30, 1955) is an Anglo-American classical scholar and the Gerald F. Else Distinguished University Professor of Classical Studies at the University of Michigan.

(1994). ''The Iliad: A Commentary. Vol. 4: Books 13-16''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. {{Iliad navbox Iliad Hera Zeus