Myths and Soothsaying in Greek Literature

Myths & soothsaying play a great role in Greeks? past life. Ancient Greeks believe in myths & consider it as one of their numerous traditions. We can observe this in all Greek literature, particularly in Homer?s famous epics The Iliad & The Odyssey. These two epics show the Greeks? metaphysical belief in the existence of gods & the role these deities play in the human realm. The gods are presented in Homer?s works as foils to man, being superior beings only because they are immortal. They possess the careless ease & spend their life in feasting & lovemaking, in contrast with humans who are in disastrous struggles in their brief lives. The only requirements from men are prayer & sacrifices of food.

Ancient Greeks believe in prophecies, therefore they pay much attention to the predictions of the soothsayers & they do exactly whatsoever they ask them to do. It is the habit, which was prevalent at their time. And The Iliad is a great evidence of this; it deals with a prophecy, which says that Paris would someday be the ruin of Troy. Therefore, Priam, king of Troy, exposed him on Mount Ida, but unfortunately he was found and brought up by shepherds. While Paris was tending his sheep, he saw the three goddesses Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite arguing about who is the most beautiful. They asked him to be the judge & each one tried to bribe him by offering him many desirable things. We see that in any incident there is an interference of gods in the fate of human beings. Returning once again to the three goddesses, Hera promised Paris to make him the ruler of Europe & Asia, Athena offered him to help him lead Troy to victory against the Greeks, and Aphrodite to give him the most beautiful woman in the world, Helen, the wife of Menelaus, king of Sparta. Without any sign of hesitation, Paris favored Aphrodite and this was the spark that flamed the Trojan War fought between the Greeks and the inhabitants of the city of Troy.
His irrational decision made Hera & Athena bitter enemies of his country. I have no doubts that everybody knows the story of the Trojan War & how the Greeks defeated the Trojans by using an intelligent trick that nobody can ever think of, which is a giant wooden horse. After the tenth year of the siege of Troy, Paris & Menelaus met in hand-to-hand combat. Menelaus would easily have been the victor except for Aphrodite, who enveloped Paris in a cloud, and carried him back to Troy.
It is very clear in Greek literature that gods control the lives of human beings and play in their destinies as if they are dolls.

In Greek mythology, everything has an explanation & connection to the gods. For example, Calchas, the most famous soothsayer among the Greeks at the time of the Trojan War. He predicted the 10-year siege of Troy, and shortly before the conclusion of the war, when the Greeks were stricken with a plague, explained that the god Apollo was angry because Agamemnon had taken as his mistress the daughter of one of Apollo's priests. Calchas was highly respected because of the accuracy of his prophecies, and at his suggestion the Greek commanders built the Trojan horse by which the Greek forces gained access to the city.

No doubts that everyone can observe that The Odyssey is a social register of Greeks? life at Homer?s time; a reservoir of their tradition & it is a record of their beliefs and habits. The role of the gods was mentioned so many times in this epic from the very beginning till the end. It uncovers & reveals the mutual relationship between gods & human beings, for example, Poseidon, god of sea, plots Odysseus, Son of Laertes; king of Ithaca, destruction and does his best to make him suffer from being away from his homeland, Ithaca. But Poseidon?s interference is encountered by Athena?s influential aid to Odysseus. She stands by him & leads him throughout his journeys & adventures. Athena, goddess of wisdom, also helps Odysseus? son, Telemachus, & raises him to adolescence. She takes him by the hand to fulfill his task of searching for his father.

Homer personalized gods; he made them feel pity, anger, jealousy & other sentiments. For instance, in the beginning of the epic, there is a scene on Mt. Olympus where all gods (except Poseidon) feel pity for Odysseus. In Poseidon?s absence, Zeus addresses the gods in the following way: ? Look how mortals blame the gods! For they say that from us comes evil, but they themselves have suffering beyond what is fated because of their own acts of folly.? This shows the gods? sympathetic attitudes towards human beings & man?s ignorance of this fact.

The gods are presented in the epic as the voice of judgment. They are the judges who maintain law & order in society. For example, When Odysseus? men kill the cattle of the Sun god Helios on the island of Sicily; Zeus interferes to punish the guilty men. Zeus causes a violent storm, which results in their shipwreck. The implication is that gods are quite just & fair because they punish the guilty sinners & wrongdoers & spare the innocent.

Homer used gods to explain bad actions as well as good ones. For example, when Penelope, Odysseus? wife, refuses to choose a suitor, Antinous, a leading suitor, says that the gods have put the idea of refusal into her head.
He also used them to explain extraordinary events & actions. That through the gods, people could explain all acts that were not rational & anything out of the ordinary must be the result of a gods? machination. Thus, when a warrior shoots an arrow farther than usual, the warrior will say that Ares, god of war, pulled back the bowstring for him: this is the only explanation for this. Also, if any character interpreted the flight of an eagle to be a favorable sign from Zeus; that?s Zeus sending forth the eagle.
Shortly, no line occurs in these two epics without mentioning soothsayers, who connect bad or good events to a pleased god or to an unsatisfied one. In the Iliad, there is Calchas & in The Odyssey there is Tiresuas, who predicted the future of Odysseus.

Hence, we find that Greeks had a disbelief in human free will because of the existence & interference of gods. Gods always interfere in human affairs & organize men?s life. They play an important role in shaping and reshaping man?s destiny; they exercise a kind of divine justice.
They have personalities as well as any mortal?s. They are subjects to the same emotions that rule all men; we can find benign gods as well as malignant ones. Rarely a fight takes place without god interfering & influencing events; they are even quarreling & fighting among themselves.