Troy (Petersen, 2004) — 10 Years Later: Part III
A Classical View of Divine Justice
“But Achilles’ deepening awareness of the nature of the world reveals that the gods are fickle in their concern for human justice. The good suffer in the Iliad as well as the bad; the brave die just as quickly as the cowardly; prizes in this world go to those who do not earn them. It is precisely this context that Achilles reveals to Priam his new perspective …” (Hanson & Heath, pg. 200)
Say whatever you want about the gods and goddesses in the Iliad, but Homer does not make the reader appreciate or value their interference into human affairs. Anyone who loves the Iliad has to love it partly because of how it implies a higher moral law that is even higher than “the gods.” There is a point where this view of the immorality of the gods is even expressed by Achilles:
“‘The immortals know no care, yet the lot they spin for man is full of sorrow; on the floor of Jove’s palace there stand two urns, the one filled with evil gifts, and the other with good ones. He for whom Jove the lord of thunder mixes the gifts he sends, will meet now with good and now with evil fortune; but he to whom Jove sends none but evil gifts will be pointed at by the finger of scorn, the hand of famine will pursue him to the ends of the world, and he will go up and down the face of the earth, respected neither by gods nor men.” (Butler, Book XXIV, pgs. 321-322.)
Some 2004 film reviewers criticized the film for being agnostic or even of taking a dim view of “the gods.” But if they would read the Iliad, they would know that this dim view could be taken from Homer himself. When Pitt’s Achilles asks, “Why did you choose to love a god? I think you’ll find the romance one-sided,” he is referring to this dim view of the amorality of the capricious gods. Ares, the “god of war,” he reminds Briseis, “blankets his bed with the skin of men he’s killed.” How could such divine beings merit respect or obedience by any person with a sense of right and wrong? Such a moral sense would transcend even such “gods.”
this is a beautiful write-up.
have you read achilles in vietnam by jonathan shay by any chance?