The Created and Existent Gods in Homer’s Iliad Essay -- Greek, Classic

The ancient classics apply the gods to explain the extraordinary and unusual events of the world around them. The ancient Greek world accepted these gods as anthropomorphic re exposeations of natural forces and phenomena. Moreover, virtually gods were seen as actual people whose supernatural abilities gave them control over these natural forces. kors Iliad is a prime example of these two different interpretations of the gods. In this epic, kor anthropomorphizes some phenomena, thus creating deities in order to explain some of the events of the Trojan War. These created gods be abstract and represent only the single phenomenon that Homer attributes to them. The regal gods, on the other hand, are lively deities whose actions go beyond the phenomena attributed to them by the Greeks. Homer, therefore, uses the Olympians to explain numerous phenomena.In Homers Iliad, the goddess encounter appears only at times of war. In book 11, Homer says, action took her stand, raising her hig h-pitched cry,/ great and terrible, lashing the fighting-fury/ in each Achaeans heart-no stopping them now (Homer 11.11-13). Strife appears here as a motivator for the Achaean army to continue fighting. Again we see her hurl down the leveler Hate amidst both(prenominal) sides,/ wading into the onslaught, flooding men with pain during the battle (Homer, 4.515-516). There are moments, however, when Homer does not anthropomorphize Strife, and plainly uses the word strife, such as when Zeus reprimands Ares Always dear to your heart,/ strife, yes, and battles, the bloody grind of war (Homer 5.1031-1032). In this instance, Homer does not attribute any merciful characteristics to Strife, indicating that she is a created graven image and not an existent one like the Olympians. ... ...ey were immortal beings in human form with human emotions that affect their actions. It is clear that Homer divides the gods into the created abstract gods, and the existent Olympian gods. The function of one group of gods differs from that of the other. Whereas the abstract gods are present in the Iliad in order to explain the natural forces that are attributed to them, the Olympian gods are characters that represent and explain a whole lot more than. quite than explain only the natural forces attributed to them, these gods also explain the unnatural and more magical occurrences of the war. The Olympian gods are not anthropomorphized concepts that the other gods and warriors can recognise advantage of. Instead, the Olympians are anthropomorphized beings who are capable of doing much more than the forces attributed to them and whose emotions practically affect these actions.