Academic literature on the topic 'Agamemnon, Zeus'

At Iliad 1.355–6, Achilles, calling upon his mother, reports the injury to his honour done him by Agamemnon:ἦ γάρ μ᾽ Ἀτρείδης εὐρὺ κρείων Ἀγαμέμνωνἠτίμησεν ⋯λὼν γ⋯ρ γέρας, αὐτ⋯ς ⋯πούρας.The formulaic line 356 is repeated by Thetis to Zeus at 507 and by Thersites to the assembled Achaeans at 2.240; the problematical phrase αὐτ⋯ς ⋯πούρας is repeated in a variant form with finite verb by Agamemnon at 19.89, αὐτ⋯ς ⋯πηύρων.

Estudo breve sobre a áte na Ilíada a partir da discussão do caso de Agamêmnon – decisivo para a intriga da cólera. Exposição da polaridade complementar entre a Áte e as Litaí e do mito da áte de Zeus como sua última ocorrência no plano divino. Análise, no caso de Agamêmnon, das duas versões sobre a “responsabilidade” pelo ato ruinoso (que, do ponto de vista prático, ele assume como seu), a divina e a humana, tentando mostrar como – longe de serem excludentes – elas são, segundo Albin Lesky, “as duas faces diferentes de uma única e mesma moeda”.

In studies of ancient Greek divination, oracles are often claimed to pronounce ambiguous but true statements within an intricately ordered cosmos. There exist, however, several problematic exceptions. In Book 2 of the Iliad, Zeus deliberately deceives Agamemnon through a prophetic dream; Hesiod’s Muses speak truths or lies depending on their mood; and Apollo’s utterances can harm as easily as help. The possibility of divine deceit forces us to reconsider the ontological assumptions within which early Greek divination was understood to operate. Adopting Philippe Descola’s concept of ‘analogism’, I argue that rather than a means of reading the cosmos, early Greek divination resembles more an act of diplomacy, an attempt to establish successful communication with supernatural beings within an always potentially fragmented world.

The Homeric influence on two prominent avian images in the parodos of the Agamemnon—the vulture simile (49–50) and the omen of the eagles and the pregnant hare (109–10)—has long been noted. In 1979 West suggested that the animal imagery also derived in part from Archilochus’ fable of the fox and the eagle (frr. 172–81 West), and his discussion was quickly welcomed and supplemented by Janko's reading of the eagle and snake imagery used by Orestes at Cho. 246–7. Capping this triennium mirabile of critical interest in Aeschylus’ birds of prey, Davies argued that the convincing resemblances between the fable and the Aeschylean passages in West's thesis—the anthropomorphism implied in παίδων (Ag. 50) and δεγπνον (Ag. 137) and the concern of Zeus for aggrieved animals (Ag. 55–6)—derive more generally from the nature of fable rather than from any one particular tale. Thus we have, according to Davies, an example of Aeschylus ‘exploring the resources and familiar modes of expression of a popular and well-known genre’ and transforming it into ‘the purest and sublimest type of poetry’.

Intertwined with the celebration of Athenian democratic institutions, we find in the "Oresteia" another chain of interactions, in which the elite families of Argos, Phokis, Athens, and even Mount Olympos employ the traditional aristocratic relationships of xenia and hetaireia to renegotiate their own status within-and at the pinnacle of-the civic order, and thereby guarantee the renewed prosperity of their respective communities. The capture of Troy is the result of a joint venture by the Atreidai and the Olympian "family" (primarily Zeus xenios and Athena). Although Agamemnon falls victim to his own mishandling of aristocratic privilege, his son is raised by doryxenoi in Phokis (Strophios and Pylades), a relationship which is mirrored by that with the Olympian "allies," Hermes and Apollo. Orestes' recovery of his father's position is thus shown to depend upon a network of "guest-friends" and "sworn-comrades," reinforced by the traditional language of oaths and reciprocal loyalty. In the Eumenides, the alliance between the Olympian and Argive royal families is re-invoked as the basis both for Athena's protection of Orestes, and finally for Zeus' concern for his daughter's Athenian dependents. In contrast to this successful "networking," and the resultant benefits that trickle down to the citizens of Argos and Athens, stand the seditious oaths and perverted "comradeship" of Aigisthos and Klytaimestra; likewise, the Erinyes are unable to draw on equivalent claims of pedigree or xenia to those enjoyed by Orestes and Apollo. Like all Greek tragedies, the "Oresteia" presents the action through constantly shifting viewpoints, those of aristocrats and commoners, leaders and led, while the propriety of this hierarchy itself is never questioned. And although the action moves from monarchical Argos to an incipiently democratic Athens, paradoxically we hear less and less about "ordinary," lower-class citizens as the trilogy progresses. Thus, at the same time that the trilogy reinforces the sense of collective survival and civic values (the perspectives, e.g., of the Argive Elders, Watchman, Herald, and Athenian Propompoi), it also suggests that these can be maintained only through the proper interventions of their traditional leaders. Aeschylus' plays were composed during a time when the Athenian democracy was still developing, and elite leadership and patronage were still taken for granted. Attic tragedy and the City Dionysia may be seen as a site of negotiation between rival (democratic and aristocratic) ideologies within the polis, wherein a kind of "solidarity without consensus" is achieved. Written and staged by the elite under license from the demos, the dramas play out (in the safety of the theater space) dangerous stories of royal risk-taking, crime, glory, and suffering, in such a way as to reassure the citizen audience simultaneously of their own collective invulnerability, and of the unique value of their (highly vulnerable, often flawed, but ultimately irreplaceable) leading families.

Agamemnon's apology (Il. 19.95ff.), in particular that portion which relates the story of Zeus and Ate, contains a number of oddities and peculiarities. This was recognised in antiquity, as various remarks in the Homeric scholia testify. Further inconcinnities have been unearthed by more recent scholars, who by and large belonged to the school of Homeric analysts. Although the presuppositions of this school are now generally regarded as outmoded and inappropriate, we should not underestimate the services of the scholars who drew the relevant unique features to the world's attention. Ways of explaining the oddities may have changed, but the oddities themselves are still well worth considering.

Along with the Oedipus Tyrannus, the Oresteia is perhaps the most discussed literary work of classical Greece. In recent years a substantial part of this interpretative effort has been devoted to various ongoing controversies, such as Agamemnon's guilt, or more generally, the interplay of necessity and freedom in the trilogy, but despite these numerous Streitfragen what is particularly striking about the criticism of the Oresteia is its relative unanimity on certain fundamental questions. This will no doubt sound strange to the classical scholar, all too finely attuned to the various important particulars over which he and his colleagues differ in their reading of the plays, but it none the less seems to me to be undeniable that in their assessment of the general movement of the trilogy, most interpretations are, with some variation and shading, cut from the same cloth. By this I mean that in regard to the fundamental questions of the justice of Zeus, and the resolution of the conflicts developed in the first two plays by means of the famous trial which concludes the trilogy, most critics agree as to Aeschylus’ dramatic intention. In what follows, I will argue that this unanimity arises out of certain shared preconceptions concerning Aeschylus which, in my view, are not supported by the text. I will first discuss the main traditional views concerning Aeschylus’ presentation of what is commonly called the Justice of Zeus, and then try to demonstrate that, in reality, Aeschylus portrays a cosmic and political order which is neither moral nor just, but rather tyrannical, in the sense that its ultimate foundations are force and fear.

In the Archaic Geek world of epic poetry, the causes of things are shrouded in divine mystery; the gods intervene in human affairs, and bring about events, in a cruel and capricious fashion, according to their whims; Apollo visits the devastating plague of Iliad 1 on the Greek host to avenge Agamemnon's ill-treatment of one of his priests; Poseidon shakes the earth and angers the sea, bringing to destruction those who have incurred his ire, as does Zeus himself with his thunderbolts. The gods take on human shape and intervene in battle with devastating effect. In tragedy, the houses of Atreus and of Laius are brought low when men offend against the gods. This article focuses on the explorations of the fundamental concepts of reasons and causation, and the problems of explanation, and argues that it is indeed reasonable to see in Presocratic thought the foundations of Western scientific explanation.

The aetiological story of Ate, told by Agamemnon in Book 19 of the Iliad, establishes a connection between the crucial moment when the main conflict of the epic is resolved and an important moment of transition on Olympus. While tying the time of men and the time of gods together in a shared ‘ever since then’, the aetion also marks a growing divide between the two, providing a vivid stratigraphy of Iliadic time. In Hesiod’s Theogony, three aetia that explicitly invoke the poet’s present revolve around the central event of the work, the birth of Zeus: the origin of Hecate’s powers, Zeus’ marking the start of his reign by planting the stone that his father Cronus had swallowed instead of himself in the earth of Delphi, and Prometheus’ theft of fire. These aetia create a particularly meaningful present moment: one that testifies to the different types of divine time and its interaction with human time—including the complex model of time embodied by Hecate and the linearity of time introduced by Zeus—and implicates the audience in the stability of this new order of the world. Finally, in the Homeric Hymn to Hermes, the aetion of how the lyre becomes a token of Hermes’ and Apollo’s friendship imbues the present with a strong sense of the connection with the divine sphere, even while the lyre itself as the instrument accompanying the performance of the hymn vividly enacts its own continuity.