The ancient Greek world feels familiar: Homer’s epics, the Persian and Peloponnesian Wars, or the emergence of democracy and philosophy occupy a prominent place in Western culture and the arts, as well as in accounts of Western history. Yet this familiarity is deceptive. Western thought has inherited important concepts and practices from Greece, but that inheritance can encourage us to project modern categories backwards.
In this article, we show that, in the Homeric and Hesiodic world, divine, human and non-human phenomena belonged to the same order; natural and supernatural causation were not yet separate categories; actions could result simultaneously from divine intervention and human agency; guilt could be inherited or borne collectively; and responsibility did not presuppose an autonomous individual will. This last point may be the most puzzling to a contemporary mind, but it reveals one of the profound differences between ancient Greek and modern conceptions of liberty.
This article was originally published in French in 2022 as part of a series on the making of the concept of nature in ancient Greece. Read the original French version.
From Chaos to Order
A Genealogical Conception of a Living World
In Hesiod’s Theogony, the world develops like a living organism. The first gods to be “born”1 are Chaos (Chasm or Void), followed by Gaia (Earth) and Eros (Love). Chaos then begets Erebus (Darkness) and Nyx (Night) alone; from the latter are born Aether (the upper sky) and Hemera (Day). Gaia, for her part, gives birth “without loving union”2 to Ouranos (Sky), Pelagos and Pontos (two aspects of the Sea), before uniting with Ouranos. As in Near Eastern myths, the world proves to be “filled with life”3 from the moment it comes into being. This life does not manifest itself solely in anthropomorphic form: the earliest deities arise spontaneously, without any particular cause, and initially beget offspring alone before reproducing with a partner.
Causation and procreation thus appear closely intertwined in Greek polytheism. Knowledge is initially conceived in genealogical terms. This outlook can be observed in the way gods and mortals are named, most often by reference to their ancestry—Zeus, son of Cronus; Agamemnon, son of Atreus; and so forth. A hero may have a divine parent: Heracles, for example, whose father is Zeus, or Achilles, whose mother is Thetis. Whether or not he is of divine descent, a hero has a destiny that he may or may not know in advance. Achilles knows his fate and embraces it for the glory it brings him. Oedipus, by contrast, does not know what the future holds, and his destiny can be fulfilled precisely because he does not know who his parents are. The truth of myth therefore lies in genealogy. Likewise, apart from the three primordial deities, the truth about the gods—and hence about the world—can be understood only through their genealogy.
A Divine Order
Although “we do not know exactly, in the absence of any qualification or indication, what the name Chaos means,”4 we know its offspring—Darkness and Night—from whom we may infer a kind of primordial chasm. This chasm is not an absence of existence, since Chaos itself has come into being.5 Considered the first deity to emerge, Chaos is therefore the sole being in the world, undifferentiated before a host of other deities come into existence, forming attachments as readily as they come into conflict. Union and opposition alternate and frequently combine, as exemplified by the coupling of Earth and Sky. Discord nevertheless grows, and a merciless struggle begins between the Titans and the supporters of Zeus. After more than ten years of fierce fighting, the latter emerge victorious and grant their leader the power to rule over the immortals. The history of the gods thus displays a twofold progression: first, from indifferentiation to the emergence of multiple deities associated with distinct spheres; second, from struggles between generations to the stability of monarchical rule.
One striking feature of the relationship between Hesiod’s two major poems, Theogony and Works and Days, is that the former concentrates on the gods, whereas the latter focuses more particularly on human beings. Although the divine and human planes are not separate, they are clearly distinguished. As J.-P. Vernant writes, “The gods form part of the same universe as human beings, but it is a hierarchical universe, a world arranged in levels, in which one cannot pass from one level to another.”6 This asymmetry is evident first in the immortality7 and bliss of the gods, which contrast with the precariousness of human existence. Mortals are subject to the will of Zeus, who, according to Hesiod, “determines whether mortal men are famed or unfamed, sung or unsung, solely according to the will of the mighty son of Cronus.”8. Yet Zeus is hardly guided by the best intentions towards them, to say the least: “By day, miseries, and by night, afflictions consume mortals without respite. The gods grant them terrible sufferings. Yet some happiness will mingle with their sorrow.”9 Just before these closing lines of the myth of the races, Hesiod exclaims: “If only I did not have to live among the fifth race [of iron]! If only I had died earlier or been born afterwards!”10 Other poets, including Theognis, Pindar and Sophocles, even held that it was best for mortals never to be born, and second best to die as soon as possible.11 This may seem profoundly pessimistic.
The asymmetry between gods and human beings is also apparent in communication between the two planes. The gods can see human beings, for example, whereas the reverse is true only when a god chooses to appear—and even then, the deity usually does so in disguise, through an inner impulse, a human form, a meteorological phenomena, and so on. The gods can travel wherever they please, whereas human beings are confined to a particular space and limited capacities. Moreover, if a hero succeeds in crossing the boundaries of the human sphere, it is not simply because he has willed it, but because Fate or Zeus has willed it. The divine and human planes are literally superimposed, with the former situated above the latter.
Divine Powers: Superior but Limited
If the gods so greatly surpass human beings, and Zeus has established an enduring monarchy among the immortals, why do they not found a similar order among mortals? Do they lack the power to do so? Let us first note that the “Greek deities form, as it were, a society of Powers that are at once rivals and interdependent. The gods are agents who embody a superior force to which human beings must submit. Among them, Zeus alone proves stronger than all the others combined. Kratos and Bia—brutal domination and coercive violence—flank Zeus’s throne and never leave the ruler of the gods’ side.”12 Describing deities as powers implies that they cannot be reduced to persons, still less to non-human phenomena. A god represents a power capable of bringing about human or non-human phenomena: the term power conveys the idea of a capacity for actualisation, without guaranteeing that it will be realised, except in the case of events foretold by Fate. Moreover, each deity possesses a particular domain within which its power operates, although the domains of different deities may overlap—as warfare does for Ares and Athena.
The philosopher F. M. Cornford highlighted the allocation of domains among powers and its relationship to Moira—that is, the “part” or “status” (timē) allotted to a deity or human being.13 The notion of fate may have derived from this original meaning. “Within his own domain, [a god’s] supremacy is not to be challenged; but he must not transgress its frontiers, and he will feel resentment (nemesis) at any encroachment by another.”14 Divine power thus appears limited, confined to an allotted domain beyond which it must not venture, on pain of incurring the wrath of its outraged possessor—in other words, a form of divine justice.
The following example, taken from J.-P. Vernant, illustrates the limits of divine power: “When a great goddess such as Demeter has her daughter snatched away by Hades and carried off into the underworld, she wanders everywhere in search of her, begging to be told where her child has disappeared. Finally, Helios, the Sun, gives her the answer. This is not because Helios is literally omniscient; rather, his round eye, always open high in the sky, makes him an infallible witness. Nothing that occurs on the surface of the earth or the waters escapes this luminous gaze. By contrast, Helios knows nothing of what is being prepared in the darkness of the future. Knowledge of the future is reserved for oracular deities of another kind, such as Apollo.”15
Each god therefore possesses a sphere of authority, like a vassal subject to a king—in this case, Zeus. Yet although he is the strongest and has succeeded in establishing peace among the immortals, Zeus has no direct authority over the entire universe: he too possesses only a share of it, as Homer has Poseidon explain in the Iliad: “We are three sons of Cronus, three brothers born to Rhea: Zeus, myself, and Hades, the third, who rules over the dead. The universe was divided into three parts, and each received his allotted honour.”16 Nor does Zeus’s authority mean an absence of quarrels. These occur frequently in Homer and parallel the armed conflicts among human beings. Divine dissension thus corresponds to human disorder, whose origins can be traced back at least to the deceptions of Prometheus.17
Oppositions and Harmony
Although the Olympian order rests on the strength of Zeus, who embodies justice among other things, the divine powers never cease opposing one another. This appears all the more inevitable because their domains may overlap and it is far from obvious who possesses the authority to settle a particular matter.18 The Trojan War illustrates how the gods can sustain dissension by interfering in human affairs, especially when they support opposing sides. If a god supports one side rather than another, it is probably because that side has shown greater devotion and made more sacrificial offerings to the deity.
Divine altercations may result from one god encroaching upon another’s domain, but they may also arise from another, more fundamental kind of opposition: between Earth and Sky, Night and Day, woman and man, and so forth. It should also be noted that opposition is not synonymous with perpetual conflict: before attacking Sky, Earth had borne him many children. Opposites do not wage fruitless wars against each other indefinitely; they mate, thereby helping to produce a balance, as exemplified by Harmonia, daughter of Ares, god of violent warfare, and Aphrodite, goddess of love, desire and beauty.
An Aristocratic Moral Order
We have shown that the gods are powers encompassing both human and non-human qualities. This implies, among other things, that the order instituted by Zeus does not separate a natural realm from a supernatural one. For such a separation to exist, the concept of nature would have to acquire a meaning distinct from that of divinity, which did not occur before the earliest Ionian philosophers.19 We have also observed that the Olympian order resembles an aristocratic order established following a war among deities. Let us set aside its non-human aspects and concentrate instead on war and justice, as well as the problem of human responsibility.
War occupied a central place in ancient Greece. Historians do not dispute this.20 Debate concerns whether it was predominant. For this article’s purpose, it is sufficient to observe, first, that struggles lie at the heart of the texts and, second, that the question of justice dominates Greek thought.
War and Justice in the Iliad
The Iliad recounts the events of a few weeks during the Trojan War. This major work of Greek culture, whose author was regarded by the Greeks themselves as an educational model,21 does not treat war as an isolated event historically framed by other kinds of social phenomena; rather, war provides the backdrop to the narrative. Although Achilles is not its only hero, he plays the leading role, directly or indirectly, from his quarrel with Agamemnon to Hector’s funeral.
The dispute between the son of Peleus and the son of Atreus, with which the Iliad begins, offers a glimpse of the aristocratic values of archaic Greece. It concerns the reward Agamemnon demands in compensation for returning a young woman seized from her father, a priest. Outraged at the loss of his child, the latter implores Apollo, who hears him and retaliates by firing arrows from his quiver into the Achaean camp. Agamemnon agrees to return the woman whom he claims to prefer to his wife “if that is better”, because he desires “the salvation of the troops rather than their destruction. But prepare a reward for me at once,” he continues, “so that I alone among the Argives do not go unrewarded: that would not be fitting.”22 It would be unseemly for a king not to receive his share of the spoils and thus to have his honour (timē) affronted. Two values are simultaneously foregrounded: the common welfare of the troops and Agamemnon’s individual honour.
Achilles, who responds by calling his ruler a “greedy man”, clearly demonstrates that honour cannot be reduced to material considerations. The discussion quickly grows heated until Agamemnon decides to take Briseis from Achilles as compensation. Achilles is then overcome by such pain and anger that he considers drawing his sword and killing his king. Athena intervenes, visible only to him, to calm him: “Abuse him in words as you see fit; for I tell you this, and it shall come to pass: one day you will receive three times as many splendid gifts as those taken from you, in compensation for this abuse of power. But stay your arm and obey us.”23 The goddess confirms that Agamemnon is guilty of excess by claiming a greater share than Fate has allotted him.
Achilles follows Athena’s command because “whoever obeys the gods is heard by them in turn.”24 He therefore vents his anger, asserting that Agamemnon never goes into battle alongside his men because he has never had “the heart”—that is, the courage—to do so. Later, Nestor, an elder, tells him: “If you are stronger, and a goddess is your mother, he is nevertheless more powerful, since he rules over more subjects.” A man’s worth (aretē), on which his honour is founded,25 thus appears both as a capacity—martial strength—and as a domain over which a human being rules, similarly to what we have observed among the gods. This worth is not merely the product of an effort that might be attributed to an individual will; it is primarily inherited and partly divine.
Following Nestor’s statement, Agamemnon concedes: “Everything you say, old man, is in order; but this man wishes to stand above everyone and prevail over everyone.” The king’s excess is matched by that of Achilles. The two men confront one another, each displaying a form of excess. Who, then, can arbitrate this dispute and dispense justice? Apparently no human being, since the matter reaches Zeus himself, to whom Thetis, Achilles’s mother, comes to complain and secures judgement in her favour. The father of gods and human beings replies: “I shall take care of this matter and bring it to completion. I shall nod my head to you so that you may trust me. Among the immortals, this is the greatest pledge I can give. For when I confirm something with a nod, what comes from me is neither revocable, deceptive nor unfulfilled.”26
From Book I of the Iliad onwards, justice proves as central as war, and it partly lies beyond human control. Some disputes cannot be settled by an assembly of warriors. The very existence of such an assembly indicates that, well before the emergence of democracy, Greek aristocrats were accustomed to deliberating together on judicial matters. Such debates are also depicted in the scene on Achilles’s shield.27 It portrays the public settlement of a dispute between two men over the compensation due for a killing.
Strife and Justice in Works and Days
In Works and Days, Hesiod describes two kinds of strife: one that fosters war and is abhorred by human beings, and another that “awakens an eagerness to work in faint-hearted men.”28 These may be associated with two modes of acquisition, the first through force and the second through labour, each involving a form of competition or opposition fuelled by covetousness. Hesiod’s esteem for labour contrasts with an aristocratic tradition that generally despised it and would persist until the 18th century. However, since Hesiod focuses primarily on agriculture, his position is not so unorthodox: this is an activity that we would now describe as work but that was held in esteem by the ancient Greeks.29 Indeed, Earth is one of the three primordial deities and is often regarded as the womb of humankind.30 Moreover, agricultural labour was not considered in ancient Greece a craft involving human techniques or artifices. The “only knowledge it requires is what anyone can acquire unaided through observation and reflection.”31 It does not require apprenticeship under a master. Agriculture thus remains “integrated into a religious system of representations.”32
Whether in war or not, Hesiod sees life as a struggle originating in divine punishment. In Works and Days, the poet retells the legend of Prometheus and gives a detailed account of Pandora before presenting the myth of the races. At its conclusion, he despairs of having been born during the race of iron—Zeus will destroy this race once respect for elders and gods has disappeared and “might will make right.”33 He then relates the fable of the hawk and the nightingale: “A hawk answered the sweet-voiced nightingale as he carried her high in the clouds, captive in his talons: […] ‘Why do you cry out, fool? One much stronger than you holds you. However musical you may be, you will go wherever I take you; if I wish, you will be my meal, or I shall let you go. Senseless is anyone who seeks to contend with one stronger than himself.’”34 Without the justice granted by Zeus to mortals, there remains a minimal form of justice—the law of the stronger—which one cannot defy without succumbing to excess, like the nightingale crying out in vain.
Human beings must therefore submit in all circumstances to some form of justice. If they do so, they may receive the gods’ favour: “Upright men are never afflicted by famine or scourges, for work and feasts occupy them.”35 Yet if even one man is seized by excess, Zeus may make an entire city suffer for his fault. Moreover, any hope of escaping divine justice would be illusory, for “three times ten thousand gods inhabit the fertile earth—by the will of Zeus […]. They watch over judgements and wicked deeds, cloaked in mist as they wander all over the earth, together with Justice (Dikē), the maiden born to Zeus, son of Cronus, respected and revered by the gods who dwell on Olympus.”36
In Paideia, Jaeger notes that Dikē is etymologically connected with the settlement of a dispute. “The guilty party ‘gives dikē’, which originally means that he ‘provides compensation’ for his act. […] Dikē signifies the due share that each person may claim without overstepping his rights.”37 This etymology is consistent with a concept of justice tied to a divine order consisting essentially in the allocation of statuses and honours, whose transgression constitutes an injustice.
Human Responsibility and Guilt
To a modern mind accustomed to the idea that individuals are responsible for their actions, it may be shocking to observe that, in Greek religion, human misfortunes arise wholly or partly from divine events. After all, mortals never asked Prometheus to act on their behalf! And if they are not responsible for their suffering, how could they be responsible for injustice? Although distinct, the divine and human planes overlap and interact asymmetrically. In particular, an offence committed by one individual may subsequently weigh upon an entire city or later generations, as in the case of Orestes. In other words, punishment is not necessarily or directly connected with the actions of the person being punished: guilt may be inherited from gods or ancestors without being experienced as alien.
Nevertheless, an individual may bear some responsibility insofar as Fate does not govern every event in life, a margin of uncertainty remains because divine power is limited, and each person can use their intelligence to understand what the gods expect of them. Homer makes this last point clear in a speech by Zeus in the Odyssey: “Ah! How many grievances mortals lay at the feet of the gods! According to them, their evils come from us; yet through their own recklessness they suffer beyond what Fate had ordained. Not long ago, in defiance of Fate, Aegisthus married the lawful wife of the son of Atreus and killed him on his return, although he knew what terrible death awaited him. For we had warned him, sending Hermes, the watchful slayer of Argus, to forbid him from killing the husband and marrying the wife.”38
Hesiod states concerning human responsibility: “The man who plots evil plots against himself; an evil plan is worst for the one who devises it.” 39 By contrast, he adds: “The most accomplished man is he who considers which things will ultimately prove best.”40 This capacity for reflection calls to mind the intelligence and deliberations of Odysseus, bringing us back to the Odyssey. The hero’s sagacity complements the assistance provided by Athena, particularly when her protégé finds himself in a difficult or even desperate situation. It stands in contrast to the “heart” and “anger” that can lead Odysseus to take reckless risks—for example, when he taunts the Cyclops a second time after escaping from his cave, even as his companions try to dissuade him from further provoking the son of Poseidon.41
Although more intelligent than many of his peers, Odysseus remains fallible and liable to be swept away by a passionate impulse that may have a divine origin. From a philosophical perspective, however, intelligence enables human beings not to think independently of the gods, but to reason without error. This amounts to not straying from the right path, since knowledge and action are not strictly differentiated: in the earliest conceptions, a fault “appears simultaneously as an ‘error’ of the mind, a religious defilement and a moral failing.”42
In a context where human thoughts and actions are frequently influenced by divine interventions, there can be no question of an individual “will”, a notion that becomes meaningful only when it is not subject to overwhelming constraints. Strictly speaking, will can be attributed only to the gods and, more particularly, to Zeus, whose decrees became identical with Fate after his accession to kingship.43
The Emergence of Moral Outlooks Distinct from Religion
Having dwelt on Homer and Hesiod, let us conclude by considering two poets of the 7th and 6th centuries BCE, Archilochus and Solon, in order to observe a moral development preceding the emergence of the earliest Ionian philosophies.
Archilochus
Archilochus was an Ionian poet who lived first on the island of Paros and then on Thasos during the first half of the 7th century BCE. He “is the earliest of the great European lyric poets, in both senses of the word lyric. In the ancient sense, he created the varied forms of a poetry intended to be sung. In the modern sense, his poetry directly expresses his emotions: it responds to the events of his life and is personal.”44
The poet’s appearance as the protagonist of his own works marks a break with Homer and Hesiod. Nevertheless, by making himself a character, particularly as a citizen-soldier, Archilochus recasts the aristocratic values of epic poetry rather than challenging them. For example, he “does not say that glory is an empty notion; he says […] that the living do not confer it when they should, because they are quicker to fulfil the wishes of the living, who can reward them, than those of the dead.”45 Moreover, he uses more fables than Hesiod and apparently draws neither upon mythical examples nor upon epic models.46
He also differs from his predecessors through his lighter tone, even in his elegies. Thus, when recounting how he reluctantly abandoned his shield—something a hero might have done if necessary to fulfil his destiny—he adds: “What do I care about my old shield? Let it go! I shall buy another just as good.”47 Elsewhere, he depicts himself as a soldier distinguished more by nonchalance than by intrepidity: “My ration of barley bread comes from my spear, as does my Ismarian wine, which I drink leaning upon my spear.”48
In a sense, as Jaeger interprets it, Archilochus transposes the Homeric world “into the world of everyday life.”49 This is particularly evident in the following lines: “Heart, my heart, overwhelmed by sorrows beyond remedy, gather yourself. Stand firm against your enemies and confront them head-on. Do not flinch at the traps set by the wicked. In victory, do not exult ostentatiously; in defeat, do not lie at home prostrate in lamentation. Rejoice in your successes and grieve over your reversals, but not excessively. Learn the rhythm that governs human life.”50 These words echo those spoken by Odysseus in the Odyssey: “Be patient, my heart: you have endured worse than this.”51
Solon
In his poetry, Solon, the illustrious sage and lawgiver of Athens, associates Justice, as Hesiod does, with Zeus and Fate, which we have seen identified with the will of the ruler of the gods: “Fate distributes both evils and goods among human beings, and they cannot escape what the immortal gods wish to give them.”52 Some people may act ineptly and nevertheless succeed if the gods have decreed a success associated with the possession of wealth. Yet the thirst for wealth is “limitless”, leading to excess and therefore to divine punishment. When Zeus “wishes to afflict and punish us, he does so differently for each of us.”53 Although Fate frequently remains independent of human actions, when an offence is committed, punishment is individualised.
Wealth lies at the heart of Solon’s concerns because inequalities were causing civil war in his time: “Foolish citizens, greedy for wealth, seek to destroy this mighty city themselves. […] But even when Justice is silent, she remembers what has happened and what is happening; she comes in due time and punishes the guilty. Thus, an incurable wound has spread throughout the city, which suddenly fell into dreadful servitude; civil war was born, dormant hatreds reawakened, and many citizens perished in the prime of life.”54 As in Hesiod, the fault of one or more individuals may fall upon an entire city.
Solon differs more in his solution than in his diagnosis of the problem: “My heart commands me to warn the Athenians of the evils that contempt for the laws brings upon the state. Lawfulness, by contrast, establishes good order and harmony everywhere.”55 Respect for the laws, whether enacted by gods or by human beings, gives rise to order and harmony. Their everyday observance depends upon human beings who, by knowing the laws, can avoid breaking them and committing offences or crimes. This is by no means a break with religion, which remains omnipresent in Solon’s poetry, but rather a shift in emphasis: from Justice as a deity, the daughter of Zeus, towards justice associated with laws whose observance guarantees good order. The relationship between justice and laws—the latter being increasingly enacted by human beings—constitutes a substantial change.
With Archilochus and then Solon, we witness the emergence of moral outlooks that no longer appeal as systematically as before to religious models. They foreground the immediate and concrete problems of their time and offer advice and solutions intended to address them more pragmatically and politically, while continuing to draw upon religion and a degree of timelessness.
Notes
1.↑ Hésiode, Théogonie, Les Travaux et les Jours et autre poèmes, Libraire Générale Française, 1999, p. 31.
2.↑ Ibid., p. 32. Reproduction without mating, which occurs in a number of plants and animals, is called parthenogenesis.
3.↑ Frankfort, Henry and Frankfort H.A. (ed.). The Intellectual Adventure of Ancient Man: An Essay of Speculative Thought in the Ancient Near East (Oriental Institute Essays). University of Chicago Press, 2013.
4.↑ Marie-Christine Leclerc in Hésiode, op. cit., p. 72.
5.↑ It is worth noting that Night gives birth whereas Day does not, and Earth gives birth whereas Sky does not… In Greek myths, procreation is first and foremost a female attribute.
6.↑ Jean-Pierre Vernant, Mythe et société en Grèce ancienne, La Découverte, 2004, p. 117.
7.↑ Because they came into being, the gods are immortal but not eternal.
8.↑ Hésiode, op. it., p. 97.
9.↑ Ibid., p. 103.
10.↑ Ibid.
11.↑ Lloyd-Jones, Hugh. The Justice of Zeus. University of California Press, 1971, p. 52.
12.↑ Jean-Pierre Vernant, op. cit., p. 98.
13.↑ Cornford, Francis Macdonald. From Religion to Philosophy: A Study in the Origins of Western Speculation. New York, Longmans, Green and Co, 1912, p. 16.
14.↑ Cornford, op. cit.
15.↑ Jean-Pierre Vernant, op. cit., p. 116.
16.↑ Homère, Iliade, Flammarion, 2013, p. 251.
17.↑ Hésiode, op. it., p. 46-47 : the division of the ox between Zeus and mortals, followed by the theft of fire.
18.↑ The goddess Hecate exemplifies this point, for according to Hesiod (ibid., p. 41-42), she possesses “her share on earth and in the barren sea. […] Every member of the race born from the union of Sky and Earth who was granted honour yields to her a share of his dominion.”
19.↑ As G.E.R. Lloyds signals in Magic, Reason and Experience: Studies in the Origins and Development of Greek Science. Hackett Publishing Company, 1999 : “the category of the ‘supernatural” develops, in fact, pari passu with that of the ‘natural’.”
20.↑ For example, although Pascal Payen, in La guerre dans le monde grec, VIIIe–Ier siècles av. J.-C. (Armand Colin, 2018), disagrees with historians such as François Chamoux, Yvon Garlan and Patrick Baker, he nevertheless acknowledges that “there is no question of denying that war occupies the foremost place in Greek societies, if we follow Herodotus and Thucydides, the first two historians whose works have survived in their entirety; however, the Greeks never ceased reflecting on ways to contain its harmful effects and relativise its importance.”
21.↑ Werner Jaeger, Paideia, Gallimard, 1964, p. 64.
22.↑ Homère, L’Iliade, Flammarion, 2000, p. 26.
23.↑ Ibid., p. 28.
24.↑ Ibid.
25.↑ Werner Jaeger, op. cit., p. 35.
26.↑ Homère, op. cit., p. 35.
27.↑ Homère, op. cit., p. 319.
28.↑ Hésiode, op. cit., p. 98.
29.↑ See in particular Cicero’s famous observations in On Duties, I.42.
30.↑ Cf. on this topic Guthrie, W. K. C. In the beginning: some Greek views on the origins of life and the early state of man. Cornell University Press, 1957.
31.↑ Jean-Pierre Vernant, Mythe et pensée chez les Grecs, La Découverte, 2020.
32.↑ Ibid.
33.↑ Hésiode, op. cit., p. 104.
34.↑ Ibid.
35.↑ Ibid., p. 105.
36.↑ Ibid., p. 106.
37.↑ Jaeger, op. cit., p. 137.
38.↑ Homère, L’Odyssée, Flammarion, 2009, p. 18.
39.↑ Hésiode, op. cit., p. 106.
40.↑ Ibid., p. 107.
41.↑ Homère, op. cit., p. 139-140. The Cyclops claims to be the son of Poseidon.
42.↑ Jean-Pierre Vernant et Pierre Vidal-Naquet, Mythe et tragédie en Grèce ancienne, La Découverte & Syros, 2001.
43.↑ Lloyd-Jones, Hugh. The Justice of Zeus. University of California Press, 1971, p. 4.
44.↑ André Bonnard in Archiloque, Fragments, Les Belles Lettres, 1958, p. V.
45.↑ Lloyd-Jones, op.cit., p. 39.
46.↑ Jaeger, op. cit., p. 157.
47.↑ Archiloque, op. cit., p. 5.
48.↑ Ibid., p. 3.
49.↑ Jaeger, op. cit., p. 160.
50.↑ Archiloque, op. cit., p. 39.
51.↑ Homère, op. cit., p. 286.
52.↑ Solon in MM. Guigniaut, Patin, Jules Girard, et L. Humbert (trad.), Poètes moralistes de la Grèce : Hésiode, Théognis, Callinus, Tyrtée, Mimnerme, Solon, Simonide d’Amorgos, Phocylide, Pythagore, Aristote, Garnier Frères, 1892, p. 255.
53.↑ Ibid., p. 256.
54.↑ Ibid., p. 258.
55.↑ Ibid.