Classical Lit Essay.

Aaron Lim Si Ru
M. Jeeshan
HL 107: Classical Literature
16 April 2010

Determining Determinism in Greek Culture.

Determinism is the notion that every event, including the effect of supposed free will, is causally determined by prior events and thus free will is theoretically impossible, at least in the context of most Greek culture. For most aspects of human life in ancient Greece, the gods hold a great amount of influence, exerting their authority over human events, essentially dictating human life; any rebellion against godly authority is often met with dire consequences. Determinism represented in the authority of gods over human life then emerges as a common theme in Greek Literature as classical writers attempt to understand the relationship between humans and the gods.

Elements of determinism can be seen in many examples of Greek literature, chiefly in the epics because the writers typically invoke the Muses to guide their writing as seen in the very first line of The Odyssey as Homer writes, “Sing in me Muse, and through me tell the story” (Homer 1). In doing so, Homer relinquishes his will to the Muses to determine his epic, in other words, he is merely transcribing the will of the gods; that it is a work sparked from divine inspiration rather than the creative spark of mortal imagination. Most known Greek histories are passed down as oral traditions, the notion that that the gods guide these stories and epics, lends these stories an air of authority. Such epics then become deterministic of Greek culture as the Greeks strive to emulate the glories and successes of the heroes in said epics. In a sense, the determinism of the gods becomes transposed into stories that serve as instruction for the Greeks.
In Book 1 of The Odyssey, the place of the gods are established clearly, the epic itself is directed by the inspiration of Muses as Homer implores them to “lift the great song again” to impart this piece of oral history to the Greek peoples (Homer 1). Zeus himself lays down the dire consequences of defying the gods’ will as represented in Aigisthos ignoring Hermes’ warning and willfully commits adultery with Agamemnon’s wife. Not only does this particular episode foreshadow the dire consequences of mortals attempting to skirt the authority of the gods, it is also a declaration of the gods’ influence over the lives of men, that their will is inescapable and a clear indication that men lack the ability to make independent decisions; always kept in check by the gods’ warnings either knowingly or unknowingly. While the gods do not always directly interfere with human lives, they act as deterrents that serves as part of a causal chain in the decision-making process of the Greeks, leading to an outcome determined by such prior events.

As Homer himself is writing under the auspices of the gods, Odysseus his protagonist is likewise a pawn in the game of chess between the gods in The Odyssey. Athena discusses Odysseus’ fate with Zeus in Book 1, not only does this show that Odysseus is no longer a free agent, it highlights the god’ intervention on human life that the path he should take is being decided for him. The gods, in the beginning of Book 5, indeed heavily determine his journey; they hold a council once more to decide his fate and Zeus declares “make it known to the softly-braided nymph that we, whose will is not subject to error, order Odysseus home” and Hermes is sent to release Odysseus from Calypso’s grasp (Homer 82). Odysseus is clearly placed at the mercy of the gods’, completely dependent of on the auspices of the Pantheon. His imprisonment by Calypso can thus be seen as a metaphor of divine control over his life; his own free will is forfeit to that of the gods. It is also telling that while Homer expounds the various qualities of his hero, Odysseus for all his wit, guile and intelligence, is unable to break free from Calypso, a clear indication that human will is ultimately privy to deterministic will of the gods. Thus, even as Odysseus expresses the desire to return home, that will to do so is inconsequential unless granted freedom by the gods.

Aside from the direct decree of the gods charting the events of human life, their influence manifests in other forms as well. As he is freed from Calypso, Odysseus sets sail for the island for Scheria, charms the princess Nausicaa and obtains safe passage to the court of the Phaeacians. Though these may appear as decisions made by Odysseus of his free will, they too have been guided by the divine to come to pass. Odysseus navigates his way using the stars to find land and spots Scheria, this may seem like an act independent of divine will but Zeus has already decreed in the beginning of Book 5 that “he shall make land upon the garden isle, Scheria” (Homer 82). Furthermore, it was Athena who appears to Nausicaa in a dream urging her, “how so remiss… leaving thy clothes uncared for, Nausicaa” to wash her clothes by the river creating the ‘chance’ encounter with Odysseus (Homer 100). Even as Odysseus appears to win Nausicaa’s trust through his own charms, it is Athena who secures that trust by making Odysseus especially handsome that Nausicaa falls for him and provides him the passage to seek help with Arete, queen of the Phaecians. Odysseus is thus provided with the illusion that his success is due to his intelligence and charm, unknowing of the fact that his actions have been altered by divine will. Therefore, even though Odysseus does display instances of free will in his actions when not being overtly commanded by the gods, his actions are merely a single event in a long chain of determined events put into action by unseen causes. This raises a possibility that free will could be an illusion, that the decisions made could have been caused by prior events and not necessarily stemming from one’s ‘free’ will; reinforcing the notion that free will is an alien concept in Greek culture that their lives are ultimately determined by forces beyond their ken.

The gods in The Odyssey appear as arbiters of human affairs united under the collective will of Zeus, yet it is troubling to note that they are not as impartial as arbiters ought to be as can be seen in Calypso’s indignant indictment of “you vile gods, in jealousy supernal”, a clear indication of the double standards of the Pantheon of which Hermes conveniently ignores (Homer 84). Clearly, though they are gods, they are not as immune to human foibles as they should be, Ovid’s Metermorphoses shall offer more insights. The fact that the Greeks have created so many deities to govern diverse aspects of human life instead of a singular divine entity seems to hint that the gods are merely divine representations of human experiences. Indeed, in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, the gods are portrayed as imperfect beings with many human faults, underscoring the perfect divine beings they are supposed to be. It is thus ironic to see Apollo, the god of pure reason succumb to the irrationality of love and as a god of medicine helpless with “no herb to cure [his] passion” (Ovid 23). Even Jove the ruler of the Pantheon is not as all-powerful as he is portrayed to be, “as Jove was about to hurl his thunderbolts at the whole earth, he stayed his hand: he was afraid that all those flames might set the sacred sky ablaze”, thus he is still limited in the aspect that he is unable to fully grasp the consequences of his actions (Ovid 13). Evidently the Olympian Pantheon is far from perfect; its gods are troubled by eros, embroiled in petty conflicts with each other, often ruled by their passions than by logic. All these evidences point to the existence of a higher power above that of the Olympian gods. Ovid mentions an unnamed divinity during the cosmogony of the universe, “a god-and nature” representative of all the primal forces of existence, compared to the Olympians whose scope is only limited to that of human experience (Ovid 3). The limitations of the Olympians serve only to reinforce the fact that they alone cannot be considered as the sole agents of determinism as they appear to be influenced by a higher power. Thus the Olympians become subordinate to the deterministic forces we thought they once wielded, therefore instead of the Olympians acting as the absolute arbiters they can be seen as intermediaries of deterministic forces.
Determinism being an unbroken chain of prior occurrences can be traced back to the origin of the universe, where the first uncaused cause sets off a chain of events. It is the one being which does not move, but rather one who attracts movement causing the primordial swerve to spark off creation and a whole chain of events akin to the domino effect. Although human life in Greek literature is often depicted as guided by the mandate of the Pantheon, the Olympian gods are themselves determined by a power far above their own, even they have to submit to the caprice of the fates. If The Odyssey’s place in the Greek canon is representative of Greek culture, the way that Odysseus is ultimately bound by his fate, free will in Greek culture simply exists as an illusory concept.
1550 Words.


Works Cited
Ovid. The Metamorphoses of Ovid. Trans. Allen Mandelbaum. San Diego: A Harvest Book Harcourt, Inc. 1993. Print.
Homer. The Odyssey. Trans. Robert Fitzgerald. London: Vintage Books. 2007. Print.