“Were the Greeks in fact quite so blind to the importance of nonrational factors in man’s experience and behavior as is commonly assumed by their apologists and by their critics?” (Dodds 1). Eric Dodd’s first chapter, Agamemnon’s Apology, focusses on educating the springs of human nature. He starts by challenging that the Homeric religion is hardly considered a religion based on today’s standards. But religion and religious significance have different meanings. We begin with the experience of divine temptation, or infatuation. It is important to understand the Greek term até, which is the Greek goddess of mischief, delusion, ruin, and folly. This sense of temptation led Agamemnon, which in Greek mythology, was the son of King Atreus and Queen Aerope of Mycenae, to lose his mistress by robbing Achilles, who is a Greek hero from the Trojan War. Agamemnon blamed the goddess até for his actions. One could see this as an evasion of responsibility, but Achilles also blamed até as the responsible being for Agamemnon’s actions. Agamemnon even goes as far as offering compensation to Achilles for his shameful act, saying he was blinded by até. But was justice served?
In Homer’s point of view, até is not a personal agent. Até in the Iliad does not mean objective disaster, as it could be interpreted between Agamemnon and Achilles conflict. Dodds quotes, “… até is a state of mind – a temporary clouding or bewildering of the normal consciousness” (Dodds 5). It can be seen as a partial and temporary form of insanity that isn’t related to physiological or psychological causes. Instead, it is seen as an “daemonic” agency. In modern language, this translates to demonic. In the Odyssey, até can be produced naturally, however, wine is said to cause até as well. Wine brings supernatural or demonic feelings within a person. This term até has been associated with the term wickedness. Agamemnon cites three people associated with the term até. Zeus, the king of gods, Moira, a symbolic being that is related to the end of life, and Erinys, who are female deities of vengeance. In the Iliad, Zeus was credited for causing até; in fact, até is actually the name of his eldest daughter.
Homer’s characters recognize the distinction between normal and actions preformed in até. Até is a sense of mind. The term menos is a feeling felt within the chest; there is a mysterious access of energy. It is sometimes felt as if “… god has ‘breathed it into’ the hero, or ‘puts it in his chest’” (Dodds 9). Homer’s characters can recognize this menos sensation throughout their limbs which gives them evidence that this sensation is of divine origin. Dodds says that this experience is abnormal and the people experiencing this sensation feels the abnormality. In the Odyssey, puts menos into Telemachus which gives him the moral courage to confront the overbearing suitors. The Odyssey does create characters that struggle with mental and physical events. They get aide by a god, gods, or even demons. Whenever a character thinks brilliantly or foolishly, an invisible being gives them a flash of insight. Dodds quotes, “The recognition, the insight, the memory, the brilliant or pervasive idea, have this in common, that they come suddenly, as we say, ‘into the man’s head’” (Dodds 11). A psychic intervention is formed when these invisible beings come into the picture. But are these interactions in his mind or experienced physically? Dodds points out that there is a distinction between what the speaker knows and what the poet knows. When Telemachus speaks out against his suitors, he says “the gods are teaching him to talk big.” But in fact, as the poet and the readers know, it was Athena who gave him the will power. Telemachus was not to know, so he specifically said, “the gods.” This knowledge of not knowing is common with ancient peoples. Just like in Greek mythology, when ancient civilizations didn’t know the exact reason behind an act of superstition, they would refer to a higher power.
All departures of normal human behavior are not immediately perceived. People are so civilized and clear headed that they have given up their fears of pollution, dying, and other primitive behaviors that exist in both Greek mythology and our modern lives. Martin P. Nilsson, a Swedish scholar, contended that the characters from Homer’s works have rapid and violent changes in moods. Homer almost superfluously resorts to the way humans think. But are Homer’s people unstable compared to earlier mythological works? Yes, Hector from Odyssey: Book 15 goes berserk, eyes glowing as foam rolls out of his mouth, but Norse and Irish heroes have similar, if not more bloody personal attacks. Homeric people weep often and possibly in a more uninhibited manner than the Swedes or the English man; so do all of the Mediterranean people of today. Dodds quotes, “… stable characters are not more exempt than others from psychic intervention” (Dodds 15). There are two peculiarities that belong to Homer’s culture that Nilsson forgot. The first is negative peculiarity. Homeric people don’t have a declared soul or personality. Homer points out their psyche only after death, or when the act of dying is threatening. Thumos has a primitive “breath-soul” or “life-soul,” but Homer sees thumos as not part of a soul. Instead, he sees it as an organ. This thumos tells us to eat or drink or even slay an enemy. It is an inner voice. The second peculiarity is attempting to explaining character or behavior in terms of knowledge. The term “I know” expresses not only the possession of technical skill, but also what we should call moral character or personal feelings. Dodds quotes, “Achilles ‘knows wild things, like a lion,’ Polyphemus ‘knows lawless things,’ Nestor and Agamemnon ‘know friendly things to each other.’” The characters are knowledge, what is not knowledge is not part of the character but comes to a man on the outside. Nonrational impulses tend to be excluded from the self, ascribed to an alien origin.
The term até is a response that arose not merely from the impulsiveness of the Homeric man but arose from the tensions between individuals and the pressure of social conformity; a characteristic of shame culture. A society that exposes man to contempt or ridicule their peers becomes unbearable. This case of moral failure, like that of Agamemnon’s loss of self-control came to be projected on to a divine agency. However, the growing sense of guilt transformed até into a punishment. This Homeric religious experience shows more than an artificial machinery of serio-comic gods, but it shows an unexpected case of human psychology.
Dodds, E. R. (1956) The Greeks and the irrational. Berkeley, CA: The Regents of the University of California.