By: John Muraski 

         In ancient Greek literature, the Greek gods are always present in some way shape or form. Whether it is for good or not quite so good purposes they are there. In some cases the gods become every involved with a person’s life. With the gods and humans interacting with each other, what – if there is even one present - is the relationship that exists between them? There is a relationship between them, as is evident in the numerous Greek writings, but what does said relationship actually entail?

            The first question to look at in dissecting this relationship is asking if the gods actually need Humans. If the gods are these all powerful beings, then what would they want a bunch of weaker beings running around? The gods simply want to idolized and worshipped, so they create human beings and make them worship the various gods. For example a passage from the Homeric Hymn to Demeter: “But come now, let all the people build me a great temple and beneath it an altar under the steep wall of the city, above Kallichron, on the rising hill. I myself shall introduce rites so later you may propitiate my mind by their right performance.”(The Homeric Hymns, Apostolos N. Athanassakis, 270 – 274). This line shows Demeter demanding that people build a temple and then worship her in a very specific way. This shows that the gods want human beings to worship them and they are not shy about it. Here Demeter does not ask that they build her the temple, but rather demands that they build it. With a demand like this it becomes evident that the gods want the humans around to glorify them, as well as to give them food stuffs in the form of sacrifices as is given in detail in The Odyssey. Then the consequences of disobeying or defying on of the gods are tantamount to tragedy. A prime example of such a consequence can be found in Homers Odyssey. When the Odysseus’ crew disobeys the gods they all end up dead and Odysseus is more or less tortured.

            Then with the gods creating humans, did they give the race of man free will, or do force to do everything that we do – like humans are pawns in a giant game of chess? From what can b gathered in Greek literature it seems as though that it is a combination of the two, or at least that there are specific people that have their lives decisions heavily influenced by the gods. As in that the gods can’t seem to actually physically control a person, but can heavily influence a person to take a specific course of action. Looking at the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, when Demeter is taking care of Demophoon, the child’s mother Metaneira, stumbles upon her child being thrust into a fire by Demeter and understandably cries out. Here Demeter had just lost Persephone to Hades and was looking for someone to replace her and she chose Demophoon as that replacement. In her grief it seemed as though Demeter was hell-bent on making Demophoon as Persephone’s replacement and if she could she wouldn’t let anyone change that plan. If she had direct control over the life of a person she could have easily had Metaneira stay away and never see the child being thrust into an open fire. However she doesn’t and this gives doubt that the gods have direct control over the life and actions of a human.

            Another prime of example of this is in Homer’s The Odyssey. In Book 1, Athena goes to Ithaca to convince Telemachus that he needs to go out and search for information on the whereabouts of his father. Throughout the conversation that she has with Telemachus she never actually forces him to go out and look for Odysseus, she only convinces him to go out and search (Homer, translated by Fagles, Robert, The Odyssey, 1.184 – 366). It is obvious that Athena wants Telemachus to go out and look for his father, but she doesn’t force him to do so, which indicates that she unable to directly control Telemachus’ life and actions. Telemachus could easily have used his free-will to say ‘No’ and not go out and look. What makes it seem as though the gods have control over a person’s life is that they are able to use threats and ultimatums. When given an ultimatum from a god, and you still say no, then the god will take action against you. Examples of this include rituals, sacrifices, and a list of things that if someone does will anger the gods. Again, the example of Odysseus’ crew eating the cattle of the sun god after being told not to eat them or they would have great problems.

            As with any relationship, there needs to be rewards to both sides of the relationship, otherwise it would degenerate into a symbiotic relationship with one group leeching from the other. Such as if the gods did nothing but torture humans and give them nothing in return, then the humans would not worship the gods. While the gods could threaten humans with problems and death, it would get to the point that none of the humans would believe in them anymore and the gods could then possibly be helpless. The flipside to this is also true. Humans couldn’t just rely on the gods for everything and not give the gods anything or not worship the gods in return. If they didn’t give sacrifice or honor the gods then the gods would just ignore humans or just plain get rid of them. Throughout Greek literature it often happened that when a human offered up a sacrifice to one of the gods, the god would answer and possibly assist the person in whatever it was that they needed (as long as the offering was good enough). It had also happened that whenever a god did something good for a human, that human would do something along the lines of building a temple or offering a sacrifice at the spot or a nearby location that the event happened.