Greek Gods Flaws

The Greek gods are, to an extent, unique amongst the mythologies of ancient civilizations. The Greeks imagined their gods, not greater than them, but the same as them. The same flaws, the same characteristics that made the Greeks human, were present within the gods. But, at the same time, the gods were more than human; they possess supernatural abilities and together have absolute power over the world. They use this power much like the Greeks themselves might have, doing things almost exclusively out of self-interest, but because the gods possess these greater powers the consequences of their actions are far greater than those of humans. The Greek gods are not in any way superior to humanity; they are the same as humanity, but by their …show more content…
The answer to that question, is relatively simple and that is that while humans and the gods both do the same kind of immoral things, the gods actions are on a much larger scale than that of humans. For example, while the members of the Greek army are all soldiers and as such nearly all of them will have killed at least one person, many of them will have killed several people. At the same time the gods and Zeus in particular are responsible for the deaths of not several people, or even hundreds of people, but in fact have caused the deaths of thousands of people. In fact the beginning of the Iliad itself declares that all that happens in it specifically because of Zeus “The rage sing, O goddess, of Achilles, the son of Peleus, the destructive anger that brought ten-thousand pains to the Achaeans and sent many brave souls of fighting men to the house of Hades and made their bodies a feast for dogs and all kinds of birds. For such was the will of Zeus” (Iliad Book 1 lines 1-5). There is also the case of Agamemnon being unwilling to give up his prize because he wants a reward for his actions during the war (Iliad Book 1 lines 115-119). Which is very similar to later when Hera demands that Troy be destroyed in part because of how much effort she has already spent trying to bring this about “You only want to make my labor useless and without effect” (Iliad Book 4 lines 25-26). The primary difference between these events is again the scale of the impact, had Agamemnon refused it would have meant that the Greek army would have been weakened and likely would have had to give up the war, while as a result of Hera’s insistence that the war continue all of Troy was destroyed resulting in the deaths of many of its inhabitants and the enslavement of