In the epic poem The Iliad, by Homer, the gods sometimes control the actions of mortals by taking away their agency. Agency can be defined as the capacity to act freely without external influences, such as gods in this case. Near the beginning of the epic, because Hera complains to Zeus about Ares, the god of war, who is mass murdering the Achaeans, Athena is dispatched to stop Ares. In this passage, Athena wants to take Ares down personally, so she takes away the agency of a mortal, Diomedes, in order to do so. Ares complains about being Athena’s direct target and suffers the consequences of storming the battlegrounds and attacking the Achaeans. Athena has the desire to stop Ares and is doing it for more than one reason. In the beginning
