The Iliad Thoughts III - Violence and Authority

Random observation:

While Zeus threatens to use violence a couple times (or, in less starkly human and “threatening to beat your wife is A-OK” Ancient Greece terms, exercise his power and authority as the king), Hera explicitly says she wants to beat the shit out of Ares to make him stop helping the Trojans, goes to ask Zeus for permission to do this, and he obliges - and suggests Hera delegates to Athena, which she does.

This leads to her aiding Diomedes in yet another “humans aren’t supposed to do this thing” act (which, like with the other ones, Diomedes gets away with entirely) and Ares being injured. Rather gravely injured too, since this isn't Diomedes' lance going through Aphrodite's wrist, this is straight into Ares' gut!

I think we can all agree here that Hera is supposed to be the more powerful one between them in terms of divine appointment and is his mother besides. Athena is of course on a more even ground with him, but she explicitly makes herself invisible, so that Ares' assumptions and expectations for what might happen attacking Diomedes is far off reality, and his ability to defend himself is basically nil.

Do I have any great point here? Not really. I just came upon that part and it seems worth it to consider that authority/power expressed through violence (or the threat thereof) doesn’t just come from Zeus. My only half formed thought is that it really is a lot less about the personal/intimate relationship between the characters involved and more about power and authority, but obviously it looks and comes across a lot more unpleasant when you add/only think of it in terms of the personal/intimate relationships between the characters.

Which is to also to say, I don't think Hera's (and Athena's) fear in the face of Zeus' threatening violence is necessarily to be taken as a wife chastised and afraid of being beaten by her husband. Hera is a powerful and highly ranked goddess - she's used to being on top, and Zeus usually never acts against her or threatens to put her in "place" as a lower-ranked deity. I think it might be just as much, if not more, about the fear of being proven less in terms of power and authority (she's very exacting at pointing out who she is, in general and compared to Zeus, and she talks about her status as his wife at the point she mentions it less as a relationship and more as just that; status and power and dignity).

Greek myth - something about Aphrodite and Eros' powers

I recently realized some things about Zeus and at least some of his sexual escapades. Aside from the fact that there's way too much assumption and generalizing it all as rape (some of it certainly was, unequivocally so! but not all of it), there's the fact that both Aphrodite and Eros have induced lust for at the very least a number of mortals, but probably some of the semi-divine lovers as well.

Aphrodite explicitly says in the Homeric hymn that deals with her love to Anchises that Zeus has made her fall in love with Anchises as retaliation for all the times she's forced him [which can't be literally every single time he's fallen in love, married a goddess or had sex with someone]. There's also the very clear implication that it's still somewhat unseemly (only for goddesses?) for the gods to sleep with mortals, since Aphrodite warns Anchises not to tell anyone (and he's punished with lameness when he finally does tell) who he's slept with.

So there's a number of Zeus' affairs that could have been unwilling from both sides, unwilling from only one - either the woman or Zeus himself - or entirely consensual for both.

I figure that Zeus was probably the first one Aphrodite did this to, and it serves as a sort of "allowance" for everything that comes later, by Zeus or any of the other gods even if it's not entirely correct and maybe a little insulting in truth for them to do this, which means there was probably some resistance and attempt at keeping it secret at first. Which might be why Zeus reacts so harshly when Demeter sleeps with Iasion. Sure, some of it is probably a bit of jealousy, but mostly it's probably meant as a way both to punish an insult to a great goddess (even with it having been entirely consensual), and a warning, both to the gods and humans, since I think, going by some vague timeline, Demeter & Iasion are the first goddess/human coupling.