• roles:
• Divine gender?
• It is interesting and it's not clear what to make of the fact that divine women clearly have agency, whereas by and large mortal women have a much reduced agency.
  
• Men:
• warrior, king, priest, doctor, husband, father, son, servant, and the list could go on and on with occupations
  
• men take care of virtually everything outside the home: and are in charge within the home
• men have agency: it seems to be, in large part, what constitutes being a man, being 'active'
• the ethics document presented in this class earlier in many ways covers what it means to be 'a man' in Homer, although as the default category, what it means to be a 'man' is never explicitly discussed.
• Women:
• many fewer women than men are present in the epics, and aside from Penelope, they do not propel the action in a sustained way: they are there, they make comments, and they are occasionally responsible for a decision or a plot point. Is it just me, or are those cases 'exceptional'?
  
• queen, priestess, nurse, wife, concubine, mother, daughter, servant, textile-maker, and the list could go on, but it seems shorter than that for men: women were mostly inside the home (although not as much as is true of Athens in Classical times-6th-4th centuries)
  
• women are responsible for a great deal of what is 'home' and 'household'
• that is where women have agency (and not fully there either)
  
• their role in war is to be at home or to be captured/enslaved/killed
• the amazons are mentioned, but not developed
• they are a tantalizing 'exception that proves the rule' in the epics
  
• the flipside of lacking agency: women are, in general, 'passive' sufferers of what the world does to them
  
• an astonishing instance: the serving maids who sleep with the suitors are hanged by Telemachus (22.465): they are slaves and their sex is the property of their owners.
  
• what is Helen's 'role'?
• wife. wife again, wife again, but also adulterer
• prized chiefly for beauty: anything else?
  
• note that Telemachus can put his mother 'in her place' (1.345): if we can generalize from that incident, a male relative is superior to any woman?
• Is there any hint of non-binary constructions?
• sometimes men are said to take on what seem to be otherwise 'feminine characteristics'
  
• weeping
• similes compare warriors to female animals
• and similes compare some epic women to male animals
• it seems to me that these are not anything like a situation of gender-permeability or fluidity, but rather a way to expand the sphere of each gender a bit (particularly the men)
  
• there are 'humans,' a role/species shared
  
• this is a bigger topic than can be handled here
  
• humans are 'not beasts'
• sometimes defined by what they eat
  
• they do not eat raw meat, for instance
• they do not eat other humans

• values
• Men
• the ethics document covered this fairly well
  
• Women:
• Iliad 1.115 where Agamemnon talks about Chryseis: women are valuable as:
• wedded wife
• in beauty/form
• in wit
• in skill
• in works (weaving foremost)
  
• symbols of a man who possessed them: his prestige/honor
• they are supposed to be monogamous
• if they are not, they are shamed both by themselves (Helen/Clytaemnestra) and others (but not always?)
  
• relations between humans:
• the ethical code explored in another document serves pretty well as an exploration of men interacting with other men
• women interacting with women happens exceedingly rarely in the epics and I can't think of any signal instances that are informative: can you?
  
• men and women
• competition/struggle for women is central to what the men do in both epics
• Penelope:
  
• Od. strives to return to her and become king again
• she is crucial to his rule: how?
  
• Suitors striving to possess her or Odysseus' kingdom (or both)
• Helen is central to whole Iliad
• Chryseis and Bryseis are central to the division of spoils in the Achaian army and to the strife that tears it apart.
  
• Andromache
• Hector fights for Troy to defend her, among other things
  
• affection can be present between women and men
  
• sex can be present between women and men
  
• sex and affection seem separate, but they can coexist
• the Greek words for sex seem to imply mutuality and pleasure: 'they mixed in sweet love' and the like
  
• Daughters: not sure where this should go in the outline, but it brackets the overall 'War Story'
  
• Before the Achaeans could set sail, Iphigenia, Agamemnon and Clytaemnestra's daughter, had to be sacrificed for the Achaians to be able to set sail (Cypria)
  
• In the sacking of Troy, Polyxena, Priam and Hecuba's daughter, had to be sacrificed as a 'posthumous bride' for Achilles (Sack of Ilion/Iliupersis)
• Nausicaa (and the Laestrygonian daughter who was going to the spring)
• home-life depiction of what daughters did and how they should behave: be chaste until marriage, then support husband.
  
• Marriage
• Andromache-Hector and Odysseus-Penelope are paradigmatic marriages (if we can speak of paradigms in a world that is always only anecdotal: they are at least instances that feature largely in the epics)
• later ages certainly made them paradigmatic, but from the perspective of looking just at these works, that is problematic
  
• Penelope's possible remarriage to a suitor looms large in the imagination
• she contemplates it several times: 2.113, 195 (Laertes should choose), she says Odysseus told her she could choose whom she preferred (18.257), she takes steps that might lead to remarriage (2.87, 13.379, 18.158, 19.571, 21.42) although she is a bit contradictory (she says she hates the suitors, for instance).
• so it seems to be 'ok'? As long as the other husband is dead?
  
• Clytaemnestra-Agamemnon-Aigisthus and Helen-Menelaus-Paris are the most important instances of adultery
• not just a hookup: they shack up (and it looks like a remarriage)
• the outcomes and discussion of these instances make it clear that it was considered wrong
  
• Only the gods get to have hookups or sexual autonomy without marriage
  
• Zeus, Circe, and Calypso do it
• but Calypso says the gods can't stand it when a female god does this.
  
• Thetis can leave her husband Peleus
• Hera can manipulate Zeus with sex
• Ares and Aphrodite hook up, and are caught, but it's more entertaining than anything (no moral consequences for them seem to follow: is Hephaestus somehow affected?) which brings us to:
  
• Sexuality
• this is vastly under-theorized in the epics: almost not talked of at all
• Homer speaks of intercourse (always heterosexual) as 'they mingled in love' or the like (cf. Circe or Calypso and Odysseus, or Achilles and Bryseis): it suggests mutuality and pleasure were involved
  
• three ways women have sex
• in marriage
• protected by social/divine guidelines
  
• as a concubine
• also a somewhat defined relationship (when Agamemnon takes Bryseis away from Achilles, this relationship is violated: see 19.295, where Patroclos suggests that Bryseis may become Achilles' wife): but it's not as defined and official as marriage, at least from what we can see in the epics.
  
• in adultery
  
• men
• same three ways
• but they are seemingly more free to commit adultery: at least they can go back to their wives with 'no harm done'
  
• the sirens have been said to represent unfettered female sexuality
• but do they? how? Is it just Freud and Jung and us who make them that? What about Scylla? Is she somehow unfettered destructive female sexuality?
  
• homosexuality?
  
• many people see homosexuality in Achilles and Patroclus
• clearly some Greeks did too: Aeschylus wrote a play that made them lovers
• That shows us, as if it was needed, that homosexuality existed in Ancient Greece: it's important to note, although your generation can take this for granted, fortunately.
  
• but no words in the Iliad or Odyssey explicitly refer to homosexual sex
  
• there are no words in the epics that acknowledge male or female homosexuality at all
  
• bisexuality is also, therefore, not mentioned, nor are any other possibilities
  
• pederasty?
• in some later Greek texts, philosophical, poetic, and historical, we find a social custom of pederasty
• an older man with a younger boy (not pre-pubescent, but also not post-pubescent, so 12-18?)
  
• which clearly differs from our idea of consenting adults
• it may not differ, however, from the typical marital ages in Ancient Greece: it has been estimated as approximately 14 for women and 30 for men.
  
• nothing refers to that in Homer
• the closest we get is Ganymede, who is often portrayed as another of Zeus' conquests: in Iliad, Ganymede was chosen by Zeus to be his wine-server because of Ganymede's beauty (20.232-235), but that's all that is said: can there be beauty without sexuality/sexual attraction?
  

The preceding is mostly talking about what we see when we look into the epics. The epics themselves do not talk about these things explicitly.

But there are some ways they do address such things.

Much of what follows is inspired by and taken from Michael Clarke's 'Manhood and Heroism' from A Cambridge Companion to Homer, 2004.

• While what it means to be a 'man' is often cast in terms of 'women' as an other, a not-man, and so 'men' are defined by what they are not, what it means to be 'human' is cast in terms of 'gods' as 'not-human' and also of 'beasts' as 'not-human.'
• where gods are usually held to be superior to humans: how are they superior
• in strength and power
• but not in cleverness or morality or skills?
• they are immortal, to be sure, but is that 'superiority' or just difference?
  
• Clarke seems to assume that god=better and human=worse in ways I'm not sure I see in the epics (in terms of morality and intelligence, which are certainly there in later traditions, and certainly in the monotheistic traditions which make god infinitely superior in every way to humans)
• For instance, Zeus may be said to be in charge of fate and justice, but overall he does not act more justly than others in any particular way.
• BTW: One might object to that: the Cypria (fr. 1.5and I think Hesiod too, says that Zeus caused the Trojan war to ease Earth's burden: too many humans were weighing her down. (see Iliad 18.104 too)
• environmental justice?
  
• On the other hand, gods are defined vis-a-vis humans: their essential trait is that they are im-mortal: they are not something positive, they are something negative: they lack death, and that definition comes only via contrast with the humans who have death
• what do the gods sing about in heaven:
  
• "all the muses with beautiful voices together responsively hymn / the gods' undying gifts, and those pains that humans endure / at the hands of immortal gods as they live without wits or resource, / and can find no cure fordeath or defence against old age. (Homeric Hymn to Apollo, 186-193, Crudden translation)
• gods are a foil for humans: they have no death, no work, and no old age
• our life acquires its meaning in contrast to the gods' life of ease
• the undying fame that is so valuable in the epics is a type of immortality, a way for men (or women, but less explicitly so) to have immortality (the other way is via offspring, which is what makes women so valuable and makes it so necessary to men to control their sexuality and reproduction)
  
• The upshot is that although women are an 'other' for men, explicit talk of 'manliness' is more vis-a-vis gods and beasts and only somewhat vis-a-vis women.
• Achilles-Zeus-Thetis-Agamemnon
• Achilles is paradigmatic warrior, Agamemnon paradigmatic ruler ( I won't call him a 'leader' because he seems so inept and oppressive)
  
• Achilles' anger is about vengeance on Agamemnon
• his mother, Thetis, is the go-between who secures Zeus' assent/plan to make that vengeance happen (but the vengeance is enacted via the Greek army's bodies, not Agamemnon's)
• Achilles' anger will also lead to his own destruction: he burns bright but is burned in turn: that is clear in the epic even though his death is not depicted (but in the Odyssey, he is dead and his funeral is mentioned , when Odysseus talks to Achilles' shade)
• it is clear that Achilles' anger is not a good thing: it is not clear that it is a bad thing: it leads to his death, but it also secures him everlasting fame, which is a most valuable currency in the epic world.
  
• Sarpedon says to Glaucon:
  
• 'Dear Friend, if by escaping this war we could go on to live ageless and immortal forever, I would not fight myself in the front rank, nor would I send you out to the battle where men win glory: but since in truth the demons of death stand around us innumerable, who no man can flee or elude, let us go forth' (Iliad 12, 322)
• Sarpedon is Zeus' son: Zeus considers saving him: Hera reminds Zeus that all mortals must die (really? must they? Heracles didn't: also, he need not die at any particular time, so Zeus could have saved him at that time).
• In the desire for praise and fame, the Homeric warrior faces the same thing as the audience members (including us?): the inevitability of death and the fact that all that will be left of us is what people remember
• But Homeric warriors are in a space between gods and humans too: they are 'heroes' and they count gods among their near or in some cases immediate ancestors
• This is an important but also problematic concept throughout human thought in many cultures: the idea that in some former time, things were 'great' and they have declined. Often, that decline story is presented as inevitable.
• In Hesiod, whose work is contemporary with the epics, the story is told at Works  156f. of 5 races of 'men': gold declines to silver declines to bronze declines to heroes declines to iron (Hesiod's own age).
  
• It is a decline in vitality, some sort of vital thing that is not really defined
• but the former generations in Homer could lift big rocks! and throw big spears! ones so big that the bard's generation cannot throw them: cf. Iliad 1.260, 4.370, 5.302, 12.381, 12.445, 20.285
• it's not just the big rocks and spears: gods walked among them undisguised (and disguised), their emotions are huge
• There is a word in Greek that explicitly means 'abundant manliness' ἀγηνορἰα  that also has an adjective form ἀγἠνωρ 'abundantly manly'
  
• tracking that word shows something, perhaps, about what 'manliness' is in the epic
• another word is μἐνος, which refers to vitality, a sort of juice of abundant energy and life: it is used of blood (and semen: not in Epic, however, I don't think): Athena breathes it into Diomedes, for instance, at 5.1, 5.125 and 134)
  
• this 'manliness' occurs when the hero is exceptionally 'juiced up': their 'vitality' is at a peak: think Diomedes in those central books where he dominates the slaughter and has the help of the gods and even wounds Aphrodite and goes after Ares.
• but this manliness and vital juice often goes too far: it is dangerous: think 'mania' (another Greek word), which is said of Diomedes at 6.100
• When the embassy to Achilles fails, Diomedes says:
• 'Achilles has always been agenor (manly), but now you have pushed him to still further agenoria (manliness)' 9.699
• this is not just stubbornness or arrogance: it is an abundance of what makes a man a man, it seems: it is what makes the hero generations so much more than the bard's own generations
• Hector-Achilles and the flip-side of 'manliness'
  
• when Hector kills Patroclus, Achilles' anger shifts
• before it was an anger bent on vengeance against Agamemnon to maintain Achilles' honor
• now it is pure vengeance, not honor-driven
  
• vengeance is HUGE as a concept (and in my opinion, one that no human, much less leader/chief/boss of a nation/people, should pursue)
• when Achilles goes after Hector, much of the language makes him into a beast, not a super-human: instead of his vitality making him super-human, he becomes sub-human
• he refuses mercy to suppliants (21, 106)
• he refuses to make an oath with Hector (22.261)
• he defaces Hector's body and drags it around the walls and leaves it out for dogs and birds  in the sun
• Apollo says Achilles has become a beast:
• Achilles' mind is unbalanced, nor is his thought kept in check in his breast; his thoughts are wild, like a lion who gives in to his great force and overmanly (agenor) heart and goes against the flocks of mortals, to seize his feast; so Achilles has lost pity, and there is no shame (aidos) in him. Iliad 24.39
• Achilles, however, is more willing to look death in the face than anyone: he knows that pursuing vengeance will mean his death (19.421): he knows it with more certainty than the other warriors, who all face the same possibility, but he does not flinch at all.
• Hector, on the other hand, is faced with a different choice: do the practical thing, stay in the walls, defense OR go out and fight.
  
• Interestingly. Andromache is the one who presents the practical common-sense side
• Hector chooses to abide by the heroic code and pursue glory, even knowing that he risks his whole world
• he knows Troy will fall (6.448)
  
• he too turns into a beast:
• he raged (mania word) like shield-making Ares, or like ruinous fire that rages in the mountains, in the thickets of a deep wood; foam appeared round his mouth, and his eyes blazed under his bristling eyebrows, and his helmet rand out terribly around Hector's temples as he fought 15.605
• but he accepts his mortality: let me not die without an effort, without fame, but after doing some great deed that future men will still hear of (22.304)
• What of the Odyssey and 'men'
• The world of the suitors and even Telemachus is more like the world of the bard: less role for gods, more pettiness:
• Telemachus doesn't know if Odysseus is his 'real' father (1.215)
• the suitors are just greedy and lazy (1.106, 16.105, +++)
• the swineherd works hard, however
  
• this is more parallel to Hesiod's world of greedy bribe-eating chiefs and hard-working farmers than it is to the Iliadic world of war
  
• But Odysseus' world is still that of the Iliadic hero at important times
  
• his attacking the suitors 'can be seen as the heroic race asserting supremacy over later and lesser men' (Clarke 86)
• the imagery is that of Iliadic hero: Menelaus foretells Odysseus rerturn: 'like when a deer puts its fawns, newborn nurslings, to sleep in the den of a fierce lion, and goes out to search for grass to feed on in the hill-slopes and grassy glens, and the lion then returns to its own den, and send miserable doom on both [fawns] together: so Odysseus will send miserable doom on those men.' (4.335 and repeated by Telemachus at 17.126)
• Odysseus has been reduced to a low level in his wanderings, has refused a life of immortality with Kalypso (5.135, 7.255, 23.334), and has heard Achilles' shade say he would rather be the lowest menial human than be dead in Hades (11.488)
• But when he slaughters the suitors, he is an Iliadic warrior, buffed up by Athena, once again:
• Eurycleia found Odysseus among the slain corpses, spattered with blood and gore like a lion, who is going away after devouring a wild ox: all his breast and his jowls on both sides are covered in blood, and he is a terrible sight to see: so Odysseus' feet and hands above were spattered with blood 22.401)
• but Odysseus reigns in Eurycleia's joy and says it would be unholy to vaunt over the dead suitors (22.412): this seems like a pulling back from a brink of beastliness
• the killing of the suitors is reciprocal vengeance
• but it is also presented as justice: the punishment for their violating the standard sacred behaviors: they are idle, they eat off another man's property, they insult beggars/strangers, they do not fear Zeus or their fellow men (1.368, 15.326, 16.418, 18.274, 22.35): they flout the laws of Zeus
• Eumaeus, the swineherd, is a foil for them: he is hospitable to strangers, loyal to his superior, of noble birth, and he has suffered thru to wisdom
• see Odysseus pitying one of the suitors: 18.129-142
• basically, the message here seems to be not to go to excess: don't be a beast, be wise
• There is clearly a lot more to say about these matters, but one big message is that, in these epics, being 'human' mostly equals being a 'man', and 'man' is defined vis-a-vis gods and beasts. Being a 'woman' is not paid anywhere near as much attention, and most of the traits we can identify with 'women' are relative to 'men' rather than being independent.
• Next up, Slatkin and Nelson on what can be said about 'women' more particularly?
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