Ares & Athena

"While there they sit at their royal ease, exulting,
the goddess of love and Apollo lord of the silver bow:
they loosed this manic Ares - he has no sense of justice,
Father Zeus ... I wonder if you would fume at me
if I hurled a stunning blow at the god of war
and drove him from the
fighting?"

Zeus the Father,
who marshals ranks of storm clouds gave commands,
"Leap to it then. Launch Athena against him --
the queen of plunder, she's the one - his match,
a marvel at bringing Ares down in pain."

The Iliad, Book 5, Ln 871 - 881

We were reading Diomedes' fight with the gods in class the other day, and as we read this section I couldn't help but reflect on Aeschylus' lessons from The Orestia, as they relate to Homer in this passage (the 8th graders with Zach have their discussions in my classroom while I am enjoying free-periods...I get to listen in, and so I am thoroughly Greek-minded by the time the day is over).

Hera tells Zeus plainly...the god of war does not concern himself with justice as he cuts a path of destruction through the battle lines. Though this doesn't always seem to bother the other gods, at least in this instance when the cause of the Argives is being undone by Ares they come to condemn the god himself, and Zeus tells us something of deadly importance; Wisdom is the best tool for banishing War from the battlefields.

So Athena goes and leads Diomedes to another legendary victory against a god himself. Wisdom leads man against the god of War, and War flees.

This isn't the only time Athena steps in to stop the cycle of violence. At the end of The Odyssey, she is the one that saves both Odysseus and his enemies from continued destruction. In The Orestia, we see the never-ending cycle of broken only when Athena intervenes to satisfy both justice and mercy.

Divine Wisdom, the only salvation from the never-ending cycle of violence and War. Homer's keen insight on this subject validates, yet again, his place in history and culture.