Conclusion

Over the course of this book, we have gained a sense of the particular choices made by the Homeric poets in forming their vegetal images. We have seen that the relevant images draw on some of the most striking characteristics of the Greek flora—the sudden, exceptionally diverse blooms of the Greek spring. And by accessing these phenomena, the Homeric poets were able to draw their listeners’ attention to particular aspects of eroticism, order, disorder, and death, and to enhance their understanding of these abstract notions. But none of these choices were forced on the Homeric poets: other archaic poets focused on rather different characteristics of the Greek flora and on different facets of the relevant concepts.

In my concluding remarks, I would like to focus not only on the particular conceptions of eroticism, the cosmos, society, and death facilitated by the Homeric poets’ interactions with the natural environment, but also on the place of such conceptions within the wider Homeric corpus. In particular, I shall show that both these images and the Homeric poems more generally offer pessimistic treamtents of these themes. When we survey the concepts that the Homeric poets illustrated with their vegetal images, we might well be struck by their negativity: the vegetal images of other genres celebrate beauty, orderliness, and the joys of youth; but alongside evocations of orderly societies or the strength of warriors, Homeric vegetal images explore deception, disorder, and the monstrousness of death. And the emphasis in these different images on more negative concepts is indicative of the preoccupations of Homeric poetry as a genre: it suggests an interest in the darker aspects of human experience.

The negative tendencies of Homeric poetry as opposed to other genres can be seen in the Homeric poets’ treatments of erotic themes. Greek lyric poets explore the beauty of the beloved or the pleasure of erotic encounters. But their Homeric counterparts often portray erotic relationships as unfulfilled, interrupted or otherwise imperfect, and at times these relationships are even a danger to one or other of the partners. The Epic Cycle opens with a wedding—that of Peleus and Thetis—but the event is notable primarily for the intrusion of the goddess Strife, which has dire consequences for mortals: she provokes the quarrel between Athena, Hera, and Aphrodite that leads to the Judgement of Paris, the abduction of Helen, and the Trojan War. [1] In the Iliad, Helen and Paris are the only mortal couple whose lovemaking is so much as anticipated: after Aphrodite rescues Paris from the battlefield, she insists that Helen join him in their bedchamber. But Helen’s initial resistance to Aphrodite’s wishes and her verbal abuse of her new husband sour the occasion (3.383–447). Andromache and Hector, who seem to enjoy a more harmonious relationship, are allowed to meet only once and for the last time as Hector prepares to return to battle (6.390–502). [2]

The Homeric Hymns offer a similarly jaundiced portrait of erotic relationships. At Hymn to Aphrodite 218–238, for example, the love of the mortal Tithonus and the divine Dawn devolves into a kind of grim comedy: Tithonus wastes away until he cannot move, and Dawn confines her ageing lover to a bedroom, where he babbles away unceasingly (233–238). Aphrodite’s own brief relationship with Anchises is from her perspective a source of “dreadful … pain” (αἰνὸν… ἄχος, 198), which she will commemorate in the name of their son, Aeneas (Αἰνείας, 198). Anchises for his part fears that he will be left “without vigor” from his encounter with a goddess (ἀμενηνόν, 188). [3]

The Homeric floral imagery of the erotic accords with the negative cast of these examples. In Homeric poetry, the alluring surface of erotic bodies associated with flowers conceals the regular appearance of the body in question or hides dangers to which the lover will be exposed. This seems to have unwelcome implications for the nature of erotic encounters. If they are like this, one can never be entirely sure of the identity of one’s beloved, nor whether the consequences of such an encounter will be pleasurable or even confined to the sphere of the erotic. By contrast, in archaic Greek lyric, the lover’s gaze dominates and safely evaluates the beloved who is associated with flowers (Part I).

Such a distinction, as we have seen, is dependent on two different interactions with the natural environment. Greek lyric poets reminded audiences of the experience of gazing on flowers and judging them beautiful, and thereby illustrated the beauty of erotic bodies, seen from the perspective of the first-person speaker. Their Homeric counterparts, by contrast, drew on the shifting, ποικίλος surfaces of flowers in the Greek spring to suggest the deceptive qualities of bodies decked out for seduction.

Similarly, the Homeric poets incorporate negative elements into their depictions of the cosmos or of human societies. And the relevant passages depart from the treatments of such themes in other genres—if not in their degree of pessimism, then certainly in the kinds of negative elements that they introduce. This becomes clear when we compare Homeric and Hesiodic treatments of order and disorder. The Hesiodic tradition more closely approaches its Homeric counterpart in its handling of those concepts than do other poetic genres in their treatment of the other themes that have formed the focus of this study. [4] And yet the Hesiodic and Homeric poems display different emphases both in their general treatments of order and disorder and in the vegetal images that they use to illustrate those themes.

The Homeric poets depicted a generally stable cosmos, but also suggested that cosmic order was subject to changes and challenges. In the Homeric Hymns, Zeus’ rulership over the cosmos is well established. But as Jenny Strauss Clay has shown, the hymns explore changes to cosmic order and to the relationships between different gods. [5] The Homeric epics depict a more settled cosmos, likewise governed by Zeus; nonetheless, the good order over which he presides is disturbed by the bickering, intrigue, and insubordination of willful gods and goddesses. In the Iliad, Hera accepts Zeus’ will only grudgingly and, along with Poseidon, seeks to undermine her husband’s plan to favor the Trojans on the battlefield. In the Odyssey, Poseidon once more provides a counterweight to Zeus’ will: he opposes Zeus’ and Athena’s plans to return Odysseus to his homeland. [6] The subversive actions of certain divinities, then, provide a point of resistance to Zeus and to the cosmic order that he guarantees, even if they lack the power to overthrow it.

The good order of human societies is likewise subject to challenge in Homeric poetry, and these challenges are if anything more significant than their equivalents on the divine level. Achilles’ quarrel with Agamemnon in Book 1 threatens to undermine the political structure of the Achaean camp. Like Zeus, Agamemnon retains his supremacy throughout the Iliad; but Achilles’ insubordination poses a more serious challenge to his king’s position than Hera’s subversive intentions pose to Zeus. Hera lulls Zeus to sleep in the Διὸς ἀπάτη, but he is able quickly to reassert his dominance over her and to regain control of events on earth. Agamemnon, however, is unable to persuade Achilles to rejoin the fighting, even with the promise of lavish gifts (Book 9). It is grief for Patroclus rather than any inducements from Agamemnon that finally convinces him to return to the action. And while Achilles does not choose to overthrow the political structure of the Achaean camp, the Odyssey describes just such revolutionary change on Ithaca. The depredations of the suitors and their constant presence in Odysseus’ palace have to some extent flattened the hierarchical structure of Ithacan society: a single royal family no longer holds sway over the other nobles, and servants such as Melanthius and Melantho have seized the opportunity to advance their interests at the expense of their former lords. [7]

Hesiodic poetry likewise explores challenges and changes to cosmic and civic order. The Theogony depicts Cronus’ violent overthrow of Heaven and Zeus’ of Cronus, and goes on to describe Zeus’ battles against the unruly Titans and Typhoeus. The wild disorder of the Catalogue of Monsters threatens any sense of good order in the cosmos or even of the succession from one divine generation to the next. [8] And just as forces of disorder are present in the cosmos of the Theogony, the Works and Days incorporates both orderly and disorderly elements into its depictions of human society. The poem describes not only the flourishing of the just city but also the lawless violence of the Age of Iron. And it opens with the narrator’s complaints about the unjust behavior of his brother Perses: he is attempting to ingratiate himself with the venal barons who hold sway in the narrator’s society, hoping thus to lay claim to a greater share of the brothers’ common inheritance (Works and Days 37–39). [9]

Nevertheless, the explorations of order and disorder in Homeric and Hesiodic poetry show differences in emphasis. In Homeric poetry, the resistance of the gods to Zeus’ will is a constant theme. The Hesiodic Theogony’s tales of cosmic strife, mentioned above, are more serious than anything that we find in the Homeric corpus. But the poem goes on to depict the increasing solidification of Zeus’ dominance, which is accompanied by increasing orderliness in the cosmos—even if perfect order is never achieved. By the end of the Theogony, we have the sense that Zeus has overcome serious resistance to his rule. He is able to distribute honors to his fellow gods (Theogony 881–885) and thus to assert control over their spheres of influence. [10]

Zeus encounters further opposition after this distribution of divine honors; but the dangers that he faces are not as grave as those associated with the Titans or Typhoeus. Among the tales of heroes in the Catalogue of Women, we hear of the unruly Salmoneus, who drives cauldrons behind his chariot in an attempt “to be Zeus” (Julian Oratio 7.235a/Catalogue of Women fr. 15 MW); [11] presumably, he is imitating the sound and light of Zeus’ thunderbolt. And yet Salmoneus’ challenge is at most a parody of the severe threat posed in the Theogony by characters such as Typhoeus, who “would have ruled mortals and immortals” had Zeus not intervened (Theogony 837–838). In fact, only in one episode of the Catalogue of Women does a divinity challenge Zeus’ will. Apollo responds violently when Zeus slays his son, Asclepius (Catalogue of Women frr. 51–54(c) MW): he kills the Cyclopes who in the Hesiodic tradition are the manufacturers of the thunderbolt (Theogony 141), the very weapon with which Zeus smites Asclepius. But even in this case, Apollo strikes at Zeus’ minions rather than at the king of the gods himself.

The Works and Days explores the injustices of the current Age of Iron and offers baleful predictions for its moral decline and ultimate destruction by Zeus (Works and Days 182–194). Nevertheless, the poem does not describe the sorts of threats to societal order that we find in the Homeric poems. Neither insurrection nor other forms of political instability are major themes of the Works and Days. The narrator does not portray dissension among the ranks of the barons who rule the narrator’s society: there is no equivalent, then, of the wrangling of Achilles and Agamemnon in the Iliad.

And the Hesiodic poets do not offer a parallel for the political situation of Odyssey Books 13–21, where the actions of the suitors and of their favorite servants threaten to confuse distinctions between the strata of Ithacan society. If Zeus reacts to the barons’ injustice (Works and Days 248–269), this does not seem to entail a change in societal structure: he punishes the common people alongside their lords (260–262), and a whole city suffers for the injustice of one bad man (238–247). It does not appear, then, that the people will be able to seize power from their former lords. Nor does the narrator associate his disturbing prophecy for the future of the Iron Race with political upheaval. The Iron Race will be remarkable for its violence and disloyalty, which will lead to the breakdown of familial attachments and of the guest-host relationship. But this is to speak only of personal ties: the passage in question does not describe the dissolution of distinctions between the different classes that make up Iron Age society.

The two genres also differ in their use of vegetal images to illustrate such themes. Both the Homeric and the Hesiodic poets associated arboreal growths with good order, whether in the city or the cosmos. But the Homeric poets also drew on natural phenomena to explore the more disorderly elements in civic and cosmic structures. They associated challenges to cosmic order with the apparently spontaneous growth of Greek flowers. And the contrast between the explosive floral growths of the Greek spring and the steadier, more constant growths of trees offered the Homeric poets a way to illustrate the twin concepts of cosmic order and disorder. Those same poets, moreover, cast light on the tensions between forces of civic order and disorder through reference to wild growths and to the managed vegetation that listeners would have encountered in the natural world and in the plantations near human settlements. And while the Hesiodic poets associated wild growths of trees with the flourishing city-state, their Homeric counterparts, in describing the restoration of order on Ithaca, focused specifically on trees governed by the techniques of arboriculture. They thereby suggested that civic order, which was open to challenge from unruly elements, could only be maintained by the careful management of a king.

Which of these explorations of the cosmos and of human society a listener or reader finds more negative will depend on the particular elements of the two genres that s/he chooses to emphasize. The Hesiodic poets offered harrowing tales of cosmic strife; but they also depicted an increasing orderliness in the cosmos, and with their vegetal imagery they emphasized stable structures and flourishing cities. The Homeric poets did not focus on the sorts of tales of cosmic revolution that we find early in the Theogony; however, both in the stories that they told and in their vegetal images they stressed constant tensions between forces of order and disorder. Suffice it to say that in their explorations of such themes both Homeric and Hesiodic poetry offer ample justifications for pessimistic readings.

Homeric vegetal images, then, offer negative portraits of the erotic and of civic and cosmic structures, which are in harmony with the Homeric poems’ generally pessimistic treatments of such concepts: in the one case, deception mingles with beauty; in the other, disorderly undercurrents pose a challenge to the good order of the cosmos or the city. And these negative elements lend a somewhat darker tone to the relevant passages than would otherwise be the case. But some of the darkest aspects of Homeric poetry are to be found in its descriptions of death in war, many of which focus on the horrors of the battlefield. Again, such a tone is consistent with the associations of Homeric vegetal images: as we have seen, Homeric floral images portray death as a monstrous horror.

In arguing for the importance of horror to Homeric depictions of death, I depart from the findings of a number of other scholars, who have discussed death in the Iliad and in the Homeric corpus more generally in terms of tragedy or pathos: and tragedy, though in itself a dark analog to comedy, does not offer so grim an aesthetic as horror. For Jasper Griffin, the Iliad depicts the greatness of heroes but also explores the tragic gap between their short lives and the easy existence of the gods. James Redfield draws on Aristotle’s definition of tragedy in reading the Iliad as “the tragedy of Hector.” Yoav Rinon likewise views the Iliad as a tragedy in the Aristotelian sense, but applies such an analysis also to the Odyssey. [12]

In the concluding section of a book, it is not the place to offer an extensive analysis of the nature of tragedy and horror. But if we are to apply those concepts to the Homeric poems, we should, at least, prepare for such a discussion by noting some of the key distinctions between them. I would like to focus on two important respects in which horrific description, whether in Homeric poetry or elsewhere, departs from Aristotelian notions of the tragic.

The first concerns the emotions that are evoked. Tragedy on an Aristotelian definition elicits both pity and fear from its audiences. We feel pity for someone experiencing misfortune insofar as s/he does not deserve their suffering, and we experience fear insofar as s/he is like ourselves (Poetics 1453a3–6). Presumably, we fear that the same might happen to us, given that we resemble the person suffering. Horrific description by contrast elicits only the emotion of fear, and that to a particularly heightened degree.

Secondly, while for Aristotle our feelings of kinship with the tragic hero rest on an appreciation of her/his character (ἦθος), the same could not be said of any such feelings of kinship elicited by horrific description. To the extent that such description does portray an individual’s thoughts and emotions, they are frequently reduced to simple terror. And this does not so much provide a basis for sympathetic identification with the victim’s suffering as offer a model for listeners’ and readers’ own reactions. Feelings of kinship with the victim arise not from an appreciation of her/his character, but from reminders of the sheer material facts of the human body, which are emphasized in depictions of the victim’s physical degradation: horrific description focuses on blood, flesh, bone, and physical dissolution, and thus invites us to recognize our own corporeality. [13] We fear being reduced to these material facts; we fear that we are or will soon be nothing more than them. [14]

It is true that not every one of the Homeric descriptions of death points in the direction of horror: some passages would indeed have encouraged listeners to view them as tragic or pathetic. We noted in Chapter 8 that critics have read Iliadic vegetal images as evocations of a world of peace that introduce notes of pathos to the depiction of warriors’ deaths. As we have seen, such notions do not, in fact, dominate the floral and arboreal imagery of the Iliad. Nevertheless, it is perfectly possible to find pathos in some of these images: for instance, the focus on Simoeisius’ chest and the suggestion of his smooth trunk at 4.480–486 would have invited listeners to sympathize with this young warrior at the time of his death.

Moreover, the depictions of the gods as they witness the battles of the Iliad to some extent coincide with Aristotle’s descriptions of tragic audiences. The gods do not experience fear when they contemplate mortal suffering. And on an Aristotelian definition of tragedy, this is exactly as we would expect: the gods cannot suffer the same afflictions as mortals and therefore do not fear that the same misfortunes will happen to them. But despite the gulf between mortal and immortal existence, the gods experience the Aristotelian emotion of pity as they witness the events at Troy. [15] For instance, when Hector’s corpse is mistreated by Achilles, the gods “pitied him as they looked on” (τὸν δ’ ἐλεαίρεσκον … εἰσορόωντες, 24.23). [16] On an Aristotelian reading, such reactions would have provided a model for listeners’ own reactions as they contemplated the scene. And indeed, if audiences were inclined to feel pity when they witnessed undeserved suffering, Hector might seem most of all to be worthy of such emotions: in his desire simply to defend his kinsfolk, he appears to deserve such a shameful fate least of all the warriors at Troy. [17]

Certain of the Odyssey’s descriptions of death are also consistent with the notions of tragedy and pathos. In the Underworld, for instance, Odysseus employs the same formulaic line to describe his feelings as he beholds the shades of Elpenor, Anticleia, and Agamemnon: τὸν/τὴν μὲν ἐγὼ δάκρυσα ἐλέησά τε θυμῷ (“I wept and pitied him/her in my heart,” 11.55, 87, 395). Audiences might have shared Odysseus’ emotions as they contemplated the state to which these characters have been reduced.

Listeners were not, however, compelled to regard these passages as tragic. They were free to pass up the opportunity for sympathetic identification with Odysseus in his grief: in particular, they might have borne in mind the rather comic end of Elpenor—he falls drunkenly from Circe’s roof (10.551–562)—or the somewhat negative portrayal of Agamemnon in the Homeric poems. [18] And indeed, as we have seen other aspects of the Odyssean Nekyiai invite very different reactions to the concept of death, founded on the notion of monstrous horror.

Nor are such horrific elements confined to the Odyssean Nekyiai: we find similar portrayals of death in many other episodes of Homeric poetry. Such passages are particularly common in Iliadic battle narrative. The very first description of the Iliadic battlefield mentions the personified emotions Terror and Fear (Deimos and Phobos) and the ground flowing with blood (Iliad 4.439–451). Later passages echo the gore of these lines: the battlefield is awash with blood also at 8.65, 15.715, and 20.494; blood, dust, and corpses are said to litter the battlefield at 11.534, 15.118, and 20.499. [19] Such details create a macabre atmosphere in the relevant scenes. [20] What is more, the presence of Terror and Fear on the battlefield at 4.439–451 suggests a possible response to this and other such passages: listeners will experience horror at these gruesome descriptions.

And we find further support for such readings in other passages from the Iliad, which likewise incorporate horrific elements into their descriptions of death. This is especially true of Books 13–16 and 20–21, which cover important stretches of battle narrative. Books 13–16 tell the story of the Trojan ascendancy that climaxes with the attack on the Greek ships and then describe the bloody career of Patroclus, which reverses the tide of battle. In the course of these events. we hear of victims’ eyes falling out of their sockets (13.615–617, 16.739–750) and of a spear vibrating in a warrior’s still-beating heart (13.442–444). The horrors of Peneleos’ encounter with Ilioneus (14.489–500) fit this pattern: Peneleos decapitates his opponent and displays the head to his comrades, with the eye still impaled on the spearpoint. [21] The epic reaches a second peak of horror with the account of Achilles’ aristeia in Books 20 and 21, which dwells on the death and dissolution of his opponents. Tros’ liver slips out, and his lap fills with blood (20.469–471); Asteropaeus dies, and the eels and fish busy themselves about the fat on his kidneys (21.203–204). And as a result of the carnage in Book 21, blood and corpses clog the river Scamander (218–220). [22]

What is more, although there are undeniably tragic aspects to Hector’s demise the savagery with which Achilles treats his corpse introduces elements of horror that threaten to overmaster the tenderer emotion of pity. [23] Indeed, as Charles Segal has shown, Achilles’ treatment of Hector’s corpse marks a climactic moment in the Iliad’s exploration of bodily degradation. Earlier passages raise the possibility that a warrior’s body might suffer further abuse even after his death. Glaucus, for instance, fears that “the Myrmidons will shame the corpse” of Sarpedon (ἀεικίσσωσι δὲ νεκρὸν / Μυρμιδόνες, 16.545–546). But here the possibility is actualized. Achilles bores through the tendons of Hector’s feet and drags him behind his chariot (22.395–404). [24] Achilles’ actions draw attention away from Hector’s desert or lack thereof and onto the sheer materiality of his body: they threaten to make him a figure of horror as opposed to tragedy. It is, perhaps, in this sense that we should understand Apollo’s words at 24.44: Ἀχιλεὺς ἔλεον … ἀπώλεσεν, “Achilles has killed pity.” [25]

Evidence from the Odyssey leads us to similar conclusions: when the epic focuses on death, it indulges in horrific description. We have already noted Circe’s description of the “heap / of rotting men” that decorates the Sirens’ island (θὶς / ἀνδρῶν πυθομένων, 12.45–46). Horrors likewise attend Odysseus’ description of the Cyclops. The monster soaks the ground with the blood and brains of Odysseus’ companions as he consumes their bodies (9.290–295). Later, Athena manipulates the appearance of Odysseus’ halls in such a way as to anticipate the grisly consequences of the suitors’ feasting: “they were laughing with another’s jaws, / and were eating meat daubed with blood” (γναθμοῖσι γελώων ἀλλοτρίοισιν / αἱμοφόρυκτα δὲ δὴ κρέα ἤσθιον, 20.347–348). And the prophet Theoclymenus responds with a macabre vision of his own: he imagines walls sprinkled with blood, and night spreading over the hall (351–357).

Shortly afterwards, Odysseus slaughters the suitors amid scenes replete with gore. Indeed, the descriptions of the suitors’ deaths recall the grim details of Iliadic battle. When Odysseus slays Antinous “a thick stream of human blood passed through his nostrils” (αὐλὸς ἀνὰ ῥῖνας παχὺς ἦλθεν / αἵματος ἀνδρομέοιο, 22.18–19). Moving on to Eurymachus, Odysseus pierces his chest and fixes an arrow in his liver (83). And like the Iliadic battlefield, the hall is spattered with blood from the slaughter. At line 309, “all the floor was seething with blood” (δάπεδον δ’ ἅπαν αἵματι θῦε) and by lines 383–384 the suitors lie together “in the blood and dust” (ἐν αἵματι καὶ κονίῃσι). [26]

Other details in the scene likewise suggest horror rather than tragedy. The suitors are killed to a man, and no distinction is made between those who deserve their fate and those who might not. [27] Amphinomus had earlier received the most sympathetic portrait of any of the suitors, but his death is described like that of the much less pleasant Eurymachus: [28] both die after rushing at Odysseus (22.79–94). Our sympathies are not, then, directed towards the undeserved suffering of particular individuals, which might elicit the Aristotelian emotion of pity. And in place of pity, the narrative emphasizes the emotion of fear: “green fear seized” the suitors as they realized that their death was at hand (χλωρὸν δέος ἕλε, 42). Indeed this phrase, as we saw in Chapter 9, has a particular association in Homeric poetry with the monstrous horror of death. Placed early in Book 22, it establishes the atmosphere for the coming slaughter. And as with the allusion to Terror and Fear in the first description of the Iliadic battlefield, it would have suggested to audiences the kind of reaction appropriate to such gruesome scenes.

A number of the Homeric descriptions of death, then, point not in the direction of tragedy but towards horror. They lay emphasis on the emotion of fear and on the material realities of death. We hear of Terror on the Iliadic battlefield and of the “green fear” of the suitors; we witness the corpses on the battlefield and on the floor of Odysseus’ halls; we are presented with the blood, bones, and flesh of violated or decaying bodies.

And it is precisely such concepts that are the focus of the Homeric floral imagery of death and of its particular responses to the Greek natural environment. The poets of the elegiac tradition drew on the brevity of floral blooms in their celebrations of the brief joys of youth. Their Homeric counterparts drew on qualities that flowers shared with monsters in early Greek poetry—many-headedness or a disorderly fertility—to illustrate the monstrous horror of death. The relevant passages, moreover, associate death’s monstrous otherness with the negation of the order on which a warrior’s living identity depended, and in particular with the dissolution of the physical orderliness of his body. This latter concept is explored not only in Homeric floral images, but also in the horrific descriptions of woundings, of blood coursing through the battlefield, and of decaying corpses that we find in the Homeric poems.

We have seen, then, that the Homeric poets were able to draw on the striking suddenness and proliferation of Greek spring blooms to aid their audiences’ understanding of a number of striking concepts. They conjured up images not so much of a floral beauty that, though brief, might still be enjoyed, but of darker notions, such as sudden disappearance, unruly growths, and monstrous profusion. These guided their audiences’ conceptions of deceptive surfaces, of insurrection, and of the monstrousness of death. And in turn such images, together with the concepts introduced by them, directed listeners towards darker perspectives on the world and towards the more pessimistic principles on which they were founded: uncertainty, instability, horror.