The former of these two topics has been analyzed with great detail and clarity by Cedric H. Whitman in his book Homer and the Heroic Tradition.Whitman theorized that Homer often used "the method of objectifying states into divinities." In other words, when a hero feels angry or sad or courageous, Homer shows this by having a particular divinity appear to that hero.Homer also used this technique to illustrate a hero's particular characteristics by associating a specific god with that hero.For example, Achilles is nearly always paired with thunderous Zeus, Hector with valiant Apollo, Agamemnon with vengeful Hera, Paris with loving Aphrodite.By having these gods appear to these heroes at crucial times with support or advice, Homer was intensifying the experiences of the heroes and playing off of "the deep-seated Hellenic association of heroic force with absolute being." By linking the heroes with the gods, Homer made them larger than life, half-magical, almost divine, and thus eternal of themselves as descriptions of fundamental human nature that would remain powerful throughout the ages.
But while these connections may heighten the power and pathos of the heroes, they also diminish the dignity of the gods, which brings us to the second of the above topics.Obviously one of the most salient characteristics of the gods is their immortality.This grants them eternity, invincibility, omniscience, foreknowledge.But it also deprives them of the key to human tragedy:the constant fear and possibility of death. Therefore, when a poignant human drama is played out on the divine level, it simply cannot possess the same gravity as it does for humans.No wound is fatal, and thus there can be no real fear for oneself or others. Through their invincibility, all divine wounds are quickly healed and often laughed at.In the endless seasons on Mount Olympus, all fights are of necessity merely transient, all anger temporary.Because of their eternal existence, all dilemmas are soon solved. As a result, when the actions of men are mirrored by the gods, "what is starkest tragedy on earth is often imaged in heaven as a light and sometimes slapstick comedy." Many scholars believe that Homer realized this and "as a balance to the tremendous solemnity of his hero…thrust the gods into the ridiculous postures they sometimes assume."
It is inevitable, with this use of the gods, that they often appear less dignified, if more powerful, than Homer's human heroes, and this, to a modern reader, seems a shocking impiety.Nevertheless, one cannot conclude because of his interpretation of the gods that Homer did not believe in them or was not devoutly religious."It does not by any means imply that the gods are imaginary, or do not have actual existence." Not only did Homer believe in his gods, but the gods in his epics were worshipped down through the time of Xenophanes and for eight hundred years after that. Furthermore, the Homeric epics themselves were so important to the Greeks' religion that modern-day scholars feel justified in saying that one can use the term "Homeric gods" not just strictly in reference to the epics themselves but also to "imply an investigation of the Homeric gods as objects of cult—a focus for beliefs and practices held in reality by a society." Homer's epics were taken as the single most crucial revelation about the divine world that the ancient Greeks possessed.
