CHAPTER EIGHT

THE RETURN OF THE FATHER

When Thetis emerges from the sea toward the end of Iliad I to ask that Zeus grant honor to Achilleus (1.495-510), he does not answer her at once, but sits for a long time in silence (1.511-2). 1 What con• cerns him is not the specific content of the favor itself, he admits, but Hera's likely reaction to it: she quarrels with him constantly as it is, alleging that he lends too much aid to the Trojans, and he is accordingly reluctant to give her further grounds for attack (1.51 7- 23). Although he ultimately grants his suppliant's request (1.523-7), therefore, he urges her to leave Olympos as quickly as possible (1.522- 3). Unfortunately, Hera has already seen the two of them together (1.536-8), and the moment her husband is back in the house she is at him with sharp words (Kepwµioicn), demanding to know what he did while he was out and accusing him of coming to decisions be• hind her back (1.539-43). Zeus' initial response to this is to tell his wife not to expect to be informed in advance of everything he is planning; what she needs to know, she will be told, but the rest of his thoughts are none of her concern (1.545-50). When she contin• ues to insist and in fact guesses exactly what he has just promised Thetis (1.552-9), he explodes in anger. She is far too clever for him (1.561 ), he concedes, but her interference in his affairs will only make him love her less, for things are the way he wants them. She had therefore best take her seat and be quiet, or not even all the other gods together will be any protection 'when I lay my unconquer• able hands upon you' (1.565-7). Terrified, Hera sits down in silence (1.568-9). At the end of the scene, however, she and Zeus go off to bed together (1.609-11) and, as the story Hephaistos goes on to tell about an even more violent quarrel between them in the past (1.589- 91) makes clear, confrontations of this sort are in fact quite typical of their marriage.2 When Zeus awakes at the beginning of Book XV,

1 For the mythological and social background to Thetis' request, see Walcot (1987) 16-8; Slatkin (1991), esp. 52-77, expanding an argument first put fmward in Slatkin (1986). 2 Cf. Zeus' insistence on the regularity of Hera's verbal assaults on him at 1.520- 1. For Zeus' battering of his wife, see Synodinou (1987), and note also XIV.310-1; 162 CHAPTER EIGHT having been seduced and put to sleep by Hera's treachery (cf. XIV.157-352), therefore, he not only scowls at her (XV.13) but threat• ens to whip her for her insubordination (XV.16-7), reminding her of how he hung her up with chains around her hands and anvils on her feet on a previous occasion when she caused him similar trouble (XV.18-21).3 For the moment, she behaves submissively (XV.34--46), but once back in the house and safely out of his reach, she tries to stir up the rest of the family against him, denouncing his highhandness and the slavish position to which he has allegedly reduced the other gods (XV.94--109). She has taken part in other revolts against his authority in the past (1.396-406) and now momentarily conVInces Ares to oppose him actively (XV.110--20). This uprising as well comes rapidly to nothing (XV.121-42), however, and at the end of the poem Zeus is still in power and doing his best to cope with the demands of his insistent and angry wife (XXIV.23-76). The marriage of Zeus and Hera in the Iliad is thus both stable and tempestuous. The basic structure of the family is patriarchal (e.g. 1.503, 534, 544, 578), and Zeus accordingly makes all the final de• cisions about the course of the Trojan War and the fate of the in• dividual human beings involved in it (cf. 1.5). 4 All the same, he is forced to engage in a constant bitter struggle for power with his wife, who exercises as much control over him as she can and whose dissent seems to have a quasi-institutional status in their marriage (VIII.407-8; cf. VIIl.421-2).5 She is the craftier of the two and in one sense beyond his control, at least so long as he confines himself to words (esp. V.892-3). She is also capable of using his physical desire for her to her own advantage (esp. XIV.313-52), and when he is out of the house, attempts to rally the rest of the family against him (e.g. XV.94--120). Were they all to rebel simultaneously, it is conceivable he might be overthrown and replaced (1.396-406). He is nonetheless by far the strongest of them (esp. 1.581, 589; VIII.17- 27), and Hera's awareness that he can and will beat her if she grows

XV.90-1. Simon (1988) 14--21, discusses intra-familial violence in Homer but with• out reference to the relationship of Zeus and Hera. 3 Zeus' scowl marks Hera's behavior specifically as transgressing proper lines of social authority; see Holoka (1983). For possible interconnections among all these stories, see Lang (1983), esp. 147-55. 4 On the connection between patriarchal social structures and domestic violence in contemporary society, see Taubman (1986). 5 For Hera's wrath, see O'Brien (1991 ); for the larger significance of her position, see Mumaghan (1992), esp. 242-54.