Zeus

Zeus is the most powerful figure in both poems, but his power is not arbitrary. He is bound by fate and by his own promises. In the Iliad, Thetis asks him to honour Achilles by giving the Trojans victory until the Achaeans relent. He owes Thetis a debt, and he grants the request with a nod that cannot be taken back. From that moment the poem’s military plot follows the will of Zeus, even when Hera and Athena try to reverse it.

Yet Zeus is not simply the enemy of the Achaeans. He pities Hector, weighs the fates of Hector and Achilles in his scales, and finally sends Hermes to guide Priam to Achilles. He is the guarantor of a larger order in which even his favourites can lose.

Zeus is the god who oversees oaths, suppliants, and the rights of guests. In the Odyssey, the suitors’ violation of xenía is an offence against Zeus himself, and their destruction is presented as a punishment that the gods approve. Zeus also protects the stranger and the beggar: “all strangers and beggars are from Zeus.”

This does not make him a gentle god. He can be deceived—Hera seduces him in the Iliad so that Poseidon can help the Achaeans—and he can be cruel, as when he allows Patroclus to die. But he is the ultimate reference point for the order that the poems’ mortals are expected to honour.