Religion, Curses, and Four-Letter Words II
The First Half of This Essay is Located Here
Zeus, the most powerful god of them all in the Greek pantheon, is the patron god of travelers. That meant that you faced Zeus' wrath if you did not protect a traveler who asked for lodging. And it went way beyond merely giving a room and a meal. The host was obliged to send off the traveler with gifts, and the traveler was expected to give gifts in return. For a brief period, the traveler was family, and was to be protected as such.
Given that banditry and piracy were, in the world of the Homeric poems, not only common but reputable professions, it's not hard to see why there was needed a code of friendship for travelers. No law existed but the strength of any particular ruler over his domain. Inside that domain, anyone was subject to whatever the ruler wished, simply because he was powerful enough to do as he willed in an area he could control. outside of that domain, and the traveler had better be exceptionally strong, or have a lot of money for bribes.
In short, the system might have been explained something like this: Zeus is the strongest being there is, and therefore, anything and everything is under his control. His domain extends everywhere. Individual kings (more like tribal leaders in the Homeric poems) are like little Zeuses in their own domains. And theoretically, a ruler could be ruthless and brutally murder any traveler and take his stuff. That, however, would be contrary to Zeus' rules, and no one wants to be on Zeus' bad side.
There it is, and very simple. Travelers are friends. And, given that the moral code of the ancient world was simply "help your friends and harm your enemies," you must always help a traveler.
It's easy to look at this system and assume that the rationale for it lies in "do unto others what you would have them do unto you." And perhaps some rulers did make that connection, but we probably should not. The results of the ancient moral code and the Christian moral code produce, in this case, the same result. It doesn't mean that we should assume that the ancients were thinking like Christians.
Zeus, in other words, isn't a wonderful counselor. So why would he care about the well-being of travelers? And the answer is this: the travelers cut a deal with the god. It probably went something like this: "you protect me, and I will spread your sacrifices everywhere I go."
In short, "you scratch my back, I'll kill a bull for you." And this is probably the likelier origin of ancient religion.
Recall the mindset of the Homeric heroes ("hero" is, in this case, anyone strong enough to make his or her will a reality, despite opposition from weaker people) didn't include concepts like "culpability" or "intent." They wished, and they did. They wanted, and they took. They willed, and their will became real. Their actions were no more questioned, even if cruel, than the actions of an eagle eating a fieldmouse. The eagle eats the mouse because it is in the eagle's nature to do such things; the eagle is stronger. And the pirate takes from the coast town for the same reason.
What, then, do you do when you encounter someone stronger than you? You submit, or you cut a deal.
In the beginning of the Iliad, the hero Achilles is insulted in a serious way by the leader of the anti-Trojan forces. Achilles is about to kill the leader (Agamemnon), but desists when a goddess persuades him otherwise. The goddes cannot stop Achilles from killing Agamemnon, because Achilles is freakishly strong. So she cuts a deal - "you don't kill him, and I'll humiliate him and prove you the stronger man." And Achilles accepts.
One thing should be covered before making the tiny leap from deals with humans to deals with gods - given that once someone intended to do something, he or she would in all likelihood do it, it's easy to see why the spoken word held such weight, especially a curse. By cursing someone, you were condemning him to a certain fate - "ad maximam malam crucem" is a Roman curse and one of my personal favorites, meaning, quite literally, "go crucify yourself." In a world where a stronger man could exert his will on a weaker man, it isn't hard to imagine how much weight the curse of the stronger man would have. Once a hero had proclaimed his intention to kill or hurt someone, it was as good as done. A curse, therefore, was not a probability, it was a certainty, because the curser certainly wasn't going to waste his time thinking about whether or not he should do as he wanted. And he was probably stronger than you, and so you were doomed. A few hundred years of this, and one would still be deathly afraid of curses.
A curse, after all, was simply a nasty oath, and oaths, like anything spoken, held great power and could not be broken. It was an oath that supposedly made all the Greek kings go after Helen - they had sworn to protect her marriage. It certainly wasn't her beauty - not even the most beautiful woman in the world could convince an army to come after her by beauty alone, and the heroes in the Homeric poems have no qualms about stating that outright.
But back to deals - if there was any way in which a weaker man was more powerful than a strong man - richer, greater dominion, better lineage, etc. - then the weaker man had a way out of the fate that the strong man planned for him...assuming, of course, that the strong man accepted. And religion in the Homeric poems is little more than a complicated, but deathly serious, tradition of rules for making deals with the gods.
So long as sacrifices continued, certain things could be expected - winter wouldn't last forever, disease wouldn't be devastating, and people could live. In short, ancient religion wasn't a mechanism to explain the world around them, it was a mechanism for preventing the world around them from eating them alive. Man could deal with angry forces in the universe just like he dealt with stronger men - cutting deals, and keeping his end of the bargain.
More to come.
Zeus, the most powerful god of them all in the Greek pantheon, is the patron god of travelers. That meant that you faced Zeus' wrath if you did not protect a traveler who asked for lodging. And it went way beyond merely giving a room and a meal. The host was obliged to send off the traveler with gifts, and the traveler was expected to give gifts in return. For a brief period, the traveler was family, and was to be protected as such.
Given that banditry and piracy were, in the world of the Homeric poems, not only common but reputable professions, it's not hard to see why there was needed a code of friendship for travelers. No law existed but the strength of any particular ruler over his domain. Inside that domain, anyone was subject to whatever the ruler wished, simply because he was powerful enough to do as he willed in an area he could control. outside of that domain, and the traveler had better be exceptionally strong, or have a lot of money for bribes.
In short, the system might have been explained something like this: Zeus is the strongest being there is, and therefore, anything and everything is under his control. His domain extends everywhere. Individual kings (more like tribal leaders in the Homeric poems) are like little Zeuses in their own domains. And theoretically, a ruler could be ruthless and brutally murder any traveler and take his stuff. That, however, would be contrary to Zeus' rules, and no one wants to be on Zeus' bad side.
There it is, and very simple. Travelers are friends. And, given that the moral code of the ancient world was simply "help your friends and harm your enemies," you must always help a traveler.
It's easy to look at this system and assume that the rationale for it lies in "do unto others what you would have them do unto you." And perhaps some rulers did make that connection, but we probably should not. The results of the ancient moral code and the Christian moral code produce, in this case, the same result. It doesn't mean that we should assume that the ancients were thinking like Christians.
Zeus, in other words, isn't a wonderful counselor. So why would he care about the well-being of travelers? And the answer is this: the travelers cut a deal with the god. It probably went something like this: "you protect me, and I will spread your sacrifices everywhere I go."
In short, "you scratch my back, I'll kill a bull for you." And this is probably the likelier origin of ancient religion.
Recall the mindset of the Homeric heroes ("hero" is, in this case, anyone strong enough to make his or her will a reality, despite opposition from weaker people) didn't include concepts like "culpability" or "intent." They wished, and they did. They wanted, and they took. They willed, and their will became real. Their actions were no more questioned, even if cruel, than the actions of an eagle eating a fieldmouse. The eagle eats the mouse because it is in the eagle's nature to do such things; the eagle is stronger. And the pirate takes from the coast town for the same reason.
What, then, do you do when you encounter someone stronger than you? You submit, or you cut a deal.
In the beginning of the Iliad, the hero Achilles is insulted in a serious way by the leader of the anti-Trojan forces. Achilles is about to kill the leader (Agamemnon), but desists when a goddess persuades him otherwise. The goddes cannot stop Achilles from killing Agamemnon, because Achilles is freakishly strong. So she cuts a deal - "you don't kill him, and I'll humiliate him and prove you the stronger man." And Achilles accepts.
One thing should be covered before making the tiny leap from deals with humans to deals with gods - given that once someone intended to do something, he or she would in all likelihood do it, it's easy to see why the spoken word held such weight, especially a curse. By cursing someone, you were condemning him to a certain fate - "ad maximam malam crucem" is a Roman curse and one of my personal favorites, meaning, quite literally, "go crucify yourself." In a world where a stronger man could exert his will on a weaker man, it isn't hard to imagine how much weight the curse of the stronger man would have. Once a hero had proclaimed his intention to kill or hurt someone, it was as good as done. A curse, therefore, was not a probability, it was a certainty, because the curser certainly wasn't going to waste his time thinking about whether or not he should do as he wanted. And he was probably stronger than you, and so you were doomed. A few hundred years of this, and one would still be deathly afraid of curses.
A curse, after all, was simply a nasty oath, and oaths, like anything spoken, held great power and could not be broken. It was an oath that supposedly made all the Greek kings go after Helen - they had sworn to protect her marriage. It certainly wasn't her beauty - not even the most beautiful woman in the world could convince an army to come after her by beauty alone, and the heroes in the Homeric poems have no qualms about stating that outright.
But back to deals - if there was any way in which a weaker man was more powerful than a strong man - richer, greater dominion, better lineage, etc. - then the weaker man had a way out of the fate that the strong man planned for him...assuming, of course, that the strong man accepted. And religion in the Homeric poems is little more than a complicated, but deathly serious, tradition of rules for making deals with the gods.
So long as sacrifices continued, certain things could be expected - winter wouldn't last forever, disease wouldn't be devastating, and people could live. In short, ancient religion wasn't a mechanism to explain the world around them, it was a mechanism for preventing the world around them from eating them alive. Man could deal with angry forces in the universe just like he dealt with stronger men - cutting deals, and keeping his end of the bargain.
More to come.
posted by NateWazoo at 5:28 PM
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