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Pitty and Forgiveness in Ancient Greece
Pitty and Forgiveness in Ancient Greece
4.7
Forgiveness, Pity, and Ultimacy in
Ancient Greek Culture
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1. INTROD UCTION
paradox
Any study of the origins of 'forgiveness' in Western thought must consider the
and philosop hy indicates that
of Greek culture. A study of the earliest Greek literature
as related to both gods and
the Greeks developed a strong sense of justice and law
or mercy. The closest they came
humans, but did not develop a concept of forgiveness
But pity
to the latter concept was the practice of legal leniency and the notion of 'pity'.
and drama, as a human response to
was a later development, especially in Greek epics
ed their mytholo gy and early philoso-
the strict notions of justice and law that dominat
phy.
largely
Greek mythology created a universe in which the ultimate being or Fate was
of life and death. Some critics consider
unknowable, except for its power over matters
theo-
that the belief in Fate led early Greeks toward a pessimistic fatalism. As a major
by some that man is wholly in the power of
rist on Greek Fate says, 'It could be argued
could reply that to the extent to which man's reason
an external destiny or fate ... Others
partakes of the universal reason or spirit, to that extent there are things "in our power"
ed a pan-
.. .' (Greene 1944, p. 8). Within the universe ruled by Fate, the Greeks envision
that controlle d the external and internal forces beyond
theon of 'gods' or higher powers
supreme demigod was Zeus, whose sister was The-
direct human control. Of these, the
both aspects of justice. Themis was the personif ica-
mis and whose daughter was Dike,
such, which was determin ed by the gods and Fate, and
tion of rational social order as
an older earth goddess es in charge of strict 'blood justice'.
she was sometimes seen as
ity,
Dike was the personification of right relationships among persons in commun
and juridical justice, the latter often determin ed by a verdict
including both political
gods'
(Ostwald 1973, II. pp. 675ff.). As one critic has concluded about the Greek
and not mercy, 'Greek gods do not comman d us to forgive ... they
emphasis on justice
themselves are not conspicu ously forgivin g' (Dover 1991, p. 178).
One of the later notions that correlate with forgiveness is sin or wrongdoing, a
notion
connotat ion in early Greek culture. For example , in ancient
that had a much broader
between
Greece, there was little distinction made between voluntary and involuntary or
. Thus, a person could be held accounta ble by the gods for
ethical or ritual offences
152
accidental or passionate crimes as well as deliberate ones. Even the Greeks of Homer's
age realized they could be held accountable for such crimes, for in The Odyssey, Zeus
announces at the beginning of the epic: 'Ah how shameless - the way these mortals
blame the gods/ From us alone, they say, come all their miseries, yes,/ but they them-
selves, with their own reckless ways,/ compound their pains beyond their proper share'
(I, lines 37-40, Fagles 1996, p. 78). Yet the Greeks in their primitive theodicy were not
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able to distinguish between miseries that derived from the gods or that came from their
own moral, legal, or ritual faults. In fact, in classical Greece, the problem of theodicy
and the justice of the gods became, as we shall see, one of the themes of tragedy, a
theme connected with the first formal notions of pity (Versnel. 1996, pp. 1410-1).
In addition to these central concepts of Fate, gods, justice, and sin, the Greeks strug-
gled with little success to develop a notion of personal salvation. Their earliest ideas of
an afterlife were quite pessimistic, as described by Homer in Odysseus' visit to the
underworld in Book XI of The Odyssey. In this afterlife, most human beings endure a
sort of 'half-life' as shades lamenting their state and longing for news from the world of
their descendents on earth. Those who have sinned grievously, however, by failing to
serve the gods or showing hubris (excessive shame or pride of trying to be like a god)
on earth are given an eternal round of punishment; those who have become divine
through heroic deeds or being the offspring of gods and humans may escape the realm
of Hades and reach the paradise of Elysium. But most people in the archaic Greek
world of Homer entered the underworld after a ritual burial only to remain there in a
neutral gray world. Sometimes, such as in the case of Oedipus, the hubris occurs with-
out full realization and consent of the will. Thus, as S.G.F. Brandon has shown, the
ancient Greek mythological world found no way of salvation from sin or hubris. For
such salvation, some Greeks turned to the mystery religions that emerged from the
Middle East, especially those of Eleusis and of Orphism. The Eleusis mysteries prom-
ised a happy afterlife to those who qualified by a minimal ethical life and by perfor-
mance of the proper rituals. The Orphic mysteries promised a similar effect for those
who liberated their souls from the fallen material world by means of purification rites,
secret knowledge, and a disciplined life that required vegetarianism (Brandon 1973, p.
228).
As Greek culture evolved from the Heroic Age of Homer into the Classical Age of
Pericles, the religion of the polis began to incorporate notions that can be seen as seeds
of later belief in forgiveness. Greene sums up this development in the following way:
'The answer of orthodoxy is only to reiterate the old conviction that hubris is punished
by nemesis, insolence by retribution, or that the gods are actually jealous of prosperity
... Something could be done to mitigate the apparent harshness of the old conceptions.
"Zeus who hearkens to our supplication", "Zeus the compassionate" ... found worship-
pers; there were even cults of Reverence (Aidos) and of Pity (E/eos) in Athens' (Greene
1944, p. 48). Archeologists have found a fourth century BCE altar to the goddess Pity,
at which leaders developed rituals for the propitiation of sins (Parker 1996, pp. 232,
245). In fact, prayer and supplications had been a long-standing tradition even before
the awareness of divine mercy (Burkert 1985, p. 73-5). As one critic sums up the evi-
dence from the law courts and Aristotle, 'There is abundant evidence that in the fourth
153
century magnanimity, forgiveness, "niceness" ... were admired and respected' (Dover
1991,p.1 79).
With these general principles in mind concerning early Greek practices of justice,
law, sin, and religion within a fated world, let us now examine the gradual efforts to
find a moral way of 'pity' to escape the confines of this pessimistic mythology. An
overview of central passages in the Homeric epics (eighth C.), in the later Hymn to
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Demeter (seventh C.), and in the endings of various Greek dramas (fifth C.) will sug-
gest the remote origins of the later notion of 'forgiveness'. Finally, we will review the
stages though which pity became a rhetorical common place in Aristotle and later Hel-
lenistic culture.
154
'First they fought with heart-devouring hatred,
then they parted, bound by pacts of friendship.'
(VII 345-348; Fagles 1990, p. 224).
This tension between 'heart-devouring hatred' and 'pacts of friendship' suggests that
even in Homer's era the heroes believed in more than mere blood justice. This balanc-
ing of the heroic code of justice with the power of friendship leads into a more serious
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tension in Book IX when the Greeks send a delegation to Achilles in an attempt to rec-
oncile him with gifts. There, Odysseus and Phoenix appeal to Achilles to restrain his
anger by remembering his father and the example of compassion by the legendary hero
Meleager. Although Achilles rejects the gifts and the appeal to compassion, he shows
the beginning of a deeper awareness of what is at stake in and what are the limits of the
heroic code of honor and blood justice;
Despite Achilles' disillusionment with the war code and refusal to show compassion at
that point in the battle, he reluctantly allows that he might return to help the Greeks
once their ships are on fire.
The lack of compassion continues as a pattern in the battles or raids, as in Diomedes
and Odysseus's rejection of Dolon's pleas in Book X or Agamemno n's 'merciless'
rejection of the 'cries for mercy' by Antimachu s' sons in Book XI. The only pity that is
mentioned in these scenes is that of some of the gods who respond when they find their
favorite hero or army is losing, as when Poseidon pities the Achaeans at the beginning
of Book XIII. Even in that key turning point when Achilles himself realizes that his
anger has gone too far, he merely says 'Enough./ Let bygones be bygones now. Done is
done./ How on earth can a man rage on forever'? (XVI 68-70: Fagles 1990, p. 414).
This faint compassion allows him only to send Patroclus in Achilles' armor to fight the
Trojans, primarily for Achilles' own honor and glory. As a consequence of this com-
promise, Achilles is driven from his anger against Agamemno n to fulfill his desire for
revenge at the death of Patroclus. Ironically, he is given some new armor to wreak his
vengeance, a set of armor on which a new virtue is portrayed in the city of peace - the
virtue of just judgment by an arbiter in the case of blood-veng eance (XVIII, lines 572-
592; Fagles 1990, pp. 483-4).
The excesses of vengeance are again portrayed in the magnificently cruel exploits of
Achilles in his return to battle in Books XXI and XXII, especially in the uncontrollable
chaotic battle in which the nature gods and the Olympian gods participate to near
destruction of the whole universe of the epic. Only in Book XXII, with the tragic death
of Hector and the revengeful desecration of his body by Achilles does the cycle of
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-- ---- -- -- -------
blood justice reach its climax. For in Book XXIV. after the cathartic funeral for Patro-
clus followed by the funeral games, Achilles' anger is nearly spent. When Priam risks
his own life by coming to him in his tent by night, he pleads with Achilles, 'Revere the
gods, Achilles! Pity me in my own right,/ remembe r your own father! I deserve more
pity .. .' (lines 588-589; Fagles 1990, p. 604). In response to this formal supplication,
Achilles finally lets down his emotiona l guard and shows compassi on and pity for the
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old man who reminds him of his father, Peleus, alone and without any more sons:
Here at last, as Achilles decides to return Hector's body to Priam for a proper burial, the
epic embodies the exhaustio n of blood justice and the need for a virtue like pity (Kim
2000).
This emergenc e of the need for fellow-feeling continues and grows through the epic
of re-civilization of the warrior, The Odyssey. When Odysseus and his men first leave
Troy after desecrating the holy citadel, they travel to Ismarus, where they continue their
warlike ways by invading and sacking the small city. This act of war is met with sur-
prising resistance and Odysseus loses the majority of his sailors. As they travel on,
Odysseus loses more men to the lawless Cyclops and to the giant Lastrygon ians who
shows no guest-friendship, two lessons that remind Odysseus of the need for less brutal
ways. It is only when he comes to the island of the Aeolus that Odysseus learns the
advantages of guest-frie ndship and the need for gifts from the gods to reach his home-
land. Although his men succumb to greed or gluttony on the islands of Circe and the
Sun-god, Odysseus continues on until he arrives alone at the land of the Phaeacians.
There he learns to return to the ways of supplication when he formally approaches
Arete, the queen of this utopian land, and embraces her knees saying: 'Here after many
trials I come to beg for mercy,/ your husband's , yours, and all the feasters' here' (VII
s
lines 174-175; Fagles 1996, p. 184; Pedrick 1974). After staying with the Phaeacian
long enough to learn their ways of reconciliation, Odysseus returns with their help to
Ithaca, where Athena teaches him how to use his mind and wiles to recover his king-
dom. In this process of recoverin g power, he uses force in the famous battle in the hall
with the suitors, but two significan t signs of pity mitigate the force. First, when Phe-
mius the bard clutches Odysseus ' knees as a formal suppliant, he begs successfully for
mercy: 'I hug your knees, Odysseus - mercy! Spare my life!/ What a grief it will be to
you for all the years to come/ if you kill the singer now, who sings for gods and men'
(XXII, lines 362-364; Fagles 1996, p. 450). Telemachus confirms the bard's innocence,
along with that of the herald Medon, both of whom are spared by Odysseus. Second,
when the nurse wants to raise a cry of formal triumph over the defeat of the suitors,
Odysseus rejects the usual warrior's custom of exulting in victory: 'No cries of triumph
now./ It's unholy to glory over the bodies of the dead./ These men the doom of the gods
156
has brought low,/ and their own indecent acts' (lines 436-439; Fagles
1996, p. 452).
These small signs of pity are re-enforced by the command of Athena
at the end of the
epic for a wise break from the cycle of blood justice that seems about
to begin with the
relatives of the dead suitors. When Odysseus finally holds back from
more bloodshed,
Athena proclaims 'her pacts of peace/ between both sides for all the
years to come'
(XXIV lines 599-60 0; Fagles I 996, p. 485). Thus, the epic ends with
the war hero of
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157
revenge and bloodshed for blood-
drinks the black blood of citizens through passion for
r grace for grace. Let love be their
shed be given our state to prey upon. Let them rende
common will' (lines 978-9 86; Lattimore 1953, p. 169).
e is also at the heart of other
This emergence of something beyond strict justic
, the Suppliants portrays Zeus
Aeschylean tragedy. For example, as Greene has shown
who pray to him: 'The Suppliants
as not only all-powerful but also sensitive to those
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158
him. This example also confirms Edward Stevens' emphasis on the reciprocal duty in
Euripides of those who have received mercy, as in Theseus' pity for Heracles in Her-
cules Furens (Stevens 1944, p. 7).
In addition to these dramatic examples of pity, the major theorist of tragedy, Aristo-
tle, in his Poetics affirms that one of the two purifying emotions that result from trag-
edy is pity for the suffering hero at the end of the play. This sort of audience feeling of
https://www.utpjournals.press/doi/pdf/10.3138/uram.27.2.152 - Sunday, August 09, 2020 9:07:32 AM - IP Address:176.58.195.159
pity is more of an emotional sympathy with the victimized hero rather than any sort of
'forgiveness' of his sins.
3. CONCLU SION
Although this brief overview of the role of pity and justice in the Greek world from
Homer to Aristotle provides no definitive conclusions, it is clear that forgiveness was
not a primary virtue for these early Greeks. Neither the gods nor human beings in early
Greece were seen as 'forgiving' people their injustices or offenses. At most, the writers
and thinkers of this period gradually came to see pity for those who suffer as a step
159
world and the irrationality of
toward mitigating the strict justice of the ancient fatalistic
suffering or for the involun-
the gods. By the time of the Athenian republic, pity for the
justice in the courts and in the
tary guilty act was seen as of some value in the pursuit of
says, was shown only if the
pursuit of a reasonable foreign policy. Such pity, as Dover
or weakness of the offender.
offended person found an excuse in the ignorance, error,
of unconditional forgiveness,
Because the Greeks lacked a divine or messianic example
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REFER ENCE S
160
Ostwald, M. 1973. "Ancient Greek Ideas of Law." In Diction
ary of the History of Ideas, Vol. II,
p. 673-685.
Parker, M. I996. Athenian Religion. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Pedrick, V. 1982. "Supplication in the Iliad and the Odyssey."
Transactions of the American Phil-
ological Association. ll2 (1982): 125-40.
Sophocles. 1954. Sopho cles/: Oedipus the King, tr. by David
Grene; Oedipus at Co/onus, tr. by
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161