The Opening of The Iliad
The Iliad begins, not with the creation of the world in 6 days, but with an invocation of the goddess or muse:Sing, O goddess,followed by the story of the wrath of the great Greek hero of the Trojan War, Achilles:
the anger of Achilles son of Peleus, that brought countless ills upon the Achaeans. Many a brave soul did it send hurrying down to Hades, and many a hero did it yield a prey to dogs and vultures, for so were the counsels of Jove fulfilled from the day on which the son of Atreus, king of men, and great Achilles, first fell out with one another....and his anger at the expedition's leader, Agamemnon, who has strained relations with his best man by stealing his beloved concubine and committed sacrilege:
And which of the gods was it that set them on to quarrel? It was the son of Jove and Leto [Apollo]; for he was angry with the king and sent a pestilence upon the host to plague the people, because the son of Atreus had dishonoured Chryses his priest.
(Samuel Butler translation)
The Place of Gods in Man's Life
Gods in Homer's ancient heroic age walked among men, but they were much more powerful than humans and could be prevailed upon by prayer and sacrifice to help human beings. We see this in the opening of The Iliad where the rhapsode (the composer/singer of the story) Homer seeks divine inspiration to create a great epic, and where an old man seeks the return of his abducted daughter.There is nothing in this Greek great book (The Iliad) about taking clay and forming it in a certain likeness or taking a rib from said animated clay, although the latter, the story of the creation of woman (Pandora) by a craftsman, does appear differently elsewhere in the canon of Greek mythology.
Next Page: Creation Stories
