Close relations between gods and people

The Close Relationship between Gods and Humans

During world history, gods have been an important complement for the men because associating their lives and society to a higher being makes them have faith and hope about difficult situations and the future, or just to be thankful. In Ancient Greece, gods and humans develop a special relationship; gods came to interact with humans and in some cases their relation with mortals involved romantic situations. To develop this topic, we will be talking about the Odyssey by Homer in its four first books, in order to demonstrate the close relationship between gods and men.

At the end of the eighth century B.C, the time of Homer, the relationship between human beings and gods was very strong. Greek communities were polytheistic. They had gods for each art and attribute and whose excellence in these areas made them powerful over the human race. As the gods were perfect and full of wisdom, people were nothing without them. An example of this can be seen in the opening words of the Odyssey, “Tell me, Muse”, when Homer begs for divine guidance, as if it were a holy book of the bible in telling the story of Odysseus. Another example is when Telemachus, son of Odysseus, who was looking for his father visited Nestor, king of Pylos and warrior in the Trojan War. When Nestor was talking with Telemachus about Odysseus, he said: “All men need the gods” (Odyssey, Book III, line 48).

Another distinction of the Greeks was the sacrifices to gods. People performed sacrifices and rituals looking for prosperity, victory and health, or in some cases just to try to change unfortunate destiny. In the Odyssey, the sacrifices are shown when Telemachus arrived in Pylos. Nestor, Telemachus and Athena the goddess of the war, offered a grand hecatomb, which is a sacrifice of oxen, to Poseidon the god of the sea, pleading for his blessing. When they were offering the sacrifice, Athena said:

Hear us, Poseidon, who circle the earth, and do not begrudge us the accomplishment of all these actions for which we pray you. First of all to Nestor and to his sons grant glory, and then on all the rest of the Pylians besides confer gracious recompense in return for this grand hecatomb, and yet again grant that Telemachos and I go back with that business done for which we came this way in our black ship. (Odyssey, Book III.55-61)

Sacrifices represent respect for gods and the people think it was the way to ask for a favors and blessing to their deities.

Another situation that make us think that Gods were really close to humans in Ancient Greece is gods’ behavior. In some cases, they take mortal shape and act as a person. Friendships and romantic relationships could be born between deities and regular people. In the case of friendship, Odysseus and the goddess Athena were “guest-friends by heredity” (Odyssey, Book I, line 187), which means that their parents

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