BMCR 2008.10.19, Efstratios Sarischoulis, Schicksal, Goetter und Handlungsfreiheit

Efstratios Sarischoulis, Schicksal, Goetter und Handlungsfreiheit in
den Epen Homers. Palingenesia, Bd. 92.  Stuttgart:  Franz Steiner,
2008.  Pp. 312.  ISBN 9783515091688.  EUR 64.00.

Reviewed by Reyes Bertoli/n Cebria/n, The University of Calgary
([email protected])
Word count:  1376 words
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To read a print-formatted version of this review, see
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Sarischoulis' monograph aims at explaining the concept of fate in the
Homeric epics and its implications for human characters and gods.  The
monograph is a reworked version of the author's doctoral dissertation.
Before the introduction and methodological clarifications, there is a
prologue by the author dealing briefly with the value of Philology. It
must be a sign of the times that even in Germany philologists need to
justify themselves.  At any rate, this prologue gives a flavor of
defensiveness that could put someone off.

There are three logical parts to Sarischoulis's monograph, even if the
author's own division corresponds to more formal criteria. The concrete
philological analysis of the words expressing the notion of destiny
constitutes the first part (II.1). The second part (II.2 and II.3)
deals with the implications of the previous analysis in the sphere of
gods and men. The third part (III) presents general conclusions for the
actions in the Iliad and Odyssey. It also revisits the whole concept of
fate in Homer. The book is completed by a short bibliography and an
index of the Homeric passages.  It comes as no surprise that the
bibliography is short. This is a constant in works on semantic fields
in Homer.  Although numerous fields have been analyzed, not too many
studies offer results that are transferable from one semantic field to
the next.

The prose of the book is not always easy, and many concepts are
expressed in long, dense sentences.  This fact may detract from the
appeal that a topic as interesting as this certainly has. Especially
towards the end, the book becomes too repetitious, and it becomes
difficult to realize when a new point is being made. The book is aimed
at graduate students and scholars and a public familiar not only with
the Iliad and Odyssey in the original language, but also with Homeric
scholarship.

The introduction sets out two familiar approaches to the role of the
gods and fate in the Homeric epics.  The first one assumes that either
the gods are subordinated to fate or fate to the gods. The second one
presents both gods and fate as co-existing forces.  While both
explanations seem to conceive of Homeric man as someone who lacks
complete independence of action and thought, Sarischoulis contends that
even when the end result of an action has to be presented according to
tradition, Homer, who is not a believer in fate, nevertheless manages
to portray the action as freely chosen by the character.  Some of the
issues discussed in the introduction could have benefited from the
insights of S. Richardson in The Homeric Narrator (1990), which seems
unknown to the author.

The main part starts with the analysis of words usually translated as
"fate".  This is the more appealing part of S's book. It deals with
concrete examples and uses of the words for "fate" in Homer.
Sarischoulis starts by noticing the absence of the word <greek>
tu/xh</greek> in the Homeric poems.  The words that he includes in his
analysis are first the Indo-European root *smer- and then
<greek>pe/prwtai</greek> and <greek>peprwme/nos</greek>.  The rest of
the words building the semantic field of "fate" are:
<greek>moi=ra</greek>, <greek>mo/ros</greek>, <greek>ai)=sa</greek>,
<greek>kh/r</greek>, <greek>po/tmos</greek>, and
<greek>oi)=tos</greek>.  Although from two different etymological
roots, the words <greek>moi=ra</greek>, <greek>mo/ros</greek>,
<greek>ai)=sa</greek> share their meaning "portion", "distribution."
This is the meaning that Sarischoulis discovers in all testimonies of
the word with different genitives: part of the night, the land, the
wealth, the meat, the return. It is only when used in relation to
"death" (<greek>qa/natos</greek>) that <greek>moi=ra</greek>,
<greek>mo/ros</greek> or <greek>ai)=sa</greek> are close to acquiring
the meaning "destiny." The fact that death is apportioned to all human
beings and this part of life is inescapable contributed to the shift of
meaning of these words from "portion" to "fate." <greek>kh/r</greek>,
<greek>po/tmos</greek> and <greek>oi)=tos</greek> are also associated
with death. The first one designs the kind of death, the second one is
metonymically used as death. <greek>oi)=tos</greek> refers to the path
of man towards death. It can refer to the path of life, the life
including death or just death itself.

Sarischoulis carefully analyzes the contexts for each of these words
and concludes that they do not refer to an abstract concept of fate,
but rather to a concrete way of perceiving life as composed of
different portions, which are given to the human beings by the gods.
The portions correspond either to the nature of human beings or to
their position within some cosmic or social order. Along the path of
life there are no prescribed events, but choices that one has to make
with their corresponding consequences. Even when the result of a
situation is traditional, Homer presents the development of the action
not as a preordained outcome, but as motives and decisions of the
characters involved. If there is an absolute power in Homer it is not
fate, but death.

The next major section of the book deals with the implications that the
previous exposition has for gods and men. Sarischoulis reasons that if
there is no such a thing as fate, then there must be freedom of choice
and independent, personal motivations for an action.  This is certainly
an implication of the lack of a concept of fate. However, and
considering that this section seems to be the potentially more
consequential part of the book, I would have liked for Sarischoulis to
explain in more detail the transition from the study of vocabulary to
the study of Homeric psychology.  This is where the role of philology
as a solid basis for further study should have been emphasized.

Sarischoulis does not see much difference between the way gods and
human beings act.  They are all motivated by individual desires and
goals. Similar to human beings, gods are part of an ordered system, but
they are by and large independent actors. The section on the
implications for the human beings builds a fourth of the whole
monograph. Starting with Snell, much has been written on the concept of
"Homeric man." Sarischoulis opposes this concept because he thinks that
it implies that all characters in Homer are the same with regard to
their thoughts, abilities and actions. Although Sarischoulis is always
in tension with Snell and his concept of "Homeric man", nevertheless,
he is indebted to Snell when he recognizes that the words translated as
fate all have a concrete meaning in the Homeric epics, independently of
whether the word is applied to the gods or to human beings.

Sarischoulis also opposes the concept of "double motivation" of human
action introduced by Lesky.  He considers that the gods are not able to
limit the free decision making of men. Gods can persuade men towards
one course of action with more or less legitimate motives, but the last
decision ultimately lies in men's hands. Homeric characters can
distinguish between their own motivation and the one that comes from
outside. The responsibility of the action lies entirely with the person
(or god) performing the action. He spends lots of energy defending the
concept of freedom of action and responsibility, which has been
questioned or not entirely accepted by many generations of Homeric
scholars, especially in the German speaking area.

In the conclusion, Sarischoulis analyzes well-known scenes of the Iliad
and the Odyssey from the point of view of the motivation for action and
the self-consciousness of individual responsibility.  Of course, he has
to start with the wrath of Achilles and <greek>*Dio\s boulh/</greek>.
For being a conclusion, this section is very long. It goes for almost
ninety pages and, yet, there is hardly anything new to add to his
previous argument, which is now applied systematically to scenes of the
Iliad and the Odyssey.

The book revisits the theories about the concept of 'man' and human and
divine decision-making and freedom of thought and action proposed
mostly by German speaking scholars: Snell, Lesky and Arbogast Schmidt.
Their theories have been very influential and have built on one another
for the past eighty years. Sarischoulis's method to stand up to such a
dominant tradition is simple: study first what the words really mean in
context and then draw the consequences from the findings. This is the
greatest merit of the book, which validates Philology as the basis of
studies in Homeric psychology and religion.