Fate, Homer, Achilles, and Counterfactuals

Pivotal counterfactuals (“Then X would have happened had not Y intervened”) are a frequent Homeric construction.  Previous scholarship has analyzed this construction in general (Lang 1989, Louden 1993) or specifically in its occurrences in the Iliad (De Jong 1987, Morrison 1992), but has tended to overlook certain key differences between the two epics’ utilization of pivotal counterfactuals.  I argue that the Iliad uses pivotal counterfactuals to accentuate Achilles’ dignity regarding freedom of choice vis-à-vis other humans and that, in contrast to the Odyssey, the Iliad employs twice as many pivotal counterfactuals and has its narrator voice almost all of them because of its metapoetic theme of contemplating alternatives.

The Iliad frequently uses pivotal counterfactuals to portray humans as threatening fate, which the gods must subsequently take measures to safeguard (e.g., Il. 2.155-56).  This usage stands in marked contrast to the Odyssey, whose pivotal counterfactuals never depict humans threatening fate.  I argue that this difference exists because the Iliad intends to contrast Achilles with other humans regarding his relationship to fate and the gods.  For although Iliadic gods commonly foil other heroes in pivotal counterfactuals, they are reluctant to force Achilles’ hand and generally attempt to persuade him instead: the gods exemplify their care for Achilles’ agency by attaching the formula αἴ κε πίθηαι only to their addresses to him (e.g., Il. 21.293). 

Pivotal counterfactuals differ between the Homeric epics not only in number but also in the proportion of those voiced by the narrator rather than by characters.  The Iliad contains twice as many pivotal counterfactuals as the Odyssey, which Lang (1989) reasoned is because the Iliad chronicles battles.  I disagree that the poem’s subject matter sufficiently explains this disparity and instead argue that the greater abundance of pivotal counterfactuals in the Iliad serves metapoetically to underscore the theme of choice.  From debating whether to kill Agamemnon to ransoming Hector, Achilles constantly makes choices that determine the plot’s direction: the ultimate choice is whether he will gain κλέος or νόστος.  The profusion of narrowly-averted hypotheticals thus metapoetically reflects the decision-making of Achilles.  Furthermore, I contend that a metapoetic reading also explains why the Iliad’s narrator almost monopolizes its pivotal counterfactuals.  Whereas the majority of the Odyssey’s counterfactuals are voiced by characters, nearly ninety percent of the Iliad’s are voiced by its narrator.  Character-spoken pivotal counterfactuals describe prior events, thus having less immediate impact on the plot.  Narrator-spoken counterfactuals, besides claiming Muse-inspired inerrancy which character-spoken counterfactuals lack, excel in jeopardizing the course of the plot and in building tension (Morrison 1992).  Accepting Richard Martin (1989)’s argument that Achilles is the poet’s alter ego, I propose that the Iliad’s narrator voices pivotal counterfactuals far more than the Odyssey’s narrator to mirror the Iliad’s theme of choice and alternative possibilities.  Just as Achilles possesses alternative fates from which he may choose, the poet likewise has the dignity of deciding which possible narrative path the poem will take.  Thus the Iliad distinctly utilizes pivotal counterfactuals to underscore this metapoetic dynamic between hero and poet.