Chance, Gods, and Fate

Chance, in the sense of fortuity, does not exist in the Iliad. Occurrences which might elsewhere be ascribed to chance are ascribed either to gods or to fate.

So, when the whip flies from Diomedes' hand during the chariot race at Patroclus' funeral games, it is no accident. Rather, Apollo knocks it from his grip. (23.384).

A variant of this use of gods by the poet is his employment of them to explain events which would otherwise seem inexplicable to his Greek audience. How could Trojans maul the Greeks without intervention by Zeus? How could Hector kill Patroclus without Apollo having first weakened and disarmed the Greek?

Even on the several occasions when lots are shaken to select a man, there may be a suggestion that prayers for a particular contestant to win are answered, for example at 7.175 ff.

There is never a suggestion that the lots are determined by chance or luck, rather than divine intervention or fate.

Each mortal's fate, or destiny, is spun at birth. By whom or what we are not told. He or she cannot escape fate.

Grand events, like the fall of Troy, are also fixed by fate.

Fate is synonymous with death in the case of mortals, destruction in a case like Troy's fate.

The gods know what fate ordains for mortals, but gods cannot avert fate and are therefore subordinate to it.

They have no fates of their own, in the mortal sense of death, because they cannot die or be destroyed.

The poet frequently states that a certain event might have occurred, "contrary to fate," but for the occurrence of something else, often divine intervention. Likewise, for example, Zeus considers averting the fate of his mortal son Sarpedon, but he does not do so. The foregoing examples are rhetorical devices, not intended to imply the possibility of an occurrence contrary to fate--something which never happens in the Iliad.

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View Wikipedia entry for fate.