Plotinus certainly loved reading Homer. He frequently quotes from him for rhetorical flourish, to elevate his speech and enjoin the reader to undertake the spiritual philosophical ascent which he describes. One beautiful example can be seen in the first treatise he ever wrote, En. I.6.8.16-21:
Plotinus’ direct quotations from Iliad V, however, are quite limited.
At VI.6.18.15, discussing the life of the intelligible world, he writes that “The life of the Living Beings itself is not without strength [ἀμενηνὴ]” (Gerson 2018; HS ad loc.), with the word “without strength” echoing Iliad V.887, the speech of Ares at Olympos having been wounded by Diomedes: “My quick feet brought me away from there, or else I might have suffered terrible things for longer, down among the gruesome corpses, or I might have been alive but weakened [ἀμενηνὸς] by their bronze spears’ blows” (Wilson 2023, 130). Plotinus’ rhetorical point here is to distinguish the temporary mode of life here in the sensible world from the eternal life of the Beings in the intelligible world, alluding to Ares’ description as a way to highlight the suffering bound up in being a soul in a body. We will return to this passage later.
At VI.7.30.28, Plotinus quotes from Iliad V.426, μείδησε δὲ πατὴρ (“the father [of gods and men] smiled]”, Wilson 2023, 112) among many other mythological and poetic idioms to criticize those who misuse these references to argue that “the good [is] one substrate made [...] by mixing pleasure with intellect…” (Gerson 2018). This passage, unfortunately, is not exceptionally helpful for the present purposes.
Thankfully, Plotinus devotes extensive sections of other treatises to developing a theological account of Aphrodite, which I have explored in two previous posts and in a conference presentation. This developed ‘thealogy’ (from thea, ‘Goddess’) gives us a framework to approach the scene of the wounding of Aphrodite.
To begin, we must ask ourselves, which Aphrodite is wounded? Plotinus analyzes Aphrodite into different forms on the basis of epithets provided by Pausanias’ speech in Symposium. Because Dione addresses Aphrodite as “my child” [τέκνον ἐμόν] (Wilson 2023, 112), Homer is holding to the genealogy of Aphrodite as the daughter of Zeus and Dione, who Pausanias (Symposium 180d-e), and therefore Plotinus (En. III.5.2.16-17) identifies as Aphrodite Pandemos, or ‘Aphrodite of All People’.
As I have shown in previous posts, Plotinus identifies this form of Aphrodite with the Soul of the Cosmos (giving a new sense to the meaning of “Pandemos”), as Nature herself, and as the Soul of Zeus. In Plotinus’ exegesis of Symposium and Phaedrus, he concludes that each individual soul is a ‘region’ of this world-soul.
If Aphrodite in Iliad V represents the Soul of the Cosmos and Nature herself, then what does Aeneas represent? To discuss this, let us quote the scene where he faces Diomedes in full:
This description of Aeneas accords well with the recounting of the parentage of Aeneas as told in the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite, and the characterization of Aeneas in the prologue of Virgil’s Aeneid. Aeneas’ father was Anchises, who Aphrodite appeared to “while he was herding cows [boukoleonti]”. Yet, Aeneas does not take on a cowlike demeanor. Rather “stood astride to guard [the body of Pandarus], like a lion trusting in his courage.” This contrast is even implied in the Greek text. The metrical feet used by the poet loosely alliterate with each other, drawing a connection between the two while clearly distinguishing the son of the shepherd from the cows: baine leōn vs. boukoleonti. Characterizing Aeneas as a lion and a ‘lord of men’ recalls the Homeric Hymn to Herakles, which addresses this hero as leontothumos: ‘with the thumos (spirit, heart) of a lion’: Aphrodite, Aeneas’ mother, protects this lion-like thumos, when the poet says “so no Greek would … take his life [thumon] away”.
Aeneas’ jumping down from his chariot to protect the body of a fallen comrade recalls how Virgil describes him at Aeneid I.10: “a man marked by piety” (insignem pietate virum). Piety (pietas), in Greek, is εὐσεβεία – ‘right reverence’ – and in both languages conceptually concerns more than just the relationship between men and gods. For example, Euthyphro expresses concern that people will say it is impious for him to be prosecuting his father (Euthyphro 4d-4e); the relationships between family members were also seen as governed by εὐσεβεία. Upholding correct burial practices for a close comrade (Aeneas was driving Pandarus’ chariot) is certainly also part of ancient piety.
While practicing virtue (courage) and manifesting his pious nature, it is Aeneas’ body, not his soul/spirit/life [thumos], that fails him. His pelvis is shattered with a stone, and he falls down, trying to prop himself up until “Black night covered his eyes”. In this moment, in that 'Black Night', which comes at the moment of his virtuous expression, “the divine splendour of virtue shines” (Gerson 2018; ἔως ἂν ἐκλάμψειέ ... τῆς ἀρετῆς ἡ θεοειδὴς ἀγλαία, En. I.6.9.13-14) through Aeneas, a splendor which “not even the evening nor the morning star [is] so beautiful” (Gerson 2018; καὶ οὔτε ἕσπερος οὔτε ἑῷος οὕτω καλά; Euripides Melanippe, Fr. 486 quoted in En. I.6.4.10). Naturally, at such a moment of virtue, of assimilation to the divine, his divine mother appears. Aeneas thus represents the individual soul which has made themselves beautiful within (that is, their soul, their spirit, their thumos; cf. the prayer of Socrates in Phaedrus 279b-c) through the perfection of virtue.
What does Diomedes represent? In the spirit of the Cratylus, we should analyze his name as Dio-mētis: the ‘Metis’ of Zeus. Metis is a Goddess, ‘craft’ or ‘cunning’. She is the daughter of Tethys (Theogony 358) and Mother of Athena (Theogony 887; recall that Athena grants Diomedes the ability to discern Gods and Men in Iliad V). Through her union with Zeus, she lends to him the epithet Zeus Mētieta (“Zeus all-wise”; e.g. Iliad. I.175). Since Diomedes is counseled (another meaning of Metieta is ‘counselor’) by Athena, who was born through from the head of Zeus having swallowed Metis (who was pregnant with Athena), we can understand Diomedes as an encosmic, particular embodiment of a generalized and cosmic divine providence (pronoia or Promētheus, literally ‘forethought’). This is to say, he represents the demiurgic, cosmogonic activity of Zeus, through whose divine providence mortal bodies come into being and cease to be, such as what nearly happens to Aeneas.
The connection of Diomedes to the providential activity of Zeus, the way he represents a force which transcends the sides of the conflict, and the activity which erodes impermanent, sensible and material beauty are all joined together in a powerful Homeric simile in Iliad V.84-95: "So [the Greeks and Trojans] were struggling amid the crush of violent fighting. As for Diomedes, you could not even tell which group of men he sided with, the Trojans or the Greeks. Across the plain he hurtled, like a river swollen by winter rain, that overflows and smashes the embankments built to stop it. No dam, no fence around the verdant vineyards can hold its place against the sudden onslaught during a downpour sent by Zeus, and many beautiful human artifacts are ruined. So Diomedes routed the dense ranks of Trojans, forcing them into retreat, although they were so numerous" (Wilson 2023, 100).
Thus, in Plotinian manner, we have provided as diairesis (dissection) of the myth into its symbolic components. “And when taught in the manner of their symbolic potency the myths thereby allow one who has noesis to reassemble them” [καὶ διδάξαντες ὡς δύνανται τῷ νοήσαντι ἠδη συγχωροῦσι συναιρεῖν] (En. II.5.9.28-29; my translation). The reassembly of this myth is as follows.
The individual, embodied soul [Aeneas] faces the destruction and failure of its material body through the providential ordering and structuring of the cosmos [Diomedes], but through the pursuit of godlike virtue to the extent that is possible for a mortal, becomes beautiful, and through participation elevates themself to the cause [ie, the Mother] of the beautiful. This participation and ascent is made possible through the unity of all individual souls in the Soul of the Cosmos [Aphrodite Pandemos, the daughter of Zeus and Dione]. The poet calls her a Goddess “who lacks all courage on the battlefield,” firstly because the virtues (courage, etc) are practiced by individual Souls and the immortal Gods are beyond virtue, and secondly because she does not take on a particular body on the ‘battlefield of becoming’, that is to say the sensible cosmos. This reassembly is very much in the spirit of Plotinus’ own allusion to Iliad V:887 in VI.7.30.28, which reinforces the distinction between the sensible and supersensible modes of being.
In this reassembly, then, the wounding of Aphrodite becomes a potent symbol of the distinction and the kinship between Gods and mortals:
This distinction rests on the non-embodiment, the non-materiality, the transcendence and the lack of blood which characterizes Gods and separates them from mortals, as is affirmed by Socrates in Phaedrus 246c-d. This distinction is reinforced later by Apollo, who says to the ‘equal to a daimon’ [δαίμονι ἶσος; Iliad V.458] Diomedes “watch out and get out. Do not think yourself equal to gods. There is no common kinship shared by immortal gods and human beings who walk on earth” [φράζεο Τυδεΐδη καὶ χάζεο, μηδὲ θεοῖσιν / ἶσ᾽ ἔθελε φρονέειν, ἐπεὶ οὔ ποτε φῦλον ὁμοῖον / ἀθανάτων τε θεῶν χαμαὶ ἐρχομένων τ᾽ ἀνθρώπων.] (Wilson 2023 114; Iliad V:440-442). One should note the qualification given to anthrōpōn, “who walk on earth”, does not at the time of speaking apply to Aeneas, who is being carried from the ground. This is to say, there is a “common kinship shared by immortal gods and human beings” who, unlike Diomedes, have “beauty, wisdom, goodness, and everything of that sort. These nourish the soul’s wings, which grow best in their presence.” (Phaedrus 246e). The nonmateriality of the soul, which having regained its wings lifts its metaphorical feet from the material world, is the real kinship between human beings and the immortals.
The wounding of Aphrodite as a symbol presents us simultaneously with the difference between embodied mortals and immortal Gods and with the shared nature of embodied, individual souls and the Soul of the Cosmos [Aphrodite Pandemos]. It is most appropriate that a symbol would suggestively use such a contradictory image (a disembodied, immortal person being wounded; which distinguishes it from the prior instance of Aphrodite raising Paris Alexander out of combat at Iliad 3:369-382) to simultaneously communicate this sameness and difference.
In my next post, I will discuss through the hymns of Proclus the theurgic potency of this symbol, which in many ways rests in its contradictoriness.
References
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“Theogony” in Evelyn-White, Hugh G. (Tr.) (1914), Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns and Homerica with an English Translation. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press).
Homer (1920), Homeri Opera in five volumes. (Oxford, Oxford University Press).
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