The Iliad is a complex poem filled with many themes through which the ancient Greeks studied human nature. Deception and rage, as a reaction to it, are undoubtedly essential engines of the story. All the characters in the play are involved and overwhelmed by strong emotions. However, one of the dominant themes of the Iliad is the balance of fate and free will. During the Axial age, when the Iliad was written, people in all cultures began comprehending the human position in the world and the relationship between Self and divine forces.
The actions of gods and heroes are intertwined in a single narrative, so it is difficult to understand who has more influence. The beginning of the Iliad is a dispute between Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite for the golden apple. Aphrodite’s desire to win allows Paris to get the love of the most beautiful woman in the world. Paris’ desire to possess Helen starts a long bloody war. Thus, divine fate is interconnected with human actions and shapes the future. In the Dark Age Greece culture, this topic indicates how human consciousness differed in pre-Axial and Axial times. Before this period, people considered themselves an inseparable part of nature. In the Axial age, a separation of Self occurred, and humans became aware of the balance between their actions and events from the outside. In the future, this formed an understanding of the human personality structure in psychology and developed the concept of how the ego and the superego interact with society.