Divine and Human Agency in Ancient Greek Thought

This book explores the ways in which divine and human agency interacted in ancient Greek thought. It offers new interpretations of a wide array of texts and sources, from Homeric epic, Aeschylean tragedy and Herodotus to Neoplatonist thought, emphasising the fascinating diversity, ambiguity and complexity of ancient Greek responses to divine intervention, and asking what these can tell us about how the Greeks related to their gods. At the same time, the volume charts the intellectual history of debates on divine and human agency, from ancient philosophy to twentieth-century scholarship. Most radically, it considers whether commonly used concepts such as 'double motivation' and 'over-determination' have outlived their purpose; and puts forward potential alternative approaches. By engaging with all these questions, the book yields novel insights into how the ancient Greeks responded to the idea of divine intervention, and, by extension, into how they experienced and interpreted the world around them.