The Ancient Greeks used the gods to explain extraordinary and unusual events in the world around them. The ancient Greek world accepted these gods as anthropomorphic representations of natural forces and phenomena. Additionally, some gods were considered real people whose supernatural abilities allowed them to control these natural forces. Homer's Iliad is a great example of these two different interpretations of the gods. In this epic, Homer anthropomorphizes certain phenomena, thus creating deities in order to explain certain events of the Trojan War. These created gods are abstract and represent only the unique phenomenon that Homer attributes to them. The Olympian gods, for their part, are existing deities whose actions go beyond the phenomena attributed to them by the Greeks. Homer therefore uses the Olympians to explain many phenomena. In Homer's Iliad, the goddess Conflict only appears in times of war. In Book 11, Homer says: “The struggle has risen, uttering its shrill cry, / great and terrible, whipping the fury of battle / into the heart of every Achaean – none can stop them now” (Homer 11.11- 13). The conflicts appear here as a motivation for the Achaean army to continue the fight. Once again we see her "[casting] the leveler of hatred among the two camps, / rushing into the assault, flooding the men with pain" during the battle (Homer, 4.515-516). There are, however, times when Homer does not anthropomorphize the word conflict and instead clearly uses the word conflict, such as when Zeus reprimands Ares: "Always dear to your heart, conflicts, yes, and battles, the bloody drudgery of war » (Homer 5.1031-1032). In this case, Homer does not attribute any human characteristics to Strife, indicating that she is a created deity and not existing like the Olympians. ...... middle of paper ...... they were immortal beings in human form with human emotions that affect their actions. It is clear that Homer divides the gods into the abstract created gods and the existing Olympian gods. The function of one group of gods differs from that of the other. While the abstract gods are present in the Iliad to explain the natural forces attributed to them, the gods of Olympus are characters who represent and explain much more. Rather than only explaining the natural forces attributed to them, these gods also explain the supernatural and more magical events of war. The gods of Olympus are not anthropomorphized concepts for other gods and warriors to take advantage of. Instead, Olympians are anthropomorphized beings who are capable of doing far more than their assigned strengths and whose emotions often affect these actions...