SOURCE: Pucci, Pietro. “Textual Epiphanies in the Iliad.” In The Song of the Sirens: Essays on Homer, pp. 69-80. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 1998.

In the following essay, originally published in Italian in 1985, Pucci elucidates Athena's appearance to Achilles at Iliad 1.194ff, examining the manner in which Homer presents the revelation of gods to mortals in the epic.

In Homeric narrative a god appears to a hero and, by virtue of his presence, determines or intensifies to the highest degree the action that the hero performs. Regardless of whether the god suggests a plan of action (Iliad 2.165ff., etc.), prevents the hero from performing a particular act (Iliad 1.199ff.) or simply encourages, watches over, and accompanies the hero, his presence—his being there (whether perceived both by hero and reader or only by the latter)—amplifies the action to a heroic scale and places it in an ampler...