The Gods according to Dione: Divine Insecurity and the Power of Zeus in Iliad 5

Abstract: In Iliad 5, Dione attempts to comfort Aphrodite after the goddess of love has been wounded by the mortal warrior Diomedes. Dione insists that a sharp human-divine dichotomy remains, but, I argue, her outdated exempla and inaccurate predictions blur the line between mortal and immortal and hint at the reality of Zeus's newfound preeminence over humans and gods alike. Dione's failure to distinguish between epic "past" and epic "present" exposes the tension on Olympus as gods struggle to accept changes in the human-divine relationship and the increasingly stratified divine hierarchy under Zeus.