The news of Osama bin Laden’s death has riveted the country since the story broke Sunday evening.
The coverage has been intriguing. It is one of the best stories to come along for this country in many years. It is a great read and the kind of news the country has needed.
There was one part of the story I found particularly fascinating – the description of how bin Laden’s body was handled.
The coverage appeared to be coming through releases either from the White House or Pentagon.
The stories noted how the body was given proper Islamic treatment before being released into the sea.
What occurred to me was the many stories of how fallen opponents are treated in the world of war.
Greek literature has many accounts of a victor losing his soul after treating a fallen warrior improperly.
One of the terms in ancient Greek literature for this is hubris. The term still turns up today. I always enjoy hearing the word pop up in council meetings and other public forums. It’s intriguing to hear a word like hubris find a meaning in our modern world, thousands of years after Homer, Sophocles and Euripides.
Pages and pages of this paper could be filled on the shadings of usage for hubris in the ancient Greek culture, and I did plenty of writing on that subject when I was at UW a long time ago.
Now I spend a considerable amount of my free time working on the ancient Greek and Latin languages which is why my daughter says everyone thinks I am so much fun to be around.
I don’t know why things like a word hooks me, but when I heard about the handling of bin Laden’s body, I wondered if we were trying to avoid the ancient pitfalls of committing hubris.
One definition of hubris, although it is not inclusive enough, but is a beginning, is placing oneself above God or to the ancient Greeks, above a bunch of gods.
King Creon committed hubris in Sophocles’ play “Antigone” when he refused to allow Antigone’s brother, Polynices, a proper burial. Polynices had committed treason against Creon. He was wrong, but Creon’s sin was many times worse when he order the body to be left on the plain to rot, refusing a proper burial.
Creon ended up losing everything and everyone he loved through his act of hubris.
I was listening to a debate with Alan Dershowitz last night concerning the killing of bin Laden. He stated the U.S. had been too deferential to Islamic religion when burying bin Laden at sea so quickly, apparently without an autopsy and other medical studies completed.
Possibly, but, I can’t help wondering if there was an echo of ancient warrior tradition in the act.
The closing scenes of Homer’s “Iliad” which is the recounting of the Trojan war, does not end with a battle. The greatest war story ever told closes with the funeral of Hector, the Trojan prince brutally killed by Achilles.
After defeating and killing Hector, as his father Priam watched from the walls of Troy, Achilles dragged the fallen warrior’s body round the walls of Troy. Achilles took the body back to his camp and refused a proper burial for Hector’s corpse.
Achilles was very close to committing hubris. Priam slipped into Achilles camp at night and begged him for his son’s body.
Achilles gave Priam his son and promised to allow him time to complete the rites for Hector, satisfying the Greek gods.
The act defined both Achilles and Hector.
The delicate deal we have with death in battle continues to echo back and forward through thousands or years. The actions of a victor over the vanquished defines the character of both.
