tîmê, pl. tîmai : 'honor; honor paid to a supernatural force by way of cult'

tîmê refers to the honors paid to gods and heroes in cult. tîmê can take the form of various rituals, including sacrifice and athletic festivals. At the end of the Herakles of Euripides, Theseus, the king of Athens, describes the honors that Herakles will receive if he comes to live in Athens. The language that Theseus uses and the relationship between the Athenian people and Herakles that Theseus describes evoke the relationship between a hero, his worshippers, and the land that the hero protects.

Euripides' Herakles 1328-1337
Through all the land to me
are hallowed fields allotted; these, for the rest of your life,
shall be called after your name by mortals;
and when you die, going to the halls of Hades
With solemn rites and stately monuments
the whole Athenian city [polis] will honor you.
This beautiful crown of good fame [kleos] will my citizens win
from the Greeks, that they helped a noble [esthlos] man. 1335
And I will return this favor [kharis] to you for that
of my salvation [sôtêria]; for now you have need of friends [philoi]

The city of Athens will worship Herakles after he dies: the city will thus "bring him back" every time they sacrifice to him, making him a recipient of tîmê 'honor' (that is, cult-honor). The background of the tragic / epic hero as a cult hero becomes visible here.

The Iliad is another text in which the language of hero cult brings to the poem a profound religious significance. From the standpoint of the song culture in which the Iliad was composed and performed, the dispute over Briseis between Agamemnon and Achilles in Iliad 1 is about life or death. And even more importantly, it is about immortality, after death, through cult. Achilles' choice as he formulates it in Iliad 9 is between a homecoming with a long life and kleos - that is, immortality through poetry and cult. The poetic and religious significance of Achilles' choice is in fact first articulated in connection with Briseis. For in her role as prize, Briseis (along with Helen and Chryseis) is equated in Iliad 1 with tîmê. tîmê, generally translated as "honor," means (in religious contexts) specifically cult honor. If we are to understand the full significance of Briseis' role as a prize in Iliad 1, we must consider this religious aspect of the word in context.

When Achilles gives his own reasons for fighting at Troy, tîmê is his chief concern:

I came to make war here not because the Trojans are responsible [aitios] for any wrong committed against me. I have no quarrel with them. They have not raided my cattle nor my horses, nor cut down my harvests on the fertile plains of Phthia; for between me and them there is a great space, both mountain and sounding sea. We have followed you, Sir Insolence! for your pleasure, not ours - to gain satisfaction [tîmê] from the Trojans for your shameless self and for Menelaos.

You forget this, and threaten to rob me of the prize for which I have toiled, and which the sons of the Achaeans have given me. Never when the Achaeans sack any rich city of the Trojans do I receive so good a prize as you do, though it is my hands that do the better part of the fighting. When the sharing comes, your share is far the largest, and I, indeed, must go back to my ships, take what I can get and be thankful, when my labor of fighting is done. Now, therefore, I shall go back to Phthia; it will be much better for me to return home with my ships, for I will not stay here dishonored to gather gold and substance for you.

On one level Achilles the warrior seems to be saying that he fights solely for the material possessions that are awarded to him. But a closer look reveals that the acquisition of a prize is closely associated with tîmê. When Agamemnon takes away Achilles' prize, his geras, Achilles becomes dis-honored (a-tîmos Iliad 1.171). The loss of material honor in the narrative of the Iliad threatens Achilles' status as a recipient of cult honors in Greek religious practice.

When the Achaeans fight at Troy for the restoration of Helen they are winning tîmê for Menelaus (159). Likewise when Achilles refers to his prize (geras) - the loss of which causes him to be without honor (a-tîmos) - he means Briseis. Briseis and Helen and Chryseis are prizes on the level of narrative, but on the level of poetry and cult nothing less than immortality is at stake. In Iliad 1, an argument over a woman who is a prize becomes a struggle between two epic figures for tîmê. Agamemnon responds to Achilles' threat to return home by saying that others, including Zeus, will honor him (timêsousi 174), even if Achilles leaves . Achilles then asks for his mother's help in securing punishment for Agamemnon, because he did not show him any tîmê (Iliad 1.412). Thetis supplicates Zeus at Achilles' request, and asks repeatedly for tîmê:

Father Zeus, if ever I helped you among the immortals, either in word or deed, fulfill for me this wish: honor my son, who is the most short-lived of all others. Since as it now stands the lord of men Agamemnon has deceived him. For he took his prize and keeps her, he himself having taken her away. But do you honor him, wise Olympian Zeus. Give power to the Trojans until the Achaeans honor my son and strengthen him with honor. (Iliad 1.503-510)

When Agamemnon insists on taking Briseis he attempts to take tîmê away from Achilles and secure it for himself. But Thetis' entreaty makes it clear that neither character can win tîmê without Zeus. Here the religious dimension of the word becomes most apparent.

As Nagy has shown, the loss and restoration of tîmê are fundamentally connected with the grief (akhos 1.188) and the cosmic mênis of Achilles. We may compare the wrath of Achilles with the pattern of the Homeric Hymn to Demeter:

The akhos of Demeter is instantaneous with the abduction of the Kore (H.Dem. 40, 90-91). Her resulting mênis (H.Dem. 350) causes devastation in the form of cosmic infertility (351 ff.). The tîmai 'honors' of the Olympians are this threatened (353-354), and it is only with the restoration of Kore that Demeter's mênis ceases (410), as her akhos abates (436). Demeter thereupon gets her appropriate tîmê (461), and her anger (468) is replaced with fertility (469, 471 ff.). [G. Nagy, The Best of the Achaeans, p. 80]

Achilles, like Demeter, conceives instantaneous akhos when Agamemnon threatens to take Briseis (1.188). But for Achilles, as Nagy goes on to show, the restoration of timê and the cessation of mênis in connection with the abduction and return of Briseis do not bring an end to akhos; the intervening death of Patroklos brings about permanent akhos.

These three cosmic themes mênis, tîmê, and akhos are crucial to the plot of the Iliad and the character of Achilles. A similar interplay between the three can be seen in Aeschylus' Eumenides, the final play of the Oresteia trilogy. At the end of the play Athena acquits Orestes of murder, but placates the Furies by transforming them into protective deities and instituting cult honors for them. The Furies are at first outraged that Orestes has been acquitted and feel that they have been deprived of tîmê. In the following choral ode they sing of their grief and anger. In alternating stanzas Athena tries to persuade them that in fact they will have even greater tîmê than they had before. At the end of the passage Athena warns them not to conceive mênis and harm the city, in the same pattern of Achilles and Demeter.

Chorus: Younger gods, you have ridden down the ancient laws [nomos] and snatched them from my hands! And I, wretched, deeply angry, and without tîmê in this land, alas, I will let venom fly from my heart, venom that brings sorrow [penthos] in return for penthos, drops of venom that the land cannot endure. A blight will come from the venom that destroys leaves and destroys children, a blight that speeds over the plain and casts pollution on the land to destroy mortals. Dikê, Dikê! I groan. What shall I do? I am the laughing-stock of the citizens. I have suffered [paskhô] unbearably. Ah, unfortunate daughters of Night, you have the sorrow [penthos] of a great blight on your tîmê!

Athena: Be persuaded by me not to bear the decision with heavy grief. For you are not defeated; the trial [dikê] resulted in an equal vote, which is in truth [alêtheia] no blight on your tîmê, since clear testimony from Zeus was available, and the one who spoke the oracle gave evidence proving that Orestes should not suffer harm, despite his actions. Do not be angry, do not hurl your heavy rage on this land, do not make the land fruitless, letting loose your heart's poison with its fierce sharpness that eats away the seeds. For I do promise you with all dikê that you shall have sanctuaries and sacred hollows in this land of dikê, where you will sit on bright thrones at your hearths, worshipped with tîmê by the citizens here.

Chorus: Younger gods, you have ridden down the ancient laws [nomos] and snatched them from my hands! And I, wretched, deeply angry, and without tîmê in this land, alas, I will let venom fly from my heart, venom that brings sorrow [penthos] in return for penthos, drops of venom that the land cannot endure. A blight will come from the venom that destroys leaves and destroys children, a blight that speeds over the plain and casts pollution on the land to destroy mortals. Dikê, Dikê! I groan. What shall I do? I am the laughing-stock of the citizens. I have suffered [paskhô] unbearably. Ah, unfortunate daughters of Night, you have the sorrow [penthos] of a great blight on your tîmê!

Athena: You are not without tîmê, goddesses, so do not be moved by your excessive rage to make the land cursed for mortals. I also rely on Zeus - what need is there to mention that? - and I alone of the gods know the keys to the house where his thunderbolt is kept safe. But there is no need of it. So be obedient to me and do not make empty threats against the land; do not threaten that all things bearing fruit will not prosper. Calm the dark waves of your bitter passion, now that you are honored with reverence and abide [oikeô] together with me; when you have the first-fruits of this great land as burnt sacrifices on behalf of children and of conjugal rites [telos pl.], you will approve [ep-aineô] my words forever.

Chorus: That I should suffer [paskhô] this, alas! That I, who have ancient phrenes, should live beneath the earth, alas, bereft of tîmê and unclean! I am breathing menos and all possible rage. Oh, alas, earth! What is coming over me, what anguish steals into my heart! Hear my heart, mother night, for the deceptions of the gods are hard to fight, and they have nearly deprived me of my ancient tîmai.

Athena: I will indulge your anger since you are older, and in that respect you are surely more sophos than I; yet Zeus has also granted me good phrenes. But as for you, if you go to a foreign land, you will come to love this land - I forewarn you. For as time flows on, the years will be full of tîmê for these citizens. And you, if you have a seat of tîmê at the house of Erechtheus, will be honored by a multitude of men and women and you will have more honor than you would ever have from other mortals. So do not set on my land whetstones that hone my peoples' desire for bloodshed, harmful to young hearts, crazed with passions not of wine; and do not make my people like fighting-cocks so that they kill each other in bold, internecine war. Let there be war from abroad, and without stint, wars that bring a fierce desire for good kleos; but I say there will be no bird-fights in my abode [oikos]. I make it possible for you to choose to do good and to be treated [paskhô] well and with good tîmê, to share in this land that is most dear [philos] to the gods.

Chorus: That I should suffer [paskhô] this, alas! That I, who have ancient phrenes, should live beneath the earth, alas, bereft of tîmê and unclean! I am breathing menos and all possible rage. Oh, alas, earth! What is coming over me, what anguish steals into my heart! Hear my heart, mother night, for the deceptions of the gods are hard to fight, and they have nearly deprived me of my ancient tîmai.

Athena: No, I will grow tired of telling you about these - you'll never be able to say that you, an ancient goddess, went away deprived of your tîmê because of me, a younger goddess, and by the mortal inhabitants of this polis, and that you were bereft of xeniâ in this land. But if you give holy reverence to Persuasion and the honey of my speech is sweet, then you will surely remain here. But if you do not want to stay, it would be contrary to dikê for you to inflict mênis or rage or harm on the people in this city. For it is possible for you to have a share of the land with dikê and with full tîmê.