The influence of the gods in Homer"s Iliad is pervasive. The cause of the war, in fact, originates in the action of the goddess Eris, or Strife, who throws the apple into the wedding feast, precipitating Paris' abduction of Helen, the wife of Menelaus, and the subsequent travails of the Greeks to recover Helen. In one way, the gods are shown as a major motivating factor in nearly every major action of the war in their dual role as anthropomorphic deities acting out og personal motivation and personified emotions (Aphrodite as love, Athena as reason, Zeus as justice) moving the actions of the character.