Zeus convenes a council of divinities. Many gods and goddesses are invited, and they all assemble, I.20.005–006. Included are all kinds of local divinities who preside over locales of their own, such as gods of various rivers and goddesses of various wildlands, I.20.007–009. A detail is ostentatiously added here: all the river gods actually attend the council—with the notable exception of Ōkeanos, I.20.007. This council of the divinities, held on Mount Olympus, is different from other such councils, which normally exclude local divinities and include only those gods and goddesses who are imagined as living on Mount Olympus together with Zeus. What, then is this special occasion? Or, to put it in terms of the question that Poseidon asks of Zeus, I.20.015, what is the Will of Zeus here? In response, Zeus tells Poseidon that, yes, the Will of Zeus is now at work, I.20.020, and he proceeds to say what he wants to happen: while Zeus stays behind on Mount Olympus, the other divinities may now proceed to the battleground of the Trojan War, and they will be allowed to give their individual help to whichever side they favor, Trojan or Achaean, I.20.021–030. Accordingly, the divinities now travel to the battlefield, I.20.31–40, and they are listed as follows: Hērā, Athena, Poseidon, Hermes, Hephaistos, Ares, Apollo, Artemis, Leto, Xanthos, and Aphrodite. Included in this list, almost surreptitiously, is the local river god Xanthos, I.20.40. On the battlefield, the divinities line up in opposition to each other, and the matches that are highlighted are: Poseidon and Apollo at I.20.057–068, Ares and Athena at I.20.069 (also already at I.20.047–052), Hērā and Artemis at I.20.70–71, Leto and Hermes at I.20.072, Hephaistos and Xanthos at I.20.073–074. Missing, so far, from any further matchings is Aphrodite. Later, at I.21.415–433, we will see that this goddess does in fact get involved in the upcoming conflict of divinities, but not as a combatant in her own right. For the moment, what is most striking about this list of matchings is the prominence given to the river god Xanthos at I.20.073–074. And, as we learn here at I.20.074, the immortals call this river god Xanthos, but mortals call him Skamandros. See also the comment on I.02.811–815. This name Skamandros, latinized as Scamander, refers to the most important river in the region of Troy. On this river, see already the comments on I.08.220–227 and I.11.497–500. As we will see later, in the comment on I.21.001–021, the role of Scamander as the local river god of the Trojans is vitally important for the plot of Iliad 21.