Homer the Meteorologist – Part 2: The Odyssey

 

Homer the Meteorologist – Part 2: The Odyssey

            Now that we have studied Homer’s use of weather-related images in the Iliad, in Part 2 of this paper we turn our attention to the same theme in the Odyssey. There is a very interesting study that was reported in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society in 1993 by Randall S. Cerveny of the Department of Geography of Arizona State University in Tempe Arizona. He studied the first eighteen days of the six voyages that Homer reported being taken by various leaders on their way home after the Trojan War, namely Odysseus, Menelaus, Agamemnon, Ajax, Nestor and Diomedes of Argos. Though Homer wrote his account some 600 years after the events of the Trojan War, commonly thought to have occurred in about 1200 BCE, Cerveny reports that the author’s accounts were highly accurate and represented quite accurately the meteorological conditions of the day. One of the conclusions that he makes, based on the evidence presented in the Odyssey, is that these six voyages chronicled actual historical events that happened as reported by Homer. As Cerveny states,

“But if the weather events described by Homer during the Achaeans' return from Troy follow meteorological paradigms, an argument may be proposed for accepting the validity of some of the events that occurred after the fall of Troy as put forth by Homer.”

            Cerveny goes on to say that,

“It would therefore appear that a reasonable chronology of the six major Achaean fleets departing Troy produces a major cyclonic system passing through the Aegean Sea six days after the Achaeans’ departure from Troy.”

And with this assertion, Cerveny gives Homer credit for reporting the first known instance in history of what modern meteorologists have come to refer to as a ‘microburst’. In other words, Homer knew what he was talking about when it came to weather and the author of the study concludes that Homer’s reporting is beyond coincidence.

“A reconstruction of the weather associated with the voyages of the Achaeans in Homer's Odyssey reveals a realistic meteorology. No event that modern scientists would classify as "supernatural" or "miraculous" occurred during the 18 days following the departure from Troy. Rather, the Odyssey shows a remarkably credible set of weather observations.”

His conclusions support my initial assertion that Homer was, at the very least, an amateur meteorologist, if indeed not a historian as well. Let us look more closely at his use of weather-related phenomena in the Odyssey.

            That microburst that Cerveny refers to in his study was a terrific and unexpected storm that struck the fleet of Menelaus as it made its way back from Troy to Sparta. Part of the fleet was driven to Crete and the remainder of the ships were thrown over the waves as far as Egypt. Homer tells us that Menelaus had delayed his journey so that he could give proper burial rites to one of his crew members who had died en route and then disaster struck as they again set forth. Homer describes the storm as follows:

But when he sailed over the wine-dark sea in his hollow ships and arrived in swift course at the height of Malea, then wide-eyed Zeus, whose voice is carried from afar, planned for him a horrid journey and poured over him blasts of raging winds and the waves thickened into mighty things like mountains. Then dividing his fleet in half, some drew near Crete where the Cydonians dwelt around the streams of Iardanus. There is a smooth high cliff, high up facing the sea on the edge of Gortyn in the dark misty ocean, where the Southwest Wind drives huge waves against the headland on the left toward Phaestus and a little rock holds back the great swell. Some of his ships came there and with great effort the men escaped utter destruction but the ships were broken into pieces, dashing against the reef. But the other five dark-prowed ships were born on the wind and the waves brought them to Egypt.

            Menelaus was told that his brother Agamemnon was struck by the same or a similar storm but was saved from destruction by the goddess Hera. Things turned out better for the King of Mycenae.

Your brother escaped the fates and avoided them in his hollow ships for Queen Hera saved him. But when he was about to arrive at the high hills of Malea, then a squall snatched him up and carried him, groaning heavily, over the bountiful sea to the farthest part of the land where Thyestes had dwelt in the past but now where Aegisthus the son of Thyestes lived. From that place he was shown a safe way home and the gods changed the winds so that they blew fairly and they indeed got home. Then Agamemnon rejoiced to set foot on his native and he touched it with his hands and kissed it and many hot tears flowed from his eyes for his land was indeed a welcome sight for him.

            This one major storm struck Odysseus as well with disastrous consequences. Calypso reported to Hermes what had happened.

I saved him when he was floating alone on the ship’s keel after Zeus had struck his swift ship with a thunderbolt and had shattered it in the middle of the wine-dark sea. All the rest of his goodly companions perished there but the wind and the waves carried him along and brought him here.

            Then, as he sailed towards Phaeacia, Poseidon unleashed his fury on Odysseus.

So he spoke and gathered the clouds and taking his trident in his hands, he roused up the sea and stirred up the blasts of all kinds of winds and hid all the land and the sea with clouds and night descended from the heavens. The East Wind and the South Wind clashed together and the fierce-blowing West Wind and the North Wind, born in the clear sky, rolled a great wave before him.

Thereupon a great wave tossed him this way and that along his course. Just like in autumn when the North Wind blows the thistles over the plain and carries them along clinging to one another, so did the winds push his raft this way and that over the sea. Now the South Wind blew it to the North Wind to drive it along and then the East Wind would give it up to the West Wind to push it forward.

            In telling his story in the palace of King Alcinous in Scheria, Odysseus described what happened to him off of Calypso’s island, “Zeus had struck my swift ship with a bright thunderbolt and had shattered it in the middle of the wine-dark sea.” He also spoke of how Poseidon had attacked him at sea and had driven him to the king’s shore. “He stirred up the winds against me and blocked my way forward and roused up the unutterable seas and the waves would not allow me to stay aboard my raft and I groaned ceaselessly. The hurricane scattered me to the winds and I swam through the midst of the sea until such time as the winds and the water brought me to your land.”

            Odysseus made a detailed report of his travels to King Alcinous and his retinue. He talked about how they were tossed around by the winds after his crew members had opened the bag that Aeolus had given him and later how they had rowed for seven days in calm waters after those same winds had disappeared. He mentioned the helpful following wind that Circe had arranged for them after they had left her palace to continue their journey, as well as the storm that hit them on the island of Helios.

But when it was the third watch of the night and the stars had moved across the sky, then Zeus the cloud-gatherer whipped up a strong wind against us and a roaring tempest and hid the land and the sea with a great mass of clouds and night descended from the heavens. When rosy-fingered Dawn arose, we dragged the ship and harboured it in a hollow cavern.

Odysseus reported that the South Wind blew for over a month and stranded them on the island of Helios. Finally the adverse winds ceased and a storm ushered in weather more suitable for sailing, but their peace at sea did not last long.

It did not sail on for a long time for right away the furious shrieking West Wind arose and blew with a raging tempest and the wind’s blast shattered the forward stays and the mast fell backwards and all the tackle was scattered over the hold.

Zeus thundered and hurled his thunderbolt at the ship and all whirled around struck with terror and there was the stink of sulphur and my comrades fell from the ship.

Then the West Wind stopped blowing tumultuously and the South Wind arose rapidly and that carried pain into my heart in case I was swept back again to destructive Charybdis.

            Odysseus told Eumaeus the swineherd the fictional story of his coming to Ithaca and reported his journey from Crete, which went without incident for the winds were favourable.

On the seventh day we went aboard and sailed from broad Crete and with the North Wind blowing freshly, we sailed along easily like we were going downhill. No harm came to my ships and they were unscathed and sound and the wind and the helmsman made straight our path.

Then disaster struck one more time as they approached the land.

After we had left Crete and no other land was in sight, but only sea and sky, the son of Cronos covered the hollow ship with a great mass of black clouds and the sea grew dark beneath the ship. Then Zeus thundered and cast a thunder-bolt against the ship, which shook from one end to the other when it was struck and the smell of sulphur smoke filled the air and all the crew fell out of the ship.

A foul night came and a frosty North Wind blew cold. Snow fell down on us from above and ice crystals formed on our shields.

            Unlike his stories in the Iliad, Homer rarely used weather-related similes in the Odyssey to enhance his narrative. One exception was when he was weaving a tale of fiction for Penelope, as he sat in her home disguised as a beggar. He likened her tears to the melting snow.

In this way he spoke falsehoods but they appeared to be true and on hearing them she shed tears and her face melted, in the same way that snow melts on a lofty hill, the snow that the East Wind melts after the West Wind has blown it and as it melts down, the rivers flow full. In the same way her cheeks melted as the tears flowed down them, as she lamented for her husband who was actually sitting right beside her.

            Once he had revealed himself to Penelope, Odysseus told her the entire story of his ten year journey home and included such events as when “a hurricane snatched him up and carried him over the abundant sea” as well as when “the high-thundering Zeus had smote his pointed ships with a smoky thunderbolt”.

            The Odyssey comes to a conclusion with one final thunderbolt being cast by the son of Cronos.

Then the much-enduring godlike Odysseus shouted terribly and rushed upon them like an eagle in flight. But the son of Cronos sent forth a smoky thunderbolt and down it fell in front of the flashing-eyed daughter of the mighty father. Then flashing-eyed Athena spoke to Odysseus. “Zeus-fostered son of Laertes, resourceful Odysseus, restrain yourself and make an end to any strife that resembles war, lest the son of Cronos becomes angry with you, namely Zeus whose voice is heard from afar.”

Homer’s treatment of weather-related phenomena in the Odyssey is very different from what we encounter in the Iliad. In the first epic, Homer makes extensive use of the simile, a literary device designed to compare something familiar with something unfamiliar. He uses the weather to help his listeners clearly picture in their minds an accurate image of what he is saying. For example, his listeners may never have witnessed a warrior or an army in action on the battlefield, but they would certainly be familiar with the image of a storm lashing the land and the sea. Homer draws the comparison between the two:

He seized all of these leaders of the Danaans and thereafter the whole throng, just like when the West Wind drives the mass of clouds of the white South Wind and besets them with a violent storm. Many swollen waves roll onwards and the spray is cast and scattered beneath the wild raging wind. In the same way were many of those warriors laid low by Hector.

            I have found just the one weather-related simile in the Odyssey but numerous reports of seemingly accurate weather-related events. As noted previously, Cerveny contends that many of these reports are of actual historical events, and that their presence in the epic is beyond coincidence.    

I have spent the past year and a half translating the Iliad and the Odyssey and after completing only twenty lines of the Odyssey, I reached the conclusion that they were the products of different authors. I said at the time that the Iliad was written by a story teller and that the Odyssey was written by a news reporter. I believe that the very different treatments afforded weather-related events and phenomena in the Iliad and the Odyssey bears out this conclusion. The story-teller ‘Homer meteorologist’ uses the weather in the Iliad to enhance the narrative, to make it more believable to the listener and to paint a canvas to admire. The news reporter ‘Homer meteorologist’ in the Odyssey simply reports weather events as they happened. Story teller or news reporter notwithstanding, with his in-depth knowledge of weather, Homer at the very least can be called an amateur meteorologist.

Homer the Meteorologist – Part 1: The Iliad

 

Homer the Meteorologist – Part 1: The Iliad

            Scientists who have studied painter Vincent van Gogh’s ‘The Starry Night’ from 1889 have long wondered whether the artist could ‘see the wind’. They tell us that his brushstrokes capture the precise movement and energy of the wind and accurately display the workings of turbulence in the sky. The mathematical models that are used by astrophysicists today to express atmospheric turbulence are spot on with the patterns that Vincent painted in his pre-dawn sky and in the movement of the cypress trees in this paining completed well over a century ago. If he could not actually ‘see the wind’, then at minimum he had a highly tuned and intuitive take on how the wind acted in the sky. When we read Homer’s accurate descriptions of winds, storms, rain and hail, thunder and lightning and other weather-related events in the Iliad and the Odyssey, we cannot help but wonder if Homer too could ‘see the wind’. If that is not the case, then we can, at the very least, call him an amateur meteorologist because of the in-depth knowledge of the weather and weather-related phenomena that he displayed.

            In Homer’s mind, the weather is most certainly controlled by the gods and there is nothing that mortals can do to alter its course. The only options available to them are to prepare for weather events beforehand, deal with them as they happen, and attempt to recover from them after they have occurred. Homer often refers to Zeus as ‘the cloud-gatherer’ or ‘the thunderer’ or as ‘the Olympian god of lightning.’ His sister/wife Hera is linked to the air and sometimes to the winds. Poseidon, the god of the sea, is known as ‘the earth-shaker’ because of his control over earthquakes. The four winds are deities and Iris is the goddess of the rainbow. Finally, the Horae are the goddesses of the four seasons. The weather is controlled by the gods and they often use that power to sway the fortunes of mankind. This is shown by Homer as a form of divine intervention, but one that is more subtle than any direct action of the gods in the affairs of men.

            In addition to actually presenting weather events to the listener, there are times when Homer uses weather-based similes to describe the action that is taking place. For example, there is an event described by him in Book II of the Iliad. King Agamemnon was trying to rouse his forces to take action against the Trojans. His people were tired of fighting for more than nine years and he suggested that they just quit and go home, thinking that they would rebel against this idea and vow to fight on. Instead, they agreed that this was a good idea and rushed to the ships. Searching for a proper way to describe their onrush and flight, Homer turned to a weather-related simile.

And the whole assembly was stirred up, just like the long waves of the Icarian Sea are excited when the east wind and the north wind have rushed forth from the clouds of father Zeus. And just like when the west wind blows strongly on a rich field of corn and bends the ears, so also was the whole assembly moved and the soldiers rushed to the ships with a great shout.

It is the perfect picture and one can readily see the waves being whipped across the water by the wind and the corn stalks bending in the breeze. His listeners may never have seen a horde of rushing soldiers, but they most certainly would have been familiar with the sea and cornfields being lashed by the wind.

            Homer used another weather simile to describe the movement of troops, this time painting us a picture of the Trojans marching across the plain. He had already described the sound that they made as being like the hoarse cries of cranes fleeing from the thundering storms of winter.

Just as when the South Wind spreads a curtain of mist on the tops of the hills and the result is better for thieves in the night instead of shepherds, and a man cannot see any father than he can toss a rock, such as this was the cloud of dust that was raised up under their feet as they went and they quickly passed over the plain.

            And yet another simile, this time when Homer describes Agamemnon moving among the troops on the battlefield, and approaching them to offer encouragement. His audience would surely have recognized the image because it would have been a reflection of their day-to-day lives.

As when a goatherd from a hilltop sees a cloud sweeping over the sea beneath the roaring Zephyr wind, and it being a great distance from him so that it looks like a great storm blowing, so then he shudders when he sees it and drives his flocks into a cave. In the same way, the thick dense ranks of warlike young men moved toward furious battle armed with shields and spears. So the ruler Agamemnon rejoiced when he saw them and addressed them with winged words.

The comparison continues and finally the storm results in a flash flood.

As when on the pounding shore a wave of the sea crashes following another, having been set in motion by the Zephyr and after raising its head out in the deep, it rolls against the land with a great sound and becoming swollen, it dashes against the rocks spitting out the foam of the ocean. In like manner, the phalanxes of the Danaans moved on to battle incessantly, one after another and each of those in charge urged on his own men.

There arose the wailing and exaltation of men, of those destroying and of those being destroyed, and blood flowed freely across the land. Just as when torrents of water in winter flow down from the mountains and their raging streams are pooled together in one gorge, in a single spring within a hollow ravine, and the shepherd on the mountain hears the faraway thunder roar, so also was the shouting and terror of all those warriors mixed together.

            Homer asks his listeners to think of clouds that stand still over a mountain top, unmoving as long as the raging winds do not blow, and compares them to the stalwart Danaans.

They stood firm, just like clouds that the son of Cronos places on the top of a lofty mountain during a calm period, as long as the strength of Boreas and of other raging winds, which blows with a loud blast and disperses the shadowy clouds, remains still. In the same way, the Danaans awaited the fury of the Trojans and did not flee in fear.

            Oftentimes Homer’s descriptions of weather events are so precise and accurate that one is convinced that he is reporting something that he has actually witnessed. Many people have never seen the strike of a lightning bolt, but those who have can attest to the vivid reality that Homer paints of lightning striking in the midst of the battle.

There would have been utter destruction and havoc and the Trojans would have been confined to Ilium like lambs shut up in a sheepfold, if the father of men and gods had not seen what was happening with a sharp eye. Rumbling greatly, he sent forth his bright shining thunderbolt hard into the earth in front of the horses of Diomedes. There arose a burning flame of terrible sulfur and the two terrified horses sought shelter under the chariot.

The flash, the sound, the smell and the terror of the animals - this was not a report based on hearsay evidence. This was without any doubt an eye-witness account.

            In an interesting comparison at the beginning of book X of the Iliad, Homer likens the turmoil in the breast of the sleeping Agamemnon with the uproar created when Zeus chooses to wrack the earth with storms. A strange simile to say the least, but one that his listeners could take to heart and with it, experience themselves the dread and terror that Agamemnon was feeling.

Now all the other leaders of all the Achaeans were overcome by sweet sleep the whole night through near their ships, but Agamemnon the son of Atreus and shepherd of the people did not find rest as he turned over many things in his breast. Just like when the husband of fair-haired Hera casts lightning bolts and makes ready a storm of unspeakable rain or hail or snow, when snowflakes sprinkle the fields or the great mouth of destructive war, in the same manner did the shrewd Agamemnon groan mightily in his breast from the bottom of his heart, trembling within his midriff.

            Homer uses another weather-based image to describe how Hector rampaged through the battlefield killing his enemies. He often uses storm references to describe Hector and other warriors. Once again his effectiveness in describing the action is heightened by his ability to couch the action in terms that his listeners can identify with. They might not have been familiar with battle scenes, but they could certainly relate to the violence of a storm in action. He pulls his audience into the narrative by relating what they are familiar with.

He seized all of these leaders of the Danaans and thereafter the whole throng, just like when the West Wind drives the mass of clouds of the white South Wind and besets them with a violent storm. Many swollen waves roll onwards and the spray is cast and scattered beneath the wild raging wind. In the same way were many of those warriors laid low by Hector.

            We do not think of Greece as being a land that is lashed by violent winter storms, but on more than one occasion, Homer describes scenes where combatants are heaving stones down upon one another from the walls and compares the falling rocks to the pelting snows that Zeus unleashes on the earth.

Just as flakes of snow fall thick on a wintry day whenever Zeus the counsellor decides to make it snow and to make manifest to man his arrows, putting to sleep the winds and pouring forth onto the ground until such time as the tops of the lofty hills are covered and the headlands at the farthest point and the plains overgrown with lotus and the rich fields of men and the promontories and the harbours of the grey sea are covered, even though the swollen waves beat against them and keep it in check, all is enfolded and wrapped within when the heavy storm of Zeus falls upon it. In the same way from both sides the stones flew thickly, some upon the Trojans and some from the Trojans upon the Achaeans were thrown and over above all the wall the din of war arose.

We know for certain from the following passages that Homer had experienced winter first-hand.

Like snowflakes the stones fell to the ground, just like the flakes that a strong-blowing wind shake free from a mass of clouds onto the bountiful earth.

And in Book XV he describes Iris flying down to earth:

Like when from the mass of clouds there flies snowflakes and hail driven by the north wind born in the clear sky, in such manner did swift Iris eagerly rush forth and stood near the glorious earth-shaker and spoke.

            On a recent trip to Delphi, I looked on in awe after a brief rain shower as a rainbow descended from the sky into the valley below, pointing toward the Sanctuary of Athena Pronaia. I told my travel companions that we were being visited by Iris, the goddess of the rainbow. Mankind has always been fascinated by rainbows and generally views them as a symbol of peace. Homer mentions them often in his works and in this passage, refers to the rainbow as a portent of war.

As Zeus stretches forth for man a colourful rainbow from the heavens as a portent of war or a chilly winter storm that makes men cease their work upon the earth and upsets the flocks, even so did Athena, enwrapping herself in a mass of heaving clouds, plunged into the throng of the Achaeans and roused up each man.

When Patroclus was killed, his comrade Achilles held funeral games in his honour and then erected a huge pyre on which to cremate his friend’s body. He had some difficulty in getting the pyre to light and prayed to the North Wind and the West Wind to blow heartily to fan the flames. The goddess Iris visited the Winds and beseeched them, on behalf of Achilles and the Achaeans, to do as he asked and to set the funeral pyre ablaze. Homer paints a remarkable picture of the resulting windstorm.

They rose up with a wondrous din and drove the clouds in tumult before them. They came to the ocean to blow upon it and the waves were swollen up beneath the loud blast of the wind. They came to the deep-soiled land of Troy and fell upon the funeral pyre and roused up a fire that seemed like it was kindled by a god. All night long they blew on the flame of the pyre with a shrill blast and likewise all night long…

As we contemplate this last weather-related image in the Iliad, we look back and ask why Homer used such pictures in his narrative. The most common literary device that he used in this regard was the simile. He was certainly attempting to provide vivid and realistic depictions of characters and events and to do so using language and images that were familiar to his audience and with which they could more readily connect. The sheer scope and scale of natural events and weather-related phenomena added to the importance and intensity of what was happening, and the comparison of the beauty and power of the natural world with the horror and destruction of war, allows Homer to point out just how terrible mankind can be when man turns upon man in anger.

 

Cunning, Deception & Trickery in Homer

 

Cunning, Deception & Trickery in Homer

            Homer makes use of cunning, deception and trickery extensively in the Iliad and the Odyssey. In fact, one of his major characters, namely Odysseus, is seldom mentioned in either work without an added epithet of cunning, sly, clever, resourceful or wily. The basic reason why Homer uses such a prominent theme and recurring motif is quite simple – it’s entertaining! Many people regard Homer as the father of deception, mystery and intrigue in Western literature and can find elements of his influence in the works of writers like Charles Dickens, William Shakespeare, Wilke Collins, Mark Twain, Alexandre Dumas, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Anthony Hope, Edgar Allan Poe, James Hilton and many others.

            Homer did not always regard being cunning or sly as a bad thing and in fact, it was something that was done by gods and goddesses as well as by mere mortals. Divine beings often used deception to further their own aims, to test the strength of characters, or to convince mortals to act in certain ways in order to achieve desired outcomes. We see this especially in the later books of the Iliad as the battle heated up and one-on-one confrontations took place more often. As the war was moving towards its final conclusion, the gods became increasingly more active in taking on the semblance or the voices of mortals.

Mortals themselves used lies and trickery to outwit their enemies, to navigate their way through dangerous circumstances and in many cases, just to survive. Sometimes Homer positioned deception as a necessary evil, but many times the perpetrator received the praise of the author. Heroes attempted to achieve Κλέος, or fame and good reputation during their lifetimes, most often by doing brave and noble deeds on the battlefield. Odysseus, the chief trickster of Homer’s works, was seldom portrayed as a great fighter in the Trojan War. But Odysseus is still being sung about by the bard today, and has achieved his Κλέος through his wily ways and not with his plunging sword. This was the very man who tried to shirk the war in the first place by feigning madness, and then pulled off the two best tricks in Homer’s stories – the escapade with the Trojan horse and then his disguise as a beggar in his confrontation with his wife’s suitors. It is no wonder that King Agamemnon referred to him as, “you crafty one who excels in wily deeds.”

            In this paper I propose working our way through the Iliad and the Odyssey to find the most obvious and relevant examples of how Homer used the themes of cunning, deception and trickery to push the narratives forward, to further reveal the depths of his characters and to provide a more entertaining way of telling his stories. Leo Tolstoy said that there were only two types of stories ever told, one where a stranger comes to town, and one where a stranger goes on a journey. There are hundreds of strangers who come to the town of Troy in the Iliad, borne on a thousand ships, and the Odyssey is certainly the story of one of those strangers on a personal journey. Let us discover how Homer uses his recurring motifs of trickery and disguise to enhance the entertainment value in the telling of his two epic works.

            Divine intervention is commonplace in Homer’s stories and we often see messages being delivered by the gods to mortals on earth. It is interesting to note that those messages are often delivered by divine or semi-divine entities who are disguised as humans or who take on the voices of humans. For example, in Book II of the Iliad we encounter a dream sent by Zeus to carry a message to King Agamemnon in his sleep. Zeus could have appeared to Agamemnon himself to give him his orders to arm the Achaeans, but instead sent a dream disguised as Nestor, the son of Peleus and a trusted advisor of the king. The gods often talk directly to mortals in these stories, so it is unclear why Homer would choose to deliver divine messages at times through an intermediary rather than directly from god to man. Perhaps it is because most mortals might have difficulty recognizing a god and accepting that the being that they have encountered is actually divine. It is also possible that disguising a god in mortal garb or having him speak in a human voice might somehow make the encounter less threatening to the message recipient. In the case mentioned, it was not Zeus himself who was delivering the message to Agamemnon, but Nestor who was carrying a message from the god. The deception serves the purpose of making the message more believable. Nestor himself gave credence to the dream.

Thus he spoke and then sat down and there arose Nestor, king of sandy Pylos, who being of wise counsel, spoke to those seated in assembly. “O my friends, captains and leaders of the Achaeans, if any other of our leaders had told us this dream, we would deem it a falsehood and would withdraw. But he who is considered to be the best of the army has seen it, so come and let us arm the sons of the Achaeans.”

            Sometimes a trick does not turn out the way that its perpetrator intends. Agamemnon related his dream to his men and decided to test their mettle. He thought that he would rouse their fighting spirit and further enrage them to fight on with the Trojans. He advised the troops, that despite what Zeus might have told him in his dream, enough was enough and they had spent nine fruitless years fighting the enemy and were no closer to achieving their goal of sacking Troy. He said that it was time to pack up the ships and head for home, certain that they would all rebel at the suggestion and stand up en masse, ready for battle. Instead they agreed that his suggestion made a lot of sense and rushed for the ships. Agamemnon’s deception failed miserably and it was only the intervention of the wily Odysseus that convinced the army to stay and fight.

            In Book III of the Iliad we find another example of a god or goddess disguised as a human, engaging in conversation with a mortal.

Disguised as her husband’s sister who was the wife of the son of Antenor, the goddess Iris went to white-armed Helen. She appeared as Laodice, wife of lord Helicaon the son of Antenor and the loveliest of the daughters of Priam.

The goddess Iris had a very specific purpose in mind for her visit to Helen and as a result of their engagement, we start to see Helen in a different light and Homer uses the encounter between them to deepen the character of the woman who we had previously regarded as a wanton adulteress. Their dialogue sets the stage for the subsequent conversations that Helen has with King Priam and Hector and paints Helen as more of a victim and adds an additional element to the story. 

Having spoken thus, the goddess placed in her mind tender thoughts about him who had been her husband, her city and her parents.

Helen spoke to King Priam and because of her intense sorrow and shame, we begin to feel very differently about her.

“You are both friendly and fearful to me my father-in-law. I wish that a wretched death had been my destiny when I followed your son here, having left my marriage bed, my brothers, my blessed daughter and the lovely companions of my own age. But this did not come to pass and so I melt down in weeping.”

            Helen and Priam stood on the walls of Troy to watch the fight between Menelaus and Alexander, for the winner was to claim Helen for himself. Zeus and Aphrodite intervened to save Alexander from being vanquished and the goddess cast a mist over him and removed him from the battlefield and deposited him back in the bedroom that he and Helen shared. In a cunning deception, Aphrodite took on the semblance of an old woman wool-weaver who was close to Helen, and enticed her to return to her chamber to comfort Alexander. But this was one of those times when the trick did not work and Helen was able to see through the goddess’s disguise.

Thus the goddess spoke and indeed she did arouse feelings within her. At that point Helen perceived the highly beautiful neck of the goddess, her lovely breast and her shining eyes. She was amazed, called her by name and spoke to her.

            Later Pallas Athena visited the battlefield and took on the appearance of Laodocus, the son of Antenor. In this disguise she convinced Pandarus to shoot an arrow at Menelaus and he successfully wounded him. Once more the gods furthered their own ends through deception and trickery. Gods and goddesses and all sorts of divine and semi-divine beings were constantly engaged in the warfare, sometimes outright and sometimes acting in the background and they often used deceptive strategies to achieve their purposes.

Indeed, Ares urged on these Trojans and the bright-eyed Athena supported the other side. Terror and Fear and relentless Strife waged on as well and the man-slaying sister of Ares was likewise a companion, she being small at first but then she raised her head to the heavens and stalked about on the earth. She then heaved dissension into the mix of them and destruction moved through the ranks increasing the groaning of the men.

            Weapons were turned aside, combatants were sheltered in mists and warriors were plucked from the midst of the fighting while the residents of Olympus interfered in the battle. Most of the time the gods were successful in what they were attempting, but sometimes it did not turn out as planned. Witness the fact that Aphrodite was wounded in the hand by Diomedes and had to return to her father for comfort. Diomedes taunted her as she fled.

 “Retire daughter of Zeus from the strife and the battle. Is it not sufficient for you to deceive feeble women? But if you wish to resort to fighting, then I think that you will end up dreading it, even if you only hear about it from afar.”

            In Book X of the Iliad we are treated to one of the best deception stories in the epic. Hector asked for a volunteer to go and spy upon the Achaeans. Dolon answered the call but asked for a great reward. He told Hector,

“My heart and my noble spirit urge me on to go near their swift ships and to spy out what is happening. But come now and lift up your staff and promise me that you will grant me the horses and the richly fashioned chariot that even now belong to the son of Peleus and I will prove to be a great spy for you and will not let you down. I will go right up to their encampment and even to Agamemnon’s ship where I will learn from the chieftains sitting in council whether they plan to flee or to fight on.”

Dolon was captured and interrogated by Odysseus and Diomedes and thought that his life was going to be spared because he revealed everything that he knew about the Trojans and their plans. His captors had given him cause for hope but things did not turn out as he anticipated. Homer rather gruesomely reported,

Thus he spoke and the Dolon was about to reach out and touch his chin with his stout hand in entreaty when Diomedes sprang at him and hit him fully on the neck with his sword and cut right through so that while he was still speaking, his head was rolling around in the dust.

            In Book XIV of the Iliad we find Hera, queen of the gods playing her own devious trick against her husband/brother Zeus. She deceived Aphrodite the goddess of love into giving her the power of love, telling her that her intent was to woo the warring parties away from warfare. Unbeknownst to Aphrodite, her real plan was to use the power against Zeus, and after he had fallen into a post-coital slumber, to send Sleep to deliver a message to Poseidon that it was safe to render assistance to the Danaans. She tricked Aphrodite in this way,

Then being wily-minded, Queen Hera spoke to her. “Give me now affection and longing that can be used to overcome all immortals and mortals. I plan to visit all the ends of the bountiful earth and Oceanus from whom arise the gods and mother Tethys, even those who raised me and cherished me in their homes when they took me from Rhea when wide-eyed Zeus thrust Cronos down to dwell beneath the earth and the barren sea. All these I will visit and release them from their endless quarrels, for it has been so long that they have kept apart from one another and their affections and gall has come upon their souls. If by my words I can persuade their hearts and get them to join back together in love, then forever will they call me dear one and regard me with reverence.”

Hera was successful in seducing Zeus and Sleep delivered his message.

“With a forward mind now Poseidon, render aid to the Danaans and give them glory forthwith for Zeus is asleep for a little while for over him have I cast a soft slumber. Hera has beguiled him to her bed to make love.”

            With Hector dead, the Trojan War was rapidly drawing to its conclusion when ‘the wily and crafty Odysseus, he of the many counsels’, pulled off the greatest deception of all time and a stroke of pure military genius. The events surrounding the use of the Trojan horse are not even reported in the Iliad and are only briefly mentioned in the Odyssey. It is mainly from accounts such as Vergil’s Aeneid and other ancient literary works that we find out what happened. The trick was brilliant in both its conception and its undertaking. Odysseus had the Achaeans construct a huge wooden horse that was capable of concealing thirty warriors in its body. They dragged the wooden horse to the gates of Troy in the middle of the night and left it there. The Danaan fleet then sailed off, as if for home, but only went so far as the island of Tenedos, where they hid from the view of the Trojans. They were assisted by Sinon, who passed himself off as a Greek defector. Sinon convinced the Trojans that the Danaans had given up the fight and had sailed home and had built the horse as an offering to Athena, in atonement for them having previously desecrated her temple in Troy. He told them that the Greeks had built it too big to take into the city, so that the Trojans could not bring it in and gain the favour of the goddess themselves. However, if they were to remove a portion of their city wall, they would be able to drag it inside, and this they did. The Trojan priest Laocoon suspected a trap and tried to warn off his countrymen and his warning, told to us by Vergil in the Aeneid, has become famous.

Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes

I fear Greeks, even those bearing gifts

Under the cover of darkness the Greek warriors, captained by Odysseus, descended from their hiding place, opened the city gates to their comrades and sacked Troy. Odysseus, he who tried to avoid going to war in the first place by using subterfuge, brought an end to the war by using the same technique.

In his second work, the Odyssey, Homer continues the use of cunning, deception and trickery, in fact even more so than he did in the Iliad. This is the story of the return home, the Νόστος, of the wily and crafty Odysseus. The master of trickery used one ruse after another to manage situations and to get himself out of difficulty during his ten year journey. Meanwhile, back at his home in Ithaca, his faithful wife Penelope was herself using deception to put off 108 arrogant suitors who were determined to woo her, disinherit her son Telemachus, and usurp the throne from her husband. Deception is a major theme in the Odyssey and once more we see both gods and mortals involved in tricks, disguises and deceit.

Athena was the goddess of wisdom, cunning and strategic warfare and in that capacity she was a strong supporter of Odysseus, because he displayed these same traits. Throughout the Odyssey she worked tirelessly to protect Odysseus, to help him in his journey and many times to accompany him while wearing several different disguises, to strategize with him and to assist him with various devices, and most importantly, to shield him from the wrath of Poseidon, who was bent on his destruction because he had blinded his son, Polyphemus the Cyclops.

Athena got involved early in the story and right at the start of the Odyssey we find her advocating among the gods for the safe return home of the hero Odysseus. She arranged to have Hermes sent to Ogygia to convince Calypso to release Odysseus while she went to Ithaca to give encouragement to Telemachus. In the first act of deception that we see in the Odyssey, we are told that the goddess took on a disguise.

Then she darted down from the heights of Olympus and took up her place in the land of Ithaca, outside the front doorway of the home of Odysseus on the threshold of the court and in her hand she held the spear of bronze and appeared as a guest-friend and took on the likeness of Mentes, the leader of the Taphians.

Disguised as Mentes, Athena had a long conversation with Telemachus about his father and what the boy had to do to rid his father’s home of the suitors. She convinced him to set out on his own journey to seek news of his father and the actions that he should take depending on what he learned while he was away. This visit of Athena’s to Ithaca literally sets the stage for what we are about to witness in the entire story and it was therefore a highly significant interaction between a divine being and a mortal. It is so important to the narrative that Homer actually had Athena break the cover of her disguise as she left and she was revealed to Telemachus as a goddess.

So spoke the bright-eyed Athena and she left and flew upwards like a bird and into his heart she instilled might and bravery and caused him to think much about his father. In his mind he gazed upon her and was startled and knew at once that she was a god and forthwith he went among the suitors as if he himself were a god.

We know that Telemachus had suspected her identity all along, for after he had explained who the visitor was to Eurymachus, we learned the truth.

“That stranger is a guest-friend of my father’s house from Taphos and he says that he is Mentes, son of wise Anchialus and he is lord of the Taphians, the famous oarsmen.” So spoke Telemachus, but he knew deep in his own heart that she was an immortal goddess.

            During the absence of her husband Odysseus, the faithful Penelope had been carrying on her own deception. She managed with her ruse to put off the suitors for a period of three years by pretending that she could not yield to their advances before she had finished an important task. Her trick was only discovered by one of her handmaidens who then betrayed her and reported her deceit to the suitors.

“My young suitors, since the godlike Odysseus is dead, though I am eager to be married, I must finish weaving this cloth and do not want my spinning to be in vain. This shroud is for the hero Laertes, for the time when the fate of grievous death also takes him down and I do not wish for the women of the Achaeans to be angry with me for allowing such a wealthy man to be buried without a shroud.”

Thus she spoke and their manly hearts were convinced. By day she would weave at her great loom but by night she would unravel it when torches were placed beside her. For three years she kept deceit from being noticed and tricked the Achaeans.

            Telemachus loved his mother dearly and did not wish to distress her with worry about him traveling to Pylos and Sparta to seek news of his father. He therefore hatched a plan to deceive his mother and to keep any knowledge of his journey away from her, until it was too late for her to do anything about it. He engaged the services of the old nursemaid Eurycleia to help him play this trick on his mother.

“Take heart dear nurse for I do not act without a plan from the gods. But I swear that I will reveal none of this to my mother before the eleventh or twelfth day shall come or until she misses me or hears of my going so that her dear skin is not marred by her weeping.”

            One of the stops on his trip was at the palace of Menelaus in Sparta. Helen had returned home from Troy with her husband and was once again a loyal wife and queen. Telemachus asked Menelaus and Helen what they might know about the fate of his father and Helen wanted to tell him how Odysseus had disguised himself as a beggar and had entered Troy as a spy and had encountered her. In order not to upset those who would listen to her story, she devised a plan to drug them so that they would more readily listen to what she had to say. Her ends justified her deceptive means.

Then Helen the daughter of Zeus thought of something else. Immediately she placed into the wine that they were drinking a drug to sooth all pain and suffering and to make them forget all these evils. Whoever would gulp this down after it had been mixed in the drinking bowl would not let a tear fall down his cheeks for an entire day, not even if his mother or his father were to die, not even if someone should slay with the bronze his brother or his son in front of him, even if he saw it with his own eyes. The daughter of Zeus possessed such skillful drugs of healing which Polydamna, the wife of Thon a woman from Egypt had given her.

            Homer relates to us how Hermes was able to convince the nymph Calypso to release Odysseus from his seven year captivity on the island of Ogygia and to help him along his way. Odysseus set sail on the storm-tossed seas and eventually found himself shipwrecked in Scheria, the home of the Phaeacians and the princess Nausicaa. Of course the goddess Athena was there, ready to help her beloved Odysseus, and she started the wheels in motion by ensuring that Nausicaa made her way to the shoreline where the hero had been stranded. The goddess approached the princess in disguise.

Like a wisp of air, the goddess sped to the maiden’s bedside and stood above her head and she spoke to her, taking on the resemblance of the daughter of Dymas, who was famous for his ships, a girl who was the same age as Nausicaa and who was a dear friend of hers. Taking on her appearance, the flashing-eyed Athena spoke to her.

            Odysseus told King Alcinous and his retinue the story of how he and his companions had been trapped in the land of the Cyclopes and had been made captives by Polyphemus in his cave. He told them how he had revealed his identity to the monster in an act of cunning.

“Cyclops, you asked me what my glorious name was and I will tell it to you and you need to give me a guest-friend’s gift as you promised. My name is Nobody and my mother and my father and all my companions call me Nobody.”

He and his friends managed to blind the Cyclops and to escape from the cave by clinging to the undersides of monster’s rams. It was a deception that worked well for the Achaeans and when Polyphemus called to his friends for help, Odysseus taunted him by shouting back that he had been tricked and overcome by ‘Nobody’. The story lives on to this day and helps to build forever the Κλέος of the wily and crafty Odysseus. This was an act of cunning and deception that was carried out to its finest.

Then from out of his cave the mighty Polyphemus answered them. “O my friends, Nobody is killing me by deceit and not by force.”

In the words of Odysseus, “my dear heart laughed within me that my name and cunning trick had worked so well.”

            Odysseus and his mates left the land of the Cyclops and soon landed on the shores of a land inhabited by the sorceress Circe. She enticed the crew into her home and then played a nasty trick on them.

Immediately she came out and opened the shining doors and asked them in and they all followed in their ignorance. Eurylochus stayed behind because he figured it was a trick. She escorted them in and sat them down on chairs and couches and offered them cheese and barley groats and yellow honey and Pramnian wine. She mixed noxious drugs into the food so that they might totally forget about their homeland. After she had given them the potion and they had drunk it, she waved her magic wand over them and confined them in a pig sty. They had taken on the heads, the sound, the bristles and the shape of swine but their minds remained intact as before. So they were all penned there weeping and before them Circe threw acorns, swill and the fruit of the cornel tree, the sorts of things that pigs eat when they are rooting around on the ground.

Had not Odysseus come upon an antidote for her potion, he too would have suffered the same fate. As it was, Circe relented when she found Odysseus untouchable and the two of them became lovers for the span of a year. Oh yes, in her new-found kindness, the sorceress returned the crew to human form as well.

            After enduring the terrors of the Cyclops, the cattle of Helios, the Sirens, Scylla and Charybdis, as well as the captivity of Calypso and the lure of Circe, Odysseus finally made it home to Ithaca. From that point forward, his actions were totally driven by cunning and deception. He had no sooner landed than he started to set his plan of trickery into motion. The first thing he did was to try and fool the goddess Pallas Athena who had taken on the disguise of a young shepherd to greet Odysseus and to reveal to him that he had arrived in Ithaca.

Thus she spoke and the godlike much-enduring Odysseus rejoiced in his own land, the land of his fathers, as he heard the words of Pallas Athena, the daughter of Zeus, he who bears the aegis. And then he spoke and answered her with winged words, but he did not speak the truth and held back the facts, as he pondered in his breast some very crafty ploy.

            The mistress and the master of cunning and deception, Pallas Athena and Odysseus, met face-to-face as the goddess revealed herself to her protégé. She had helped him get this far with her wisdom and planning and now she was prepared to help him finish the task.

“He would certainly have to be very crafty and tricky to be able to go well beyond you in all sorts of knavery, as if he were a god who approached you. Bold man, full of wiles and not even able, it seems, to stay away from deceit and tall tales that you love from the bottom of your heart, not even in your own land can you do so. But come now and let us not speak about all this any longer because we are both very good at it and because you are the best of all men in counsel and in speech and I am famous among all the gods for my craftiness and wisdom. Yet you did not even recognize me, Pallas Athena the daughter of Zeus, she who always stood beside you and guarded you in all your toils.”

            Odysseus asked the goddess for her help in devising a plan. “But come now and help me devise a plan with which I can repay them all and give me endless courage, such as when we destroyed the shining fortress of Troy.” Pallas Athena came up with the perfect solution.

“But come and I will render you unknown to all mortals by drying up the skin on your supple limbs, making an end to the blond hair on your head and by clothing you in a tattered garment that no man would want to be seen wearing. I will dim your two beautiful eyes so that you appear to be almost blind to the suitors and your wife and your son whom you left behind in your great hall. You must go first and approach the swineherd, he who is the guardian of the swine and who thinks well of you and who loves your son and your wife, the prudent Penelope.”

            In the disguise of a hapless beggar and with the assistance of the loyal swineherd Eumaeus, along with a handful of others and his son Telemachus, Odysseus was able to overcome the suitors who were ruining his life and his fortune. His disguise was so good that he was even able to fool his wife Penelope. The only one who saw through his ruse was the loyal nursemaid Eurycleia, who recognized the scar on his leg while she was bathing his feet.

The deception that was planned by the crafty goddess and carried out by the wily hero brought the story to an end, but one lingering question remains. After he had been away from home for twenty years, why did Odysseus find it necessary to play a final trick on is father Laertes? The old man had been so overwhelmed by the loss of his son that he was living as a recluse and not taking care of himself or his property. Why did Odysseus deem it important to deceive his father rather than just rush into his loving arms? I guess he just could not help himself. Once a trickster, always a trickster.

            It is quite true that Homer’s use of cunning, trickery and deception is very entertaining and that appears to be the main reason that he does so. In the case of Odysseus, who is not generally regarded as a strong and skillful warrior, his craftiness and use of his wiles helps him to achieve his goals and to manage situations. Others might choose to use strength and force to accomplish the same ends. In their place, Odysseus uses what he has – his cunning. But deception poses a moral dilemma. Is it a good thing or a bad thing? Homer shows us in the Iliad and the Odyssey that trickery can be used for both positive and negative purposes. He does not view deception as a character flaw, but rather just a reflection of the character of a divine or a mortal being. Homer does not appear to make a judgement about the use of deception. He just presents it for what it is – part of the human character and a trait that mortals likely inherited from the gods.

 

What’s Cooking? in Homer

 

What’s Cooking? in Homer

            If there is any truth to the notion that the word ‘vegetarian’ is based on a very ancient word meaning ‘bad hunter’, then it is fairly certain that the ancient language in question was not Homeric Greek. There were surely no bad hunters in Homer’s day, for there is nary a fruit or vegetable to be found, for the most part, in the Iliad and the Odyssey. Homer’s characters ate huge quantities of meat and bread and drank copious amounts of fiery-looking red wine. It was supposedly Napoleon Bonaparte who said, “An army marches on its stomach.” A vegetarian diet was not one that could sustain a warrior who spent his day engaged in strenuous activities like fighting, pillaging and raping. These guys needed meat for strength, bread for sustenance and wine to wash it all down. Besides that, they were on the road and away from home and had little opportunity for farming. It was Odysseus who pointed out the strategic value of feeding an army well.

Then the crafty Odysseus answered him. “As eager to fight as you may be O godlike Achilles, do not urge the sons of the Achaeans to do battle with the men of Troy while they are hungry, for the battle will not be a short one once the phalanxes of each side meet and the god breathes might into each of them. Instead, urge the Achaeans by their swift ships to avail themselves of food and wine since they will find both strength and courage in both. No man is able to fight against the enemy the whole day long until the sun goes down if he tries to do so while fasting from food, for though he may be eager in his heart to do battle, his limbs will give way unawares and thirst will come upon him and hunger and his knees will grow tired. But a man who has had his fill of food and wine can fight the whole day long against the foe and he has courage in his heart and his knees will not grow tired until everyone leaves the battlefield. So command that the troops be dispersed and let them take their meal.”

The first feast that we come across in the Iliad was one hosted by Chryses, the priest of Phoebus Apollo. He had been advised that his daughter Chryseis would be returned to him, after having been awarded to King Agamemnon as a war prize, and he celebrated by hosting a banquet for the Achaeans emissaries. Meat, bread and wine were the only things that seemed to be on the menu.

When they had prayed and cast forth the barley cakes, then they drew back the necks of the cattle and slew them. They flayed them and cut off the desirable thigh portions and doubling up the fat pieces, placed them on the raw meat. The old man roasted them on a heap of blazing logs and poured fiery-looking red wine over them while the young men held five-pronged spits in their hands nearby. When the thighs had been consumed and the inner parts had been tasted, they cut the rest into smaller pieces and put them on skewers and roasted them skillfully before removing them from their spits. When they had finished preparing the banquet they feasted and no man wanted for anything. When they had satiated their desire for food and drink, the young men filled all the drinking goblets to the brim and distributed them to everyone.

            This feast was fairly typical of what we find in Homer’s epics. The common elements that we note are as follows:

·        Meals often follow ritual sacrifices and prayer is an integral part of feasting.

·         Meals are always held in common and people do not eat alone.

·         The menu most often consists solely of meat, bread and wine.

·         An offering is usually made to the gods, consisting of the smoke and sizzle of the roasting meat. Gods conveniently have ichor instead of blood in their bodies and as a result, do not consume human food, only nectar and ambrosia.

·         A few drops of wine are always poured out onto the ground as an offering or libation to the gods.

·         Everyone always has enough to eat and drink and no one ever goes hungry or thirsty.

King Agamemnon laid on a banquet for the leaders of the Achaeans and the event was described by Homer in almost the same words that he used to describe the one hosted by Chryses,

Indeed they prayed and offered up barley cakes and first off had drawn back the necks of their sacrifices and slaughtered and flayed them. They cut off the rich thigh pieces and double-wrapped the raw flesh with fat. They then lay the pieces on a fire of faggots and roasted them. They then placed the inner portions on skewers and held them over Hephaestus’s flame. When the thigh pieces had been consumed they tasted the innards and then cut up the other pieces and placed them on spits. They roasted all of these with skill and then removed the pieces from the spits. They finally finished their work preparing the banquet and then sat down to eat it. No one of them wanted for anything.

            Later, after a hard day of fighting, King Agamemnon prepared a small ‘snack’ for the hero Ajax.

When they were at the encampment of the son of Atreus, lord Agamemnon, the leader of men, sacrificed a male five year old bullock to the all-powerful son of Cronos. They took off the skin and prepared it, cutting it up into small pieces which they placed on skewers, then roasted it very skillfully and then drew it all off the fire. When they finished their work they prepared to banquet and then did so and no one wanted for anything. The wide-ruling King Agamemnon, the heroic son of Atreus, honoured Ajax continuously by offering him choice cuts of the meat and afterwards they had had food and drink to their heart’s content.

            It would appear at times that the fighting men of the Danaans had insatiable appetites. Odysseus visited the tent of Agamemnon to discuss how to get Achilles back into the battle. The leader of the Achaeans provided him and his group with ample food and drink and then they left to visit Achilles. He welcomed Odysseus into his tent and then asked Patroclus to prepare a feast for their visitors who had just eaten moments before.

He set the large chopping block in front of the fire and on it he placed the loin of a sheep, the loin of a goat and the chine of a fat hog. These were held down by Automedon and butchered by the godlike Achilles and he cut them up and put them on skewers and the son of Menoetius made the fire blaze. After the flames had died down, he spread the embers and he roasted the meat on the spits set in place above the burning charcoal and he sprinkled salt on the meat. After the meat had been roasted, Patroclus set it on plates and distributed bread at the table from wicker baskets and Achilles served the meat.

As Odysseus pointed out, “Rejoice Achilles, we have dined beyond measure both in the tent of Agamemnon the son of Atreus and here in your tent, for you have given a banquet agreeable to everyone’s taste.” This was not the only time in the Iliad when we witness heroes going from one banquet to another.

            The last meal that we see in the Iliad is the one that Achilles prepared for Priam when the old king came to his tent in the middle of the night to beg for the return of his son Hector’s body. After he had agreed to Priam’s request, Achilles offered him the hospitality that was considered due to visitors.

“But come noble old man, let the two of us also think about eating and afterwards you can lament over your dear son when you have taken him into Ilios and he is mourned over by you with many tears.” Then swift Achilles sprang up and killed a white-fleeced sheep and his comrades skinned it and prepared it well and cut it up and skewered it on spits and they roasted it very skillfully and then removed all the meat from the spits. Automedon set out bread in wicker baskets on a wooden table and Achilles served the meat and they reached out their hands for the goodness that was spread before them, and afterwards they had had their fill of food and drink.

            One of the major themes that permeate the Odyssey is hospitality, and as a consequence, we find many examples of food being prepared and served in Homer’s narrative. As I explained in my study ‘Hospitality in Homer’, While hospitality plays more of an ancillary role in the Iliad, it is a central theme in Homer’s Odyssey. ‘Xenia’ is a divine imperative which prescribes that hosts be both welcoming and generous and that guests be respectful and not take advantage of the hospitality that is offered to them. In many respects, ‘xenia’ embodies the values that are important in ancient Greek culture. In the Odyssey, Homer presents us with several stories of hospitality being offered and accepted as it should be, as well as incidents when the customs of ‘xenia’ have been abused, and he explores the subsequent dire consequences which result from those violations of protocol.

The biggest eaters in the Odyssey were the 108 arrogant suitors who had invaded the home of Odysseus on Ithaca, intent on wooing his wife, eliminating his son and devouring all his property. The goddess Athena flew down from Olympus and encountered them in the hero’s palace. Notice what they were eating and drinking – no vegetarians or teetotalers here!

There she came upon the manly suitors who were playing with draughts and sitting upon the hides of bulls that they themselves had slain. The heralds and the squires were busy, some mixing water and wine in bowls, some washing down the tables with porous sponges and getting them ready and still others were distributing large servings of meat.

A steward brought in bread and placed it before them and much food was laid out to eat, lavishly abundant. A carver sliced up meats of all sorts on a platter and set golden drinking goblets in front of them and a herald approached often and refilled them with wine.

Telemachus traveled to Pylos to gather news about his father and walked into the middle of a banquet. The scene is highly reminiscent of what we find in the Iliad.

Then they came to the gathering and seating place of the men of Pylos and there Nestor sat with his sons around him. His companions were getting ready a feast and roasting some of the meat and placing it on spits.

When they had roasted the meat and removed it from the spits, they divided it into portions and enjoyed a wonderful feast and they had had their fill of food and drink.

Before Telemachus left Pylos, King Nestor had an enormous feast set out for him and the preparation of the meat is told to us in a very familiar way by Homer. We see the same descriptions in the Iliad and the Odyssey, and this is obviously stock phraseology that the bard uses when singing his song.

The men lifted up the head of the bullock from the wide earth and held it and Peisistratus, the leader of men, cut its throat. After the dark blood had run from the bullock and life had departed from its bones, they cut up the body and cut out the thigh bones and covered them with a double layer of fat and lay raw flesh on top of them. The old man roasted them on kindled wood and basted them with fiery-looking wine and the young men stood beside him, holding five-pronged forks in their hands. When the thigh bones had been fully roasted and they had tasted the inner parts of the meat, they cut up the remainder, put it on skewers and roasted it, holding the pointed spits in their hands.

But this is one of the few occasions in the Iliad and the Odyssey when a hint is made that the people of the land actually ate something in addition to meat and bread, for we are told, the housekeeper brought out bread and wine and goodies such as god-cherished kings are likely to eat. There is no explanation as to what those ‘goodies’ might have been, but we can speculate that the offerings might have included cheeses, fruits and nuts. Similarly, when Odysseus left Calypso to make her way home, she provided him with food for his journey. We learn that, on his raft the goddess placed a skin of dark wine and a large one of water and food for the journey in a leather sack. In the sack she put all kinds of tasty treats and she sent him on with a gentle and warm wind. We are not told what those ‘tasty treats’ might have been, but perhaps they were similar to the ‘goodies’ found in Pylos.

It seems that Telemachus was served the standard fare when he next went to Sparta to visit King Menelaus, for here we are advised that, a steward brought in bread and placed it before them and much food was laid out to eat, lavishly abundant. A carver sliced up meats of all sorts on a platter and set golden drinking goblets in front of them.

It is when Odysseus came to Phaeacia that we get a glimpse that perhaps people there ate something more than meat and bread. The obvious conclusions are that a diet of meat and bread was suitable for fighting soldiers and also that those who were away from home and active on the battlefield would have little opportunity for sowing, reaping or harvesting foods that would perhaps have been more available to them back home. However, when Odysseus came to Phaeacia, he came to a civilized society and kingdom that was not engaged in warfare and therefore had the opportunity to farm and provide other foods for its tables. Homer tells us about a lovely orchard outside the palace. Odysseus was fed from its abundance and ate well during his stay.

Outside in the courtyard near the door there is a large orchard four acres and around each side of it there is an enclosure. In it great trees bring forth luxuriant fruit, pears and mulberries and beautiful bright apples and figs sweet to the taste and flourishing olive trees. The fruit does not fail these trees or die, neither in the winter or summer, but lasts all year long. The West Wind blows constantly and brings some fruit to life and ripens others. Pear after pear ripens, apple after apple, one bunch of grapes after another, fruit after fruit. There the bountiful vineyard is planted, one part of the crop being dried in the wind on a level sunny spot, another part being gathered in and another being squashed underfoot and out in front, unripe grapes are dropping their blossoms while still others are beginning to turn a dark colour.

In the land of the Cyclops we find many references to cheese and cheese-making. Polyphemus milked his animals on a regular basis and turned the milk into cheese. Of course Odysseus and his men helped themselves to this bounty and we soon learn of the dire consequences. The Cyclops snatched up two of the men, devoured their human flesh and washed down his meal with huge gulps of fresh milk. Not a diet for the tender-hearted! But luckily Polyphemus was partial to wine and was lulled off into a drunken stupor, so that Odysseus could blind him and he and his men could make their escape. They ended their day by roasting the giant’s flock and washing the meat down with sweet wine. Meat and sweet wine must have been favourites for Odysseus and his crew, for he tells us that he and his men spent a year living with Circe eating just that. “So we stayed there for a whole year, feasting abundantly on meat and sweet wine.”

Those men of Ithaca seemed to be addicted to red meat, and despite being warned not to touch the cattle of Helios, they disobeyed the instructions of their leader and slaughtered the herd anyway. Notice that they offered prayers before engaging on their nefarious activities. The consequences of their actions were dire and Odysseus was the only one to survive. The remainder of his crew were drowned at sea.

After they had prayed, they slaughtered and butchered the cattle and cut out the thigh pieces and wrapped them in double folds of fat and laid raw meat on top of them. They had no wine to pour on the blazing fire but they made a drink offering of water and roasted all the innards on the fire. When the thighs had been all burned up and they had eaten the inward parts, they cut up the rest of the meat and spitted it on skewers.

Odysseus finally made it back to Ithaca and disguised as a beggar, he visited the home of his faithful swineherd Eumaeus. The old man treated his guest with a simple meal in the true spirit of hospitality. By this time, the menu sounds pretty familiar, but with pork being substituted for beef. A later meal served by Eumaeus to Odysseus was almost the same as this first one. Eumaeus was very frugal with his master’s possessions and after the second meal was eaten, it was noted that the leftovers were gathered and were served for breakfast the following morning.

So he spoke and he quickly fastened his tunic with his belt and went to the pigsties where a number of young porkers were penned. He seized two of them and killed them both and singed and butchered them and skewered the meat on spits. When he had roasted them, brought them hot on the spit to place beside Odysseus and he sprinkled white barley meal over the meat. Then in a bowl made out of ivy wood, he mixed honey-sweet wine and sat down beside Odysseus and urged him to eat.

            While Odysseus was receiving hospitality from his faithful swineherd, his young son Telemachus was just on the point of leaving King Menelaus and returning home to Ithaca. Before he left, he was served one more meal by the king.

The housekeeper brought and set before them bread and other food from their abundance. The son of Boethous carved up the meat and served out the portions and the son of glorious Menelaus poured out the wine. They eagerly set their hands on the joy that was served before them and when they had had their fill of food and drink, then Telemachus and the glorious son of Nestor yoked the horses and stepped on board the well-decorated chariot and departed from the doorway and the deep-sounding portico.

            Penelope tells us firsthand what was going on in her house and the abuse of hospitality that was taking place. The arrogant suitors had plenty to eat at home but they had chosen to devour her goods instead.

“Their own goods are just sitting there in their house unused, bread and sweet wine, and their servants are helping themselves to them. But they are all over our house, day after day, butchering our cattle and rams and fat goats and making merry and drinking fiery-looking wine to excess and using up everything.”

Odysseus experienced this outrage while he sat at a banquet in his own palace dressed as a beggar. The menu that was served was just as we have come to expect it.

Then they went to the house of the godlike Odysseus and laid down their garments on the couches and chairs and proceeded to butcher some big sheep and fat goats and fattened swine and a bullock from the herd. They broiled the innards and divided them up and mixed up wine in the bowls and the swineherd dealt it out in goblets. Philoetius, a leader of men, distributed bread to them from a beautiful basket and Melantheus poured out wine for drinking and they set their hands to the abundance that was placed before them.

            The final meal that we witness in the Odyssey was the one prepared for the reunion of Odysseus with his father Laertes after the suitors and their supporters had been killed. Once again, there is nothing new about the menu.

Then the crafty Odysseus answered him, “Be of good courage and do not allow all these things to trouble your heart. Let us go to the house which is near to the orchard, for there I sent Telemachus and the cowherd and the swineherd so that they could quickly prepare a meal for us.”

So the two of them spoke and they went their way toward the house and when they got there, they found Telemachus and the cowherd and the swineherd cutting up great quantities of meat and mixing up fiery-looking wine.

One of the real joys of traveling to modern Greece is sampling all the magnificent food one finds there. Roasted meats and bread to be sure, but in addition, all types of seafood, vegetables & salads, colourful fruits, olives, yogurt & feta, gyros, moussaka, souvlaki, spanokopita, dolmades, tzatziki, pastitsio, stifado, baklava and the list could go on forever. I am sure that Penelope never uttered the words, “Telemachus, if you don’t eat your vegetables, you won’t get any dessert!” He probably would have asked his mother what a vegetable was. Based on the accounts about eating in Homer’s works, we can conclude that the ancient Greek diet was boring, or at the least just based on simple and readily available ingredients. Indeed they had to feed the troops, and meat and grain provided good sustenance for hard-fighting soldiers, and perhaps those two essential menu items were all that might have been handy for them, but surely they could have varied their food offerings to some degree. We know from Homer’s description of the orchard of Alcinous and Arete on Scheria that fresh produce was available, so why not tell the guys, while they are out pillaging a Trojan city for meat and barley, to pick up some fruit and veg on the way back to camp? Then again, perhaps the diet wasn’t as boring as I think, and the bard simply found a formulaic way of describing a banquet and just repeated it over and over again throughout the Iliad and the Odyssey. “After they had prayed, they slaughtered and butchered the cattle and cut out the thigh pieces and wrapped them in double folds of fat and laid raw meat on top of them.” That might be the answer to the question about a varied diet, but there is still a question that remains unanswered, “Who did the dishes and took out the garbage after supper?”