Continuity Issues in Homer

 

Continuity Issues in Homer

It is not unusual to catch technical or continuity errors and slip-ups in literary works or in visual entertainment features like movies. The famous Vinegar Bible, printed by John Baskett at Clarendon press in 1717, has a misprint at the beginning of Luke 20 which gives the title of “The Parable of the Vineyard” as “The Parable of the Vinegar”. From 1939 there is the scene on the Yellow Brick Road in The Wizard of Oz where Dorothy’s ruby red shoes are replaced with a pair of black ones. What about the electrical cords and light bulbs in Gone with the Wind, also from 1939? Then there is the chariot race scene in Ben Hur from 1959 where one of the charioteers is sporting a fancy wrist-watch. Let’s not forget the countless cowboy movies where jet contrails are seen in the western sky. So it stands to reason therefore, that we might be able to pick up the odd inconsistency or anachronism in two works the length of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey.

The most notable errors in Homer are those which can be classified as anachronisms and historical discrepancies. Many of these centre on the fact that Homer composed his works in the Iron Age or early Archaic period and was describing events which supposedly took place in the Late Bronze Age of Mycenaean Greece more than 400 years before his time. Many of the most noted historical inconsistencies are Homer’s repeated references to the use of iron for armour, tools and implements in his Bronze Age setting. For example, while preparing to take part in the Trojan battle, the goddess Hera readied her chariot and we learn from the bard that various metals were used in its construction. However, we know that it is historically inaccurate for a chariot of that particular time and place to have had axles made from iron. The use of iron for such purposes was just at its infancy at the time of the Late Bronze Age and this was definitely a Homeric slip-up.

And Hebe immediately fastened round eight-spoke bronze wheels to the iron axles on both sides of the chariot. The hubs were made of imperishable gold and the rims above were of bronze, a wonder to behold. The round naves on both sides were of silver and the chariot board itself was held in place with gold and silver thongs and there were two circular edges from which extended a silver chariot pole.

Homer also tells us about the godlike hero Ereuthalion who was called the ‘mace-bearer’ because he fought with a club made of iron rather than a bow or a long spear. Such a weapon was highly unlikely in the Bronze Age, as were the iron gates of Tartarus that Homer describes. He also mentions the ‘din of iron’ erupting from the battlefield, another obvious anachronism. At the funeral games of Patroclus, Achilles offered a prize of iron to the winner of one of the contests and noted that the recipient would have enough iron for making farm implements for five years.

Then the son of Peleus offered a mass of rudely cast iron which in time past the great might of Etion threw, he whom the godlike swift-footed Achilles killed and then carried this and his other possessions away on his ships. Then he stood up and spoke in the midst of the Argives. “Come now and try to win these prizes. Though his rich fields may be in a place far off, the winner of this prize will have enough iron to serve his needs for at least five years and his ploughmen and shepherds will not have to go to the city to find more for they will have enough to serve them well.”

The twelve axe heads through which Odysseus shot his arrow during the contest with the suitors were supposedly made of iron as well, and there are several other references to iron weapons in the Odyssey. On more than one occasion Homer cautions about drinking and drunkenness and tells us that men are drawn to iron when drunk and that iron draws out the worst in men. Clearly the bard is mixing up his timeframes with these historical inaccuracies.

However, iron was beginning to play a role in Bronze Age Greece, but was viewed as more of a precious metal rather than component of weapons and implements. There are several times when Homer talks about treasure troves consisting of bronze, gold and finely-wrought or richly-wrought iron. There is a reference to the Achaeans buying wine from Lemnos and using iron as currency for the transaction.

Then the long-haired Achaeans bought wine from them, some with bronze, some with shining iron, others with hides or oxen or slaves and they prepared an abundant feast.

In addition to wrongly placing iron weapons on a Bronze Age battlefield or iron tools in a Bronze Age barn, Homer also errs when talking about how chariots were employed in battle. In the Iliad, Homer describes chariots being used like taxicabs to ferry warriors to the front lines. He describes a chariot as being manned by a charioteer as well as one warrior who steps from the cart to battle on foot when he reaches the fighting. This may have indeed been the case in Homer’s time, but in the Mycenaean period, the chariot was used as a highly mobile fighting platform, rather than as a vehicle for carrying a warrior to the front.

Another of Homer’s historical inconsistencies deals with his references to temples, as for example when the priest Chryse prays to the god Apollo:

If I ever roofed a temple that was pleasing to you or provided you with the burnt offering of the fat thigh pieces of bulls and goats, then answer my prayer and let the Danaans pay the price for my tears with your arrows.

There is a reference to the temple of Athena in Athens, the temples of Apollo in Ilium and Pergamus and that of Ares in Troy. Hector is told to direct his mother to go and worship at the temple of Athena in the Trojan capital.

But you Hector, go into the city and speak to your mother and mine and have her gather together all the matrons and go with them to the temple of the shining-eyed Athena on the top of the citadel.

Indeed they came to the temple of Athena on the high citadel and the fair-cheeked Theano, the daughter of Cisseis who was the wife of Antenor the tamer of horses, did open up the gates for them. The Trojans had installed her as a priestess of Athena. With a loud cry they all raised up their hands to Athena and the fair-cheeked Theano, having taken the robe in her hands, spread it on the knees of the lovely-haired Athena.

The difficulty here is that, at the time of the Mycenaean Greeks, there were no large temples built to honour the gods. Such structures were a fact of life in Homer’s age, but not in the period covered by his epics. There were some very small shrines or altars in cult centres, but nothing like the large free-standing temples of later ages.

One of the most glaring anachronisms is Homer’s description of funerary and burial practices. Elaborate funeral pyres are created for Homer’s dead heroes and the deceased are cremated in highly ritualized ceremonies. Sometimes cremation was a matter of expediency, such as when the corpses of the dead burned constantly while the plague waged against the Achaeans for nine days. But for major heroes, being cremated was viewed as a supreme honour and one which every hero felt he deserved. Hector begged Achilles for the right to be honoured in such a way as he lay dying.

“I beg you by your life, your knees and your parents not to allow the dogs to devour me by the ships of the Achaeans. Instead, take the gifts of bronze and gold that my father and queenly mother shall give to you to return my body back to my home so that the Trojans and their wives may give me the right of a funeral pyre in my death.”

Homer provided great detail about the funeral pyre of Patroclus, telling us that, those who were in charge waited behind and gathered wood and made a huge pyre a hundred feet each way and on the top they laid the dead man’s corpse and their hearts were full of sorrow. Large jars of homey and oil were placed on his pyre and numerous animals were slaughtered along with 12 Trojan youths. After the cremation, the remaining ashes and bones of the deceased were gathered and placed in richly crafted vessels for subsequent burial.

The basic problem with these descriptions of funeral pyres and cremations is that the Mycenaean Greeks did not cremate their dead. Deceased heroes and those of royal rank were buried in elaborate tombs, archaeological evidence of which can still be viewed today in the form of tholos or beehive tombs in places like the citadel of Mycenae or other Late Bronze Age settlements in the Peloponnese. Homer was referring to funerary practices that were more akin to his time rather than to the time of the Trojan War.

Finally from an historical point of view, the description in Homer’s Catalogue of Ships of the 1,186 vessels and the tens of thousands of warriors who went to Troy from various parts of mainland Greece and the islands seems to portray a political structure that outlines a collection of independent city-states. That indeed would have been the case in the later Archaic period but not in the Late Bronze Age. At that time there would have been a palace-based society with a Wanax or king of kings in charge of several locations in a region and a loose confederacy of allies. The city state did not start to emerge as the fundamental independent unit of Greek civilization until after the Dark Ages between the 8^th and 6^th centuries BCE.

In addition to the various historical inconsistencies and anachronisms mentioned above, there are several writer’s factual errors or slip-ups found in the texts as well, perhaps better referred to as memory lapses. For example, in Book 5 of the Iliad we are told of the fate of Pylaemenes, the leader of the Paphlagonians:

Then they killed Pylaemenes who was equal to Ares, rule of the great-hearted shield-bearing Paphlagonians. Menelaus the son of Atreus, who was famous for his skill with the spear, hit him in the collar-bone with his spear while he was standing there.

Later on in Book 13, the son of Pylaemenes, who was called Harpalion, was killed by the fierce Achaean Meriones after he had attacked Menelaus. But his father was reported as alive and well and mourning the loss of his son.

The great-hearted Paphlagonians took charge of the situation and placed him in a chariot bearing him to sacred Ilios, mourning as they did so. His father went with him and his tears poured forth, but there was no blood-price paid for his dead son.

            Homer reports that Agamemnon, Menelaus and Odysseus all received rather serious wounds at various points in the battle, but later on in the narrative the three of them appear hale and healthy. Agamemnon was wounded by a spear to the extent that he had to withdraw from the fighting because of the severe pain. Menelaus was hit in the hip by an arrow shot by Pandarus and was treated by Machaon. Odysseus was wounded in the chest by Sokos and had to be rescued by Menelaus and Ajax after he had killed his attacker. As indicated, either all three miraculously recovered or else Homer forgot that he had reported that they had been wounded.

There are other such inconsistencies in both texts, but these minor plot contradictions are generally attributed to the fact that the Iliad and the Odyssey both stem from an oral tradition, rather than from a single written text, and that different authors contributed to the narratives over time. These variances are minor in nature compared to the rather more serious inconsistencies and poetic lapses caused by confusing and mixing Late Bronze Age facts with much later Iron Age and Archaic period conditions.

I suppose the fact that he was writing over 400 years after the events were thought to have taken place, and was relying on several sources from an oral tradition, and writing narrative of such extensive length, provides us with enough leeway to forgive Homer for any of the minor inconsistencies or anachronisms that we find in the Iliad and the Odyssey.

Odysseus’ Ithaca

 

Odysseus’ Ithaca

Where Mycenaean Ithaca was precisely located has been the subject of great debate among classical scholars for some considerable time. In his Catalogue of Ships in the Iliad, Homer named those who had travelled to the Trojan War under the leadership of the great Odysseus and in the Odyssey, the hero described his homeland.

Odysseus led the brave young Kephallenians from Ithaca, well-forested Neriton, Crocyleia, the jagged hill of Aegilips, Samos and Zakynthos and the lands opposite it. These were led by Odysseus, the equal of Zeus in counsel, and with him there came twelve ships bearing red prows.

I live in clearly-seen Ithaca where Mount Neriton is, all covered with quivering foliage and seen from far off, and around it are many islands close together, Dulichium and Same and wooded Zacynthus.

Modern day Ithaca is a Greek island in the Ionian Sea, located just northeast of the larger island of Kefalonia and west of mainland Greece, in an area known as the Ionian Islands. Not to be confused with Samos, an island in the eastern Aegean off the coast of Turkey, the Samos (Same) mentioned by Homer in this context, was a city on the coast of Kefalonia. Mount Neriton is located on Ithaca and Aegilips and Crocyleia have both been placed on the present-day nearby Ionian island of Leucas (Lefkada), situated close to modern Ithaca. Wilhem Dorpfeld the archaeologist held that Leucas was Ithaca because it was closer to the mainland and also suggested that Aegilips was actually the island of Meganisi. One ancient story had Dulichium located about two miles off the coast of Kefalonia, but subsequently sunk by an earthquake and yet others reported it as being a city on the island of Kefalonia itself. With all of his various references taken into account, it seems obvious that Homer’s location for Odysseus’ Ithaca was somewhere near to where we find it situated in modern times in the Ionian Sea.

But not everyone agrees that Ithaca was one of the Ionian Islands off the coast of Greece. In his 1897 work, The Authoress of the Odyssey, Samuel Butler places Ithaca on Favignana, one of the Aegadian Islands situated about 18 kilometers off the west coast of Sicily between Trapani and Marsala. In the Odyssey, Homer makes reference to the Harbour of Phorcys on Ithaca and Butler suggests that the Bay of Trapani fits this description. Butler’s rationale for his theory is that the Odyssey was not written by Homer, but by a young Sicilian woman. He postulated that the entire narrative of the Odyssey was located in and around Sicily, and that the authoress wrote herself into the story in the character of Princess Nausicaa, the daughter of King Alcinous and Queen Arete of Phaeacia.

Laura Coffey takes up Butler’s suggestion in her Enchanted Islands, but moves Ithaca even further west in the Aegadian Islands. Homer described Ithaca as being the farthest west island, toward the dusk, and that all others were facing Dawn and the rising sun. To accommodate that description, Coffey places Ithaca on the Aegadian island of Marettimo, some 45 kilometers off the coast of Sicily and farther to sea than Favignana, in fact the westernmost island in the archipelago. Coffey did not find Marettimo particularly welcoming and moved on to Favignana, which to her felt like Circe’s island. “Felt like” are the operative words, as there is no literary evidence that can be pointed to for making her case, only feelings. Homer, on the other hand, was very specific in placing the whereabouts of Ithaca and his location coincides with modern geography.

There are those who make the case that Homer’s Ithaca was not the island known by that name today, but rather the Paliki Peninsula found on the western coast of the nearby island of Kefalonia. Emily Hauser takes up this position in her book Mythica. The theory is that the modern peninsula was once an island and that the channel between it and Kefalonia has since silted over, or that island became a peninsula after an earthquake. Being the furthest west point of the Ionian Islands would fit with Homer’s description of the location of Ithaca being the last point of land facing the setting sun. However, Paliki does not fit with Homer’s description of a channel of water situated between Ithaca and Samos on the east coast of Kefalonia, where the suitors anchored in ambush for the returning Telemachus.

But come now and give me a ship and twenty men so that I can lie in wait and ambush him as he ferries between Ithaca and rugged Samos.

The best of the suitors lie in wait to ambush you in the strait between Ithaca and rugged Samos and they are eager to kill you there before you can return to your native land.

I think that we can safely assume that the Ithaca described as Odysseus’ homeland in the Iliad and the Odyssey is definitely the present-day island of Ithaca in the Ionian Sea. Other proposed locations are pure speculation and have no basis in the literature and have no real geographical foundation. But what did Ithaca look like? Homer often described it as sea-surrounded and clearly seen. He said that it was well-forested and had jagged hills and used terms like rocky and rugged in his descriptions. When King Menelaus of Sparta offered to give horses to Telemachus as a parting gift, Odysseus’ son provided the following description of his homeland.

Whatever gift you wish to give, let it indeed be a treasure, but I will not take horses to Ithaca but will leave them here for you to enjoy, for you are the lord of an extensive plain where a lot of lotus grows and galingale and wheat and spelt and wide-eared barley. But in Ithaca there are no wide fields or meadow-lands. It is a pasture-land that is better for goats than horses, because none of the islands that touch upon the sea are fit for driving horses or rich in meadows, and Ithaca least of all.

The description provided by Telemachus is confusing because it does not jibe with other references to Ithaca made in the Odyssey. There are times when the island is pictured as being rich, fertile and well-tilled. We know that both Eumaeus the swineherd and Odysseus’ father Laertes had extensive gardens. We likewise know from the legends that Odysseus farmed the land. He was plowing his fields and feigning madness when Palamedes visited him to recruit him for the Trojan War at the request of Agamemnon. Was Ithaca rich and fertile, or barren and rocky? Ithaca today is mountainous and rugged, but does contain olive and cypress groves, so perhaps it was both.

The island’s exact location and physical characteristics notwithstanding, the fact remains that Ithaca symbolizes the ultimate destination in the Odyssey and represents the overwhelming longing for home and family and the completion of an arduous challenge. Ithaca is the symbol for the hero’s journey home, his Nostos. It is a powerful metaphor for the struggles often involved in life’s journey. Ithaca is a small island, but it plays a huge role in the story of the Odyssey and serves as a powerful cultural and spiritual symbol for homecoming and perseverance.

The Epic Cycle

 The Epic Cycle

George Lucas, the creator of the Stars Wars franchise, was heavily influenced by Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey as well as by Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces, published in 1949. In his book, Campbell explored the theory that mythological narratives frequently share a fundamental structure. He summarized a motif that he called the archetypal narrative or the monomyth with the following description of the hero’s adventure:

A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man.

            You can see the influence of Joseph Campbell and Homer all over the works of George Lucas. It is easy to imagine Star Wars as a re-telling of the Iliad and The Return of the Jedi evokes images of the Odyssey. All the other movies in the Star Wars franchise are either prequels or sequels. Can the same be said of Homer’s works? Are the bard’s two lengthy epics parts of something bigger? That is indeed the case and that something bigger is known to classical scholars as The Epic Cycle. The Epic Cycle was a collection of ancient Greek works, all written in the same dactylic hexameter that Homer used for his poetry. They all dealt with the story of the Trojan War and some were prequels to the Iliad and some were sequels, like the Odyssey. The various works contained in the cycle included the Cypria, the Aethiopis, the Little Iliad, the Iliupersis, the Nostoi and the Telegony. Unlike the Iliad and the Odyssey which have survived in complete form, unfortunately the other works in the cycle are only fragmentary or contained in later summaries. In total there were eight works recognized by modern scholars as being part of The Epic Cycle, with several others being included by the 9^th century commentator Photius, but those are largely discounted by classicists today.

            Generally regarded as the first poem in The Epic Cycle, the Cypria was quite well known in classical antiquity, but its 11 books have now been totally lost, except for about 50 lines which have been quoted by other writers. The work was attributed to Stasinus of Cyprus and it is thought to have been written around the late 7^th century BCE. The Cypria was a prequel to the Iliad and reportedly covered the events leading up to the Trojan War, including the war of the Seven Against Thebes, the wedding of Peleus and Thetis and the Judgement of Paris, the events leading up to the capture of Helen, the story of Castor and Pollux, the slaughter of Iphigenia at Aulis, the snakebite suffered by Philocletes on Tenedos, the raiding of Trojan cities by the Greeks, the revenge death of Palamedes by Odysseus, as well as many other events occurring during the first 9 years of the war itself. The final book of the Cypria also contained the Trojan Battle Order and it is thought that the list of the Trojans and their allies that is found as an appendix to Homer’s Catalogue of Ships was actually abridged from the Trojan listing found in the Cypria.

            The Cypria was considered to be a lesser work than the Iliad and the Odyssey, despite the fact that some commentators attributed the work to Homer himself. Aristotle criticized it for lacking narrative unity and thought it to be a mere collection of events rather than a cohesive story. Instead of crafting a well-structured plot, he accused the author of the Cypria of focusing too heavily on just reporting events and thereby creating a lesser epic than Homer’s two masterpieces.

            Homer’s Iliad is always placed second in The Epic Cycle. The 24 books of the epic contain 16,000 lines of dactylic hexameter and the entire text has been preserved since antiquity. It is thought that the work was composed in the late 8^th or early 7^th centuries BCE. The timeframe of the events covered in the Iliad is very narrow, comprising a period of just a few weeks or about 50 days in the final 10^th year of the Trojan War. The major focus of the epic is on the wrath of Achilles, starting with his angry withdrawal from the battle over the Briseis affair and ending with the death of Hector, the return of the Trojan hero’s body to his father Priam and his subsequent funeral. The actual fall of Troy is not even included in the Iliad and for this reason, it is evident that the work was designed to be one part of a larger effort and hence the likelihood that The Epic Cycle indeed did exist.

            Another lost work of The Epic Cycle is the Aethiopis, attributed to Arctinus of Miletus who lived in the 8^th century BCE and likely written during the 7^th century. The work comprised 5 books of verse and only about 10 fragments and a summary by Proclus survive. The Aethiopis was another sequel to Homer’s Iliad and the poem opens shortly after the death of Hector, with the arrival of the Amazon warrior Penthesileia as well as the Ethiopian king Memnon, both fighting in support of the Trojans. The poem details the triumphs of Achilles, including his slaying of the Amazon. It goes on to describe the subsequent death of Achilles at the hand of Paris who shoots an arrow directly into the hero’s vulnerable heel. The poem ends with the fierce struggle over the body of Achilles, his funeral rites and the games which were staged to commemorate him, and then culminates with a dispute over his armour waged by the two heroes who had recovered his body, Odysseus and Ajax.

            The next work in the cycle has come to be known as the Little Iliad and the poem bridged the gap between the death of Achilles and the fall of the city of Troy. In particular the Little Iliad covered the death of Paris (Alexander) at the hands of Philoctetes who had been brought back from Lemnos where he was recovering from his snakebite, the awarding of the armour of Achilles, the bringing of Neoptolemus the son of Achilles into the war, the theft of the wooden image of Pallas called the Palladium, as well as the construction by Epeius and the deployment of the Trojan horse. A substantial fragment of the poem describes how Neoptolemus captures Hector’s Andromache and kills Astyanax the son of Hector by throwing him from the walls of the city. The work of four books was likely composed in the latter half of the 7^th century BCE and was attributed to Lesches of Pyrrha as well as several other ancient writers including Homer himself. Approximately 30 lines of the original work survive as well as an ancient summary of the text attributed to a commentator named Proclus. Aristotle criticized the Little Iliad by saying that it had more plot than an epic should have.

            The next poem in The Epic Cycle was the Iliupersis, or the Sack of Ilium as it is known in English. It comprised 2 books and has been traditionally attributed to Arctinus of Miletus who likely composed it in the 8^th or 7^th century BCE. Once again the original text survives only in fragments and in a summary written by Proclus in his 5^th century CE work entitled the Chrestomathia. This commentator has provided us with summaries of most of the works in The Epic Cycle. The Iliupersis details the fall of the city of Troy including the stratagem of the Trojan horse, the actual sack of the city itself, the slaughter of King Priam, the killing of Astyanax, the sacrifice of the Princess Polyxena at the tomb of Achilles and the abduction of Cassandra by Ajax of Oileus. In Homer’s Odyssey, many of the same events were sung about by the bard who provided the dinner entertainment at the palace of King Alcinous in Phaeacia, his songs bringing Odysseus to tears. Like all the other pieces in The Epic Cycle, the Iliupersis was also composed in dactylic hexameter.

            Next in line in the cycle came the Nostoi or The Returns, which told the story of the return home of the Greek army after the Trojan War, with special emphasis on the events surrounding the returns of Agamemnon and Menelaus. The Nostoi comprised 5 books of dactylic hexameter and was attributed in ancient times to either Agias or Eumelos of Corinth, both from the 8^th century BCE, or alternatively to Homer himself by other commentators. It is thought that the text of the Nostoi was most likely finalized in the 7^th or 6^th centuries BCE and sadly only five and a half lines survive, along with the usual summary by the grammarian Eutychius Proclus. The Nostoi narrates several tales with which we are familiar from their telling in the Odyssey. These include Agamemnon delaying his return from Troy so that he can offer appeasement to Athena, the storm which hits Menelaus on his journey that drives him to Egypt, the safe return home of Nestor and Diomedes, the death of the prophet Calchas on Colophon and finally the return home and assassination of Agamemnon by his wife Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus. The tale ends with the safe arrival home of Menelaus and the fact that Odysseus is the sole remaining Greek warrior hero who has yet to return from the battle at Troy.

            It is of course natural that the next work in The Epic Cycle is the Odyssey since it starts up where the Nostoi leaves off. All 24 books of the epic survive, detailing the 10 year voyage and struggles of the hero Odysseus as he makes his way from Troy back home to Ithaca and his waiting wife and son, Penelope and Telemachus. Homer’s authorship of the Odyssey was taken as true in antiquity and the work was dated to around the 8^th or 7^th centuries BCE. The Homeric Question casts significant doubt on the actual composer of the two epics attributed to Homer and whether or not such an individual actually existed. Both dual and plural authorships have been suggested by scholars and commentators and there are many arguments for and against such suggestions. The questions of composition and authorship notwithstanding, the fact remains that these two epics are the foundational works of western literature and all the other works that form part of The Epic Cycle can be viewed as simply prequels or sequels to the Iliad and the Odyssey.

            The final work in The Epic Cycle is the Telegony. The poem is sometimes attributed to Cinaethon of Sparta from the 8^th century BCE or stolen from Musaeus by Eugammon of Cyrene from the 6^th century BCE. Only 2 lines of the 2 book poem survive and we are left with relying on the ubiquitous Proclus for his summary in order to know anything about the content. The first book of the Telegony tells the story of Odysseus’ voyage to Thesprotia where he makes the sacrifices demanded by Tiresias when he visited him in the Underworld and then goes on to narrate how Odysseus weds the Thesprotian queen Callidice who bears him a son named Polypoetes. He fights a war on behalf of the Thesprotians and contends with the interference of the gods. After the death of Callidice, he makes his son Polypoetes the king of the Thesprotians and returns home to Ithaca.

            The second book of the Telegony tells the story of the boy for whom the work is named. Telegonus is the son of Circe and Odysseus and grew up in his mother’s home on the island of Aeaea. Circe tells the boy his father’s name and he sets off in search of him. For his protection, Circe arms him with a spear that has been fashioned by Hephaestus, which bears a special spear-point made from the stinger of a poisonous stingray. A storm stranded Telegonus on an unfamiliar island that, unknown to him, turns out to be Ithaca. Suffering from hunger, the boy steals some of the local cattle that he has come upon. In an attempt to defend his property, Odysseus attacks the boy and in the ensuing fight he is killed by the poison spear. Telegonus and Odysseus recognize each other as the father is dying and the son dearly laments the mistake that he has made. He takes Penelope and his half-brother Telemachus back to Aeaea where Odysseus is buried. The sorceress Circe makes them all immortal and in the end, Telegonus marries Penelope and Circe marries Telemachus.

            And so The Epic Cycle is complete. We are unsure who composed them, for there are some 20 authors listed in various sources as possible authors. In addition to the works mentioned above, there are also 4 works known as The Theban Cycle (Oedipodea, Thebaid, Epigoni, Alcmeonis) that are included in The Epic Cycle by some commentators, as well as 8 other epics that are sometimes considered as part of the cycle by others. These include Titanomachy, Heracleia, Capture of Oechalia, Naupatica, Phocais, Minyas, Danais, and Europia.

            The Epic Cycle was the embodiment in literary form of an oral tradition that had developed in the Geek Dark Age before the invention of a Greek writing system. Once that system had been invented, that oral tradition was transcribed into text. Other than for the Iliad and the Odyssey, very little of those original transcriptions of the oral works remain extant. The stories in the epic narratives were based in the main on localised hero cults. Composed in the Iron Age and later Greece, these oral literary epics reflected traditional stories and material from the Mycenaean Bronze Age culture. The Iliad and the Odyssey were at the heart of The Epic Cycle and all the other works served to act as prequels and sequels to the two main works. No doubt they all made interesting entertainment for listeners gathered around ancient campfires and in palatial banquet halls. 

Mythica by Emily Hauser

  Mythica by Emily Hauser

Two tactical errors were made when Emily Hauser came to the 2025 Summer School in Homer hosted by University College London. The first was that she was allotted only 45 minutes to speak about her new book Mythica. An audience of over 200 sat enthralled and we could have gone on listening to her for hours. Sadly her time went too quickly. The second problem was that the local bookseller had only a limited number of her books available and demand for the signed copies far outstripped supply. I placed an order online before even returning to Canada and still waited weeks for my copy to arrive, unfortunately unsigned.

Dr. Emily Hauser is an award-winning classicist and historian and the author of several fiction and non-fiction works, concentrating mainly on the study of women in ancient Greek mythology and literature. Mythica is her latest effort and was published by Doubleday in 2025. The title page describes it as A New History of Homer’s World, Through the Women Written Out of It. It is Hauser’s contention that the male heroes of Homer’s great epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey, have been closely studied and analyzed for centuries, but that the complex and fascinating women who stood behind them and supported them have been pushed to the margins of history. In Mythica, Emily Hauser brings focused attention to the old saying, “Behind every successful man there is a woman.” I personally like former President Hubert H. Humphrey’s approach, “Behind every successful man there is a proud wife and a surprised mother-in-law.”

From Helen of Troy, the face that launched 1186 ships, to the faithful Penelope outwitting her 108 ardent suitors in Ithaca, we view Emily Hauser’s enthralling, ground-breaking and highly entertaining way of looking at a total of 17 different female characters from the Iliad and the Odyssey, both mortal and immortal. We find out who these real heroes of the epics were and how they have been remembered or forgotten in history. Hauser’s argument resonates strongly with me. It has long been my position that the women in Homer are essential to both narratives and that there would be no story without them. As I concluded in my paper on Homer’s Women,

On the surface, the Iliad and the Odyssey appear to us to be exciting adventures filled with entertaining stories about fighting men and gods, the gruesome nature of war and the perils of setting sail on the cruel sea. It is like ‘Saturday Night at the Movies’ in a smoke-filled theatre with an open bar. This is real man stuff! But take away Homer’s women and the stories fall flat. There are no stories to tell without Helen, Chryseis, Briseis, Andromache, Nausicaa, Arete, Circe, Calypso and most importantly, Penelope. Was Homer a woman as Samuel Butler suggested? I think not. Was Homer a feminist who presented women in an important role and advocated for their rights and position based on equality of the sexes? He most definitely was, but he did so in a most subtle way. Homer’s women are not overtly thrust to the forefront of the action, but are used discreetly to support the story. Without the firm foundation that they provide, the story would collapse.

Emily Hauser has indeed been thorough in her analysis of her 17 female subjects. She takes us through the original texts of the epics and supporting ancient literary works, in her impressive Bibliography cites almost 20 pages of works studied, has over 30 pages of Notes, delves into the science of DNA and relies heavily on art, archaeology, cartography and geography to make her point. Hers is no casual study by an amateur like myself, but instead the product of a renowned and dedicated scholar who has made Homer and his characters a driving part of her life.

    Emily Hauser says that by putting Homer’s women first, we are able to read these ancient epics in new ways. We can look at the lives of real women across the centuries and relate those lives and their experiences to those that face today’s women and by doing so, see things from an entirely different perspective and then ask ourselves how we think about ourselves and others today. Emily Hauser’s Mythica opens the door to a new and wider conversation. She tells us that history is a conversation that we are all part of and that we need to keep on having that conversation, critiquing it and debating it. Her book and her intense analysis of her subjects provide us with a sterling example of how to accomplish that elusive but important goal. 

Enchanted Islands by Laura Coffey

 

 Enchanted Islands by Laura Coffey

When I first heard about Laura Coffey’s Enchanted Islands, I admit that I jumped to a premature and obviously erroneous conclusion about the book. What I was expecting was a somewhat academic endeavour by a classicist and Homeric scholar to combine literary references with geography in an attempt to pinpoint the locations of the various places visited by Odysseus on his ten year journey home from Troy to Ithaca. I had the privilege of meeting Laura Coffey and listening to her as she presented her book at the 2025 Summer School in Homer hosted by University College London. She gave an impassioned, entertaining and fiery talk about her new book, but the work that she was speaking about was nothing like what I expected. It turns out that Laura Coffey is not an academic, a classicist or a Homeric scholar. She is a travel writer and she pens for The Guardian, BBC Travel and Condé Nast Traveller. Enchanted Islands is her first book.

For centuries people have tried to map the myth of the Odyssey and to find the links between real and imaginary places. Scholars have sought to identify the setting of the Odyssey, the location of Ithaca and to determine which islands or places in the Mediterranean and the Aegean best correlated to the islands or places described in Homer’s work. Homeric translator and classicist Emily Wilson says, “There is some correspondence between the world of Homer and the real world, although the relationship is partial and inexact.” That lack of exactitude has not kept countless generations of classicists and geographers from attempting to nail down Homer’s narrative locations. Their collective results have fallen anywhere along the spectrum ranging from certainty to speculation, from proven fact to sheer whimsy.

Laura Coffey says in her book, “But I am no scholar of ancient Greece, I’ve offered simplistic interpretations of the myth as a lay reader, pulling selections out of sequence from the story, to better relate them to the islands I was in. These are not chronologically ordered, nor does this book attempt to be a fully comprehensive retelling of The Odyssey or a survey of all the geographical theories associated with it, some of the ones I’ve included are deliberately lesser-known.” You can readily see where I was off the track about my expectations for Enchanted Islands.

The homeward journey of Odysseus and the various locations that he touched do provide the framework and the backdrop for Laura Coffey’s story. But her book is principally the story of a young woman caught up in the COVID pandemic of London, embarking on what was supposed to be a simple holiday to escape from the broken heart of a failed romance and to gain some respite from her father’s illness. Unlike the hero Odysseus who travelled to return home, Laura Coffey’s journey was one fashioned around escaping from home. Her fascination with the Greek myth of Homer’s Odyssey turned her simple vacation into a six month voyage centered on discovering the reality of the locations described in the bard’s epic. She chased the mythical hero around the various kingdoms of the sea and in doing so, indeed did find places where the myth and the reality coincided. In her travels, she found interesting people, places to enjoy and the restorative effects of travel and nature. She looked for and discovered happiness in this marriage of myth with reality, but all the time was being drawn back home by the worsening illness and the impending death of her father.

Her attempts to locate the land of the sun god Helios or the homes of the nymph Calypso or the sorceress Circe or the Cyclops Polyphemus or any of the other islands or ports mentioned in the Odyssey, all seem secondary to what she describes as her travels through myth and magic, love and loss. Enchanted Islands is the personal reflection and the memoir of an entertaining travel writer and a good read, but it is not the scholarly work that I supposed it to be, nor was it ever intended to be so.

The Big Contest: Homer Vs Hesiod

 

 The Big Contest: Homer Vs Hesiod

Homer and Hesiod were both foundational ancient Greek poets but they had a very different focus to their works. For Homer, the Iliad and the Odyssey provided him with a framework for narrating the heroic deeds of men as they engaged in brutal warfare and contended with the intervention of the gods in their daily lives. Hesiod, on the other hand, in his Works and Days and Theogony, focused on rural life, agriculture, the moral order and the genealogies of the gods. Homer sought to inspire his listeners with the gallant deeds of heroes and the actions of the gods, whereas Hesiod attempted to provide practical and instructional advice to his audience. Homer was a story-teller and Hesiod was a teacher.

            Most scholars see Homer and Hesiod as being almost contemporaries, with Homer perhaps preceding Hesiod by a few years or decades, but with both living in the late 7^th or early 8^th centuries BCE. We know very little if anything about Homer as a person, if indeed such a person actually existed at all. Legend has it that he came from the Island of Chios and that he was blind. He makes no reference to himself in his works and there are those who believe that the name Homer was simply applied to a collective body of authors and bards responsible for the creation of these two important epics from a centuries old oral tradition. But we do know some facts about Hesiod and learn from him personally that he was the son of an impoverished merchant and that he led the life of a farmer in Boeotia. A bitter argument over inheritance developed with his brother when his father died and the authorities were bribed to rule in his brother’s favour. Plutarch tells us that Hesiod was murdered in Locris by the brothers of a woman who had been seduced, perhaps by Hesiod. Homer was a shadowy person from the past who may or may not have actually existed, whereas Hesiod was a living and breathing author. For my own part, I believe that the scores of references to an actual Homer in the writings of ancient authors in the Greek and Roman traditions, offer good enough evidence to assert that Homer was indeed an historical figure.

            Homer’s works were grand and dramatic in nature and portrayed larger-than-life heroes. Hesiod’s works were didactic and instructional and dealt with human labour and divine structure. Homer’s Iliad featured stories of heroic battles, honour (Kleos) and fate and the mighty deeds of gods and men, with Achilles and his wrath being the focal point. The Odyssey told the story of epic journeys and the homecoming (Nostos) of the hero Odysseus and how he was tossed and turned in his travels by the spiteful actions of vengeful gods. Hesiod’s Works and Days placed a focus on farming, justice and the moral order, whereas his Theogony dealt with creation myths and the lineage of the gods. Sometimes the two varied slightly in their details of mythological stories, for example in their different telling of the birth of Aphrodite. Homer presents women as powerful figures who play critical roles in his narratives. In Hesiod, women are seen as a plague against mankind, as exemplified in his telling of the Pandora story. Both authors composed their works in dactylic hexameter verse and we can tell from Hesiod’s use of the language that he was somewhat later in time than Homer, but not by much.

            In Hesiod’s Works and Days, he tells us that he won a tripod at a literary contest in Chalcis, but does not mention that his opponent was Homer. However, this inspired The Contest of Homer and Hesiod, known in literature as Certamen Homeri et Hesiodi. This was an ancient Greek narrative that described a legendary poetical competition between the two most famous epic poets of antiquity. The extant work dates to the 2^nd century CE and is based on an earlier tradition including the 4^th century BCE work Mouseion by Alcidamas. The legendary competition was said to have been held in Chalcis during the funeral games of King Amphidamas who died about 730 BCE after the Lelantine War between Chalcis and Eretria in Euboea and later described by Thucydides. The date of the war and the death of the king are seen as contemporary to the time of Homer and Hesiod and therefore there could possibly be some truth to the competition actually having happened.

            The competition featured a dialogue between the two poets where each presented verses that often involved riddles or the completion of each other’s lines. Homer focused his entries on war and heroic glory and Hesiod concentrated on peace, agriculture and ethical living. The two different approaches highlighted the ancient debate over the true value of epic poetry. It is said that the Greek audience overwhelmingly acclaimed Homer as the superior poet because of the brilliance of his verses. However the judge, King Paneides, ultimately awarded the prize of a bronze tripod to Hesiod, on the grounds that a poet who encouraged agriculture and peace was more valuable to the community than one who sang of war and brutal slaughter. The most complete version of the text is preserved in a manuscript from Florence, but its ancient origins are confirmed in papyrus fragments dating to the 3^rd century BCE.

            When we think of a contest between Homer and Hesiod, the obvious approach is to try and determine which one was ‘better’. However, this is a concept that is meaningless because each epic poet excelled in a different area. Homer composed heroic epics that were rich in adventure and drama and told of compelling heroes performing stellar acts of daring and bravery, all the time contending with the interference of the gods. Hesiod, on the other hand, provided us with didactic works on the fundamental questions of the universe and the origins of the gods, as well as the practical elements of agriculture, life, ethics and morality. Homer was a thrilling story-teller and Hesiod was a practical instructor. Both were foundational epic ancient Greek poets and they were both crucial to Western literature for different reasons. There can be no contest between them.

UPCOMING ARTICLES

                                                             UPCOMING ARTICLES

    The last article on "The Role of Vengeance in Homer" marked the 75th in this series. My goal is to publish 100+ articles on Homer, the Iliad and the Odyssey, as well as on aspects of the Late Bronze Age. All my articles have been created using my usual less than academic and scholarly approach to classical research. As always, excerpts from the epics have been drawn from my own complete translations of the two works of Homer. What follows is a listing of the next group of articles that are planned:

The Big Contest: Homer Vs Hesiod

Laura Coffey’s “Enchanted Islands”

Emily Hauser’s “Mythica”

The Epic Cycle

Homer’s Land of Ithaca

Continuity Errors in Homer

The Meaning of Names

Calling a Truce

Achilles Fights a River

The Underworld in Homer

Diomedes – A Killing Machine

James Joyce’s “Ulysses”

The Stockholm Syndrome in Homer

The Portrayal of Disabilities in Homer

The Metis Syndrome in Homer

Achilles’ Choice

Dating the Iliad

My Favourite Scenes in the Iliad & Odyssey

Were They Lovers?

My Travels to Ancient Lands

What Makes a City?

The Treatment of the Dead in Homer

The Concept of Arete in Homer

A Study of Grief in Homer

Interpreting the Number 9

Who Were the Trojan Allies?

What Can We Learn From Homer?

The Role of Vengeance in Homer

 The Role of Vengeance in Homer

If you remove the concept of vengeance from Homer’s Iliad, there won’t be much of a story left to tell. The entire narrative is built on the actions of mortals and gods taking revenge on others for slights or misdeeds of various kinds. But vengeance is a two-edged sword. On the one hand, it is the medium by which mortals gain Kleos through the performance of heroic deeds, but on the other hand, it is also the cause of much grief and sorrow and serves as a focal point for evil actions as well as serving up both empathy and reconciliation. In addition, the role that the gods play in seeking retribution just adds to the horrors visited upon mankind. There is nothing noble or redeeming in their divine actions as they seek to be repaid for the slights leveled against them by mortals or their fellow gods.

            The Trojan War itself was based on exacting vengeance by both men and gods. From the point of view of the mortals, the war was ostensibly launched by the Greeks as punishment against the Trojans for the kidnapping by Paris the Trojan prince of Helen, the queen of Sparta. Though there is speculation that Helen may have gone willingly and that the war had more to do with economic gain rather than revenge, the fact remains that Homer’s narrative was based on the story of King Agamemnon of Mycenae leading an invasion force against the Trojans to avenge the capture of the wife of his brother King Menelaus of Sparta by Paris the evil-doer. Hers was the face that launched 1,000 ships, or 1,186 to be more exact.

But when the war-loving Menelaus saw him striding along in front of the troops, he was as pleased as a hungry lion that comes across the large carcass of either a horned stag or a wild goat which he devours voraciously, even if vigorous young men and swift dogs are pursuing him. Such as this was Menelaus delighted to espy the godlike Alexander, for he was determined in his mind to seek revenge on the evil-doer. Immediately he leapt onto the ground from his chariot with his weapons.

Menelaus the son of Atreus was the second one to rush forward with his weapon, having prayed to his father Zeus. “O father Zeus, permit me to take vengeance on the godlike Alexander, he who has done me such wretched harm, and allow me to subdue him with my hands, so that all generations of men will shudder at the thought of ever doing evil to a host who offers them only kindness.”

From the divine perspective, revenge was also a key issue in the Trojan War. Alexander, or Paris as he was better known, had taken Helen because she had been promised to him by Aphrodite in a contest held at the wedding of the parents of Achilles. In the famous Judgment of Paris, the Trojan prince had chosen Aphrodite as the “fairest” and had given her the winning title over her rivals Hera and Athena. In revenge, Hera and Athena backed the Achaeans in the ten year struggle and worked diligently to ensure the defeat of the Trojans. Athena’s fury was waged equally against Aphrodite and the Trojans whom she supported.

Thus she spoke and Athena rushed off in pursuit, rejoicing in her heart and smote Aphrodite on the breast with her stout hand and her knees gave way where she was and her dear heart gave up. The two of them lay upon the bountiful earth and Athena spoke over them in a gloating way with winged words. “Let all of those who aid the Trojans when they fight against the armour-clad Argives suffer the same fate as these, just like the bold and brave Aphrodite who came in aid of Ares and went up against my might. It will not be long before we can cease fighting, having utterly sacked and destroyed the well-built citadel of Ilios.”

            The story of the Iliad is indeed based upon the whole concept of vengeance and in fact starts with a moving story of revenge. The daughter of Chryse, a priest of Apollo, had been captured in a raid by the Achaeans and had been awarded to King Agamemnon as a war prize and sex slave. The priest had approached Agamemnon and had offered a significant ransom for the return of his daughter Chryseis, but had been severely rebuked by the king and sent on his way with a warning not to return. The priest invoked the wrath of the god Apollo and the immortal one sent a plague to ravage the Greek forces.

After he had moved some distance away, the ancient one prayed in earnest to the lord Apollo, he whom fair-haired Leto had born. “Hear me o god of the silver bow who hovers in strength over Chryse and Cilla, Smithian god and most favoured ruler of Tenedos. If I ever roofed a temple that was pleasing to you or provided you with the burnt offering of the fat thigh pieces of bulls and goats, then answer my prayer and let the Danaans pay the price for my tears with your arrows.”

Thus was his prayer made known on high and Phoebus Apollo heard him. He stalked down from the summit of Olympus, troubled deeply in his heart and bearing with him his bow and covered quiver. As he moved, the arrows rattled on the shoulders of the angry god. As the far-darting one swept by, his coming was like the night. Then he crouched down among the ships of the Greeks and let fly an arrow. Terrifying was the sound that arose from his silver bow. The mules he attacked first and then the swift dogs. Next on the men themselves he rained down his terrible shafts. The corpses of the dead burned constantly.

            But primarily the Iliad is about one man’s wrath and the havoc that his vengeance visits on others. We are told from the very start that this story is about the wrath of Achilles.

Let wrath be your song O Goddess! Sing of the accursed rage of Achilles, son of Peleus, which brought untold woes to the Achaeans and banished to Hades many stalwart souls of heroes, turning them into carrion for dogs and birds of prey, thereby bringing to final fulfillment the plan of Zeus.

That man’s wrath was demonstrated in many ways and its effect always resulted in severe consequences. First of all, in a fit of pique, Achilles was determined to take his revenge on Agamemnon who had confiscated his war prize Briseis, but the impact on the Greek forces was beyond measure. Without the leadership of Achilles on the battlefield, the Trojans were overwhelming the Greeks to such an extent that Agamemnon finally relented and sent an embassy to Achilles to beg him to return to the fighting. What had started as a vengeful act to embarrass Agamemnon ended up as a disaster for his fellow Achaeans, but still Achilles was not ready to agree. It took the death of his beloved friend Patroclus at the hands of Hector to motivate him back into the action.

            They say that hell hath no fury, and that certainly was the case with Achilles acting in vengeance because of the death of Patroclus. Not only did he relentlessly pursue Hector around the walls of Troy and finally strike him dead, he then proceeded in his revenge to desecrate the corpse of the Trojan hero by fastening his naked body to the back of his chariot and dragging it around in disgrace for days. The Kleos that he had gained by heroically defeating his enemy on the battlefield was washed away by his violation of the sacred duties of heroism perpetrated through his savagery. As if that was not enough, he went so far as to capture twelve young Trojans to sacrifice on the funeral pyre of his friend. There was nothing noble or heroic in this.

When his hands grew tired from all the killing, he captured twelve young men alive from out of the river in blood revenge for the death of Patroclus the son of Menoetius. He led them forth like they were dazed fawns and fettered their hands behind their backs with the leather straps that they used to tie their tunics and gave them to his comrades to lead them to the hollow ships. Then he leaped back into the fray, eager to continue the slaughter.

            But in the end, the wrath of Achilles was overcome by empathy and reconciliation. King Priam of Troy approached Achilles in the dead of night and begged for the release of Hector’s body. Achilles was overcome with emotion and consented. Vengeance was at the heart of the entire narrative and Homer portrayed it and its consequences in the worst possible light. Mortals and immortals caused great distress and sorrow on others through their various acts of revenge and Homer certainly did not glorify vengeance. He saw it as something monstrous and bad, but in the end, good conquered evil.

            Revenge played a central role in the Odyssey as well and we are told in the opening lines that the vengeance of the gods destroyed any plans that Odysseus had to return his men home to the safety of Ithaca.

But do what he might, he was not able to save his men, for their own recklessness made an end of them, fools that they were, for they ate the cattle of the Hyperion Helios and the god took away from them the day that they would ever return home.

All the gods took pity on him except Poseidon, who persecuted Odysseus without end and would not allow him to return to his land.

            Lest mortals make the mistake of blaming the gods for the evils that befall them, Zeus the father of the gods made it very plain from the outset of the story that mortals themselves are responsible for what happens to them. In the Iliad we get the distinct impression that mankind does not have free will and that everything that happens is pre-ordained and cannot be changed by human actions. But here, early in the Odyssey, the message is clear. Gods take action against mortals and in their vengeance they punish mankind, but only because mortals have brought such evils upon themselves, especially if they do things that they have been warned not to do.

It is shameful that mortals blame us gods for all their ills, but what fate comes their way is caused by their own recklessness and they heap it all upon themselves. Look at Aegisthus now, who woos and weds the wife of the son of Atreus unrighteously and then goes and kills him though he knew it would be his own death for I had sent the keen-sighted Hermes, the slayer of Argos, to warn him not to kill this man or to take his wife for Orestes would surely want to take revenge on behalf of the son of Atreus, when he grew up and longed to return to his homeland. So Hermes had spoken but he did not move the heart of Aegisthus with his words of wisdom and now he has paid the full price for his deeds.

            It was vengeance that plunged Odysseus into trouble from the very start on his journey home, vengeance as well as curiosity. He and his crew had landed in the land of the Cyclopes and Odysseus was keen to find out all he could about these creatures and their approach to Xenia or guest-friend hospitality. The answer was quite simple. A Cyclopean monster like Polyphemus eats his guests and smacks them down, blood, guts and bones. In an act of extreme revenge for the killing of some of his crew, Odysseus formed a plan to blind the monster and escape his grasp. Not only was he successful in his vengeance, he bragged about it afterwards. Poseidon, who was the father of Polyphemus, was not about to accept the wounding of his son without consequences, and launched a ferocious attack against Odysseus and his entire crew in revenge.

            Odysseus and his men also incurred the wrath and the revenge of Zeus for the slaughter of the cattle of Helios, the god of the sun. The sacred cattle lived on the island of Thrinacia and were guarded by the daughters of Helios. Odysseus had been strictly warned that the cattle were off-limits by both Circe and Tiresias, but his starving crew undertook their sacrilegious slaughter. In revenge for this action, Zeus destroyed their ship with a thunderbolt and killed the entire crew, with the exception of Odysseus who had abstained from eating the meat of the cattle.

            While visiting King Menelaus and Queen Helen in Sparta, Telemachus was treated to a full story of revenge by his hosts. The tale of Agamemnon, Aegisthus and Orestes had been mentioned briefly in the opening lines of the Odyssey, but from the mouth of the singing bard in Sparta, Telemachus got the full story. In a nutshell, this story of extreme vengeance goes as follows. King Agamemnon was leading an invasion force against Troy in revenge for the Trojan prince Alexander having kidnapped Helen, the wife of Menelaus. The Greek ships were stranded in Aulis by unfavourable winds and Agamemnon was convinced that the only way that they could make sail would be if he sacrificed his daughter Iphigenia to the goddess, because he had offended her by killing one of her sacred stags during a hunt. His wife Clytemnestra never forgave him for this evil deed and when he returned from the Trojan War, she and her lover Aegisthus slew Agamemnon in his bathtub in an act of revenge. In seeking vengeance for the murder of his father Agamemnon, Orestes in turn killed his mother Clytemnestra. Vengeance had come full circle.

            When Odysseus finally reached Ithaca, he found that his home had been taken over, that his livelihood was being threatened, that his son was in danger and that his wife was being pursued by 108 ardent suitors. All in all, it was not a good news day. Odysseus set out to even the score and the remainder of the tale is all about his efforts to avenge these slights against himself, his family and his property. But his wise son Telemachus warned him that, despite his great ability as a fighter, to try and seek revenge against so great a number without help would be dangerous.

Then wise Telemachus answered him. “O father, truly I have heard about your great fame and that you were a warrior with enormous strength and wisdom but what you have said is too great and I am amazed. Two men could not fight alone against so many powerful foes, for there are not ten suitors or twice that, but many more. Forthwith I will tell you their exact number. From Dulichium there are fifty-two chosen young men and six pages attend them. From Same there came twenty-four and from Zacynthus there are twenty Achaeans youths. From Ithaca itself there are twelve men, all of them the noblest and with them is the herald Medon and the divine minstrel and two squires who are skilled in carving meats. If we were to come against them inside, then indeed your return to exact revenge would be bitter and baneful. Now see if you can think of anyone who might be able to help us, someone who would be willing to do so with a willing heart.”

Telemachus knew that the final act of revenge would be delivered by his father Odysseus but his mother Penelope felt that such vengeance could only come from the gods and from Zeus in particular. In this case, the god would act through the hands of a man.

Thus he spoke but she was unmoved. Then she bathed and put on fresh clothes and went to her upper chamber and vowed to all the gods that she would offer a perfect hecatomb if Zeus would bring to pass deeds of revenge.

In both the Iliad and the Odyssey, mortal vengeance is a powerful and destructive driving force that is deeply embedded in the ancient Greek code of heroism. Taking revenge is seen as a necessary act for the restoration of family and personal honour and as a way of upholding the social order. There was no formal system of justice in this ancient society and as a consequence, mortals were expected to punish those who had done them wrong. Divine vengeance in Homer’s epics is a powerful driving force as well and is occasioned by offences against honour, hospitality or Xenia and other sacred laws or customs. Many gods are shown as taking divine retribution on mortals and the results are always highly destructive and lead to prolonged suffering or even death. Divine vengeance is a way of restoring the cosmic order and this need for retribution is often a key element in moving a plot forward or in providing justice. Mortal vengeance is driven by personal emotion but divine retribution is used to restore balance.