The Odyssey

-unrecognized Odysseus hospitality (after calling off the farmstead's dogs), takes him into town, and joins Odysseus in the attack on the suitors after learning who he is. As Thalmann says (HE, 1: 270-71), he "condenses many of the moral and social issues that are central to the poem." He highlights the abuses of the suitors' regime by his need to supply them with hogs for their feasts. His deeply felt memories of Odysseus as a good and kindly master emphasize how much has been lost by that master's long absence. He also seemingly offers a paradigm of the "virtuous slave"--until, that is, it transpires at 15.413-14 that before enslavement, he was of noble, indeed of royal, lineage, thus changing the paradigm at a stroke to the hierarchical upper-class belief, so popular in myth, that blue blood implies an innate noble character, which will always reveal itself in the end.

EUPEITHESFather of Antinoos (q.v.), whose wanton disregard of Odysseus' property contrasts unfavorably with the latter's generous earlier treatment of Eupeithes when he came to Ithake as a fugitive, on the run from the Thesprotians, whom he had been raiding as a pirate (16.424-30). After the slaughter of the suitors, beginning with Antinoos, he persuades some of the Ithakans to take up arms in revenge, and is killed by Laertes while leading them before Athene puts an end to further bloodshed (24.469-71, 522-25).

EURYKLEIALike Eumaios (q.v.), Eurykleia is a longtime servant in Odysseus' household, having been bought in her youth by his father, Laertes, for twenty oxen. Not wishing to offend his wife, Antikleia (q.v.), however, Laertes never exercised his prerogative of having sex with her (1.432-33). Like Nestor, she also enjoys some of the privileges that go with great age. She has been the nurse of both Odysseus and Telemachos, and she connives at the latter's going to Pylos and Sparta to seek news of his father, providing him with supplies and, more important, keeping his departure a secret from Penelope. As Felson points out (HE, 1: 274), her relations with Odysseus highlight "both their intimacy and their inequality, as master and slave."

EURYLOCHOSOdysseus' second-in-command during his travels, one of his few comrades both named and characterized. Throughout, with one exception, he is the consistent voice of caution and wariness, often to Odysseus' annoyance. He urges against trusting Kirke (10.429-48). He blames Odysseus for the deaths of six crew members at the hands of the Kyklops (10.429-37). He makes sure Odysseus is firmly lashed to the mast while passing the Sirens (12.195-96). But it is also he who talks the crew into ignoring their leader's prohibitions and killing and eating the cattle of Helios, the sun god (12.327-51).

EURYMACHOSSon of Polybos. After Antinoos (q.v.), he is the main leader of the suitors and always the second actor in any of their activities. His most notable characteristic is his lying hypocrisy: he offers smooth, but false, reassurances both to Penelope (16.435-47) and to Telemachos (1.399-404). His jeering dismissal of Theoklymenos' (q.v.) prophecy of the coming destruction of the suitors (20.359-62) is duly followed by his death (22.44-88), though not before a vain attempt to put all the blame on Antinoos and to placate Odysseus by offering compensation for the suitors' wasteful inroads on his property.

EURYNOMEAn elderly (17.499, 18.185) woman servant of Penelope's, apparently subordinate to Eurykleia, although the fact that she, like Eurykleia, is referred to (e.g., at 17.495) as "housekeeper" (tamie) has caused some scholars to assume that there was a version in which she occupied Eurykleia's position.

EURYSTHEUSSon of Sthenelos, and thus great-great-grandson of Zeus. Here's trickery (Il. 19.91-133) obliges Zeus to make Eurystheus lord of the Argolid, rather than the latter's cousin Herakles, as Zeus had planned, and Herakles suffers yet further at his cousin's hands, being forced by him to perform the Twelve Labors. This was probably a penalty for Herakles' murder (though while mentally deranged by Here) of his own wife and children.

EURYTIONThe Centaur who got drunk at the wedding of Peirithoos and Hippodameia (21.295) and attempted to rape the bride, thus triggering the war between Lapiths and Centaurs (most famous today from its depiction on the south-facing metopes of the Parthenon).

FURIES (ERINYES)"[D]ivine beings exacting retribution for wrongs and blood-guilt especially in the family. . . . Individually they carry out the curses of a mother or father, or personify those curses" (OCD4, 535). In the Odyssey, the nearest they come to direct intervention in the narrative is when Telemachos fears their attention (1.134-36) were he to dismiss his mother from the house. Other references are their invocation against Oedipus, also by his mother, on learning of their incest (11.279-80); the blind folly they inflict on the seer Melampous (15.234); Odysseus' speculation on the existence of Furies who protect beggars (17.475); and, most curiously, storm Harpies reported as carrying off Pandareus' daughters and giving them to the Furies as their servants (20.77-78), one more case of H.'s familiarity with recondite myths otherwise unknown to us.

GERAISTOSPromontory at the southernmost tip of Euboia (q.v.). Homecoming Greeks land there after crossing the Aegean and sacrifice to Poseidon in gratitude for a safe voyage (3.176-79). A famous temple of Poseidon still existed at Geraistos in Strabo's day (10.1.7).

GERENIA(N)A formulaic epithet of Nestor (q.v.), of uncertain origin (see Finkelberg in HE, 1: 312), as indicated by the most ancient attempt to explain it, in the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women, fr. 35.6-8 Merkelbach-West, which suggests that at the time of Herakles' raid on Pylos, during which Nestor's eleven brothers were killed, he himself survived through being then a guest of "Gerenian horse-tamers": an improbable reason for an ethnic or geographical title. Later tradition linked the title with Gerenia, near Pherai, in Messenia (Strab. 8.4.4).

GIANTSIn Hesiod's Theogony (178-87), the Giants, like the Furies (q.v.), are the progeny of Gaia (Earth) and blood from the severed genitals of Ouranos, god of the sky: they are best known from the famous Battle of Gods and Giants (Gigantomachia), narrated in detail by Apollodoros (1.6.1) and a favorite theme for sculptors. But H. shows little concern for the Giants, nor any convincing familiarity with the detailed mythology of the Gigantomachia: he uses them primarily as examples of mindless violence, with one instance from a characteristically obscure myth (7.56-62) where they are described as "arrogant" and "reckless" and destroyed (how we are not told) by their king, Eurymedon, who himself perishes as well. Alkinoos (7.205-6) refers to their "wild tribes" as "close kin" to the Phaiakians, together with the Kyklopes. H.'s only other mention of them is when Odysseus (10.119-20) describes the murderous Laistrygonians as "resembling not human beings, but Giants"--and indeed, the king's wife, who is "as huge as a mountain peak" (10.113), could well be a Giant herself.

GORGONThere were three mythical Gorgon sisters, daughters of Phorkys (q.v.), Stheno, Euryale, and Medousa. The first two were immortal; but Medousa, the best-known, whose gaze could turn humans to stone, was mortal. Nevertheless, her eyes could still petrify even after Perseus had decapitated her and presented her head to Athene, who added some version of it to her aegis (q.v.). H. refers to it only once in the Odyssey (11.633-35), when Odysseus beats a retreat from the Underworld in fear that Persephone (q.v.) may send it up to work destruction: H. seems to have known some version of the myth in which the head itself was kept in Hades.

GORTYNA city in south-central Krete (Crete), in the Messara plain (BA, 60, C 2), mentioned by Nestor when describing (3.291-94) how some of Menelaos' ships were wrecked at the frontier of its territory, on what, from his account, was clearly the jutting headland at the SE corner of the Gulf of Messara, probably while trying to make it to the harbor still known as Kali Limenes ("Fair Havens").

GRACES (CHARITES)Minor goddesses embodying, and capable of bestowing, charm, elegance, and beauty. H. refers to them as performing this function for the maidservants of Nausikaa (6.18) and--employing what sounds like modern salon treatment--for Aphrodite at Paphos, after her entrapment by Hephaistos (q.v.) with her lover Ares (8.362-65). H.'s third and last mention of the Graces (18.192-96) comes when Athene is beautifying the sleeping Penelope, and employs a divine salve, like that used by Aphrodite, presumably on herself, "when she goes to join the Graces' delightful dance."

GYRAI, ROCK(S) OFSite (4.499-511) of the death of Aias (2) en route home from Troy, located, according to early ancient sources, in the channel between the Kykladic islands of Mykonos and Tenos.

HADESThe name applies to both the god of the Underworld (son of Kronos and Rhea; brother to Zeus and Poseidon) and the realm over which he reigns, to which the ghosts, or shades, of the dead are regularly described as descending; but for H., especially in the Odyssey, references are almost always to the latter. This is represented as a dark and sunless region of the Underworld, somewhere beneath the earth; but its exact nature remains vague and is bedeviled by H.'s inconsistencies and modern misunderstandings. It is, for example, generally, and falsely, stated that Odysseus visits Hades in bk. 11 of the Odyssey, and surprise is expressed at his journey thither being without descent, by ship to the stream of Ocean and from there on by foot to the land of the Kimmerians (q.v.). But in fact he never reaches Hades itself: he digs a pit for blood sacrifice near Ocean: the shades gather up out of (hupex, 11.36-37) Erebos (the area associated with Hades) to drink the blood. They come up; Odysseus does not go down. But H. can contradict himself too: according to the shade of Patroklos (Il. 23.71-74), the soul can reach Hades only after proper burial rites have been performed, but the arrival of the still-unburied suitors with Hermes (Od. 24.1-24) challenges this assumption. And all we learn from H. in the Odyssey about Erebos (which might be supposed to contain the residence of Hades the god and Persephone) is that it has fields of asphodel (11.539, 573; 24.13).

HARPIESThe name means "snatchers," and they are semi-personalized embodiments of powerful storm winds, represented as winged women (Hes., Th. 267). H. does not name them: he twice uses them as an explanation for the prolonged absence of Odysseus (once by Telemachos, 1.241; once by Eumaios, 14.371) and has Penelope describe, in one of his many recherche mythical allusions (20.77) how they swept away the daughters of Pandareus and gave them as servants to the Furies (q.v.).

HELENDaughter of Zeus--though her official father was Tyndareus (q.v.)--by Lede; sister of Klytaimnestra (q.v.), Kastor, and Polydeukes; married to Menelaos and, by him, mother of Hermione. She fled to Troy with Paris/Alexandros (taking much property), and was thus the cause of the Trojan War. Recovered at the city's sack by her furious husband (who nevertheless dropped his sword when she bared her breasts at him (LI, fr. 28; West 2003, 138-39), she reappears in the Odyssey with him, now middle-aged and comfortably married (4.120-304), entertaining Telemachos (who is suitably impressed, 17.118), putting a magic stimulant in their wine, and, with wit and relish--and a routine apology to Menelaos--reminiscing (4.235-64) about her secret wartime meeting with Odysseus. In fact, despite everything, Menelaos does very well out of the relationship: as the Old Man of the Sea reminds him (4.561-69), after death he'll go not to Hades, but to Elysium (q.v.), since as Helen's husband he's a son-in-law of Zeus.

HELIOS/HYPERIONThe personified Sun, mainly notable in the Odyssey for his fury when, in their blind recklessness (atasthalie, 1.7-9) the crew of Odysseus' ship, in defiance of their commander's strict orders, slaughter and eat the cattle of Helios on the island of Thrinakie: indeed, unless Zeus and the other Olympians guarantee their destruction as proper punishment for this infringement of his honor, Helios threatens to remove his light from the earth and take it down to Hades instead (12.377-83; cf. Friedrich in HE, 2: 337-38). His only other personal mention is in a lighter vein and has to do with his all-seeing, all-hearing nature (11.109, 12.323): in the lay of Demodokos about Ares and Aphrodite, Helios observes the guilty couple at it, and promptly informs Hephaistos (8.266-302). "Hyperion" is used both as a title and as an alternative name.

HELLAS, HELLENESIn the Iliad, Hellas is a small region in SE Thessaly, close to Phthie (9.478); by the time of the Odyssey (1.344, 4.726, and often), however, it has expanded to include all of northern Greece, as opposed to the Peloponnese, referred to as "Argos" (q.v.). Finally, with the strengthening of the sense of ethnicity, Hellas came to be (as it remains today) the Greeks' own name for their country as a whole, and "Hellenes" the term for themselves as its inhabitants.

HELLESPONTThe strait (now known as the Dardanelles) dividing Europe from Asia (24.82), and connecting the Aegean (q.v.) with the Black Sea.

HEPHAISTOSA son of Zeus and Here, married to Aphrodite (8.305-20), the god of fire, and, uniquely among the Olympians, a highly skilled divine blacksmith, artisan, and architect, the "famed craftsman" (Il. 1.571; 18.143, 391) whose creations, some disconcertingly modern, are scattered through both Homeric epics. His position on Olympos is socially ambiguous, accurately mirroring that of his human counterparts on earth, where technical expertise, far from enhancing status, attracts a built-in class contempt for the banausic. Hephaistos' aristocratic fellow deities, though more than ready (again like their human counterparts) to exploit his skills at need, deride both his lameness and his plebeian activities; when he traps his wife in bed with Ares, the other gods' mockery is directed at least as much at the comic vulgar cuckold as at the adulterous pair, impeccably blue-blooded divinities like themselves, who indeed attract more than a little covert sympathy. In contrast to his appearances in the Iliad, this episode, related as a lay by the minstrel Demodokos (8.266-366), is the only major treatment of Hephaistos in the Odyssey. It is nevertheless charged with vast, and surely deliberate, social significance.

HERAKLESThe greatest of all Greek heroes, and, like so many of the best of them, sired by a god on a mortal woman: in this case Zeus on Alkmene (q.v.). He belongs to an earlier generation than that of the Trojan War, and so plays no direct part in either the Iliad or the Odyssey, though the narrative of both shows a broad familiarity with the myths concerning him. These include the Twelve Labors (e.g., Il. 8.363, 19.132-33), though the one place where a specific Labor is mentioned is at the conclusion of Odysseus' vision of the great figures of the past in the Underworld (11.601-26: see nn. 13-15 ad loc.). Here Herakles puts in a brief but terrifying appearance and recalls being sent down to Hades by Eurystheus (q.v.) to fetch up Kerberos (11.623-26). Odysseus also sees Herakles' ill-fated wife Megare (11.269-70). Though H. does not mention the fact that Herakles killed her and his children by her--probably the reason for the imposition of the Labors by Eurystheus--he does at this point draw attention to the hero's "unwearied strength"(see n. 3 ad loc.). Like Herakles and Eurytos, Odysseus is an archer (though he modestly declines to compete against such old-time heroes--very sensibly, considering the anachronism involved). Like Herakles, too, Odysseus is given to fits of excessive violence (arguably including the massacre of the suitors).

HEREAlthough she is Zeus' wife, Here never appears in the Odyssey and rates only a handful of casual references there, in sharp contrast to her prominent role in the Iliad. She is mentioned as endowing Pandareus' daughters with beauty and elegance (20.70); as having saved Agamemnon from mishap during his homeward voyage (4.513) and Jason's ship Argo from the Wandering Rocks (12.72); and as the mother of Hebe (11.604). She figures in formalized wishes (15.112, 180; 8.465) too, but then only because Zeus, whose aid is being invoked, is identified as her husband. It is as though H. was carefully clearing the stage to give Athene (q.v.) unrestricted scope.

HERMESA minor deity in the Olympian pantheon, a son of Zeus by a nymph, Maia, born in a cave on Mount Kyllene in Arcadia. Hermes was well established in the Bronze Age, and is mentioned on the Linear B Tablets. This is consonant with his ancient and often enigmatic epithets, e.g., as "slayer of Argos." His later reputation as a classic trickster and sly thief is less to the fore in the Homeric epics, though glanced at, in 19.395-98, in his role of patron god of the thievish Autolykos (q.v.), Odysseus' grandfather. Here his more prominent role is to act as Zeus' messenger (e.g., to warn Aigisthos, 1.38-43) and as a guide to mortals. He is sent to obtain Odysseus' release from Kalypso (1.80-87, 5.26-147) and provides him with magical help against Kirke's wiles (10.275-306). One other special function of Hermes, that of psychopompos, or escort to the dead, is seen later (24.1-14),when we find him conducting the unburied ghosts of the slaughtered suitors to the Underworld.

IASIANSee s.v. Argos, Argives.

IASIONSee s.v. Demeter.

IDOMENEUSA son of Deukalion and commander at Troy of the contingent from Krete (Crete; Il. 2.645-50), regularly mentioned as one of the "best of the Achaians" (e.g., Il. 2.404-5, and often). He is recalled in the Odyssey by the reminiscing Nestor (3.191), by Odysseus in cover stories (13.159; 14.237; 19.181-84, 190-93), and by Eumaios' reporting an Aitolian's sighting of Odysseus in Krete (14.382-84),

IKARIOSThough often mentioned as the father of Penelope, he is a virtually unknown figure, and his parentage debated--some alleged, hopefully, that he was a brother of Tyndareus (see OCD4, 1102, s.v.), which would make Penelope Klytaimnestra's cousin. The name of his wife is uncertain, and his home was located in either Akarnania or Sparta. More than once it is assumed that should Penelope intend to remarry, she would be best advised to do so from her father's house (e.g., 1.275-78, 2.52-54); but where was that?

ILIONAn alternative, and very ancient, name for Troy: Hittite texts mention a treaty addressed to Alaksandu [? Alexandros] of [W]ilusa, generally accepted as the equivalent of Ilion, with a characteristic, later obsolete, initial digamma (the w-sound). Hissarlik, the probable site of Troy, was known as Ilium in historical times and under Rome.

IOLKOSModern Volos in SE Thessaly, on the gulf of Pagasai, Iolkos was the homeland of Jason (q.v.) and the place from which the Argonauts set out (BA, 55, D 2). In the Odyssey, H. refers to it as "broad-landed" (11.256), and as the home of Neleus' brother, Pelias, the uncle of Nestor.

IPHIGENEIAA daughter of Agamemnon, never mentioned by H., and elsewhere possibly identical with Iphianassa (but see Cypr., fr. 20; West 2003, 98-101) or/and Iphimede. In the Epic Cycle (Cypr., arg. 8; West 2003, 74-75), she is sent to Aulis at her father's request on the pretext that she is to marry Achilles, but in fa