After the Odyssey

Zeus’ settlement at the end of the Odyssey is meant to be permanent: Odysseus will “be ruler forever” (βασιλευέτω αἰεί, 24.483). Of course, this cannot come to pass literally; even the divinely favored Menelaos must cede Sparta and retire to Elysion (Odyssey 4.561-564). The clear implication is that Odysseus will rule Ithake until his death, at which point his heir will assume power. [1] Zeus’ further stipulation that Ithake is to be peaceful and prosperous (24.486) also implies that Odysseus’ line will proceed through orderly succession from father to son, without the disruptions that result from struggles for power among legitimate brothers, bastards and pretenders.

Indeed the Odyssey elsewhere represents Odysseus’ family as so predisposed. Asked by the disguised Odysseus why no brothers help him to oppose the suitors (16.97-98), Telemachos asserts: Apart from the simple fact that Telemachos is an only son, this information is superfluous in the immediate context of Book 16, and seems motivated in part by the irony of having the son tell family lore to his own disguised father. But the ornate rhetoric, in particular the jingly anaphora built around moun- ‘only, single’ suggests a more significant function. That function, I shall argue, is to be found in the implications of Telemachos’ statement for the Odyssey’s relationship to non-Homeric traditions.

For, unlike the Homeric Odysseus, the non-Homeric Odysseus leaves a legacy comparable to that of Herakles, namely a host of epigonoi, sons born of various women and goddesses in various locations apart from the hero’s home and sanctioned marriage. The offspring that the Odyssey denies its hero appear in contexts as diverse as Cyclic epic, mythography, Athenian drama, and Aristotelian political theory. The Odyssey’s choice to construct Odysseus’ family as one characterized by unilineal descent can, I suggest, be explained in part by the fact that branching of the family tree would on the one hand complicate Zeus’, or any, vision of a peaceful Ithake ruled by the house of Odysseus, and on the other hand would establish unwanted connections to epichoric versions of Odysseus’ story. [2] There may, then, be further irony in the fact that the recipient of Telemachos’ genealogical account is not only his father, but his father in the guise of a disseminator of false tales about Odysseus.

I suggested in the last chapter that the Odyssey’s aim to have the last word on Odysseus extends beyond its own narrative bounds, to the point of mapping out its hero’s “post-Odyssey” life, that is, events in his mythical biography that fall after the main narrative of the Homeric epic. The task is a formidable one, for Odysseus’ heroic identity resists closure, as for instance Dante and Kazantzakis perceived. As discussed in the Introduction, the Homeric project of forging a definitive, Panhellenic account of Odysseus faced a challenge in a “fact” of his larger mythological identity that militates against his story ending with the Mnesterophonia. For in every known version of Odysseus’ story, the Odyssey included, the hero always leaves Ithake again after he kills the suitors. [3]

In this chapter I explore the manner in which non-Homeric Odysseus-traditions realize the hero’s post-Odyssey adventures. Particular attention is paid to three themes that recur in these stories: Odysseus’ exile, his siring of children other than Telemachos, and his death by violence or away from home. The Odyssey rejects these themes explicitly, but nevertheless preserves them in “false” tales and in allusions to discarded narrative possibilities. I then conclude by proposing that that the association of these non-Homeric accounts with major religious centers in west Greece may explain the Odyssey’s need to engage with them.

The Odyssey’s conception of the journey Odysseus must take after his return is revealed, not at the end of the narrative, but near the middle, in the prophecy the hero receives from Teiresias. Once you have killed the suitors, Teiresias tells Odysseus,

An important function of this part of Teiresias’ prophecy, I suggest, is to explain the “fact” of the obligatory journey as a mere tidying up of the Odyssey’s own loose ends and to render it otherwise consistent with the themes that are identified with Zeus in the main narrative. In other words, since the larger tradition demands a post-Mnesterophonia voyage, the Odyssey realizes that voyage in terms that help to bring closure without pointing the way to a new series of adventures. The voyage likewise has no connection with the killing of the suitors, in which respect Odysseus is again assimilated to Zeus’ Orestes, whose revenge is uncomplicated by guilt, retribution from mortals, or opposition from gods. As Odysseus describes it, the projected journey hints at the exotic locales that the proem associates with the Apologoi (compare 23.267 with 1.3); but Zeus’ settlement circumscribes these adventures by reducing them to the victory lap of a blessed and pious man, leaving no purchase for sequels that would compromise Zeus’ theodicy.

Similarly poor in dramatic possibilities is the death scenario that Teiresias reveals to Odysseus. Again, this scenario, or rather range of scenarios, is linked thematically to Zeus’ settlement (the brackets are meant to preserve significant ambiguities in translation): The sympathy between Teiresias’ prophecy and Zeus’ settlement is evident in the stipulation that “the people will be prosperous” when Odysseus dies (cf. 24.486). Further, Teiresias’ scenario of a peaceful death, in old age, and during a time of prosperity, implies the seamless transfer of power from ruler to son, Odysseus to Telemachos, that Zeus’ settlement implies.

An altogether different death-scenario features in a number of the non-Homeric traditions to which I have alluded already. In these accounts, further significant adventures await Odysseus after the Mnesterophonia, including exile, marriage into another royal house, fathering of epigonoi, generalship in another war, and death either violent or abroad. One of the better known of these traditions in antiquity is represented by the Cyclic Telegony: A similar tradition is preserved in “Apollodoros”: Odysseus, after killing the suitors, Though it has no part in Homeric tradition, Telegonos’ story did evolve sufficiently to take a variety of forms, including references in Hesiodic epic and Attic tragedy. [6] Again, even if these specific accounts post-date the Odyssey, the latter at least evinces awareness of similar themes. [7] On the one hand, this awareness is betrayed through wholesale de-authorization, as in the case of Telemachos’ assertion and Zeus’ settlement. But the Odyssey also appears to target themes specific to antithetical versions of its hero’s story.

Particularly suggestive in this latter respect is the connection between Odysseus and Thesprotia, the land of his non-Homeric exile, in the Odyssey. No Thesprotian characters or settings occur in the main narrative, but they do feature in a group of inset narratives, most of which the Odyssey constructs as false. To begin with, Thesprotia is one of the settings in the “Cretan tales,” the lies that Odysseus tells after he has returned to Ithake disguised as a beggar. [8] A connection between Ithake and Thesprotia is natural, given their geographic proximity. The Odyssey seems to have exploited Thesprotia not simply as a geographically convenient setting, however, but as a kind of geographical symbol for a rich body of epichoric Odysseus-traditions that were current across the adjacent west Greek mainland.

In the Cretan tales, the disguised Odysseus tells Eumaios, and later Penelope, that he has recently visited Thesprotia and there received information about “Odysseus” (the disguised Odysseus’ third-person representation of himself): Such a mission would be plausible to Homeric audiences since historical Dodona was the site of a well-known oracle of Zeus. The question that “Odysseus” is to ask Zeus’ tree-oracle at Dodona, regarding how he should arrive on Ithake, is reproduced in Teiresias’ prophecy, which also admits the possibility of Odysseus’ “open” return (again, ἠὲ δόλωι ἢ ἀμφαδὸν ὀξέι χαλκῶι, 11.120; cf. 14.330=19.299). Likewise, Nestor suggests to Telemachos that his father may return and exact tisis from the suitors “either alone or all the Achaians as well” (ἢ ὅ γε μοῦνος ἐὼν ἢ καὶ σύμπαντες Ἀχαοιοί, 3.217). [9] What “Odysseus” is apparently pondering in these lying tales is the possibility of returning at the head of an army, for Pheidon has offered ships and men to aid in his repatriation. He is however leaving it to Zeus to decide the terms of his return, which is to say that control over the course of this ersatz Odyssey rests, as over that of the main narrative, with Zeus.

That “Odysseus” would return as a military commander seems in any case the natural consequence of an “open” arrival on Ithake. If the hero sails into the harbor with a company of soldiers, the situation will resemble that in Mykene at Agamemnon’s return from Troy: those who have taken over the hero’s oikos in his absence will be compelled either to relinquish it to him or, more likely, to face him and his escort in battle. The military return scenario also figures in another false tale told by another wandering liar, an Aitolian who, according to Eumaios, has earlier claimed that Odysseus would soon return “with godly comrades” (σὺν ἀντιθέοις ἑτάροισι, 14.385). [10]

In this light, it may be significant that Odysseus is represented elsewhere in the Odyssey as hostile to the Thesprotians, or at least aligned with their enemies, a people known as the Taphians. In a story mentioned in Chapter 3, Odysseus takes the side of Eupeithes when the latter incites the anger of the Ithakan dēmos by aiding the Taphians in their attacks on Thesprotia (16.424-430). Similarly, Athene, in disguise as Mentes, the leader of the Taphians (1.105; cf. 419), claims a guest-friendship relationship with Odysseus (1.187; cf. 180-181, 259-264); and Odysseus’ slave Eumaios purchases a slave of his own from Taphian merchant-pirates (14.449-452, though he does so without consulting those in charge of Odysseus’ oikos). The “real” Odysseus, then, seems to favor the Taphian enemies of the Thesprotians, while the “false” Odysseus is a Thesprotian ally, potentially to the point of relying on Thesprotian forces to defeat the suitors. Even in the “false” story, Pheidon’s subjects turn on Odysseus after they set sail for Ithake (14.337-347). [11] The message seems to be that Thesprotians are untrustworthy as are, by extension, narratives in which they appear.

A distinguishing characteristic of these “false” and non-Homeric accounts is a messy, “real-world” staging and outcome of Odysseus’ return, which again stands in contrast with Zeus’ eklēsis. This “false” scenario corresponds to a recurrent theme in ancient Greek myth and history: an ousted king or tyrant has himself reinstalled by the military forces of a neighboring ruler. Such a return is a recipe for a fleeting victory and a protracted struggle, on analogy of for instance the Theban saga or the career of the Peisistratids in historical Athens.

These messy, real-world themes include Odysseus’ exile. According to another passage from “Apollodoros”: A fragment from the Aristotelian Constitution of the Ithakans preserves a related account: As in the Telegony, Odysseus departs, marries into the royal family, and fathers epigonoi; here, however, he does not return. [12] Most importantly, the present passages make explicit that Odysseus departs Ithake as a direct consequence of the Mnesterophonia.

As discussed in Chapter 3, the possibility of Odysseus’ exile is raised in the main narrative (23.118-122; 24.430-431), but only as something that cannot or must not happen. The theme of exile also recurs in the lying tales, when the disguised Odysseus claims to have been driven from Crete (cf. 13.266-286; 14.207-210). Inclusion of the Aitolian ruler Thoas in the “Apollodoros” account is suggestive in this context. Thoas is Odysseus’ ally in the Iliad, but the feckless victim of a ruse by “Odysseus” in another of the lying tales (14.457-522). [13] As mentioned above, the one other Aitolian character in the Odyssey spreads “lies” about Odysseus’ return. In these cases, I again suggest, the Odyssey de-authorizes themes that allude to its own alternatives by placing them in the mouths of negatively-valorized characters. Thus the lying Aitolian and foolish Thoas are meant to convey the idea that Aitolian themes are unreliable on the subject of Odysseus’ post-Odyssey life.

Awareness of such possible outcomes to Odysseus’ story highlights the significance of Zeus’ eklēsis, and of the Odyssey’s preference for relatively more fantastic over more real-world or political themes generally. Human institutions cannot, from the Odyssey’s perspective, obtain for Odysseus the outcome that he deserves; and on this point at least the non-Homeric accounts agree, for the human Neoptolemos proves an interested and corruptible party to the negotiations, the exact opposite of Zeus. [14] In this respect the effectiveness of the Odyssean Zeus can be seen to reside in part in the relative impartiality that distinguishes him from Neoptolemos, as it does from Athene and Poseidon. Zeus stands above faction, his allegiance being to abstract principles: his plan, his theodicy, and, if my larger argument be accepted, the Odyssey’s Panhellenic program.

We are now in a position to appreciate a further dimension of Odysseus’ death scenario as outlined by Teiresias in Book 11. As discussed, the seer generally reinforces the terms of Zeus’ settlement, but his account of Odysseus’ death retains ambiguities that suggest awareness of non-Homeric themes. Thus Teiresias does not make clear whether Odysseus dies on Ithake (though οἴκαδε at 11.132 could imply this) or elsewhere, thereby leaving open such possibilities as exile to Aitolia or Italy. Similar possibilities inhere in the prediction that the hero’s death will be ἀβληχρός (135). This adjective is usually translated as “gentle” here, but elsewhere seems to mean “feeble” or “easily penetrated,” [15] and thus could equally describe the old Odysseus dying at Telegonos’ hands on an Ithakan beach. Lastly, Teiresias predicts that Odysseus’ demise will come ἐξ ἁλός (134), a prepositional phrase that can mean either “far from the sea” or “out of the sea.” Teiresias’ prophecy therefore can be reconciled either (1) with “Apollodoros”’ Aitolian account, since Thoas’ court could be conceived of as “far from the sea” at the inland Aitolian royal city of Kalydon, or (2) with the Telegony, in that Telegonos’ attack comes from “out of the sea,” or even (3) with the scenario in which a spine from a creature “from out of the sea,” the stingray, is responsible for Odysseus’ demise. [16] What Teiresias perceives, according to the model I am advancing, are realizations of the “facts” that remain possible in the notional moment before Zeus has translated them into narrative reality.

To sum up my conclusions thus far, then, a number of themes distance the Odyssey from non-Homeric accounts of Odysseus’ life after the Mnesterophonia. The divine aid given the hero in killing the suitors contrasts with the aid of a foreign political power, divine adjudication with that of a mortal, eklēsis with exile, [17] the hero’s peaceful death at home with one violent or abroad. From this perspective, Aitolia and Thesprotia are representative of locales that Odysseus might visit within the parameters of the “facts” of Odysseus-tradition, but that are however associated with stories about the hero that are incompatible with the Homeric version. There is in this respect a light touch to the Odyssey’s strategy of engagement with non-Homeric themes; for although Zeus’ settlement in Odyssey 24 de-authorizes them en masse, their existence is nevertheless acknowledged obliquely. The Odyssey does not in other words condemn to oblivion the versions of its hero’s story with which it conflicts, but rather frames them in Panhellenic terms: the stories are false, but serve a strategic function in the hero’s success. In this manner the Odyssey affords to members of its audiences who may have attached cultic and genealogical significance to such stories the consolation that their traditions are not so much untrue as based on misperception of the stratagems of the “real” Odysseus.

It is then my argument that the geographical references to west Greece in these non-Homeric Odysseus stories, and in the Odyssey’s “false” stories, suggest that the region may have been a locus of particularly vigorous epichoric Odysseus-traditions. While the relationship between poetical and “real” geography need not be so transparent, it is nevertheless unsurprising to find Odysseus-tradition flourishing in the area of the hero’s reputed homeland. The considerable body of non-Homeric literary evidence, as well as material evidence, allows for a fairly detailed examination of the relationship between the west Greek references in the Odyssey and the kinds of epichoric and proto-Panhellenic traditions with which the Homeric narrative may have engaged.

My purpose here is not to assess the accuracy of the Homeric view of west Greece. Rather, I survey the region with an eye to contexts in which stories about Odysseus may have been performed and disseminated. Admittedly, the evidence discussed here allows for a number of plausible reconstructions, but it is nevertheless possible to recover at least the broad outlines of the shadowy traditions that, by my interpretation, exerted a significant influence on the Homeric conception of Odysseus. Ithake not surprisingly offers abundant connections with the hero. I further propose that Thesprotia and Aitolia appear as important settings in accounts of Odysseus’ non-Homeric exile, and in de-authorized accounts of Odysseus in the Odyssey, because of the associations of these regions with the two major religious centers in ancient west Greece, the oracle of Zeus at Dodona and the cult of Zeus at Olympia, sites that could have served as the foci of regional Odysseus-traditions.

The archaeological record makes clear that Odysseus received cult honors at a cave on Polis Bay on the northwest coast of Ithake. It is true that the earliest unmistakable material evidence for this cult is Hellenistic, and that dedications to Here and Athene at the site preceded or coexisted with this evidence. [18] Nevertheless, Odysseus is probably among the figures to be identified with a marked increase in activity at the Polis Bay site in the late ninth or the eighth century, at which time – before, by most accounts, the Homeric narratives had stabilized – tripods began to be deposited in the cave. These tripods have from their first discovery been compared with a reference in the Odyssey to a cave dedicated to local nymphs where Odysseus stores his gifts from the Phaiakes, which include tripods (cf. Odyssey 13.217-218, 345-350, 362-364). [19]

Given the relatively small size and population of ancient Ithake, Polis Cave was probably connected to other local cults. [20] Thus the site may have formed part of a system that included a precinct of (probably) Apollo at Aetos some 10 miles to the south, which reveals a similar pattern of activity and could in turn be linked to Odysseus through a tradition that the suitors are killed during a festival of Apollo (cf. Odyssey 21.267-268). [21] Likewise, reference to yearly contributions of “grain, wine, honeycombs, olive oil, salt, and sacrificial animals” to the house of Odysseus in the Aristotelian Constitution of the Ithakans could relate to rites at Aetos and/or Polis Bay. [22] The Panhellenic nature of these sites is indicated by the broad provenience of the offerings in the Aarchaic period, and is explained by Ithake’s strategic location on the sea-lane that ancient Greeks, preferring to sail in sight of land, followed northwest toward the Adriatic and across to Italy. [23]

It therefore appears that both Aetos and Polis Bay served the needs of the Ithakans, while also appealing to a broader constituency during the time the Homeric epics were taking shape. [24] Again, evidence for performance traditions associated with these or any pre-Classical Greek sites is of necessity inferential owing to the paucity of contemporary sources. I argued in Chapter 1, in the context of Penelope’s tomb, that it is a priori likely that most or all cult sites gave rise to and were at the same time inspired by associated narratives. Here I propose another, related principle: the more a cult site develops and broadens its constituency, the more complex its attendant narrative traditions become, and the more formalized their performance. [25]

Approached this way, Ithakan Odysseus-tradition can usefully be envisioned as a spectrum, extending from informal and local to institutionalized and Panhellenic performance contexts. Toward one end of this spectrum, family traditions were presumably the source of such stories as the report in the Aristotelian Constitution that leading Ithakan families claimed descent from Eumaios and Philoitios. And although the most likely paths for the transmission of such traditions are informal, through storytelling within the oikos, such rituals as funerals and weddings offer the prospect of more institutionalized performances of narratives that related family history to heroes, gods, and cult sites (cf. Odyssey 13.405-408, which could suggest such cult sites associated with the supposed descendants of Eumaios), and to which the community at large may have had a measure of access. [26]

Family traditions will almost certainly have been informed by, and taken into account, traditions that can be located more toward the other end of the spectrum, that is, those associated with the cults of the Ithakan polis or poleis. On analogy with better-known polis-cults, it is plausible that community processions, sacrifices, initiations, and similar rituals incorporated narratives about the exploits of gods and heroes performed by, if not professional singers, at least individuals versed in native composition-in-performance traditions. [27]

Moving further across the spectrum, these epichoric polis-traditions would feed into those associated with the Panhellenic sites at Aetos and Polis Bay. In accordance with the general principle adduced above, contact with other Greeks, and the logistics of orchestrating large-scale festivals, would favor the standardization of Ithakan Odysseus-traditions by helping to shape narratives by determining the length of performances and by favoring the presentation of epichoric stories in a way that would appeal to a broad constituency. [28] Neighboring communities would naturally be the source of the earliest and most frequent outsiders to take part in Ithakan ceremonies; thus Ithakan Odysseus-tradition, as it began to achieve broader diffusion, would likely have reacted to and influenced traditions associated with the west Greek mainland. As discussed, the Ithakan, Thesprotian, and Aitolian references in Odysseus’ post-Odyssey adventures share similar themes.

Lastly, Greek travelers from further afield, a truly Panhellenic constituency, may have had the opportunity to experience Ithakan performance traditions. Narratives developing at nominally Panhellenic sites like Polis Bay and Aetos would however correspond to what I defined in the Introduction as a “proto-Panhellenic” register of the ancient Greek epic tradition. This is because the cults on Ithake itself never achieved the kind of prominence that would allow them to develop and disseminate a narrative tradition comparable in authority to the Homeric Odyssey. Nevertheless, Ithakan traditions could have been sufficiently well-known to have exerted an influence on the Homeric Odyssey, even as they were themselves influenced by it.

To summarize my model of arenas for the performance of Odysseus-tradition, I distinguish six registers extending from highly particularized and narrowly diffused traditions to those aimed at a wider constituency: [29]

In historical Thesprotia, [30] two sites are of particular interest for the development of Odysseus-tradition, the oracles of Zeus at Dodona and of the dead (nekyomanteion) at Ephyre. Zeus’ oracle, 30 or so miles inland from the coast opposite Corcyra and about 60 miles due north of Ithake, has been mentioned already in the context of the Odyssean Cretan tales. In these “false” accounts, “Odysseus” goes to Dodona to learn the “plan of Zeus from the god’s lofty-leafed oak” (θεοῖο ἐκ δρυὸς ὑψικόμοιο Διὸς βουλὴν ἐπακούσηι, 14.327-328=19.296-297). The Iliad also refers to the site, when Achilleus prays to

It is in fact unusual that the Odyssey represents the cult of Zeus at Dodona as already being in operation in the time of the Trojan War. More commonly, “epic distancing” seems to motivate Homeric suppression of cult sites assumed by Greeks to have developed after the Trojan War, such as Delphi and Olympia. Relevant perhaps is the fact that Dodona was among the places believed in antiquity to have been the original Greek homeland. [33] It is in any case striking that Dodona is one of only two major historical Greek religious sites referred to as such in the Homeric epics. [34] The belief in the reputed antiquity of the oracle at Dodona does not, however, seem to reflect the actual history of the site. The archaeological record is somewhat confused, but it appears that Dodona was little frequented until the eighth century. From this point the site became increasingly popular, and by the latter part of the seventh century there are signs of regional, even Panhellenic, activity, in the form of bronze dedications from Corinth and perhaps Crete. [35] By the end of the Archaic period, Dodona’s renown as an oracular site was comparable with that of Delphi, along with which it seems to have formed part of an early festival circuit. [36] [37] The Thesprotian oracle of the dead at Ephyre was less prominent in ancient Greek life than was Zeus’ oracle at Dodona, but it did come to attract a Panhellenic constituency. This oracle, probably to be identified with a site some 30 miles southeast of Dodona, near where the river Acheron empties into the sea (cf. Thucydides 1.46.4), is not referred to as such in the Homeric epics, but is rather described as a community whose leaders have guest-friendships with local Greek heroes. It is at Ephyre that Odysseus is said to obtain arrow-poison (Odyssey 1.259-262); and it is from Ephyre, “by the river Selleis” (cf. the “Selloi” in Achilleus’ prayer) that the Elean hero Phyleus obtains armor for his son Meges, who in the Trojan War leads the contingent from nearby Doulichion (Iliad 15.528-531). [38]

It is not clear whether Homeric silence on the nekyomanteion is due to epic distancing or to the relative lateness of the oracle’s establishment at Ephyre. The earliest material evidence for the cult is Archaic, though the record is disturbed owing to later construction. [39] Herodotos’ story (5.92η2) of the attempt by Periander, the late seventh- or early sixth-century tyrant of Corinth, to employ the “Thesprotians by the Acheron river . . . at the nekyomanteion” in order to communicate with his dead wife indicates that the historian’s intended audience of Classical-period, cosmopolitan Greeks had at least heard of the site, and did or could believe it to have been long in operation. [40]

In the Odyssey’s Cretan tales, as discussed, “Odysseus” seeks from Zeus’ oracle at Dodona information analogous to that he receives from Teiresias: in both cases alternative views of Odysseus’ return are entertained, either “open” or “in secret” (again, ἢ ἀμφαδὸν ἦε κρυφηδόν, 11.120~14.330=19.299). Given this thematic link, the plausible suggestion has been made that Odysseus’ visit to the underworld in Odyssey 11 corresponds to the visit by “Odysseus” to Dodona in the Cretan tales. [41] Odysseus’ katabasis appears to have been one of the “facts” of his story; and here again a familiar dichotomy emerges. In the main narrative of the Odyssey, the remote world of the Apologoi serves as the point of departure for this adventure; in the “false” tale, the nekyomanteion at Ephyre seems to serve in this capacity.

This interpretation derives support from the fact that Homeric geography confuses Dodona and Ephyre, or rather perhaps conceives of them as connected. In the Iliadic Catalog of Ships, one branch of the underworld river Styx is said to surface in Dodona (Iliad 2.750-755); and the mother of Tlepolemos, leader of the Rhodian contingent, is said to have been seized by his father Herakles from “Ephyre by the river Selleis” (ἐξ Ἐφύρης ποταμοῦ ἄπο Σελλήεντος, 2.659–15.531), the name of the river again echoing that of the priests mentioned in Achilleus’ prayer. To be sure, Homeric geography is often confused, or at least confusing; there were moreover a number of ancient places called Ephyre, and at least one other Homeric river Selleis. [42] Nevertheless, I suggest that these overlapping geographic details may allude pars pro toto to a system of west Greek cult sites that together preserved a set of traditions in which the themes of Odysseus’ adventures were intertwined with the region’s oracles of Zeus and the dead, and perhaps even one of the hero himself. [43]

For another Thesprotian cult that may have played a role in the dissemination of Odysseus-tradition is an oracle of Odysseus at Trampya, approximately 30 miles northeast of Dodona and near Bouneima, a settlement supposedly founded by the hero. [44] There is then the possibility that worship of Odysseus at Trampya developed independent of Homeric influence, in an epichoric context comparable to that in which I earlier located the Mantineian Penelope. Such a tradition could have fed into more broadly regional stories associated with the nearby oracles of Zeus and of the dead.

Rites and aitia relating to the oracles of Zeus, the dead, and Odysseus in Thesprotia, then, offer plausible contexts for the development of epichoric and proto-Panhellenic narrative traditions. This is not to say that Thesprotia was an unrecognized cultural dynamo of the Archaic period, but rather that certain Thesprotian religious centers may have sponsored a vigorous Odysseus-tradition. As observed in Chapter 1, Pausanias speaks of a Thesprotis that could represent one of the better-known of the west Greek traditions with which the Odyssey engages. [45] In the case of Dodona, Herodotos (2.55-57) heard local narrative traditions about the founding of Zeus’ oracle; the historian claims to have gathered his information directly from religious officials, but, to recast earlier argumentation, a more efficient medium for the transmission and dissemination of such stories would be epichoric poetry. At least one poet is known to have visited the area: an inscription on a fifth-century tripod unearthed at Dodona reads Τερψικλῆς· τῶι Δὶ· Ναίωι· ῥαψωιδὸς· ἀνέθηκε (“Terpsikles the rhapsode dedicated [this tripod] to Zeus Naios”). [46]

A third west Greek region that features in non-Homeric Odysseus-tradition and the Odyssey’s false tales is Aitolia, the mainland south of Thesprotia and east of Ithake (Akarnania is not distinguished in pre-Classical sources). As discussed, some accounts of Odysseus’ post-Odyssey life find him at the court of the Aitolian king Thoas, who is portrayed negatively, as is the only other Aitolian character in the Odyssey. The Aristotelian Constitution of the Ithakans (fr. 508 Rose) appears to refer to another oracle of Odysseus and the dead in Aitolia, which is in turn linked to the name of an Ithakan clan. [47]

Yet Odysseus-tradition in historical Aitolia, whatever forms it may have taken, is unlikely to have made much of an impression on the Greek world at large, since the region remained something of a backwater until the Hellenistic period and could boast no attraction like the oracle of Zeus at Dodona or even Polis Cave. [48] It might therefore seem odd that Aitolians feature as prominently as they do in Panhellenic epic – in addition to Thoas, there are Meleagros, Diomedes, and Thersites in the Iliad – as well as being the focus of a widely-known saga, the Kalydonian boar hunt. An explanation for the broad circulation of these characters and settings may be found in connections between Aitolia and the influential west Greek region of Elis. Specifically, epichoric tradition identified the settlement of Elis, and the foundation of the Olympian festival there, with Aitolian heroes and settings. These “pseudo-Aitolian,” Elean traditions seem to have overshadowed whatever stories may have been native to the historical inhabitants of ancient Aitolia. [49] Thus, by way of a preliminary example, Herodotos (8.73.2) refers to the city of Elis, which in the fifth century replaced Olympia as the administrative center of the region of Elis, as a polis “of the Aitolians.”

In a sense, then, Eleans could lay claim to two sets of heroes, Aitolians and a less impressive group of native sons. In the Iliad, the Eleans, who are regularly called “Epeioi” (see 2.615-624), play a minor role at Troy, where at least two of the ἄρχοντες Ἐπείων fall in battle (Diores at 4.517, Amphimachos at 13.185). The Homeric Elean-Epeians remain tied closely to west Greece. Thus an Elean exile, the aforementioned Meges, leads the contingent from the nearby island of Doulichion (2.625-630); and Nestor recalls Elean games in which his father participated (11.686~698), and others in which he himself and other Pylians, Epeians, and Aitolians took part (at the funeral of the Epeian leader Amarynkeus, 23.630-42), as well as an epic struggle between Pylians and Eleans (11.670-761).

The Odyssey appears to engage with Elean themes in a manner similar to its engagement with Thesprotian ones: Elis surfaces mainly in “false” tales and paths not taken. [50] There are no Elean characters in the Odyssey, but in the Cretan tales the disguised Odysseus at one point names Elis as his intended destination (13.275), and the disguised Athene claims a debt is owed her there (in a variant reading for 3.367). As for paths not taken, Eupeithes worries, needlessly, that Odysseus will flee to Elis (24.430-431, quoted in Chapter 3); and, again, Elis is Odysseus’ first stop on his post-Odyssey journey in the Telegony (102.4-6 Bernabé, 109.7-10 Allen). It is not however clear to where in Elis these passages refer. [51] Olympia is not named in Homeric (or Hesiodic or Cyclic) epic, though this may again be attributable to “epic distancing.” If so, the distancing seems incomplete. Nestor’s aforementioned references to games “in godly Elis” (ἐν Ἤλιδι δίηι, Iliad 11.686, 698; cf. 2.615) suggest awareness of some version of the Olympic festival. [52] Also of potential significance is the Ithakan Noemon’s statement in the Odyssey that he keeps horses in Elis (4.635-636), since Ithake is unsuitable for the animals (4.601-608), whereas Elis is “horse-nurturing” (ἱπποβότοιο, 21.347), Noemon’s stable may allude to equestrian events at the Olympics. [53] Lastly, since all the characters connected with these events hail from west Greece, the Homeric epics could reflect a time when Olympia attracted a mainly regional constituency.

In any case, it is in the context of the Olympian festival that the Elean-Aitolian connection tends to be discussed in non-Homeric sources. A representative narrative can be reconstructed from Strabo, who cites as his main authority the fourth-century historian Ephoros (whose evidence is said to include Elean inscriptions, 10.3.2). In this account, the Eleans and Aitolians are linked not only by blood, but also, paradoxically, as founders of each other’s communities (οὐ τὴν συγγένειαν μόνον ἀλλὰ καὶ τὸ ἀρχηγέτας ἀλλήλων εἶναι, 10.3.3): long before the Trojan War an Elean named Aitolos was driven from his homeland, and he established an eponymous kingdom north across the Corinthian gulf; one of his descendants, Oxylos, returned with the Herakleidai to Elis and reclaimed his ancestral (προγονικήν) land. At this time Elis was dedicated to Zeus (ἱερὰν εἶναι τοῦ Διός); and Oxylos’ descendant Iphitos later established the Olympian games (8.3.33). [54]

The significant point about west Greek narrative traditions here is that the authority and prestige of the festival at Olympia was articulated in part through mythological links to the ostensibly more ancient Aitolian heroic lineage, which leads from the eponymous founder-figure Aitolos to such celebrated figures as Oineus, Meleagros and Thoas (cf. Pindar Isthmia 5.31-32). Suggestive of the polemical force of this link between “Aitolian” and Elean tradition is Pindar’s reference to one of the Hellanodikai, judges at the historical Olympic games, as an “exacting Aitolian man” (ἀτρεκὴς Ἑλλανοδίκας . . . Αἰτωλὸς ἀνήρ, Olympia 3.12). Here allusion to the festival’s supposed Aitolian origins seems intended to stress the authority and legitimacy of the games in order to magnify the laundandus’ victory. [55] It therefore appears that the festival at Olympia, given its significance in ancient Greek life (at least that of the elite class), is a more likely place than Aitolia itself where people across Greece would come into contact with “Aitolian” characters and stories.

Of course, such narratives could have influenced the Odyssey only if it remained fluid into the period of Panhellenic activity at Olympia. The material record of the site itself parallels roughly that of the sites discussed above, with the exception that Olympia did not in its early phase develop in the shadow of a nearby community. Thus Iron Age cult activity becomes detectable in the late tenth century, and use of the site remains largely or wholly local until around 800. By the end of the seventh century a permanent settlement had grown up around the precinct of Zeus, and votives from outside west Greece begin to appear. [56]

These considerations suggest that performances of narrative poems about local heroes could have arisen at Olympia in a manner similar to that described above for Ithake and Thesprotia. Since Olympia was at first and for long a regional meeting place rather than a permanent settlement, the development of a synthetic, regional perspective on local west Greek myths there may have been precocious. The development of the festival at Olympia into a premier Panhellenic event, then, could have created opportunities for the emergence of narratives distinguished by an “Aitolo-centric” perspective on west Greek heroes, including accounts of Odysseus that, owing to close association with Olympia, presented a challenge for the Homeric attempt to divorce Odysseus’ adventures from “real” Greek cult sites. [57]

It is now possible to hazard some conclusions about the relationship between the Odyssey and west Greek traditions. From roughly the mid-eighth to mid-sixth centuries, Panhellenic institutions were emerging at Dodona and Olympia, as well as at Delphi, Delos, Isthmia, Athens, and Mykale in Ionia. [58] During this same period, the Odyssey was emerging as a Panhellenic narrative, and I follow many modern scholars in connecting these two developments. [59] Panhellenic gatherings in west Greece thus offered opportunities for the promulgation of narratives about Odysseus that had broad appeal to Greeks familiar with differing but related traditions.

Further, if, as seems likely, many of the same west Greek performers and audiences visited Ithake, Dodona, Ephyre, and Olympia, there would be a tendency for west Greek Odysseus-traditions in these contexts to develop a regional character. [60] There may thus have been a kind of west Greek koinē when it came to Odysseus-tradition. As observed above, a similar plot underlies many of the post-Odyssey stories set in west Greece. Perhaps owing to the precocious development of a strong west Greek perspective, this body of tradition may have been slow to disentangle itself from regional themes when the impetus toward a Panhellenic perspective began to be felt. In other words, the political and religious geography of west Greece may have become impressed too deeply on performance traditions in the area for any west Greek Odyssey, even one associated with the quintessentially Panhellenic site of Olympia, to compete with the Homeric epic, which for the most part keeps its hero clear of such entanglements.

The Odyssey’s strategy of denying the authority of, and of severing links to, traditions that locate Odysseus in the “real world” and entangle him in its problems is, I conclude, one of its defining characteristics and crowning achievements. As discussed in previous chapters, the Homeric Penelope and Phaiakes are also treated in a manner that limits engagement with epichoric traditions. Similarly, the Homeric Apologoi are located in the fantastic world of monsters and witches rather than in the context of ancient Greek geography. Thus, for instance, though Sicily was considered by many to be the home of the Kyklopes, the Odyssey avoids any such identification and the attendant links to Sicilian epichoric tradition, though it demonstrates awareness of Greek activity there. [61]

Wherever possible, the fully Panhellenic narratives exploit strategies of inclusion, or obfuscation, in order to gloss over potential conflicts with epichoric traditions. Thus Teiresias’ ambiguous account of Odysseus’ death and the uncertain fate of the Phaiakes appear to leave open narrative possibilities inconsistent with Odyssean thematics. In the case of west Greek traditions about Odysseus’ return from Troy, I propose, the inconsistencies were too fundamental, and the conflicting traditions too influential, to allow for inclusion or obfuscation, for which reason the Odyssey exploits another strategy, de-authorization through recontextualization. By framing as lies accounts of Odysseus’ return in which he wanders “real” ancient Greece, takes control of Ithake through outright assault, and suffers exile, the Homeric account undermines traditions in which the hero’s wander- and bloodlust deny him the opportunity to live happily ever after in accordance with the poem’s larger themes.

What the Cretan tales and the paths suggested but not taken in the Odyssey seem to construct, then, is a non-Homeric Odysseus, one whose journey takes him from Troy to places like Crete, Egypt, and Phoenicia (perhaps receiving the aid of the metrically equivalent Phoinikes instead of the Phaiakes), as well as Thesprotia, Dodona, and at last Ithake, where his undisguised return issues in exile and an ignominious death. Not surprisingly, one of the themes lacking from these accounts is a Dios boulē.

Zeus’ absence from the non-Homeric material may seem to problematize my association of these putative west Greek traditions with cult sites dedicated to him. However, not every narrative performed at a festival made conspicuous homage to the festival’s patron deity. Thus, for example, though Athene is considerably less prominent in the Iliad than she is in the Odyssey, there remain strong arguments for associating both poems with the Panathenaia festival at Athens.61 Further, from the perspective developed in this and the preceding chapter, Zeus’ absence is consistent with the real-world, political orientation of the themes of exile and epigonoi, mundane concerns with which the epic Zeus normally plays no part, except when dealing with his own offspring.

A further consideration is that, if the equation of divine plan and narrative plan is as I propose specific to the Panhellenic register of ancient Greek epic, a Dios boulē theme would be out of place in narratives that were not compelled make the kind of narrative decisions I ascribe to the Panhellenic, and Panhellenizing, Zeus. It is in this respect noteworthy that the subordinate Olympians Athene, Ares, and Apollo seem to conduct themselves in the non-Homeric Telegony much as they do in the Iliad (cf. Proklos 102.11-12 Bernabé, quoted above), only without the direction or arbitration of Zeus. Conversely, Zeus’ only appearance in the Homeric passages discussed in this chapter is as the offstage oracular voice of Dodona in the Cretan tales, where he is invoked in order to define the parameters of the “false” plot, that is, to determine whether Odysseus will return openly or in secret. This function, I propose, is a specifically Panhellenic one. I shall be arguing in the next chapter that another account of the aftermath of the Trojan War in the Odyssey, one told by Nestor to Telemachos, also presents Zeus in a role analogous to that which he plays in the main narrative, as the guiding force behind the narrative decisions that reduce the mass of epichoric stories about returning Greek heroes to a Panhellenic synthesis that reinforces Homeric themes.