Eumaeus is probably the breakout characer of this epic in that I haven't come across someone, ancient or modern, who didn't love him.
I don't know whether we get any updates on whether they do get covered by a mountain despite their sacrifices to Poseidon -- I haven't seen any so far, but I kinda assume this is some kind of origin myth or something that the reader/listener is supposed to know.
Probably, but by the time the Greeks got literate, no one was sure anymore which island Scheria was supposed to be anyway. A popular theory was Corfu (or Corcyria, as the Romans called it), because it's just a 110 km from Ithaca, but equally you had people (in the ancient world already) arguing it couldn't have been an island this close because otherwise the Phaecians would have known Odysseus by sight, not just reputation, and clearly their island had to be much further away, maybe even in the Atlantic, so it needed their superships to go from there to Ithaca. Another theory was that it was Sicily. Most of the ancient world tourists went for Corcyria and were shown a rock that was supposedly the ship on which Odysseus was brought to Ithaca. Anyway, if it was, Corfu was spared the fate of being folded into a mountain.
Odysseus and Athena having their lie-a-thon: that's why he is her favourite.
HI THERE AGAMEMNON, again. I guess sucks that you didn't have a helpful god to tell you about Aegisthus!
Come to think of it, Agamemnon is one of the few main characters of the Iliad who doesn't have a god or goddess to protect them. Athena protects Odysseus and Diomedes, Achilles has his mother Thetis, of course, Hector as a Trojan and because he's himself as Apollo in his corner, and Aphrodite looks out for her son Aeneas and for Paris and Helen (of sorts). But the sole myth connecting a god(dess) with Agamemnon is him pissing off Artemis enough so she holds back the winds and he has to sacrifice his daughter Iphigenia to her.
The ending of this part: I was really curious to see how Telemachus escaped from the suitors who were coming after him (back in the cliffhanger at the end of Book 4), but uhhhh those guys are not mentioned again?? Telemachus just docks in the harbor without incident??
Homer clearly needed an editor reminding him of the cliffhanger he'd ended the previous Telemachus section with.
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Date: 2025-03-30 04:02 pm (UTC)I don't know whether we get any updates on whether they do get covered by a mountain despite their sacrifices to Poseidon -- I haven't seen any so far, but I kinda assume this is some kind of origin myth or something that the reader/listener is supposed to know.
Probably, but by the time the Greeks got literate, no one was sure anymore which island Scheria was supposed to be anyway. A popular theory was Corfu (or Corcyria, as the Romans called it), because it's just a 110 km from Ithaca, but equally you had people (in the ancient world already) arguing it couldn't have been an island this close because otherwise the Phaecians would have known Odysseus by sight, not just reputation, and clearly their island had to be much further away, maybe even in the Atlantic, so it needed their superships to go from there to Ithaca. Another theory was that it was Sicily. Most of the ancient world tourists went for Corcyria and were shown a rock that was supposedly the ship on which Odysseus was brought to Ithaca. Anyway, if it was, Corfu was spared the fate of being folded into a mountain.
Odysseus and Athena having their lie-a-thon: that's why he is her favourite.
HI THERE AGAMEMNON, again. I guess sucks that you didn't have a helpful god to tell you about Aegisthus!
Come to think of it, Agamemnon is one of the few main characters of the Iliad who doesn't have a god or goddess to protect them. Athena protects Odysseus and Diomedes, Achilles has his mother Thetis, of course, Hector as a Trojan and because he's himself as Apollo in his corner, and Aphrodite looks out for her son Aeneas and for Paris and Helen (of sorts). But the sole myth connecting a god(dess) with Agamemnon is him pissing off Artemis enough so she holds back the winds and he has to sacrifice his daughter Iphigenia to her.
The ending of this part: I was really curious to see how Telemachus escaped from the suitors who were coming after him (back in the cliffhanger at the end of Book 4), but uhhhh those guys are not mentioned again?? Telemachus just docks in the harbor without incident??
Homer clearly needed an editor reminding him of the cliffhanger he'd ended the previous Telemachus section with.