A Guide to the Odyssey: A Commentary on the English Translation of Robert Fitzgerald (60 page)

Polydamna: consort of the Egyptian lord Thon, she supplied Helen with the soothing drug she adds to the wine served to Meneláos and their guests.

Polydeukês: famous boxer, son of Tyndáreus (or Zeus) and Lêda, brother of Helen, he shares immortality with his brother Kastor, q.v. An alternate form of his name is Pollux.

Polykástê: youngest daughter of Nestor and Eurydikê, she gives a bath to Telémakhos. See also note on III.506. (For Polykastê as the name of Penélopê’s mother, see under Periboia 2.)

Polýktor: (1) one of Ithaka’s early residents, he built a springhouse near Clearwater with Ithakos and Nêritos; (2) father of the suitor Peisándros.

Polypheidês: prophet, son of Mantios, grandson of Melampous, father of Theoklýmenos.

Polyphêmos: one of the Kyklopês, one-eyed man-eating giant, son of Poseidon and Thoösa, in whose cave Odysseus and his companions find gruesome hospitality and whose blinding, however justified, earns Odysseus Poseidon’s enmity, which dogs him through
The Odyssey
.

Pontónoös: royal squire of the Phaiákians.

Poseidon: an Olympian god with powers over the seas and earthquakes (earth shaker); father of Polyphêmos, he pursued Odysseus with enmity after Odysseus blinded his one-eyed son.

Priam: king of Troy during the Trojan War, father of fifty sons and daughters (not all by his consort Hekabê), among whom were Paris, Helen’s abductor or seducer, Hektor, Troy’s greatest
fighter, Kassandra, and Deïphobos. In the final movement of
The Iliad
, he goes behind enemy lines to Akhilleus’ tent in order to ransom the now mangled corpse of Hektor from the Greek hero who slew him.

Prokris: Kretan princess, daughter of Minos and Pasiphaae; her shade appeared to Odysseus (XI.372).

Proteus: ancient sea god, shape changer, father of Eidothea, associated with Pharos, the island off the coast of Egypt, where under compulsion he shares his wisdom with Meneláos.

Pylos: Nestor’s home in southwestern Peloponnese. See note on III.6.

Pytho: ancient name of Apollo’s oracle at Delphi. (Later, the name Python was given to the monster Apollo slew at the site of the oracle.)

Reithron Bight: Ithakan harbor or bay (not mentioned elsewhere).

Rhadamanthos: legendary Kretan, son of Zeus and Europa and brother of Minos, he led the Phaiákians on their search for Títyos and is now enjoying afterlife in Elysion. (More properly spelled “Rhadamanthys;” see note on IV.599ff.) His role as one of the judges in afterlife is not known before Plato.

Rhêxênor: son of Nausíthoös, brother of Alkínoös, father of Arêtê.

Raven’s Rock: home of the swineherd.

Salmoneus: father of Tyro.

Samê: an island near Ithaka, usually called Kephallênia, and/or the major settlement on Kephallênia, q.v…

Seirênês: singing sisters, two in Homer (but later three), who lured passing sailors to approach their rock, on which, however, it was
impossible to land without shipwreck. Warned by Kirkê, Odysseus both manages to get his sailors past the seduction and to hear their song himself.

Sidon: coastal city of the Phoinikians, ruled by Phaidimos. It was associated with crafts and metalworking, especially bronze. See note on IV.661.

Sikania: place, possibly identical to Sicily (see note on XXIV.338).

Sikel: native Sicilian. See note on XX.427.

Sísyphos: known from
The Iliad
as the son of Aiolos (eponymous hero of the Aiolians and not the king of the winds) and the father of Glaukos, in
The Odyssey
he appears in Odysseus’ vision of the underworld, his torment being to push a boulder to the top of a hill only to have it roll back down. Such labor is ever since known as “Sisyphean.” Only later accounts try to explain what the crime was for which he was punished. In some of these accounts he is directly entwined in Odysseus’ family: for example, he is supposed to have stolen the cattle of Odysseus’ grandfather Autólykos and to have abducted his daughter Antikleía, so that in some accounts it is Sísyphos who is in fact Odysseus’ father.

Skylla: cave-dwelling monster inhabiting a cliff across a narrow strait from Kharybdis (q.v.). Skylla barks like a dog and with each of her six mouths grabs one of Odysseus’ companions as they sail past. Ancient geographers already identified this strait with the Strait of Messina, which divides Sicily from the toe of the Italian boot.

Skhería: home of the Phaiákians. Later Greek tradition identified it with Korkyra or Korfu, but in Homer it is not certain that it is even an island. See note on VI.11.

Skyros: island east of Euboia with legendary connections to Akhilleus. After Akhilleus’ death, Odysseus reports that he brought
Akhilleus’ son, Neoptólemos, from Skyros to join the Akhaian siege of Troy.

Sparta: major city-state in the Peloponnese, center of Lakedaimon, seat of Meneláos and Helen.

Stratíos: one of Nestor’s sons.

Styx: river in Hades; the strongest oath an immortal could make was to swear by the River Styx.

Sunion Point: promontory forming the southeast point of Attika and commanding a wide vista of the Aegean Sea.

Syrie: island home of Eumaios, near Ortýgia. Its true location is uncertain.

Talemos: one of the Kyklopês.

Tántalos: king of Sipylos, he appears in Odysseus’ vision of the underworld, his torment to be unable to drink of the water in which he stands or to eat of the fruit that hangs over his head. As with the case of Sísyphos, genealogy and explanation of the crime which merited this punishment postdate
The Odyssey
. According to the most widespread accounts he is a son of Zeus and the father of Pelops, and his crime was an offense against the gods, either the theft from their table of the divine nectar and ambrosia their favor had permitted him to share or a revelation of their secrets.

Taphians: inhabitants of the island(s) of Taphos, between Leukas and Akarnia. (The major island is probably to be identified with Meganisi.) Ruled by Mentês, they were a seafaring people, and as is true of many such people in
The Odyssey
, pirates and slave-traders. See under Arubas Pasha and Mesaúlios, above, for instances of such activity.

Taÿgetos: mountain range dividing Lakonia and Messênia, one of Artemis’ favored hunting grounds.

Teirêsias: blind seer of Thebes, dead by the time of the events narrated in
The Odyssey
. Odysseus consults him in the underworld. Teirêsias alone among the buried dead is able to remember, know things of the world, and speak without drinking the blood Odysseus offers to the other ghosts.

Télamon: father of Aîas 2 (“Télamonian Aîas”), famed in other sources both as one of the Argonauts and as a participant in that earlier siege, under Heraklês’ command, of Troy, at the time ruled by Laomedon.

Telémakhos: son of Odysseus and Penélopê.

Telemos: wizard among the Kyklopês, son of Eurymos, who had foretold that Polyphêmos would lose his eye at Odysseus’ hand.

Télephos: father of Eurýpulos, q.v.

Témesê: Tamassos, important center of copper production on Kypros (q.v.), south of present-day Nikosia.

Ténedos: small island just across from Troy, first staging point of the Greek forces before they set out for their homes.

Terpis: “father” of Phêmios, q.v.

Thebes: (1) most important city of Boiotia, according to the legends founded by Kadmos and fortified with walls built by Amphion and Zêthos; (2) city in upper Egypt, famous in Greek sources for its wealth and “hundred gates.”

Theoklýmenos: an Argive seer, with many seers among his forebears, i.a. his father, Polypheidês, and his great-grandfather Melampous. Exiled for having killed a cousin, he takes passage with Telémakhos in Pylos and sails to Ithaka with him. Once there, he proclaims to a doubting Penélopê that Odysseus is already in Ithaka and to the suitors that they are a doomed lot (Books XVII and XX, respectively).

Thesprótia: coastal region of western mainland Greece, part of Epeiros roughly across from the island of Korkyra; to Eumaios, Odysseus as the Kretan describes being washed up on the shore and given shelter by the king, Pheidon, q.v. Thesprótia is sometimes used to stand for all of Epeiros, and Dodona is also described as being in Thesprótia.

Thessaly: northern region of mainland Greece west of Mounts Olympos, Ossa, and Pelion and south of Macedonia.

Thetis: nereid (i.e., daughter of the sea god Nereus), she bore Akhilleus to Pêleus. This pairing was arranged by Zeus, who would himself have liked to lie with Thetis but renounced her when informed of the prophecy that the son of Thetis would be stronger than his father.

Thoösa: nymph, daughter of Phorkys, Polyphêmos’ mother by Poseidon.

Thrace: Greece’s far north, on the northern coast of the Aegean and running north to the Black Sea, with Macedonia to the west.

Thrasymêdês: one of Nestor’s sons.

Thrinákia: island sacred to Hêlios, where the sun god pastured his herd of cattle, which Odysseus’ companions, acting against dire warnings, slaughtered.

Thyestês: father of Aigísthos, brother of Atreus and thus uncle of Agamémnon and Meneláos. The enmity between Thyestês and his brother, with whom he contested the right to the throne in Argos, is continued by his son Aigísthos and Atreus’ son Agamémnon (first cousin of Aigísthos, q.v.).

Tithonos: son of Laomedon, mortal beloved by Dawn, he became her consort; their son was Memnon. According to later elaboration of the myth (
Homeric Hymn
4), Dawn requested immortality
for her lover but forgot to ask for eternal youth, condemning Tithonos to age without ever being able to die.

Títyos: giant, son of Gaia, violator of Lêto, slain by Apollo and Artemis and now suffering eternal punishment in Hades. The story that Rhadamanthos visited him in Euboia (see VII.345–48) seems a trace of an earlier tradition according to which Títyos was no giant, “son of earth,” but a hero, son of Zeus and Elare, who dwelt in a Euboian cave.

Troy: important city on the northwest coast of Asia Minor, less than four miles inland from the coast and less than three miles from the Dardanelles. The nearest modern settlement is Hissarlik. Like most ancient citadels, it was built on a mound, which grew higher as new cities were constructed on the ruins of earlier cities. Modern archeology (Heinrich Schliemann began excavations in 1870, Wilhelm Dörpfeld taking over in 1882 and working through 1894; a team from the University of Cincinnati under Carl Biegen worked in the 1930s; excavations continue to produce important discoveries today) has established a series of multiple Troys, with the earliest dating back to the late fourth millennium
B.C.E
. The most important Troys are Troy VI (1900–1340
B.C.E
.—all dates approximate), which marked a major leap in the size of the settlement area, and Troy VII, both with subphases. These phases and subphases are distinguished by differences in material culture. Some of the discontinuities suggest an earthquake or a fire and a peaceful change of populations.

Do any of these transitions reflect a real Trojan War? The Trojan War was traditionally dated between 1250 and 1170
B.C.E
. Recent scholarship seems to support Troy VIIa, burned ca. 1220–1210
B.C.E
, as the prime candidate for the Iliadic Troy. On the other hand, it is likely that the “Trojan War” represents many sieges and campaigns. Troy would be an attractive anchor for such stories, for a number of reasons. Given its commanding
position on the northern Aegean trade routes, particularly those running through the Dardanelles into the Black Sea, it was likely to have been rich and very much hated by all those whose free trade it tried to encumber. Stories of its true wealth, exaggerated as stories always are, no doubt attracted storytellers as it all along attracted marauding forces. And finally, its position on the eastern edge of the Greek sphere meant, particularly as Greece was expanding and colonizing in a westerly direction, that it could be inflected as an “eastern” city and could bear all the connotations the “East” (i.e., Orient) always has had for the “West”: rich, luxurious, tyrannical, less than manly, and inevitably conquerable.

What is ultimately most important for a reading of
The Odyssey
is the Troy of
The Iliad
and the epic-cycle. From the extant
Iliad
we know of a rich and nearly impregnable citadel—
The Iliad
is the best source of the architectural and topographical details—ruled by Priam and ably defended for a decade by his sons, sons-in-law, and the troops he could rely on from allies and vassal states throughout Asia Minor. While the details are to some extent fictionalized, from everything we know about the period, this must be an essentially accurate picture of the way a city would withstand the assault of a besieging army. In sum, memories of a historical expedition and sack are possibly buried in
The Iliad
, but they are transformed, likely beyond recognition, by epic convention.