Odysseus

Oinops and Oxen

~ A guest post by Sarah Scott & Jacqui Donlon and the Oinops Study Group ~ …and aboard each vessel crowded full Arcadian companies skilled in war. Agamemnon himself, the lord of men had given them those well-benched ships to plow the wine-dark sea, since works of the sea meant nothing to those landsmen.  Iliad II [1] We had seen in ‘Oinops and the Wide Open Sea’ that most of the… Read more

Open House | Iliad 9, and the responses of Achilles, with Leonard Muellner and Gregory Nagy

We were pleased to welcome Professor Leonard Muellner, Professor Gregory Nagy, and Allie Marbry, for another Open House. The conversation this week (shown in the video below), centered on Iliad Scroll 9, with a focus on the way that Achilles responds to Odysseus, Phoinix, and Ajax during the Embassy, giving particular attention to the following focus passages: Iliad 9.356–363 So long as I fought the Achaeans Hector did not let… Read more

Open House | The Odyssey, Kingship, and Nestor, with Gregory Nagy and Guests

We were delighted to welcome Professor Gregory Nagy (Harvard University) with his guests Professor Leonard Muellner (Brandeis University) and Douglas Frame, for an Open House Discussion. You can watch the recording below (or on our YouTube channel), and scroll down to see a summary of the main themes discussed and links to works referenced during the discussion: We had been invited to post questions ahead of this week’s visit and… Read more

In Focus: Odyssey 1, lines 1–10

|1 That man, tell me O Muse the song of that man, that versatile [polu-tropos] man, who in very many ways |2 veered from his path and wandered off far and wide, after he had destroyed the sacred citadel of Troy. |3 Many different cities of many different people did he see, getting to know different ways of thinking [noos]. |4 Many were the pains [algea] he suffered in his… Read more

Under discussion: Did Odysseus return to Troy?

~ A guest post by Laura Ford ~ Did Odysseus return to Troy after his initial departure? And if so, why? The Iliad, which ends before the fall of Troy, gives us no information about the sack of the city or the departure of the Greeks. But there are some scanty details offered in the Odyssey and in the summaries of the poems of the epic cycle. In Odyssey 3… Read more