Classical Literature in Ancient Greece. • • • • • • • • • • •
Homer (epic poet, 8th Century BCE) - The Iliad // The Odyssey Hesiod (didactic poet, 8th Century BCE) - Works and days // Theogony Aesop (fabulist, 7th - 6th Century BCE) - Asop’s fables Sappho (lyric poet, 7th - 6th century BCE) - Hymn to Aphrodite Pindar (lyric poet, 6th - 5th Century BCE) - Olympic ode 1 // pythion ode 1 Aeschylus (tragic playwright, 6th - 5th Century BCE) - the persians // the supplements // Prometheus bound Sophocles (tragic playwright, 5th Century BCE) - Ajax // Antigone Euripides (tragic playwright, 5th Century BCE) - Electra//heracles// ion//helen Aristophanes (comic playwright, 5th - 4th Century BCE) - the frogs// the birds//the wasps//the clouds// Menander (comic playwright, 4th - 3rd Century BCE) - Dyskolos Apollonius of Rhodes (epic poet, 3rd Century BCE) - Argonautica
Character List - The Odyssey - (Homer)!
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Odysseus - The protagonist of the Odyssey. Odysseus fought among the other Greek heroes at Troy and now struggles to return to his kingdom in Ithaca. Odysseus is the husband of Queen Penelope and the father of Prince Telemachus. Though a strong and courageous warrior, he is most renowned for his cunning. He is a favorite of the goddess Athena, who often sends him divine aid, but a bitter enemy of Poseidon, who frustrates his journey at every turn.!
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Telemachus - Odysseus’s son. An infant when Odysseus left for Troy, Telemachus is about twenty at the beginning of the story. He is a natural obstacle to the suitors desperately courting his mother, but despite his courage and good heart, he initially lacks the poise and confidence to oppose them. His maturation, especially during his trip to Pylos and Sparta in Books 3 and 4, provides a subplot to the epic. Athena often assists him.! Penelope - Wife of Odysseus and mother of Telemachus. Penelope spends her days in the palace pining for the husband who left for Troy twenty years earlier and never returned. Homer portrays her as sometimes flighty and excitable but also clever and steadfastly true to her husband.! Athena - Daughter of Zeus and goddess of wisdom, purposeful battle, and the womanly arts. Athena assists Odysseus and Telemachus with divine powers throughout the epic, and she speaks up for them in the councils of the gods on Mount Olympus. She often appears in disguise as Mentor, an old friend of Odysseus.!
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Poseidon - God of the sea. As the suitors are Odysseus’s mortal antagonists, Poseidon is his divine antagonist. He despises Odysseus for blinding his son, the Cyclops Polyphemus, and constantly hampers his journey home. Ironically, Poseidon is the patron of the seafaring Phaeacians, who ultimately help to return Odysseus to Ithaca.! Zeus - King of gods and men, who mediates the disputes of the gods on Mount Olympus. Zeus is occasionally depicted as weighing men’s fates in his scales. He sometimes helps Odysseus or permits Athena to do the same.!
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Antinous - The most arrogant of Penelope’s suitors. Antinous leads the campaign to have Telemachus killed. Unlike the other suitors, he is never portrayed sympathetically, and he is the first to die when Odysseus returns.! Eurymachus - A manipulative, deceitful suitor. Eurymachus’s charisma and duplicity allow him to exert some influence over the other suitors.! Amphinomus - Among the dozens of suitors, the only decent man seeking Penelope’s hand in marriage. Amphinomus sometimes speaks up for Odysseus and Telemachus, but he is killed like the rest of the suitors in the final fight.! Eumaeus - The loyal shepherd who, along with the cowherd Philoetius, helps Odysseus reclaim his throne after his return to Ithaca. Even though he does not know that the vagabond who appears at his hut is Odysseus, Eumaeus gives the man food and shelter.!
Eurycleia - The aged and loyal servant who nursed Odysseus and Telemachus when they were babies. Eurycleia is well informed about palace intrigues and serves as confidante to her masters. She keeps Telemachus’s journey secret from Penelope, and she later keeps Odysseus’s identity a secret after she recognizes a scar on his leg.! Melanthius - The brother of Melantho. Melanthius is a treacherous and opportunistic goatherd who supports the suitors, especially Eurymachus, and abuses the beggar who appears in Odysseus’s palace, not realizing that the man is Odysseus him! Melantho - Sister of Melanthius and maidservant in Odysseus’s palace. Like her brother, Melantho abuses the beggar in the palace, not knowing that the man is Odysseus. She is having an affair with Eurymachus.! Calypso - The beautiful nymph who falls in love with Odysseus when he lands on her island-home of Ogygia. Calypso holds him prisoner there for seven years until Hermes, the messenger god, persuades her to let him go.! Polyphemus - One of the Cyclopes (uncivilized one-eyed giants) whose island Odysseus comes to soon after leaving Troy. Polyphemus imprisons Odysseus and his crew and tries to eat them, but Odysseus blinds him through a clever ruse and manages to escape. In doing so, however, Odysseus angers Polyphemus’s father, Poseidon.! Circe - The beautiful witch-goddess who transforms Odysseus’s crew into swine when he lands on her island. With Hermes’ help, Odysseus resists Circe’s powers and then becomes her lover, living in luxury at her side for a year.! Laertes - Odysseus’s aging father, who resides on a farm in Ithaca. In despair and physical decline, Laertes regains his spirit when Odysseus returns and eventually kills Antinous’s father.! Tiresias - A Theban prophet who inhabits the underworld. Tiresias meets Odysseus when Odysseus journeys to the underworld in Book 11. He shows Odysseus how to get back to Ithaca and allows Odysseus to communicate with the other souls in Hades.! Nestor - King of Pylos and a former warrior in the Trojan War. Like Odysseus, Nestor is known as a clever speaker. Telemachus visits him in Book 3 to ask about his father, but Nestor knows little of Odysseus’s whereabouts.! Menelaus - King of Sparta, brother of Agamemnon, and husband of Helen, he helped lead the Greeks in the Trojan War. He offers Telemachus assistance in his quest to find Odysseus when Telemachus visits him in Book 4.! Helen - Wife of Menelaus and queen of Sparta. Helen’s abduction from Sparta by the Trojans sparked the Trojan War. Her beauty is without parallel, but she is criticized for giving in to her Trojan captors and thereby costing many Greek men their lives. She offers Telemachus assistance in his quest to find his father.! Agamemnon - Former king of Mycenae, brother of Menelaus, and commander of the Achaean forces at Troy. Odysseus encounters Agamemnon’s spirit in Hades. Agamemnon was murdered by his wife, Clytemnestra, and her lover, Aegisthus, upon his return from the war. He was later avenged by his son Orestes. Their story is constantly repeated in the Odyssey to offer an inverted image of the fortunes of Odysseus and Telemachus.! Nausicaa - The beautiful daughter of King Alcinous and Queen Arete of the Phaeacians. Nausicaa discovers Odysseus on the beach at Scheria and, out of budding affection for him, ensures his warm reception at her parents’ palace.! Alcinous - King of the Phaeacians, who offers Odysseus hospitality in his island kingdom of Scheria. Alcinous hears the story of Odysseus’s wanderings and provides him with safe passage back to Ithaca.! Arete - Queen of the Phaeacians, wife of Alcinous, and mother of Nausicaa. Arete is intelligent and influential. Nausicaa tells Odysseus to make his appeal for assistance to Arete.
The Odyssey depicted in ancient greek art
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The Odysseus - Synopsis!
The character of Odysseus embodies many of the ideals the ancient Greeks aspired to: manly valour, loyalty, piety and intelligence. His intelligence is a mix of keen observation, instinct and street smarts, and he is a fast, inventive liar, but also extremely cautious. However, he is also portrayed as very human - he makes mistakes, gets into tricky situations, loses his temper and is often moved to tears - and we see him in many roles (as a husband, father and son, but also as an athlete, army captain, sailor, carpenter, storyteller, ragged beggar, lover, etc).!
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Ten years after the Fall of Troy, and twenty years after the Greek hero Odysseus first set out from his home in Ithaca to fight with the other Greeks against the Trojans, Odysseus’ son Telemachus and his wife Penelope are beset with over a hundred suitors who are trying to persuade Penelope that her husband is dead and that she should marry one of them.! Encouraged by the goddess Athena (always Odysseus’ protector), Telemachus sets out to look for his father, visiting some of Odysseus’ erstwhile companions such as Nestor, Menelaus and Helen, who have long since arrived home. They receive him sumptuously and recount the ending of the Trojan War, including the story of the wooden horse. Menelaus tells Telemachus that he has heard that Odysseus is being held captive by the nymph Calypso.! The scene then changes to Calypso's island, where Odysseus has spent seven years in captivity. Calypso is finally persuaded to release him by Hermes and Zeus, but Odysseus’ makeshift boat is wrecked by his nemesis Poseidon, and he swims ashore onto an island. He is found by the young Nausicaa and her handmaidens and is made welcome by King Alcinous and Queen Arete of the Phaeacians, and begins to tell the amazing story of his return from Troy.! Odysseus tells how he and his twelve ships were driven off course by storms, and how they visited the lethargic Lotus-Eaters with their memory-erasing food, before being captured by the giant one-eyed cyclops Polyphemus (Poseidon’s son), only escaping after he blinded the giant with a wooden stake. Despite the help of Aeolus, King of the Winds, Odysseus and his crew were blown off course again just as home was almost in sight. They narrowly escaped from the cannibal Laestrygones, only to encounter the witch-goddess Circe soon after. Circe turned half of his men into swine, but Odysseus had been prewarned by Hermes and made resistant to Circe’s magic.!
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After a year of feasting and drinking on Circe’s island, the Greeks again set off, reaching the western edge of the world. Odysseus made a sacrifice to the dead and summoned the spirit of the old prophet Tiresias to advise him, as well as the spirits of several other famous men and women and that of his own mother, who had died of grief at his long absence and who gave him disturbing news of the situation in his own household.! Advised once more by Circe on the remaining stages of their journey, they skirted the land of the Sirens, passed between the many-headed monster Scylla and the whirlpool Charybdis, and, blithely ignoring the warnings of Tiresias and Circe, hunted down the sacred cattle of the sun god Helios. For this sacrilege, they were punished by a shipwreck in which all but Odysseus himself drowned. He was washed ashore on Calypso’s island, where she compelled him to remain as her lover.! By this point, Homer has brought us up to date, and the remainder of the story is told straightforwardly in chronological order.! Having listened with rapt attention to his story, the Phaeacians agree to help Odysseus get home, and they finally deliver him one night to a hidden harbour on his home island of Ithaca. Disguised as a wandering beggar and telling a fictitious tale of himself, Odysseus learns from a local swineherd how things stand in his household. Through Athena’s machinations, he meets up with his own son, Telemachus, just returning from Sparta, and they agree together that the insolent and increasingly impatient suitors must be killed. With more help from Athena, an archery competition is arranged by Penelope for the suitors, which the disguised Odysseus easily wins, and he then promptly slaughters all the other suitors.! Only now does Odysseus reveal and prove his true identity to his wife and to his old father, Laertes. Despite the fact that Odysseus has effectively killed two generations of the men of Ithaca (the shipwrecked sailors and the executed suitors), Athena intervenes one last time and finally Ithaca is at peace once more.
The Odyssey depicted in ancient greek art
Monsters of the Odyssey- depicted throughout history
Gods of the Odyssey- depicted throughout history reference: http://blog.oup.com/2014/08/gods-mythological-creatures-homer-odyssey-art-slideshow/ KIRKE! Kirkê is the goddess of magic, also referred to as a witch or enchantress. Odysseus’ arrival to her island is described as follows, “the house of Kirkê, made of polished stone, in an open meadow. ! When several of Odysseus’ men enter through her doors, she turns them into “beings with the heads of swine, and a pig’s snort and bristles and shape, but their minds remained the same”
Athenia Athena is the most influential goddess, and a catalyst for the events in the story the Odyssey. She is not only the goddess of wisdom, but also of strategy, law and justice, and inspiration among others, and is referred to consistently in the book as “flashing-eyed Athena.”
Herakles
Artemis!
Odysseus and Herakles meet in the Underworld, and also encounters Herakles’ daughter Megara and mother Amphitryon. Odysseus recalls seeing Herakles and says, “Herakles was like the dark night, holding his bare bow and an arrow on the string, glaring dreadfully, a man about to shoot.
Approaching the Phaeacian princess Nausicaä for the first time, Odysseus asks, “are you a goddess, or a mortal? If you are a goddess, one of those who inhabit the broad heaven, I would compare you in beauty and stature and form to Artemis, the great daughter of Zeus” (6.139-142).
HELIOS “If they do not pay me a suitable recompense for the cattle, I will descend into the house of Hades and shine among the dead!” (12.364-366). Zeus agrees and strikes Odysseus’ ship with lightning and kills all of Odysseus’ crew members.
HERMES Hermes weighing souls (psychostasis). In Book 5, Hermes, messenger of the gods, is sent to tell the nymph Kalypso to allow Odysseus to leave so he can return home after several years of being detained on the island of Ogygia.
Poseidon! Poseidon holding a trident. Poseidon is the Greek god of the Sea, or as referred to in the epic poem, “the earth-shaker.” The god is long haired and bearded and wears a band around his head.!
HADES When Odysseus is on the witch-goddess Kirkê’s island (discussed later), she tells him that he must sail to Hades, the realm of the dead, to speak with the spirit of Tiresias. The underworld is described by Odysseus as a place where “total night is stretched over wretched mortals”
Monsters of the Odyssey Calypso A nymph who keeps Odysseus on her island of Ogygia for 8 years. Calypso is very fond of Odysseus and even offers to make him immortal because she is very lonely on her island. However, Odysseus wants to go home to Ithaca and see his family. On the 9th year, after Athena persuades Zeus, he sends a message to her, and she lets Odysseus go. Odysseus builds a raft on which she puts food and then he leaves. In our lives, Calypso is a person holding us back from our goals. She is misleading, selfish, and lonely. She cares only about herself. When you encounter these kinds of people, you should make them understand that there are other people in the world besides them. They are not the center of the universe.
The Suiters Princes and lords who are in Odysseus' palace and want to marry Penelope, Odysseus' loyal wife. They are all killed by Odysseus, along with Telemachus, the cowherd, and the swineherd. For more information about what happened to them, click here. The suitors are basically led by two men: Antinous and Eurymachus. The Suitors were especially important in The Odyssey but what do they represent in our lives? The Suitors in the book are a big problem faced by Odysseus when he finally gets back to his home, Ithaca. This, therefore, shows that no matter how close you are to your final goal, there will often be an obstacle preventing you from reaching that goal. You must do anything possible (but it still must be reasonable) to remove the obstacle.
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The lotus Eaters. People who eat a plant that makes them forget about home and want to stay there to eat more. They are visited by Odysseus and his crew while going to Aeaea. A couple of Odysseus' crew members, when scouting, were given the drug and got highly addicted to it. This made them forget about their homes. Therefore, Odysseus dragged them back to his ships. These legendary people stand for many things in our journey though life. First and foremost, they stand for drugs, an obvious reason. Drugs can make you forget about everything important in your life. Another thing they can stand for is the certain things that distract you from getting to a place or destination. These distractions can influence you completely, making you forget virtually everything, much like drugs do. If you encounter one of these distractions, you must ignore it and stay focused on your journey.
The Cyclops The Cyclops, named Polyphemus, traps Odysseus and some of his crew in his cave. He eats six of them and then gets blinded by Odysseus. Odysseus uses his cunning skills to get out of the cave undetected by the Cyclops. He does this by getting the Cyclops drunk. Then, he blinds him with a wooden stake. He and his crew escape from Polyphemus' cave by hiding under sheep. The Cyclops, because he has only one eye, represents people who see through only one perspective. This is normally not a good quality. You should either avoid these people or attempt to broaden their narrow-mindedness. The Circe A nymph who lives on Aeaea and changes Odysseus' crew into swine. Odysseus then threatens her and makes her turn his crew back into men. She then helps him by telling him that if he wants to go home, he must first go to the Underworld and talk to a seer. Circe represents wealth. If you abuse it, you will get "turned into pigs". Odysseus' crew saw her lustrous palace and their greed made them go inside without thinking. You should never let your greed control you. Sirens Women who live on an island and lure men to thier doom by singing about the men's pasts. Odysseus passes by the their place and listens to their song while tied down. He does this after leaving Circe's island in which the nymph tells him to listen (if he wants to) to the Sirens' songs. The Sirens sing about Odysseus' past (the Trojan War).
The sirens represent people who try to make you live in the past. When you encounter these kinds of people, you must resist them and force yourself to focus on the future. The future is much more important than the past. Anything bad that happened in the past can be excused by something in the future, and anything good that happened in the past can be ruined by something in the future.
The Scylla A six-headed monster that snatches six men, one for each of her heads, whenever a ship sails by. She lives in a cave opposite from the whirlpool, Charybdis. Also, Odysseus is told by Circe to pass her cave while journeying back to his homeland. Scylla's six heads snatch six men quickly to their doom. This shows how quickly an accident or tragedy can happen in real life and what unpredictable circumstances can arise. If a sudden tragedy happens to you or someone you know, you must bear it, like Odysseus did.
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The Charybdis A giant whirlpool monster that swallows Odysseus' ship when he is returning from Thrinacia. She is opposite Scylla. Charybdis opens for a period of time, and closes for an equal amount of time. When his ship is swallowed, Odysseus hangs onto a branch until Charybdis closes. Charybdis is not only opposite Scylla because of where she is, but she is also opposite because of what she does. Unlike Scylla, Charybdis sucks her victims in slowly. She represents things in your life that take you in very gradually, but once you do get "sucked in", they are very harmful to you. When you encounter these kinds of things, you must stop before it is too late. The more you have been "sucked in", the harder it is to stop or get out.
The odyssey ! ! Books 9-12 - the most interesting and eventful part of the poem? 
 Known as "The Wanderings of Odysseus," this section is the most famous of the epic. At the end of the Trojan War, Odysseus and his men sail first to the land of the Cicones. The Greeks succeed in raiding the central city but linger too long and are routed by a reserve force. Hoping to sail directly home, the flotilla instead encounters a severe storm, brought on by Athena, that blows them far off course to the land of the Lotus-eaters. These are not hostile people, but eating the lotus plant removes memory and ambition; Odysseus is barely able to pull his men away and resume the journey.! Curiosity compels Odysseus to explore the land of the Cyclops, a race of uncivilized, cannibalistic, one-eyed giants. One of them, Polyphemus (also known simply as "Cyclops"), traps Odysseus' scouting party in his cave. To escape, Odysseus blinds the one-eyed monster, incurring the wrath of the giant's father, Poseidon.! Aeolus, the wind god, is initially a friendly host. He captures all adverse winds and bags them for Odysseus, who is thus able to sail within sight of Ithaca. Unfortunately, his men suspect that the bag holds treasure and open it while Odysseus sleeps. The troublesome winds blow the party back to Aeolus, who wants no more to do with them, speculating that they must be cursed by the gods.! The next hosts, the cannibalistic Laestrygonians, sink all the ships but Odysseus' in a surprise attack. The remaining Greeks reach Aeaea, home of the beautiful enchantress Circe, who turns several of them into pigs. With advice from Hermes, Odysseus cleverly defeats Circe and becomes her lover. She lifts the spell from his men and aids in the group's eventual departure a year later, advising Odysseus that he must sail to the Land of the Dead. There, he receives various Greek heroes, a visit from his own mother, and an important prophecy from the seer Tiresias. Odysseus resumes his journey.! Barely surviving the temptations of the Sirens' songs and an attack by a six-headed monster named Scylla, Odysseus and his crew arrive at the island of the Sungod Helios. Despite severe warnings not to, the men feast on the cattle of the Sungod during Odysseus' brief absence. Zeus is outraged and destroys the ship as the Greeks depart, killing all but Odysseus, who is washed ashore at Calypso's island, where he stays until released seven years later.