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Odysseus Explained
Bronze Age Warlord
“We have heard a lot about the shadow cast by the warrior Achillies over the imagination of the ancient Greeks, but the hero whose example really counted in the cut and thrust of their contemporary politics was Odysseus. Resourceful, nimble-witted, a trickster who could cheat a one-eyed giant out of his sight and leave him telling the world that ‘no Man has hurt me’, Odysseus was the model for all successful tyrants. - Ancient Worlds by Richard Miles
Homer’s Odyssey is intertwined with the character of Odysseus (though the epic is not limited to Odysseus’ adventures). The challenges he faces are part of epic fiction, like the labours of Hercules and the voyages of Sinbad. However unlike Sinbad or Hercules, Odysseus’ character and cunning has been the subject of deeper martial research.
Odysseus' foremost trait is his cunning, and how he uses it to get the better of larger, richer, more powerful adversaries, and even gods from the Greek pantheon. The Odyssey is a story of his agency over circumstances, the gods, his family's predicament back home and Ithaca's place in the Achaean world. Through the book we are told how capable he is as a warrior and thinker, yet his journey home is the longest and filled with peril.
We are told that Odysseus is the protagonist of the Odyssey, however he is not the hero. There is no hero. It’s a cruel world, the Homeriad is a grimdark epic, and Odysseus is a complicated and often cruel character. In a literal and unromanticised version of the Homeriad, Odysseus is a draft-dodger and turns vengeful over the issue at the earliest opportunity. He is intelligent enough to know better than to join another man’s megalomaniacal invasion, and yet he excels at the brutal practicalities of war, and obeys no moral code.
Raiders, Pirates & Sea Wolves
The Achaean World - Part 1
Odysseus' world dates back to 1,200 BCE, and the epics take place toward the end of the Bronze Age and the onset of the Iron Age. It was a time of disasters, the scale of which could end civilizations. This age was defined by its ships, swords, kingdoms and heroes, but there were no books or writers. The Achaeans / Mycenaeans (predecessors to the Greeks) were sea faring people; they were traders, raiders and sea wolves. The Aegean Sea and civilization around it made sure of that. Their language is known as Linear B and it was a precursor to Greek. Most people did not know how to read or write, and had limited use for it; what little reading and writing was required was carried out by professional scribes.
Odysseus is known as cunning, much-enduring and resourceful, but he was also called ‘ptoliporthos’ - the sacker of cities - not a disgraceful profession at the time. Guest rights were sacred in the Achaean world but no guest was ever insulted by being asked if they were ‘roving the waves like pirates, sea-wolves raiding at will’. As Thucydides writes - the profession of piracy and raiding was almost held to be honourable. Compare the piratical Achaeans who raid cities and settlements along the coasts of the Mediterranean with the plundering Bedouin who tax the trading caravans traversing the Arabian desert. These are wide open and dangerous spaces, where nature itself can turn deadly or simply hide a natural or thieving predator behind a boring horizon.
Yet it is hard worlds like these that gives rise to a code of hospitality to strangers. This cultural trait features heavily in the Odyssey where some hosts like Calypso don’t want their guests to leave, and others like Penelope’s suitors simply won’t go. Other hosts are more complex - like Cyclops who is a hostile host and is bested by Odysseus, and Circe who is cruel at first but then turns into a perfect hostess.
The Secret World by Christopher Andrew
Odysseus in Military Literature - Part 1
“Odysseus was not primarily concerned with secret missions and intelligence operations. He was, first and foremost, a heroic warrior in search of glory and revenge who also enjoyed what might now be called recreational violence.” - The Secret World - A History of Intelligence by Christopher Andrew
Christopher Andrew, in his book on intelligence and espionage, is comparing Odysseus to James Bond here and contrasting how to Bond the adventure was incidental to the cause of spying, but for Odysseus the secret missions were just some of the many things he had to do in the greater cause of adventuring.
The author also highlights how Odysseus practiced spycraft in a manner that was codified by Sun Zu 700 years after the events of the Trojan War.
“You must seek out enemy agents who have come to spy on you, bribe them and induce them to stay with you, so you can use them as reverse spies”. (Chapter 13, On The Use of Spies - Shambala Dragon Edition, Translated by Thomas Cleary).
While on a clandestine mission to the Trojan camp, Odysseus meets the Trojan spy Dolon and tricks him into revealing information about the Trojan army. Then he kills Dolon without mercy and uses the information to infiltrate a Trojan ally’s camp, murder a king and return to the Achaean forces with Thracian horses and spoils.
Deception in the form of a physical disguise was a major part of Odysseus’ arsenal. With an aptitude for trickery, Odysseus managed to infiltrate hostile territory without being identified. He does this once again in Troy in order to steal a sacred image of Athena from a Trojan temple - despite being recognized in enemy territory by none other than Helen. Again back home in Ithaca while scouting out the suitors who’ve laid siege to his castle; he lives in their midst sizing up the situation and the enemy - revealing himself only when he is in an unassailable position.
Odysseus’ most ambitious stratagem was the construction of the huge, hollow Trojan Horse. After a ten-year war the Greeks and Trojan were locked in a stalemate with neither side backing down, nor strong enough for a brute force attack to victory. The ruse of the Trojan Horse deceives the Trojans into thinking the Greeks have given up, leaving behind the wooden horse as a tribute to the gods. The horse is dragged into the gates of Troy, along with Odysseus and a crack team of Greek adventurer-kings who climb out from the belly of the horse in the dead of night. They open the gates to finally let the rest of the Greek army into Troy and the famous city is destroyed once more. Helen is reunited with Menelaus and the Trojan War winds down.
The Trojan Horse Deception (also known as the Odyssean Ruse) remains one of the most fabled deceptions in the world. Though Odysseus is widely credited with the idea, the origin is disputed and long-winded.
Robert Graves writes - “Athene now inspired Prylis, son of Hermes, to suggest that entry should be gained into Troy by means of a wooden horse; an Epeius, son of Panopeus from Parnassus, volunteered to build one under Athene’s supervision. Afterwards, of course, Odysseus claimed all credit for this stratagem”.
The Iliad as an introduction to Odysseus portrays a wily general-king, whose exploits would later be characterised as cruel in Virgil’s Aeneid, which is about the founding of Rome by Aeneas after he led the Trojan survivors of the war to safety.
Odysseus' attire here is a more faithful representation than many others.
Strategy by Lawrence Freedman
Odysseus in Military Literature - Part 2
In Strategy: A History, Lawrence Freedman begins with Homer because Achilles and Odysseus embody two distinct but valid approaches to conflict. Achilles represents bie - force, strength and decisive action. Odysseus represents metis - cunning, adaptability and intelligence. The contrast is not absolute - both think and both fight. Rather, they illustrate that direct action, though necessary, is not always sufficient.
Achilles dominates the battlefield to the extent that his mere presence shapes the course of the Trojan War, threatening the Achaean cause by his absence. Yet, wars are fought not only with weapons but through alliances, incentives, persuasion and deception. Strategy emerges precisely where force alone ceases to be enough. These are Odysseus’ domain. This distinction explains Freedman’s interest in Homer; Achilles and Odysseus are archetypes of strategic behaviour - one direct when called on, and the other circuitous when required. Before strategy became a discipline, it existed in stories.
Freedman is careful not to diminish Achilles when describing Odysseus as a strategic thinker. His interest lies not in pitting them against each other but in demonstrating where they are most effective. In the arena Achilles is a force multiplier, but war is also a contest of coalitions and interests where power needs to be directed, coordinated and controlled. Odysseus steps in at this stage to manage uncertainty and conflicting interests. In fact, Odysseus often shapes the political and strategic context around Achilles at crucial events of The Iliad. Odysseus orchestrates his recruitment to the war - without which superstition led Agamemnon to believe the war couldn’t be won; and calculates how to best utilize Achilles’ rage in the aftermath of Patroclus’ death on the battlefield.
Odysseus’ life-strategy was self interest & survival over honour and glory; to paraphrase Don Domenico Clericuzio from Mario Puzo’s The Last Don - he hoped someday to be a saint, but never a martyr. When he proposed what is known as the Oath of Tyndareus to Helen’s father when suitors were invited to vie for her hand in marriage, Odysseus had his own self-interest in mind: Penelope’s hand in marriage. Instead of relying on wealth or brute force to win his prize, he appealed with cold logic to Tyndareus’s panic and the egos of the assembled warlords.
In Madeline Miller’s The Song of Achilles, this moment is brilliantly reimagined; seen as a noble intervention to all those present, but clearly viewed as calculated extortion by the reader. Seeing dozens of heavily armed, rival kings ready to slaughter each other over Helen, Odysseus offers Tyndareus the only viable solution to prevent a civil war: let Helen choose, and force every suitor to swear an oath to defend the winner. In exchange for diffusing the tension, Odysseus demands Penelope. He establishes himself as a statesman among suitors here, but one with an unwavering focus on his own goal, securing his prize while keeping competition at bay.
The Oath of Tyndareus reveals an Odysseus who prefers to avoid unnecessary conflict. The same instinct appears later when he attempts to evade military service altogether. When Helen has run away with Paris, and Odysseus' own brilliant treaty comes back to haunt him, his draft-dodging ploy is comical. Odysseus plays the madman to avoid going to war at Troy but is outplayed by Palamedes, who forces Odysseus to abandon the act. Odysseus yields to the situation but neither forgets nor forgives, and frames Palamedes as a spy years later in the middle of the Trojan War.
Odysseus more often than not, seems to have a wider goal in mind compared to those around him; though this contrasts with his incentive: wanting to be left alone to live a peaceful domestic existence with Penelope. From engineering his marriage to her at the time of the Oath of Tyndareus, through faking insanity and later down to the Ithacan massacre two decades later and everything in between, his strategic focus remains unbroken.
Though his adventures in Troy and on the voyage home became the stuff of epic poetry, they can also be read as a continuous exercise in strategic adaptation. For Odysseus, the goal was never glory for its own sake, but survival, restoration and homecoming. It is this quality, more than the Cyclops or the Trojan Horse, that explains why Freedman begins a history of strategy with Homer.
Achilles and Odysseus are remembered as the indispensable men of the Trojan War, yet both were ultimately recruited into someone else's project. Menelaus lost a wife, but Agamemnon gained a coalition. The most consequential strategist of the war may not have been the man who devised the Trojan Horse, but the king who first saw an opportunity in Helen's abduction.
A 'Trojan Horse' in Turkiye
Intelligence & Infiltration
The Palace Massacre - Part 1
"Cultures of honor tend to take root in highlands and other marginally fertile areas, such as Sicily or the mountainous Basque regions of Spain. If you live on some rocky mountainside, the explanation goes, you can't farm. You probably raise goats or sheep, and the kind of culture that grows up around being a herdsman is very different from the culture that grows up around growing crops. The survival of a farmer depends on the cooperation of others in the community. But a herdsman is off by himself. Farmers also don't have to worry that their livelihood will be stolen in the night, because crops can't easily be stolen unless, of course, a thief wants to go to the trouble of harvesting an entire field on his own. But a herdsman does have to worry. He's under constant threat of ruin through the loss of his animals. So he has to be aggressive: he has to make it clear, through his words and deeds, that he is not weak." - Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers
The Palace Massacre is a textbook illustration of how Achaean warrior-kings kept their crown in the late Bronze Age. The Achaean world was fragmented, it was unlike the Egyptian empire, or the Hittite kingdom, or the Phoenicians who were rising as a marine mercantile power. The Achaeans had no emperor or powerful central authority like a church or institutional government; and compared to the Egyptian and Hittite kingdom, it was unruly, warlike and barbaric. And Ithaca was to the Achaean world what the Achaean world was to its more powerful and consolidated kingdoms - unruly, poor and fragmented.
Odysseus’ return to Ithaca is a tactical nightmare. He left Ithaca as an important leader in a coalition, a warrior king sought out by Agamemnon himself; but returned alone, old and tired. It was Odysseus’ endgame to get back home and he was willing to use his wit and will to put the war to a close (a trait that Agamemnon well exploited in war). Another ten years were spent wandering the seas - the source of the delay and blame for which can squarely be placed on his own shoulders.
Ithaca was unfamiliar territory to him after 20 years and he guards his identity with whomever he meets. When he realises he's in Ithaca and gets an inkling of the situation at his palace he reverts to the 'siege mentality' that served him well at Troy. Maintaining his false identity he meets his childhood friend and swineherd Eumaeus and casually extracts two pieces of information - where do Eumaeus' loyalties lie, and what exactly is going on in the palace. He realizes he’s reached his kingdom but is facing a deadly and personal challenge. Ithaca is besieged, his wife is being courted by a coalition of lesser lords from his island network, and his son has grown up without a father and is in imminent danger of being killed.
Then Odysseus meets his son Telemachus, who's just returned, and befriends him while remaining incognito. He learns more of what his wife and son are going through and what they've done to survive. When Odysseus reveals himself to Telemachus, father and son together plot to take revenge. They cannot take a direct route, as Odysseus revealing himself could be mortally dangerous at the hands of expectant suitors - men of marriageable age and expectations, who've been made to wait too long. The Achaean world was a tough place and constant proving ground; Odysseus has been away for a generation and he's facing hungry, impatient men at their peak physical prowess. Using deception and disguise, Odysseus enters his castle as a feeble and foolish old beggar and takes in first hand information on the suitors.
Ithaca on the Achaean world map
Odysseus, Penelope & the Suitors
Threat Assessment
Consider the myth of Odysseus the lover. From the oath of Tyndareus, through to feigned madness before Palamedes, the entire Trojan War, Circe, Calypso and the entirety of his wandering years he wants nothing more than to come home to Penelope. But the final acts of the Odyssey are not the actions of a husband or lover, but the execution of political necessity. It is Ithaca he's fighting for, as much as for Penelope. Penelope loves him, Ithaca needs to be fought over.
A political reading of the palace massacre clears up some of the controversy. It was the manifestation of power mechanics of the Bronze Age more than a romantic rescue. The queen was a seal of legitimacy. To survive he had to reclaim the throne and the suitors had to be purged. After all, the suitors wanted the throne more than they wanted the widowed mother of a twenty year old.
The suitors are from Ithaca, and from the nearby island kingdoms of Dulichium, Same and Zacynthus, and there are geopolitical implications in the outcome. They're combat aged nobles with political ambitions trying to stage a palace takeover by marrying a widowed queen. The suitors were all looking out for a prize that only one could acquire, this made them competitors, but they were also conspirators to get the queen to capitulate, and to absorb her estate.
In effect - the suitors' siege was an archipelagic coup d'etat. Odysseus was the king of Ithaca but he was also the basileus or paramount warlord of all these kings of islands in the Ionian Sea archipelago (the Cephallenians). All these nobles fell under his broader hegemonic sphere of influence. Whichever of these suitors married Penelope would control the regional seat of power.
Of these suitors there are three worth discussing in some detail and also examining Penelope's thoughts and responses.
1. Antinous, the leader of the suitors was the overt alpha male - confident, aggressive, intelligent, proactive and manipulative. He was at the forefront of plans to kill Telemachus, and took every opportunity to play mental games with him. His cruelty was on display in the manner he reacted to beggars being shown hospitality.
2. Eurymachus was a political challenge to Odysseus. He has earned some respect among the locals, and seemed on at least one occasion to lend some credibility to Telemachus. He flattered Penelope and anticipated her concern for Telemachus if she chose to remarry.
3. Amphinomus was Penelope's choice if she were ultimately compelled to choose. He seemed more relaxed, kinder, and anchored; Odysseus himself tries to warn him, but Amphinomus was in an environment of conquest and knowingly or not - his actions weren't far from the cohort of suitors.
Penelope is seen as the embodiment of fidelity in contrast to her cousins - the adulterous Helen of Sparta, and Helen's twin Clytemnestra who killed her own husband Agamemnon. How did she handle over a hundred suitors who had together laid siege to her palace? Her strategy was Fabian - delay, delay, delay. Her tactic was to promise the suitors to choose a husband from one among them only after completing a shroud for Odysseus’ ageing father Laertes. Her actions of weaving by day, and undoing her work at night are textbook sabotage worthy of Odysseus' wife. She also played the suitors against each other by communicating individually, using a divide and conquer strategy.
Whatever her decision - it would have a ripple effect on her son and on the politics of the region. In the end she held out in hope of Odysseus coming back, and in the Homeric tales spent more time as the ruler of Ithaca than Odysseus.
Penelope sabotages the suitors
Regime Stabilization
The Palace Massacre - Part 2
"The stag may be magnificent, but the stalker usually wins in the end - through patience and making the right moves." - Edward De Bono, Tactics.
"Think like a man of action, act like a man of thought." From the movie -The International
Odysseus didn't have the time to think like a man of action, he had to think on his feet, and his default mode of operation began with deception [probably why he had no true friendship bonds]. Odysseus decides on a 4-pronged approach to create an asymmetric advantage - allies to deal with the sheer number of suitors, deception for intelligence & infiltration, surprise for the final attack & metis in all things.
Odysseus' team includes Eumaeus, his son Telemachus, his caretaker when he was young, Eurycleia, who discovers his identity but keeps the secret, and his cowherd, Philoetius. His wife and father are kept in the dark.
Maintaining his disguise, Odysseus enters his palace as a beggar and faces the hostility of the suitors. These men have overstayed their host's welcome, drained the palace resources and laid siege to his wife the queen - pressuring her into accepting that Odysseus is dead and insisting that she must choose one of them as her husband. They have made themselves masters of the palace by exploiting the custom of hospitality, and family's grief over Odysseus' absence. For the suitors - one more beggar to feed is one more claim on the dwindling resources. Their reactions give Odysseus a feel for who he's dealing with, and a justification.
Everything comes together in the palace as Penelope descends to the great hall. She announces a bow stringing and archery competition, promising to marry the winner, the suitors realise it is finally their moment, as does Odysseus. Telemachus has quietly removed the heavy weaponry from the stands. Under instruction from Odysseus, Eurycleia and Philoetius barricade the doors from outside so there's no escape for the suitors, and lock the doors to the women's quarters to keep civilians away from the killing floor.
As the suitors fail to even string the bow and the competition seems to wind down for the day Odysseus takes the bow and strings it, then hits the target through the twelve axheads, making a shot that was considered impossible by the suitors. Still in the guise of a beggar he effectively decapitates the leadership by executing Antinous without warning, who dies with an arrow through his throat while he's drinking. Then Odysseus announces himself to the suitors. The suitors realise they are locked in with Odysseus and his small crew, and only one group will prevail. On behalf of all the suitors, Eurymachus starts to negotiate, and blames Antinous for everything. But irrespective of the merits of the argument Odysseus cannot let the suitors' actions pass without judgment.
The killing commences, but the outcome is far from certain. The suitors still have their personal sidearms and use those to attack Odysseus. The more aggressive suitors charge Odysseus and are shot down by him. Without armour, and with the removal of their de facto leader Antinous, the suitors collapse as a cohesive unit; their self preservation instinct overrides their ability to mount an effective counter. Odysseus has the only long range weapon in the room and finishes off a number of suitors, but he runs out of arrows. Whatever standoff advantage Odysseus started off with was quickly neutralized when his former servant Melanthius breaches the armory, appears with weapons and hands those to the suitors. Fortunately for Odysseus, Telemachus too brings in heavy armour and weapons for his father's crew. In the chaos of bloody close quarters combat Odysseus’ plan comes to fruition, and with his crew, they finish off the suitors as heavy infantrymen. They've carried out one of the most controversial massacres in classical literature.
The Palace Massacre is the optimum use of the last vestiges of energy of a tired old man - not from the POV of a husband, but from that of a long absent king. He simply doesn't have the resources to rule a kingdom with these suitors still alive. And at his age, Bronze Age life expectancy doesn't leave him many years. This is a new generation and the culture of Ithaca has organically changed from the time Paris ran away with Helen. Odysseus quite literally needs to stage a palace coup against the weak and enfeebled image of himself that Ithacans now have. Without this single minded slaughter he would spend the rest of his days establishing himself as a ruler to be obeyed, facing constant challenges to authority and second guessing his every move.
The Mask of Agamemnon
System Collapse
The Achaean World - Part 2
Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey mark the end of the Achaean / Mycenaean world. This is where the Bronze age ended - social, martial & natural changes resulted in the onset of a dark age where all records of history were lost. All memory of the Linear B language was lost with the destruction of the Mycenaean world. The Greek alphabet developed four centuries later around 800 BCE when they took over the 25 letters of the Phoenician alphabet; this system was more accessible and consequently more widely adopted. This gap of time and change in language has given rise to the Homeric debates about written versus oral traditions, and factual versus fictional elements of Homer’s work which originate around 800 BCE.
The time of Odysseus is when the Mycenaean empire (and many others in the vicinity) collapsed and led to a Dark Age. The feudal system of the Achaeans was breaking, and those on the receiving end of the hierarchy were desperate, making the most of the natural and man-made calamities around them. They also adopted the evolving technology - the onset of the Iron Age, more accurately the Steel Age. Some of the displaced became invaders Entire populations began to be displaced as is evidenced by invaders moving with their families and replacing the local populace. Many cities and states met the same fate as Troy - whether at the hands of natural disasters, social collapse, infighting, wars, invasions or by raids carried out by the mysterious Sea-Peoples. Only the most powerful empires like Assyria, Babylon and Egypt would survive in a weakened state.
“The catastrophe of the Sea Peoples is one of those dramatic break points in our story, as when the radio goes off air. In this first Dark Age, writing itself disappeared from large areas and, with it, history itself. Agricultural output collapsed, populations dwindled, cities were abandoned, towns became villages, the world shrank.” - Ancient Worlds by Richard Miles
Athena guides Odysseus