Justice System in Ancient Greece as Portrayed in Homer's Odyssey

Justice in our times is almost completely different from what the ancient Greeks considered as justice. Justice, today can be defined as the quality of being just, the principle of moral rightness. In the ancient Greek era and most certainly during the time when the story of the Odyssey happened; Justice was frequently instantaneous and severe, almost unswerving. Odysseus is sometimes seen as being the one carrying out justice or being the one affected by justice. In the Odyssey, we see justice as revenge, and areas in which we can use to say that Odysseus is a just man.

An incident of justice is seen in book nine, when The Cyclops traps Odysseus and his men in a cave and eats a few of his men. When Cyclops when out with his sheep, Odysseus, came up with a plan to escape from captivity. When Cyclops returned from herding his sheep; Odysseus gave him wine saying “I brought it here to make you a fine libation” (9.391). Cyclops drank the wine and got drunk and as a result of his drunkenness Odysseus was able to carry out his revenge by blinding the Cyclops to retaliate the death of some of his crew members. Odysseus then mocks him, “Cyclops ¬– if any man on the face of the earth should ask you who blinded you, shamed you so –say Odysseus” (9.558-560). This action shows that Odysseus is a just a man; he doesn’t let his people die without avenging their death. On the hand we see Odysseus as a prey of justice as he suffers Poseidon’s retribution for blinding his son, Cyclops. Cyclops prays to his father “Hear me –Poseidon, god of the sea-blue man who rocks the earth!”(9.585-586). He asked his father to punish Odysseus not to reach his home, or if he is to reach his home it should take a while. Poseidon’s listens to the prayer and de...

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...g—I pine, all my days—to travel home and see the dawn of my return” (5.242-243).We see that he praised Calypso by telling her how beautiful she is but that he will not stop until he gets home even if it means more suffering.

Finally, some readers of this text might argue that it was not a just move by Odysseus to kill all the disloyal maids. An argument can be made that they had no choice in what they did, they can say that the maids were forced, like Medon said, “They were too strong, too many--they forced me to come and sing--I had no choice!” (22.372-373). It can be said that the maids acted out of fear for their lives. But to counter this argument it is pointed in the text that the maids slept with the suitors and some of them betrayed Penelope by telling the suitors that she was tricking them to get gifts instead of looking for a husband to replace Odysseus.