What Is Athena's Role In The Odyssey

The Odyssey, composed by the enigmatic poet Homer, depicts the journey of a man named Odysseus and his struggles to reach his home of Ithaca after fighting in the Trojan War around 1200 BCE. This epic begins with the narrator explaining how Odysseus has not returned home because the goddess Calypso fell in love with him and keeps him captive. The goddess Athena pities Odysseus and Zeus allows her to go to Ithaca to see Telemachus, Odysseus’s son. At Ithaca, Telemachus is overwhelmed by the rude suitors that are attempting to marry Penelope, wife of Odysseus and mother of Telemachus. Athena arrives at Ithaca disguised as an old friend of Odysseus and persuades Telemachus to visit Pylos and Sparta to obtain information on his father and during

these travels, Telemachus learns of Odysseus’s predicament with Calypso. Whilst Telemachus travels, Athena goes back to Mount Olympus and persuades the gods to make Calypso release Odysseus, so he can go home. When Odysseus finally leaves the island Poseidon attacks him, but luckily Athena rescues him before he dies. Then Odysseus gets stranded at a Phoenician island and here Odysseus meets the Phoenician royal family. Also, he discloses the countless ordeals he faced after the Trojan war which include, the land of the Lotus Eaters, the Cyclops Polyphemus, the witch goddess Circe, the sirens, the six-headed monster Scylla, Charybdis, and Calypso. The Phoenicians decide to help Odysseus return to Ithaca and at Ithaca he meets Telemachus who just returned from his travels. Odysseus and Telemachus then murder all suitors, Odysseus reunites with Penelope, and Athena erases the minds of the parents of the suitors who are mad at Odysseus, which resolves the story peacefully. The ordeals of Odysseus and his family reveal significant aspects of Greek life from 1200 BCE to 800 BCE such as hospitality, the representation of women, and military technology.
The Greek’s opinion on hospitality and the relationship between a person being hospitable and one who receives hospitable actions is strikingly evident when Telemachus travels to Pylos and Sparta in search of information about Odysseus’s whereabouts. At Pylos, Telemachus meets with the king Nestor and his family when, “There sat Nestor with his sons; their followers around them were piercing meat with skewers or roasting it in preparation for the banquet. But as soon as the caught sight of the strangers they all made a move in their direction, took them by the hand and invited them to join them (The Odyssey, 28). Hospitality by Greek standards is shown by both Nestor and Telemachus. Nestor and his family, can be consider hospitable since they invite the stranger, Telemachus, into their home and offer him food and shelter. Telemachus then returns the hospitality by accepting the invitation and is respectful of Nestor and his home. Nestor and Telemachus abide by the rules of hospitality, however, the young nobleman of Ithaca that are seeking to marry Penelope do not. Telemachus describes the suitors as, “‘…all the nobles in rocky Ithaca, there is not one that isn’t courting my mother and wasting my property... meanwhile they are eating me out of house and home. And they will very soon destroy me too’” (The Odyssey, 9). The suitors are careless of the hospitality that Telemachus displays and furthermore reject Telemachus’ hospitality by planning to ambush him when he returns home from his travels. Consequently, the suitors are all killed by Telemachus and Odysseus at the conclusion of the Odyssey due to their disrespect of hospitality. Besides hospitality, how women were viewed in Greece is also revealed in the Odyssey.
The representations of women in the Odyssey illustrate how women were regarded in Greece. Simply, women were inferior to men. There are multiple instances in which this misogyny is portrayed. The most prominent example occurs when Telemachus tells Penelope, “So go to your quarters now and attend to your own work, the loom and the spindle, and see that the servants get on with theirs. The bow is the men’s concern, and mine above all; for I am master in this house’” (The Odyssey, 285). A Greek woman’s inferiority is displayed in all relationships she has with men. Penelope is Telemachus mother, yet he asserts complete dominance over her because of his gender. Not only were women considered inferior to men, but the goddesses were similarly considered inferior to the gods. When Calypso is told by Hermes that Zeus orders to have Odysseus released, she states, “‘You are hard-hearted, you gods, and unmatched for jealousy. You are outraged if a goddess sleeps openly with a man even if she has chosen him as her husband. You were the same when rosy-fingered Dawn fell in love with Orion’” (The Odyssey, 66). Calypso is cognizant of the double standard the gods hold over the goddesses. Many of the Greek gods were believed to have relationships with mortals, yet when goddesses do the same, the gods retaliate against the goddesses irately. Additionally, this inferiority of goddesses is present when Athena has to ask Zeus for permission to help Odysseus while Poseidon can attack Odysseus freely. The inferiority of woman as displayed in the Odysseus did occur in Greek life except in the polis of Sparta, which is also supported when Telemachus travels to Sparta and witnesses how well Helen is treated. However, the Odyssey is not completely representative of Greek life such as in the case of military technology.
The military technology used by the characters of the Odyssey reflect the weapons Greek’s used in battles such as the Trojan War.

When Athena travels to Ithaca to speak with Telemachus, she wishes to see Odysseus in his armor, so he could kick the suitors out of his house, “If only he could show himself at this moment at the palace gates, with his helmet, his shield, and his two spears…” (The Odyssey, 9). Greek soldiers, called Hoplites, used bronze weapons and fought in a rectualnger formation called phalanx. Greeks also made use of other weapons besides spears and shields as validated by Penelope when she sets up the challenge for the suitors to try to win her hand in marriage, “But when the torrent of tears had brought its own relief, she set out for the hall to face the proud Suitors, carrying the supple bow and the quiver with its deadly load of arrows in her hands, and her women followed with a box full of the iron and bronze axes that their master had won as prizes” (The Odyssey, 278). This passage indicates that bows and axes were also used as weapons, however there a discrepancy presents itself. The Odyssey is set around 1200 BCE which is when the Trojan War took place, however iron was not yet present in Greece until 800 BCE. This discrepancy can be due to the fact that the Odyssey was written down around 800 BCE, which is when iron first appeared in Greece. Although this discrepancy occurs, the Odyssey is mostly accurate on the military technology Greeks

used.
The Odyssey reveals how the people of Greece regarded hospitality, women, and the military technology they armed themselves with from 1200 BCE to 800 BCE. The Odyssey cannot be considered a completely reliable source of Greek life however. Homer, the composer of the Odyssey, is an ambiguous man. Not much is known about Homer and there are uncertainties if he was a real person or if he actually did compose the Odyssey. Also, since this epic poem was spread orally for hundreds of years before being written down and finalized, information could have easily gotten lost, misinterpreted, or wrongly added such as in the case of iron. Nevertheless, the Odyssey is still regarded as representative of Greece because evidence has been found that supports some of the information and events depicted. The Odyssey is respected as one of the most significant literary work of the Western world not only for the incredulous journey Odysseus overcomes, but because of the information it also reveals of Greek life.