The last voyage

The monumental film of “The Odyssey” which portrays the legendary homeward journey of King Odysseus of Ithaca after the Trojan war, has hit the silver screen in the Gulf, the region and across the world. Odysseus is renowned for his intellectual brilliance, guile, and versatility and is known by the unflattering epithet Odysseus the Cunning. He was of medium height and broad in the chest and across the shoulders.It is estimated that he was in his late twenties to early forties when the Trojan War began. Because he spent 10 years fighting in Troy and another 10 years trying to get home, he would have been in his mid-forties to late fifties upon his return.

The war began after Paris, a Trojan prince, abducted or eloped with Helen, the queen of Sparta. Her husband Menelaus called upon her other suitors to honour their oaths and help him retrieve her, an effort that launched the Trojan War. Odysseus tried to avoid joining by feigning lunacy, as an oracle had prophesied that he would not return home for many years. Having been recruited nevertheless, Odysseus was viewed as a moderate, a voice of reason, renowned for his self-restraint and diplomatic skills. He became one of the most influential Greek counsellors and advisers of commander Agamemnon.

The war ended when, after nine years of inconclusive battles, the Greeks boarded their ship for home, leaving behind a massive wooden horse which the Trojans took into their city walls as a trophy. That night Greek warriors emerged from the hollow horse and opened the gates for their returned warriors who defeated the Trojans and sacked and burnt Troy and slew its inhabitants. Odysseus was responsible for the outcome because he ordered the construction of the horse. The fall of Troy through trickery remains a seminal event in Greek mythology and Western literature. To this day, commentators speak of the ruse of a “Trojan horse” when analysing specific conflicts.

When returning home, Odysseus disguised himself as a wandering beggar and was recognised only by his dog, Argos. Beset by suitors, his wife Penelope believed Odysseus dead, leaving his wife Penelope and son Telemachus to contend with aggressive suitors competing for her hand in marriage. She announced that she would wed the man who could string Odysseus’s rigid bow and shoot an arrow through twelve axe shafts. The suitors failed, Odysseus took up the bow, shot the axe shafts and killed the suitors. He was recognised by Penelope and took up his duties as king. However, according to one version of what happened next, Odysseus was accidentally killed by his own son Telegonus – unknowingly fathered with sorceress Circe. After arriving on Ithaca, he raided the island for supplies and fought Odysseus who was stabbed with a spear tipped with a deadly stingray barb. In the second version, Odysseus handed over the kingdom to his son and sailed westwards with Penelope.

Archaeological excavations by Heinrich Schliemann (1870) and others in modern-day Turkey have proven that the city of Troy (Hisarlik) was a Bronze Age (3300 to 1200 BCE) walled city that suffered repeated destruction. The sack described in “The Odyssey” is said to have taken place in 1184 BC. A UNESCO World Heritage Site, Hisarlık, is a partially excavated 30-metre-tall archaeological mound in north-west Turkey. The site contains 10 overlapping city layers dating back 4,000 years and is located on the Dardanelles about 20 miles from the major city of Çanakkale.

Eighth century BC Greek historian and poet Homer is generally regarded as the author of “The Odyssey” and “The Iliad,” the story of the Trojan War itself. He was said to be a blind bard from Ionia, the central sector of the western coast of Anatolia in present-day Turkey, and the Greek islands of Chios and Samos. However, some modern scholars argue that these tales were in wide circulation in illiterate societies where they were related by roaming story tellers who modified the narratives to suit themselves and their listeners. “The Odyssey” and “The Iliad” were the first literary works used as school texts in ancient Greek and Hellenistic cultures. It is generally agreed that the poems were not stitched together over time by several writers but composed mostly by a single author, who apparently relied heavily on ancient oral traditions. Some scholars believe that they were dictated to a scribe by the poet and that the current versions of “The Iliad” and “The Odyssey” were originally orated.

Events in “The Odyssey” unfold in the Peloponnese and in the Ionian Islands of Ithaca and its neighbours. Locations in addition to Greece which are said to have been visited by Odysseus have been identified as Italy, Tunisia, Malta and the Iberian Peninsula. Troy, Phoenicia, Egypt and Crete were also mentioned, indicating that there was considerable knowledge of Mediterranean geography at that time. Historians now believe that the Homeric poems emerged from actual historical conflicts driven by geographical, political and economic competition over vital Aegean trade routes.

Photo: TNS