What Is Athena's Role In The Odyssey

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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 …show more content…

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

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