I spent this Fall sailing the Mediterranean with a war hero, matching wits and muscle with monsters and gods before enjoying a vengeful and ultimately celebratory homecoming at last; then traipsing around Asia Minor, doing battle and struggling to survive in a mercenary force without a sponsor before, again, coming back to where it began, only to launch again – all this without leaving my desk, as part of the Catherine Project tutorial group reading Homer’s Odyssey and then Xenophon’s Anabasis of Cyrus.
I had read the Odyssey, the Fagles translation, once before for a mooc on Greek and Roman mythology. I’d also bought the Wilson translation a few years ago when it was released in paperback, but hadn’t read beyond the Introduction; I was waiting for the opportunity to read it side-by-side with Fagles. And here was my chance! I threw in the Lattimore edition, which the group leader was using, just for fun.
Each week we’d read through three books of the work, and meet for two hours to discuss what we’d noticed and/or what we wanted to know more about. The inability of Penelope and Telemachus to eject the suitors, so strange to us in the 21st century, was a frequent topic, as was Odysseus’ lack of control over his men, who kept creating dangerous situations, ultimately resulting in their deaths. We also discussed at length the attack on the suitors, the viciousness of the revenge, particularly of the maids who were brutally murdered for sleeping with the enemy rather than for outright deeds of disloyalty; and the touching reunion between man and wife that hinged on an olive tree.
A few weeks before we began the group, the Twitterverse exploded when a reader, in anticipation of Wilson’s forthcoming edition of The Iliad, complained about her use of the word “complicated” to describe Odysseus in the opening line: “She just can’t help insulting Odysseus.” Maybe this is why I found Book XIX so interesting as it reveals how Odysseus was named at the suggestion of his maternal grandfather Autolycus, described in all three translations as a thief and liar, given those gifts by Hermes, and therefore despised by those he’d tricked; the name he chose for his grandson reflects this, varying from “son of pain” to “distasteful.”
Lattimore:
Autolykos came once to the rich country of Ithaka,
and found that a child there was newly born to his daughter;
and, as he finished his evening meal, Eurykleia laid him
upon his very knees, and spoke him a word and named him:
“Autolykos, now find yourself that name you will bestow
On your own child’s dear child, for you have prayed much to have him.”
The Autolykos spoke to her and gave her an answer:
“My son-in-law and daughter, give him the name I tell you;
since I have come to this place distasteful to many, women
and men alike on the prospering earth, so let him be given
the name Odysseus, that is distasteful.”
Wilson:
He went there
with his maternal cousins and grandfather,
noble Autolycus, who was the best
of all mankind at telling lies and stealing.
Hermes gave him this talent to reward him
for burning many offerings to him.
Much earlier, Autolycus had gone
to Ithaca to see his daughter’s baby,
and Eurycleia put the newborn child
on his grandfather’s lap and said, “Now name
your grandson-this much-wanted baby boy.”
He told the parents, “Name him this. I am
disliked by many, all across the world,
and I dislike them back. So name the child
‘Odysseus.’
Fagles:
The man was his mother’s noble father, one who excelled
the world at thievery, that and subtle, shifty oaths.
Hermes gave him the gift, overjoyed by the thighs
of lambs and kids he burned in the god’s honor-
Hermes the ready partner in his crimes. Now,
Autolycus once visited Ithaca’s fertile land,
to find his daughter’s son had just been born.
Eurycleia set him down on the old man’s knees
as he finished dinner, urging him, “Autolycus,
you must find a name for your daughter’s darling son.
The baby comes as the answer to her prayers.”
“You,
my daughter, and you, my son-in-law,” Autolycus replied,
“give the boy the name I tell you now. Just as I
have come from afar, creating pain for many-
men and women across the good green earth-
so let his name be Odysseus …
the Son of Pain, a name he’ll earn in full.
It’s interesting that this is in the section describing how Odysseus got the scar on his foot that identifies him to his former nurse Eurycleia, which emphasizes the element of identity and recognition with the familial connection to his name. While it isn’t clear to me that it is Odysseus who will be distasteful – as opposed to coming from one who is distasteful, or reflecting his grandfather’s distaste for the world – it’s still a distinctive passage in a work that goes out of its way to sing his praises at every turn.
And here I went off the reservation. One of the few ‘rules’ of the Catherine Project is that we stick to the text and don’t bring in other commentary or analysis. But as I typically do – hey, research is my thing – I went looking for more information about this. The most interesting paper I found goes into detail about this short section of verse, distinguishing between being hated by the gods (such as Poseidon) and being hated by people, which is minimal, and discussing Homer’s particular interpretation of the naming:
To conclude : if the arguments offered here are valid, Homer intended the name Odysseus to be understood primarily in a passive sense, as “the man doomed to odium.” In the interests of heroic decorum he minimized the natural unpopularity of his favorite hero among his heroic associates, and confined his etymological allusions to the odium of Poseidon toward Odysseus. But since unpopularity was an inevitable concomitant of Autolycan wiles, and Odysseus had inherited a share of these, Homer did not completely expurgate this characteristic from Odysseus’ Iliadic and Odyssean career. He wrote about men, not about plaster images. By the end of the Odyssey Homer clearly intends us to believe that Odysseus’ days of hatred were over. As a profound humanist Homer rejected the stricter doctrine of etymological predestination.
W. B. Stanford (Trinity College, Dublin): “The Homeric Etymology of the Name Odysseus” available online at JSTOR
It’s interesting to see Homer described as a “profound humanist” considering the age in which he lived, the inhuman events he wrote about, and the uncertain connection he, or any individual, may have had with the text we know today. However, with all this as background, it seems to me that “complicated” is perhaps a generous term to apply to Odysseus.
Some of us in the group found the ending – the very ending – to be a bit unsatisfactory, at least by contemporary literary standards. Maybe it’s the moment in time at which I was reading this, but Athena’s declaration of peace – especially after her support of Laertes to hurl his final spear – just seems a facile and unconvincing ending to what has been a complex story that revels in unforeseen consequences and reversals.
Then it was time for Xenophon. I’d heard of him vaguely as an alternative biographer of Socrates to Plato, but I’d never read anything by him. I’d never heard of The Anabasis of Cyrus and had no idea what we were about to read. It turns out “anabasis” means “ascent” and refers to travelling, usually from the shore to inland, to do battle.
The collection of seven books is a historic account of war between the King of Persia and his brother Cyrus that starts with lies told by one Tissaphernes; Cyrus hires an army of Greek mercenaries, including Xenophon, to overthrow his brother. The Greeks win the battle at the end of Book I, but Cyrus is killed, mooting their mission, and leaving them mostly unpaid and abandoned by the Persian units that had joined them in battle.
And here, in Book II, is where Xenophon steps into the spotlight: he makes a series of speeches that get him appointed leader. The focus is on getting out of Persia in one piece. This involves treachery, double-crossing, enemies chasing them up the Tigris, negotiations and/or plundering for provisions (an army does indeed travel on its stomach, and the stomachs of its animals), before reaching Greek-held territory on the south coast of the Black Sea (“The sea! The sea!” Always a cheering sight for the seafaring Greeks) in Book IV.
Here’s where the tide turns, in Book V: while they’re supposedly amidst friends, now they argue, break into factions, run into less-than-friendly friends, endure desertions and more betrayals as they march and/or sail to Byzantium where they end up pushed around and threatened by the Spartans in charge. More battles, more plundering, but eventually, by the final Book VII, they get back to almost where they started – and the army transfers itself to another leader and goes off to fight Tissaphernes, creating a delightful circularity of geography and plot. But that’s not part of Xenophon’s story; he’s had it, and he, presumably, heads back to Athens.
I’m not big on war stories, but there are many other scenes of great interest. For instance: Xenophon was, before he ran off to join the army, a student of Socrates. How he came to join the army is revealed in Book III:
(4) In the army there was a certain Xenophon, an Athenian, who followed along even though he was neither a general, nor a captain nor a soldier; but Proxenus, a guest friend of his from long ago, had sent for him to come from home. He promised that if he came, he would make him a friend of Cyrus, whom Proxenus himself said he believed to be better for himself than his fatherland was.
(5) So Xenophon, on reading his letter, took common council with Socrates the Athenian about the journey. And Socrates, suspecting that becoming a friend of Cyrus might bring an accusation from the city, because Cyrus had seemed eager in joining the Lacedaemonians in making war against the Athenians, advised Xenophon to go to Delphi and to take common council with the god about the journey.
(6) Xenophon went and asked Apollo to which one of the gods he should sacrifice and pray in order to make the journey he had in mind in the noblest and best way and, after faring well, return to safety. And Apollo indicated to him the gods to whom he needed to sacrifice.
(7) When he came back again, he told the oracular response to Socrates. On hearing it, Socrates blamed him because he did not first ask whether it was more advisable for him to make the journey or to remain, but he himself had judged that he was to go and then inquired how he might go in the noblest way. “However, since you did ask it in this way,” he said, “you must do all that to the god bade.”
(8) So after sacrificing to the ones that God had indicated, Xenophon sailed off.
Xenophon: Anabasis of Cyrus, trans. By Wayne Ambler
This made some of us wonder if Xenophon asked the wrong question by accident, or if he did so deliberately because he’d already decided he was going. His motivation for joining the army seemed to be making connections with Cyrus. Footnotes indicate Xenophon was later exiled from Athens, and though the reasons aren’t clear, his friendship with Persians who’d helped the Spartans during the Peloponnesian War, as well as his friendship with a particular Spartan, might have been involved. But don’t worry about Xenophon: we learn he’s given land by the Spartans, where he builds a kind of theme park to Artemis with a temple that rivals the Ephesian temple, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.
The two works had the common ground of a long journey, but there was another similarity: the questionable reliability of narration. In the Odyssey, Odysseus tells most of his story himself to the Phaeacians. While he includes many details that aren’t flattering – his taunting of the Cyclops as he sails away, leading to Poseidon’s rage that delays his homeward journey, for example – he also blames his crew for disobedience that causes considerable trouble, and eventually gets them all killed. As a leader, shouldn’t he have been able to prevent this? Or was his expertise in battle, not leadership?
Leadership is, however, one of Xenophon’s strengths: the willingness to present alternative plans and proceed with an almost democratic vote, giving the troops ownership of the mission and thus more enthusiasm; use of techniques of psychological support that improves morale and unity; a logical outlook rather than bloodlust or battle glory as an operational method. Don’t get me wrong, he’s interested in glory, that’s clear from the text: he considers starting his own town, and his plans for the Artemis Theme Park likewise is self-aggrandizing. But he’s also loyal to his men, and indeed, at one point, is accused of being “too friendly with the troops” – a criticism that ultimately saves him in an interesting little twist of fate in Book VII.
There are similarities: both are silver-tongued devils, able to talk their way out of tight spots. But the method is a little different: what Odysseus does with charm and weaving stories (“I come from Athens…” “I once met Odysseus…”), Xenophon does with logic. I’m still thinking, based on Xenophon’s interaction with Socrates, that he’s got some of Odysseus’ slickness; and Odysseus is often able to put pieces together and come up with plans, such as when he and Telemachus plot the murder of the suitors.
The biggest difference between the books is that the Odyssey, composed some time in the 8th or 7th century BCE, is mythology – gods appear, send thunderbolts to indicate approval, disturb the seas, deflect arrows, etc. – while the Anabasis was written four to five hundred years later about 370 BCE, and is considered history; gods are referenced in numerous sacrifices for guidance, but there’s nothing supernatural. Whether the details Xenophon gives are exactly as indicated is debatable (he overstates the size of the Persian army: it was not composed of a million men, but more like a hundred thousand) and the speeches are almost certainly embellished, but it is history. It was written decades after the events took place, so it wouldn’t be considered historical in contemporary terms. Someone in our group used the term “memoir” which feels right to me.
One member of our group was an Army brat who lived at West Point in his youth, and remembers that the Anabasis was taught there, perhaps as history. Alex Petkas, a former Classics professor who has created a lovely podcast/Youtube channel Cost of Glory (ah, here I am off the reservation again) that includes detailed discussion of the Anabasis, indicated that it was in days of yore taught in prep schools as an elementary Greek text as well as for its leadership techniques; he mentions throughout some of the elements of Xenophon’s approach that are still applicable in business management. I’m pretty sure I’m going to explore the rest of Petkas’ podcasts; he uses as its backbone Plutarch’s Lives, another work I’ve never read. And I’m going to be keeping an eye out for more Catherine Project groups exploring Greek history and literature.
While I’ve participated in several CP reading groups and seminars, this was the first Tutorial I’ve attended. It turned out to be a small reading group, with the additional requirement of a written “reflection” on the assigned chapters sent via email to all group members prior to the meeting. In this particular tutorial, this wasn’t required, and as time went on, fewer reflections were sent. I found the process of writing up my thoughts to be extremely helpful; having been blogging for the past twelve or thirteen years, I think my brain has relocated to my fingertips, and I think via typing. I will probably continue the practice of writing up my own reflections prior to meetings even when they aren’t part of the official group, as they help me focus and organize my thoughts on the material.
This was a highly successful experience for me in several ways. It still took me a couple of weeks to hit my stride and speak up more, but the smaller size of the group was helpful. I enjoyed the reading itself; I loved simultaneously reading the three Odyssey translations in particular. I remembered a study technique I’d used for the Kierkegaard group but forgot about: Make index tabs on pages for book divisions, and especially for end notes! Yes, it takes time, but it makes hunting things down so much easier, and thus I’m more prone to flip around to find things in other sections when questions arise. The writing assignment, as I’ve already mentioned, was a revelation; I wonder why I didn’t think of it before. And as always, hearing the ideas others brought gave new insight into a number of passages and opened up possibilities.
I’m grateful I was able to participate, and look forward to my next Catherine Project adventure!
A Just Recompense 