#odysseus and eurylochus

[therandomfandomme]

I think a large part of why Eurylochus feels so betrayed in Mutiny is because he has put Odysseus on a moral pedestal and Odysseus just put more blood on his hands. Like, in Scylla it's clear he still feels a lot of guilt about opening that windbag, inadvertently killing a large part of their fleet. He let those men die in his eyes, he sacrificed them. And for him, Odysseus is better than him, because he wouldn't do that, which is why Eurylochus brings up the Cyclops and Circe, where Odysseus went the extra mile to ensure the safety of their men. Yet, here he let six men die, but not only that, he asked Eurylochus to light up six torches, to give those orders, to pick the men who were to light their way. Odysseus unknowingly put Eurylochus in a situation where he also had a hand in a situation he never wanted to go through again and he only followed those orders, because he believed that Odysseus would never do such a thing. It's such a gut wrenching mix of emotions, that betrayal, from both sides.

[otherthingys]

Okay so we’ve all learned that there is indeed a length that Odysseus would not go to to save Eurylochus

HOWEVERRRRRRR

I NEED TO KNOW

Would Odysseus still choose to sacrifice his crew if Polites was still alive ??! He hasn’t partaken in any wrongdoing, doubted Odysseus, etc; he just managed to stay alive up til thunder bringer.

Is Odysseus sacrificing his best buddy 🥺???

[restlesskeychains]

Them in luck runs out

[katerinaaqu]

Is there any mention of Eurylochus's status/class in The Iliad or The Odyssey? I have seen people say he's a Prince of Same, others say he's nobility, but not royalty. I imagine he had to be at least of a considerably high status to marry Ctimene

He definitely is upper class you are right, since he also acts as Odysseus's second in command. That should happen only if he belonged to nobility. However ironically the Odyssey never mentions him AS CLEARLY as people think to be Ctimene's husband (for example he never is mentioned as "Ctimene's husband" or the Odyssey say "then she got married to Eurylochus"). On Ctimene we have only one mention by swine herd Eumeus that she married off to Same for a large dowry without mentioning the name of her husband. However there is one moment in the Odyssey that seems to be revealing the identity of her husband as Eurylochus;

In the Rhapsody 10 Odysseus comes back to his men after he came in a deal with Circe but the only one unimpressed and scared still is Eurylochus. Not only does he speak up and says that if they go Circe will transform them into animals to do her bidding perforce and then he cusses at Odysseus calling him reckless and blames him for everything. Odysseus is furious. He draws his sword and is ready to kill him for his words of insolence and the phrase Homer sneaks in is this;

Even if he was my kin by marriage (brother-in-law)

(Translation by me)

The word πηός basically means "kin by marriage" or more simply "brother-in-law" According to mythology we do not know any other sister Odysseus had apart from Ctimene and neither does Homer imply that more children were born out of the marriage of Laertes with Anticlea. So the husband of Ctimene must have been Eurylochus. And once again the marriage wouldn't logically be possible unless Eurylochus were of high status.

So if someone makes a small sum-up, Eurylochus is Odysseus's brother in law (therefore high status at least of nobility) and so logically speaking married to his only sister Ctimene who as we know from Eumeus's story was married off to Same (so Eurylochus was from Same) in exchange of a large dowry (so we also assume that Eurylochus was pretty wealthy himself in order to afford that)

Now the true limits between nobility and royalty are pretty vague in Homer to begin with and for the kingdom of Cephallinians in particular it seems even more vague than normal. We have for instance each of the suitors being more or less autonomous in the poem and even the generals at the fleet of Odysseus seem to have enough autonomy to defy orders from Odysseus or ignore his warnings and all. So it seems that the leadership of the Cephallinians is not so tight to begin with and most likely every one of the individual parts of the kingdom has some sort of semi-autonomy or at least handling up to one point their own wealth.

That being said though, it seems that Eurylochus doesn't have the command of his own ship or part of the fleet and acts as second in command directly under Odysseus's orders. That of course is partially because Odysseus is their king and has more authority and responsibility over them but maybe is also the explanation that he is noble and not directly linked to kingly power of any sort apart from his marriage to the king's sister.

But as I said the term "prince" "king" or "noble" are pretty modern explanations of the homeric greek terms such as "wanax" which is used both for "king" and "prince" interchangeably and basically calls for someone with high authority. So if I take a guess even if you call Eurylochus "a prince" or "a noble" is pretty much the same thing. We talk about someone definitely of the upper class with his own personal wealth, related to the Throne by marriage but apart from that he lives under command of the king like everyone else to the kingdom of Cephallinians while maintaining a certain level of semi-autonomy. Just like the suitors of Penelope or, daresay, the commanders at the fleet of Odysseus.

I hope this helps! 🙏 😊

[luolii]

thinking about eurylochus and odysseus

[helpmeplzimbeggin]

“I OPENED THE WIND BAG WHILE YOU WERE ASLEEP!!!”

Imagine staying up for 9 whole days to get back to your family, ACTUALLY almost getting there, and then getting completely set back to further than you were when you started.

And then you find out that your second in command, your right hand man, your brother in law, your BROTHER IN ARMS— was the guy who couldn’t trust you enough to listen when you told him to just keep the damn bag closed.

(And then you realize he was right to not trust you. After all, what kind of captain would knowingly sacrifice six of his brothers?)

[viablemess]

Something I keep thinking about and want to see discussed. What do you think would have happened if Odysseus talked to Eurylochus about the problem of sailing through Scylla's lair?

I feel like if Odysseus and Eurylochus discussed scylla, eurylochus would have, either by peer pressure or his own will alone, share that info with the crew. It would have turned onto a public discussion even if it started out as a private disclosure between Odysseus and eurylochus.

At that point, I can see it going one of two ways.

One - either Odysseus asks for volunteers and enough folks to offer to by scylla's targets with torches as they sail "full speed ahead" to get by her, or, I could also see eurylochus offer up himself and then more crew members follow his lead. He thinks he opened the wind bag, he might as well do that. Odysseus might try to stop him but does not try as hard as he would have previously. Try as they might, the volunteers (eurylochus or otherwise) die. This makes it even harder for Odysseus to give up the crew, the crew feels more betrayed because their friends sacrificed themselves for Odysseus and now he casts them aside? Odysseus is hurting much, much worse afterwards.

Two - eurylochus and Odysseus decide to sail by charybdis, and inevitably this goes very, very wrong. Cue most of the crew dying in the whirlpool that is not quite strong enough to take out the ship, but certainly damages it quite a bit. When Zeus shows up, half the crew is brutally wounded, and Odysseus still gives them up but maybe logics that it is more of a mercy killing because of how much pain they are in.

Thank you for asking!!:)

[anniflamma]

Odysseus is "There are other way"-ing Zeus This is to everyone in that comment section!

There is a part 2 now...

[kirstenly]

I made another incorrect EPIC quotes comic! The general script idea came from reddit user Creative_Army1776

[messymoonmad]

Now tell me he wouldn't do that

[milominomoe]

Odysseus: I would trade the world to see my son and wife

Eurylocus: bro

Odysseus: *sacrifices Eurylocus*

Eurylocus: bro wtf

Odysseus: you're my world bro

Eurylocus: b r o

[incognito-duo]

[kokii-omii]

more of these silly doodles of the screenshots from the Livestream

[walfah]

“You made it,Captain.”

[katerinaaqu]

Would odyssey Eurylochus genuinely do what the musical version of him did to Odysseus in mutiny? And if he did, what would the consequences be?

Hehe ironically, Anon, I had made an analysis post a while ago about the matter which you can see here:

It is not a matter of whether they would or wouldn't. They straight out didn't and not because they lacked opportunities. They had all the chances in the world to have a mutiny against him and they still didn't. Neither Eurylochus nor anyone else. They didn’t because as I mention to my analysis for various of reasons but I think one of the most important is that none of them wanted the responsibility for it. They could blame Odysseus all they wanted but when situation called for it, they still relied on him to get them out of there. None of them wanted that in any part of the trip.

So no in the Odyssey is not whether they would or not. THEY DIDN’T. Plain and simple.

But in the unlikely scenario someone performed such mutiny and as I said would be highly unlikely to nearly impossible there is no way they would do whatever the hell the musical did that they would tie him up on a mast or whatever and keep him there to feed and have a time bomb on their ship. They would straight out kill him. Why risk it? They would kill Odysseus maybe perform some funeral and ask forgiveness from the gods and plan to tell back in Ithaca that he died from one or other reason on the way. They would have no reason to keep him there and wait for the consequences and Odysseus wouldn’t survive the synchronized attack of 40 armed people no matter what just by himself at an open fight and to be fair why would his men risk to attack him in a battle? Why not slit his throat while he is asleep?

Because I mean Eurylochus openly defied Odysseus and Odysseus was ready to kill him because of his emotions being bottled up:

So I doubt that his men if they were to do something as extreme as a mutiny and wait for the consequences to arrive which would be death for sure (but we all know they were destined to die anyways so yeah) which is why as much as one could see the potential for a mutiny that never happened in the Odyssey. And even if IF let's say Odysseus didn’t mention any mutiny then what? Did he just give a royal pardon to all his men to get him back home? And how? They were more and he would be alone unless he magically persuaded half etc. Either way the way the Odyssey is constructed seems highly unlikely. Odysseus if he managed to get half of his men to hear he might as well leave the traitor half behind or kill them or hold them on the ship with the threat of the sword till they came back home to later decide their fate (so that he could use their hands for the rowing and labor) and even then it seems unlikely given that Odysseus bases his work and rule on trust and loyalty so having disloyal men on his ship seems a no no to him on the other hand they were very few so the need for extra hands was burning at that stage so the way I see it Odysseus would keep his men on the rowing process tied up etc and always watch his back and all loyalty and trust would be lost between them and he would plan their trial or possible execution later.

Dunno it just doesn't work for me... but either way as I said to the start is not a matter if he wouldn't or if he would. He just didn't. And given the fact that all were possibly defined to die on that trip (see my other analysis):

None of it would matter anyways so yeah. Hope that answers your question.

[luolii]

for the eurylochus fans out there… i wrote a precanon (trojan war) fic abt him