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Seafaring Practice and Narratives in Homer's Odyssey

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 December 2019

Rupert Mann
Rupert Mann*
Affiliation:
Independent Scholar rupert.mann@mac.com
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Abstract

It is intrinsically plausible that the Odyssey, which freely uses realistic details of many aspects of life on and beside the sea, was informed by real seafaring experience. This paper corroborates that hypothesis. The first part catalogues parallels between details of Odyssean and real-world seafaring. Odyssean type-scenes in particular echo real practice. The second part argues that three larger episodes have real-world parallels—the visit to the Lotos Eaters anticipates incidents of sailors deserting in friendly ports; the escape from Skylla and Charybdis demonstrates a safe course through a turbulent strait, and the encounter with Ino / Leukothea foreshadows the contemporary phenomenon of a sensed presence during a crisis. The pattern of coincidence between the Odyssey and the real world of seafaring constitutes a cumulative argument that suggests that those episodes in particular, and the poem as a whole, was informed by that world—a conclusion with consequences both for our understanding of the poem, and for our knowledge of the early Mediterranean maritime.

Keywords

HomerOdysseyseafaringmaritimeLotos EatersSkyllaInoSensed PresenceType-scene
Type
Research Article
Information
Antichthon , Volume 53 , 2019 , pp. 1 - 13
Copyright
Copyright © The Australasian Society for Classical Studies 2019

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References

1 Lesser voyages: Telemachos’ journeys from Ithaka to Pylos and back (2.413–3.11; 15.284–300, 495–500); other heroes’ returns from Troy (Nestor: 3.157–184; Menelaos: 3.276–312; 4.351–587: Aias: 4.499–511); the suitor's ambush (4.842–47); the various voyages described in the Cretan tales (13.272–86; 14.245–58, 295–315, 339–59), Eumaios’ arrival on Ithaka (15.474–82). Brief mentions of quotidian trading, travel, and transport, by boat: 1.182–86, 260, 292–93; 3.72; 4.634; 5.249–50; 8.161–64; 9.128–29; 13.272–74; 14.296, 334–35; 19.291–92; 21.18; 24.418–19.

2 On this world in general, see Casson, L., Ships and Seamanship in the Ancient World (Princeton 1971)Google Scholar esp. chapters 4, 12, 16; Finkelberg, M. (ed.), The Homer Encyclopedia (Oxford 2011)Google Scholar s.vv. ‘sea’, ‘seafaring’, ‘ship’, and ‘economy’; Mark, S., Homeric Seafaring (College Station 2005)Google Scholar, with review by Casson, L., IJNA 36 (2007) 197–99CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Seafaring is at the heart of society—‘ein Leben ohne Schifffahrt is unzivilisiert und fast undenkbar’, according to D. Gray, Seewesen (Gottingen 1974) 136.

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4 Unpacked in Morrison, J. S. and Williams, R. T., Greek Oared Ships (Cambridge 1968) 47–57Google Scholar; Casson, Ships and Seamanship (n. 2) 43–48; Mark, Seafaring (n. 2) chapters 6, 8—for example (at 129–131) the various lines, sheets, and ropes: προτόνος and ἐπίτονος (forestay and backstay), σπάρτα (perhaps a kind of binding), ὑπέραι (perhaps a bracing line), πόδɛς (sheets, that is, ropes attached at the bottom of the sail), κάλοι (brails, for shortening sail), ὅπλον (a cable), and δɛσμός (mooring cable).

5 Casson, Ships and Seamanship (n. 2) 65.

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14 Morton, Physical Environment (n. 6) 110, 114–16.

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17 Casson, Ships and Seamanship (n. 2) 47 n. 30; Mark, Seafaring (n. 2) 124–30.

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19 A pattern of sailing by day and laying up by night is for many voyages a sensible strategy, and not a sign of incompetence: Mark, Seafaring (n. 2) 136–49; Morton, Physical Environment (n. 6) 143–62, 173–77, 234–35, 263–64, countering e.g. Maury, C. A., ‘Maritime Aspects of Homeric Greece’, CJ 14 (1918) 97–102Google Scholar, at 99–100; Seymour, T. D., Life in the Homeric Age (London 1907) 305–6Google Scholar.

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32 Arend, Die Typische Szenen (n. 3) 80.

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35 Hansen, ‘Homer and the Folktale’ (n. 34) 455f.

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46 Currents through Mediterranean coastal straits: Morton, Physical Environment (n. 6) 42–45, 85–90. Corryvreckan's situation is conveniently shown in Fleet et al., Scotland (n. 10) 217, fig. 9.8.

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48 Morton suggests Skylla is a ‘generic term for the monsters that symbolised the dangers of rocky coasts, and the dread mariners felt when sailing in their vicinity’ (Physical Environment (n. 6) 70).

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51 Divine helper giving hero a talisman: Thompson, Stith, A Motif-Index of Folk Literature (Bloomington 1955–58)Google Scholar F340–8 (fairies); N810. Why a κρήδɛμνον? See Kardulias, D. R., ‘Odysseus in Ino's Veil: Feminine Headdress and the Heron in Odyssey 5’, TAPhA 131 (2001) 23–51Google Scholar.

52 Suedfeld, P. and Mocellin, J., ‘The “Sensed Presence” in Unusual Environments’, Environment and Behavior 19.1 (1967) 33–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Geiger, J., The Third Man Factor (Edinburgh 2009)Google Scholar, catalogues many examples from testimonies by sailors, mountaineers, polar explorers, and other adventurers.

53 Geiger, Third Man Factor (n. 52) 222; 223; 50–51.

54 Suedfeld and Mocellin, ‘Sensed Presence’ (n. 52) 38–39, 40–41; Geiger, Third Man Factor (n. 52) chapters 4, 5.

55 Geiger, Third Man Factor (n. 52) chapters 10, 11; 248.

56 The Apologue is of course a first-person narrative, the voice of experience. Beck, D., ‘Odysseus: Narrator, Storyteller, Poet?’ CPh 100 (2015) 213–227Google Scholar argues that Odysseus's narrative techniques are those of the storyteller, not the poet.

57 I would like to thank John Geiger, whose research on the sensed presence was the seed of this paper, and the anonymous readers for this journal; this is a better, shorter, and more readable paper as a result of their generous comments and suggestions.