An Financial Method to Homer’s Odyssey: Half I

Modeling Homer’s World

On this sequence, I’ll use an financial method to higher perceive the implicit politics and economics in The Odyssey. As a “naïve” reader with no coaching in historic historical past, I discover the comparative remedy of political regimes as one of the placing options of the narrative, specifically that Odysseus visits a substantial variety of distinct polities, and experiences every otherwise. How does every regime function, and the way does it differ from the opposite regimes offered within the guide? Economics forces us to boil down these descriptions and comparisons to a comparatively small variety of variables. Making an attempt to mannequin the polities in Homer’s Odyssey forces us to resolve that are their important, versus unintended options, and what they may have in frequent, or that are an important factors of distinction.

You don’t have to carry any particular loyalty to the financial method to assume this technique may be worthwhile. There’s an adage that it’s higher to commerce in a liquid market than an illiquid market. Economics is, in mental phrases, a liquid market. There are a large number of economists, and many individuals are accustomed to the essential modes of financial thought. So, bringing a brand new method to Homer is placing an thought out into a comparatively lively dialogue group, analogous to buying and selling in a liquid market. This appears price attempting for Homer, since The Odyssey has obtained nearly zero consideration from economists thus far.

The financial method to Homer’s Odyssey additionally could assist us perceive each the energy and limitations of economics as a technique. How does economics fare when confronted with extraordinarily complicated narratives, taken from a really completely different time and from a tradition considerably faraway from the setting by which economics itself originated? To use a really “liquid” easy technique—economics—to a really “liquid” well-known and complicated textual content—Homer’s Odyssey—looks as if one technique to take a look at economics itself. Nonetheless, the rational selection method to Homer nonetheless appears comparatively underexplored, given the celebrity and affect of the textual content itself.

Beneath, I outline what I imply by an financial method to Homer. Within the subsequent essays, I’ll take into account the politics of the completely different polities in The Odyssey, making use of a comparative perspective.

What does an financial method to Homer include?

The financial method to human habits is given many interpretations, mostly the view that folks search wealth or that persons are economically egocentric. Or an financial method could also be regarded as unearthing the underlying financial preconditions or circumstances of Homer’s world, or of the worlds he wrote about, or of the actual polities which can have corresponded to his narrative therapies.

These are attention-grabbing approaches, however I intend one thing extra basic and extra methodological, specifically I outline an financial method by way of modeling. If we take a state of affairs, or for that matter a textual content, and divide up its data into “claims about preferences” and “claims about costs and constraints,” then, in my opinion, we’re beginning to construct an financial mannequin. Primary microeconomic fashions classify conditions into extra primitive or elementary claims about preferences and constraints, after which they take these categorizations and see if the presently out there toolbox of fashions—additionally outlined by way of each preferences and constraints—would possibly apply to them.

To be clear, this methodological method entails a minimal of ontological dedication. It doesn’t require that persons are “really rational” in any instrumental sense, nor does it require that people totally perceive the constraints they face. As an alternative, the financial technique, as stipulated right here, is finest regarded as a way of producing new hypotheses and testing outdated ones.

To check Homer’s Odyssey to easy neoclassical financial fashions, allow us to take into account a few of the claims about preferences and constraints usually made by mainstream economics:

1. People maximize their utility in a rational method.

2. People care about items different than simply wealth, however in lots of market settings, wealth or revenue maximization is a ample stand-in for utility maximization.

3. People are forward-looking and they’re going to commerce transparently with others if {the marketplace} is sufficiently liquid.

On this planet(s) of Homer’s Odyssey, in distinction, the assumptions about human habits are completely different. Basically phrases I consider the core assumptions as trying extra like the next:

1. People pursue quests relatively than consumption as historically outlined.

2. People are frequently deceiving others and certainly typically themselves. Positive factors from financial commerce are scant, however the threat of dying or imprisonment is excessive.

3. People hunt down states of intoxication.

Underneath the financial method I’m proposing, you possibly can consider Homer’s Odyssey as what occurs once you inject assumptions alongside the above traces (with some qualifiers) into a wide range of settings. We’ll find yourself with a brand new tackle what conventional economics is lacking, and extra virtually, how we would perceive actual world polities and the political choices earlier than us.

The mode of The Odyssey is placing in yet one more means: the world is usually “deglobalized.” That’s, the completely different polities have nearly no contact with one another, or at the very least no such contact is proven, at the very least aside from the travels of Odysseus and his males. It’s actually a world of separate islands and societies. The gods go all over the place, as they need; Odysseus and his males are “international” vacationers, however the societies themselves are held aside. A significant occasion of cross-societal contact, in fact, is offered in The Iliad, specifically the battle between Sparta and Troy, and that could be a brutal, harmful struggle. The suitors visiting Penelope and dwelling in the home of Odysseus are one other instance of cross-cultural contact, and that is primarily a mixture of coercion and plundering. In any case, the deglobalization helps us view every society in plain stand-alone phrases.

Allow us to now flip to the mannequin of human habits offered in The Odyssey, once more noting that I see the important thing assumptions as people pursue quests, most reside in poverty with a excessive threat of dying or imprisonment, and people hunt down intoxication.

Quests and the poverty of the fabric world

Probably the most simple quest within the story is that of Telemachus, the son of Odysseus. Superficially, the travels of Telemachus to Pylos and Sparta are a quest to find details about his father, however arguably he additionally needs to mature and change into robust sufficient to repel the suitors from his family.

The foremost quest surrounding your entire story, and of The Iliad as nicely, is the search of the Achaeans to recuperate Helen for Sparta and Menelaus, and as that story progresses, the will for revenge and glory. By the point we attain The Odyssey, it’s apparent that these struggles haven’t paid off by way of materials self-interest or bodily safety. Lots of the fighters are lifeless or condemned to lengthy durations of wandering, unable to succeed in dwelling in any easy means.

It’s a extra complicated query how we should always take into consideration Odysseus himself, however for a begin I reject the frequent portrait of Odysseus because the grasp supervisor and manipulator par excellence. It’s true that he succeeds in returning dwelling and exacting revenge on the suitors, however take into account the prices alongside the best way. He faces dying quite a few occasions, and it takes him twenty years to return. Worse but, he loses most of his males alongside the best way. The Ciconians, the Cyclopes, Scylla, and the Lastrygonians all kill a few of Odysseus’ males, with the Lastrygonians destroying eleven of his twelve ships with all their crew [10: 112-132]. That hardly looks as if managerial excellence, and in these narratives, Odysseus is at the very least partially at fault for the outcomes, if solely as a result of he didn’t beat a extra speedy hurry again dwelling. Simply take into account the take of Eurylochus on the Cyclopes episode: “Keep in mind what the Cyclops did? Our pals went to his dwelling with this rash lord of ours [Odysseus]. Due to his unhealthy selections, all of them died.” [10: 437-439]. It’s arduous to argue with that, and Odysseus himself realizes he made an enormous mistake [9: 227-228].

As an alternative, I consider Odysseus as in search of information and selection by way of a quest, even on the potential expense of sensible penalties. His preliminary participation within the Trojan Conflict might be regarded as a quest for victory and glory, and his later time spent wandering round to the completely different locales of The Odyssey morphs right into a quest of a unique variety, specifically information and self-knowledge. Whereas there are many passages the place Odysseus expresses a powerful need to easily return dwelling as quickly as potential, a broader take a look at the story belies “return” as a easy account of his primary motive. Odysseus, for all his speak about eager to get dwelling, typically appears fairly content material to linger, to compete in Olympic video games, to make like to Circe, and usually to discover the range and unusual wonders of the worlds surrounding him. As soon as he’s away from the moorings of both dwelling or having to steer his males in fight, nicely… the ensuing adventures appear fairly attention-grabbing. Certainly, that’s a part of what has made The Odyssey such a compelling story. The precise needs of Odysseus appear ambiguous, a bit harking back to a potential St. Augustine paraphrase: “let me return dwelling, simply not but.” It’s maybe Tennyson, in his poem “Ulysses”, who understands this facet of Odysseus finest.

Odysseus is all the time seeking to broaden his experiences. When Odysseus is on Aeolus, he doesn’t appear a lot to thoughts being trapped. He goes to mattress with the gorgeous Circe, albeit underneath the situation that she swears an oath that she’s going to now not make plans to harm him [10:336-348]. At one level within the guide, Odysseus even means that the lads stick with Circe, “consuming and ingesting,” with “meals sufficient to final perpetually” [10: 423-428; the men rebel against this suggestion]. Odysseus simply doesn’t appear to be a loyal man who desires to get dwelling to his dwelling and spouse, however relatively he’s a wanderer and curiosity-seeker. It’s noteworthy that in terms of the Sirens, Odysseus is certainly eager to listen to the tune and be taught its nature, so relatively than stuffing his ears with wax—the remedy for his males—he leaves his ears open and ties himself to the mast.

Odysseus in actual fact by no means makes it again to Ithaca by way of his personal volition. In Guide 13 he’s speaking with the Phaeacians when he merely vanishes, and with none specific intermediate journey, wakes up in Ithaca. There’s an implication that this was the work of the goddess Pallas Athena [13; 160-193]. So, for all his speak, within the remaining evaluation Odysseus was not the lively agent of his return. And when Odysseus is leaving Circe, that may be a great time for him to return dwelling or at the very least attempt to. However no, Homer studies to his males that Circe instructed him to go to the “home of Hades and Persephone” [10: 562-567]

In Guide 13 we’re reminded that Odysseus shouldn’t be precisely bursting with need to see his spouse. Pallas Athena tells Odysseus that an unusual man would instantly rush dwelling to see his spouse and kids, after the lengthy journey he undertook. She tells Odysseus that he didn’t even ask about them at first, and he was suspicious, feeling the necessity to first take a look at his spouse [13: 332-337]. On a number of further events Odysseus particulars his restlessness and his lack of consideration to dwelling and likewise Penelope.

The account of Odysseus given by Odysseus-in-disguise, after his return to Ithaca, raises additional doubts concerning the motives of Odysseus. Since Odysseus is speaking in disguise, that is only a fictional account, designed to mislead, or is it? Odysseus narrates his personal story, and he means that he intentionally sought a visit to Egypt, “with some pirates” [17: 420-446] to collect treasure, and he notes that alongside the best way he and his males killed many individuals, till they have been upended by Zeus. Earlier, Odysseus-in-disguise had advised a comparable story to Eumaeus the swineherd, when he talked about that he had been safely at dwelling along with his kids and spouse and possessions after the Trojan Conflict, however that, “Some impulse made me need to sail to Egypt, with 9 ships and a godlike crew.” [14: 244-245] Once more, we most likely should not imagined to take that narrative actually, and Odysseus-in-disguise is attempting to offer an account of his actions whereas hiding his identification from Eumaeus. There’s but a 3rd time when Odysseus describes his personal motives, and that’s when Odysseus-in-disguise is narrating his story, and his story of encountering Odysseus, to Penelope on Ithaca. With regards to the encounter of Odysseus with the Phaeacians, Odysseus-in-disguise gives this account: “They honored him as if he have been a god himself, and gave him considerable items, and tried to ship him dwelling safely. He would have been right here way back, however he determined he ought to journey extra and collect larger wealth. No man on earth is aware of higher the right way to make a revenue.” [19: 280-286] The purpose right here is to not settle for all these tales as true accounts of the motives of Odysseus, however relatively to see Homer as elevating further doubts about these motives. Do notice that when Odysseus lastly does return dwelling, the very first thing he tells Penelope is that he might have to go away dwelling once more, to make sacrifices to Poseidon [23: 248-280].

Lastly, evaluate Odysseus and Menelaus. Menelaus narrates how he was misplaced at sea for eight years, touring by way of Cyprus, Phoenicia, Egypt, Ethiopia, Sidon and Araby, and Libya, in search of to build up wealth. He notes that somebody entered his kingdom and killed his brother, who was betrayed by his scheming spouse [4: 82-92]. After varied sorrows and tales are exchanged, Menelaus winds again to how he returned dwelling [4: 349 and onwards]. At first the gods prevented his exit, simply as was the case with Odysseus, once more a deliberate parallel. However Menelaus works very arduous to make the right sacrifices to the gods, and to be taught what these sacrifices must be. After appreciable effort and machinations, and after Menelaus had “quenched the anger of the gods,” “The gods ultimately gave me honest wind, and despatched me shortly dwelling.” [4: 583-586]. The distinction with Odysseus couldn’t be extra marked, the implication being that Odysseus finally selected to dally outdoors his polity for so long as he did. The King who wished to return comes again to order, whereas Odysseus ceded management of his family.

Within the consolidated story, throughout the 2 Homerian epics, Nestor, Diomedes, Idomeneus, Agamemnon, and Menelaus all eschewed the long-term wandering path of Odysseus. For example, when Telemachus visits Pylos, Nestor is at dwelling along with his spouse and apparently securely answerable for his polity. Odysseus continues to be off wandering and unable to search out his means dwelling.

So how ought to we think about Odysseus? Possibly he’s a variety-seeker, a love and sex-seeker, a wealth-seeker, a fighter, a glory-seeker, a grasp manipulator, and likewise somebody who at occasions needs to return dwelling and search vengeance, restoring Ithaca to its correct place. When he presents himself as merely wishing to return dwelling, it’s arduous to inform if he’s deceiving solely others or additionally deceiving himself. In any case, the character of his quest is a fancy one, and he acts as if he’s stressed, and values discovery above homecoming, at the very least for a lot of the selections he makes.

If there may be any financial mannequin for the consumption of Odysseus (however not the opposite characters extra usually), it’s considered one of excessive intertemporal substitution mixed with low behavior formation, or extra prosaically, an excessive curiosity of briefly intense sampling. Which means lots of one explicit factor now (together with intoxication, mentioned under), after which in a while quite a lot of one thing else fairly completely different. These different items can embrace warfare, household life, and journey. The life as a complete is diversified and various, however a lot of the particular person moments are fairly specialised. Amongst its different insights, The Odyssey is a case research of what such a life can be like, how daunting it will be, how harmful it may very well be, and the way few people can be well-suited for such an existence.

The economics of intoxication

Financial historians disagree concerning the precise dwelling requirements throughout each Homer’s time and the sooner time he wrote about, however per capita incomes couldn’t have been very excessive. Most technological revolutions had but to occur, and alternatives for materials accumulation have been correspondingly restricted, even for comparatively rich individuals. But intoxicating substances, and of all kinds, have been generally current. Wine is the obvious instance, however there are sufficient references to medicine in The Odyssey that intoxication might be seen as one of many main themes.

Probably the most vital financial choices an individual might make was whether or not to change into intoxicated, and which medium to decide on for the intoxication. For these above subsistence and under kingship, there could not have been so many different consumption choices which so influenced happiness, whether or not positively or negatively. Intoxication could have been the consumption resolution primary for a good portion of society.

I’m reminded of the one poor society I do know finest, a Mexican village referred to as San Agustin Oapan, the place I as soon as did fieldwork. It appeared to me, and this was corroborated by a resident anthropologist, that the speed of male alcoholism there was about fifty p.c. Though the resident inhabitants was solely about 1500, not a day glided by once you didn’t see a drunk particular person handed out on the street. Alcoholism and intoxication are frequent themes in different poor communities too, and lots of wealthier ones. We don’t have direct proof concerning the fee and diploma of intoxication in Homer’s time, however you possibly can take The Odyssey as oblique proof that intoxication probably was a big phenomenon.

Our information of intoxicating substances in Homer’s time is partial, however there was wine, poppy-related substances, intoxicating crops, and wine typically was infused with additional intoxicating substances—the compound pharmacy so to talk (Rinella 2010). Moreover, the wine of that point could have been rather more potent than the trendy variations we purchase within the grocery store. When Helen pours drugged wine on the night competition with Telemachus and Nestor, we’re advised it should take “all ache and rage away.” [4:221] The wine is blended with “highly effective magic medicine,” from the fertile fields of Egypt [4: 228-230].

Should you doubt the potential worth of intoxication, take into account the alternate options as offered by the voyages of Odysseus. He confronts quite a few probabilities to have a bewitched, drugged, or drunk life, principally underneath pretty nice circumstances (Calypso, Circe, the Sirens, and arguably the selection he faces to stay in Scheria). He could take pleasure in these conditions for a while, however ultimately, he opts for the lengthy and harmful journey again dwelling, the place he then faces a harmful confrontation with suitors. Odysseus’s journey is usually described as considered one of temptation, however it’s much less generally emphasised that almost all of all he’s confronted with the temptation of varied intoxications (Rinelli 2010, pp.74-76).

Odysseus is the one character who can overcome or at the very least keep away from falling into these temptations, and it’s placing how Circe describes him: “I’m amazed that you might drink my potion and but not be bewitched. No different man has drunk it and withstood the magic appeal. However you’re completely different. Your thoughts shouldn’t be enchanted. You should be Odysseus, the person who can adapt to something.” [10: 326-331] That is in line with the above description of Odysseus as a person who’s addicted to alter and the number of exploration, an intoxication larger than what any explicit drug can provide him, as a result of these medicine would certainly deliver his journeys to a remaining finish. It’s not apparent that every one of Odysseus’s males would make the identical selection, and sometimes he’s the one organizing the escape or deciding that his crew should not enable itself to be lured by the tune of the sirens right into a blissful indifference to worldly fates.

The last word encounter with intoxication is in fact the expertise with the Sirens, “who bewitch all passersby,” and “will seduce him with piercing songs.” The songs are so compelling that males will find yourself as lifeless, rotting flesh, as they benefit from the songs on the expense of all different ends [12: 38-50]. There isn’t a protection in opposition to their lure, aside from to be certain to the mast and to have one’s ears plugged with wax, in order that the songs merely should not heard. In that case “just a bit intoxication” shouldn’t be an possibility, and the tune of the Sirens should be abjured altogether. The one who listens to the tune, nevertheless, is Odysseus, who doesn’t stuff his ears with wax, although he’s certain to the mast [12: 192-200].

The Cyclops is an instance of a creature unable to withstand the lure of intoxication, and to his eventual detriment. Odysseus is ready to escape, partly, as a result of he manages to get the Cyclops drunk, and the top result’s that the Cyclops has a pointy burning stick thrust into his remaining eye. Odysseus’s males face the lure of the sirens, and their tune, and we by no means fairly be taught simply how horrible or nice a destiny that’s going to be. Odysseus turns it down, as he is aware of it’s perpetually and feels a larger have to carry on transferring.

In essence, the intoxication theme is studying Homer by way of Aldous Huxley, specifically Huxley’s Courageous New World. In Huxley’s imagined dystopia, individuals drug themselves to really feel higher, when their primary materials wants have already got been met, so what else is there to do? That may sound like the alternative of Homer’s world, however the emphasis of economics on marginal choices signifies these obvious opposites could also be fairly shut in any case. Each are situations of “intoxicate as a result of you possibly can’t do any higher on the margin,” admittedly at very completely different absolute ranges of consumption and luxury. At very low and really excessive ranges of consumption, if marginal work effort doesn’t yield a lot, the intoxication resolution might be central to financial reasoning.

In my subsequent piece, I’ll flip from this kind of financial modeling of the story of The Odyssey and to the number of polities explored within the epic. From these descriptions, we are able to seek for extra much more classes for political financial system at this time.

References

Ahrensdorf, Peter J. Homer on the Gods & Human Advantage: Creating the Foundations of Classical Civilization. Cambridge: Cambridge College Press, 2014.

Alvis, John. Divine Objective and Heroic Response in Homer and Virgil: The Political Plan of Zeus. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 1995.

Aronen, Jaakko. “Family tree as a Type of Mythic Discourse. The Case of the Phaeacians.” 2002, 89-110.

Bresson, Alain. The Making of the Historical Greek Economic system: Establishments, Markets, and Development within the Metropolis-States.

Cowen, Tyler. “Is a Novel a Mannequin?” In The Avenue Porter and the Thinker: Conversations on Analytical Egalitarianism, edited by Sandra Peart and David M. Levy. Ann Arbor: College of Michigan Press, 2008, 319-337.

Dobbs, Darrell. “Reckless Rationalism and Heroic Reverence in Homer’s Odyssey.” American Political Science Assessment, June 1987, 81, 2, 491-508.

Dodds, E.R. The Greeks and the Irrational. Berkeley: College of California Press, 1971.

Dougherty, Carol. The Raft of Odysseus: The Ethnographic Creativeness of Homer’s Odyssey. Oxford: Oxford College Press, 2001.

Germain, Gabriel. “The Sirens and the Temptation of Data.” In Homer: A Assortment of Important Essays, edited by George Steiner and Robert Fagles. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Corridor, 1962, 91-97.

Kearns, Emily. “The Gods within the Homeric Epics.” In The Cambridge Companion to Homer, edited by Robert Fowler. Cambridge: Cambridge College Press, 2004, 59-73.

Levy, David. The Financial Concepts of Peculiar Individuals: From Preferences to Commerce. London: Routledge, 2011.

Louden, Bruce. “An Prolonged Narrative Sample within the Odyssey.” Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Research, 1993.

Osborne, Robin. “Homer’s Society.” In The Cambridge Companion to Homer, edited by Robert Fowler. Cambridge: Cambridge College Press, 2004, 206-219.

Raaflaub, Kurt A. “Poets, lawgivers, and the beginnings of political reflection in Archaic Greece.” In The Cambridge Historical past of Greek and Roman Political Thought, edited by Christopher Rowe and Malcolm Schofield. Cambridge: Cambridge College Press, 2000, pp.23-59.

Redfield, James M. “The Financial Man.” In Oxford Readings in Classical Research: Homer’s Odyssey, edited by Lillian E. Doherty. Oxford: Oxford College Press, pp.265-287.

Rinella, Michael A. Pharmakon: Plato, Drug Tradition, and Identification in Historical Athens. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2010.

Rose, Gilbert P. “The Unfriendly Phaeacians.” Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Society, 1969, 100, 387-406.

Schmiel, Robert. “Telemachus in Sparta.” Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Affiliation.” 1972, 103, 463-472.

Scully, Stephen. Homer and the Sacred Metropolis. Ithaca, New York: Cornell College Press, 1990.

Seaford, Richard. Cash and the Early Greek Thoughts: Homer, Philosophy, Tragedy. Cambridge: Cambridge College Press, 2004.

Segal, Charles. Singers, Heroes, and Gods in The Odyssey. Ithaca, New York: Cornell College Press, 1994.

Whittaker, Helène. “The Standing of Arete within the Phaeacian Episode of The Odyssey.” Symbolae Osloenses, 1999, 74, 140-150.

Footnotes

[1] Accessible on the On-line Library of Liberty: The Iliad and the Odyssey by Homer, translated by Thomas Hobbes.

Accessible for buy: The Odyssey, by Homer, translated by Robert Fagles at Amazon.com.

[2] After all, this isn’t the primary try to view Homer by way of a rational selection lens. Dobbs (1987) considers the Odyssey as a critique of political rationalism. Seaford (1987) considers each The Iliad and The Odyssey as narratives of a breakdown of “redistributive reciprocity,” in each circumstances resulting in battle, and Segal (1994) considers themes of reciprocal reward change in The Odyssey. Redfield (2009) considers the “financial ethic” in Homer. Levy (2011) considers Homer by way of the lens of historical past of financial thought. Extra usually, Cowen (2008) considers how we would learn novels and different works of fiction as implicit fashions about characters and their interplay.

[3] On the traditional Greek financial system, together with Mycenaean occasions, see Bresson (2016).

[4] On the particular notion of “polis” in Homer, see Scully (1990) and likewise Raaflaub (2000) has some attention-grabbing remarks.

[5] Strikingly, Homer’s personal time was considered one of rising cross-cultural contact and “globalization,” as mentioned by Dougherty (2001), but additionally considered one of political fragmentation Bresson (2016, pp.101-102). On the sooner deglobalization of Mycenaean society, beginning round 1200 BC and lengthening for maybe 4 centuries, see Osborne (2004).

[6] See Ahrensdorf (2014, pp.206-209) for an additional growth of this theme, together with the query of how a lot Odysseus blamed the lads themselves for his or her disastrous destiny. To make certain, there may be loads of rational calculation in The Odyssey, most of all from Odysseus. For example, in guide 7, when Odysseus is visiting the Phaeacians, over the succession of a mere few pages we’re advised he spoke “with cautious calculation” [7: 206], or he answered “Planning his phrases with cautious talent…” [7: 240], or he replied to the King “With cautious tact” [7: 302]. Nonetheless procedural rationality, when mixed with uncommon preferences, is not going to all the time rebound to the social good.

[7] On this theme, see additionally Alvis (1995, chapter two).

[8] For this level on the Sirens, see Germain (1962, p.92).

[9] You don’t must imagine any a type of accounts because the “actual story” of Odysseus or the actual account of his motives. Nonetheless the broader implication is that there are quite a few tales of the wandering of Odysseus, not all of them have him as a heroic sufferer, and we additionally shouldn’t unconditionally privilege the actual account served up within the Odyssey both. With regards to the motives of Odysseus, Odysseus-in-disguise shouldn’t be discounted fully.

[10] See Ahrensdorf (2014, pp.216-223).

[11] For a dialogue of some associated sorts of preferences, see Elster (1979, 1982). For a basic remedy of “the irrational” in Greek thought, see Dodds (1971).