Six Faces of Odysseus: Genre and Characterization Strategies in Four Late Antique Greek “Epyllia”

Abstract

In the first line of the new Odyssey translation (2017) by Emily Wilson “Ἄνδρα […] πολύτροπον” is translated as “a complicated man”, and, for sure, Odysseus is one of the most fascinating, multifarious and complicated characters of Greek literature. This contribution traces different forms of engagement with the figure of Odysseus in the way the male protagonists of four late antique poems are characterized. As shorter narrative hexameter poems, Triphiodorus' Sack of Troy, Musaeus’ Hero and Leander and Colluthus’ Abduction of Helen are sometimes called “epyllia”. The (slightly longer) anonymous Orphic Argonautica is generally not. The engagement with the Homeric (and post-Homeric) character of Odysseus, as will be argued, can tell us more about these poems’ position within and vis-à-vis the epic tradition than any modern generic label ever could.