History Behind The Odyssey: What's Mythology & What's Real?

[00:00:03][music] History behind the Odyssey.

[00:00:10]What's mythology [music] and what's real?

[00:00:17]The new fantasy film, The Odyssey, retells one of the oldest and most revered works of Western literature, the ancient Greek epic poem of King Odysius.

[00:00:30]He and his crew depart victorious from the Trojan War, only to meet Peril and a host of other worldly characters and creatures on their journey home to Ithaca. The film promises to be a big summer blockbuster, even if [music] it isn't particularly historically accurate. But what is the real history behind Homer's ancient epic? Were the characters inspired by real people, the [music] battles based on true conflicts, and the mythical islands actual places?

[00:01:02]Or was it all just a fantasy? [music] Let's follow Odysius's legendary trip through the Mediterranean Sea [music] as we discover the history behind the Odyssey.

[00:01:15]Spoiler alert. While I won't be revealing specifically how the 2026 film resolves various parts of the plot, there will be spoilers for Homer's 8th century BC saga. But can you really spoil something that's been read by high school students for [music] nearly 3,000 years?

[00:01:37]First off, let's place the Odyssey in history on our historical movie timeline. The [music] events take place around the 1200s B.C.E. towards the end of the Bronze Age. [music] You'll notice that the Odyssey is set right after the 2004 blockbuster Troy.

[00:01:56]These two films go hand in hand as they are each based on one of Homer's two epic poems. Troy is based on the Iliad, the story of the Trojan War, while The Odyssey is based on Homer's sequel, conveniently named The Odyssey. Though Hollywood tends to lump sword and sandal epics together and use costumes, architecture, and technology interchangeably, the Odyssey takes place around 1,000 years before Roman Empire epics like Cleopatra, Spartacus, and Gladiator. For my episode on the history behind the Gladiator movies, I was able to build a well doumented family tree of the actual historic figures involved.

[00:02:42]However, as the Odyssey is set so much earlier, the events and characters are far more obscured by time. In fact, it's not even certain if Homer was a real person. [music] Legends of the Trojan War and Odysius's journey were passed down through oral storytelling, often by illiterate traveling bards for hundreds of years. They were finally written down in the 8th century B.C.E., 600 years after they supposedly occurred. The epic [music] poems were attributed to a man named Homer who was revered by ancient Greeks as a blind traveling bard, but there is little evidence that he actually [music] existed. In fact, most scholars agree that the writing styles of the Iliad and the Odyssey do not match and were likely composed by at least two different authors.

[00:03:34]Let's begin with a quick retelling of the prequel and what occurred before Odysius tried to sail home. The Trojan War began with Helen, the daughter of Spartan princess Lita, who was seduced by the god Zeus while he was transformed into a swan. Helen was hatched from an egg and grew into the most beautiful woman in the world. She was a hot commodity on the Mediterranean marriage market. Kings and princes from all over the ancient world arrived seeking her hand. Helen's stepdad, King Tendarius, was afraid to offend these powerful rulers, and he couldn't decide who to hand Helen over to. One of the hopefuls, Odysius, king of Ithaca, offered a solution. He was comparatively poor and knew he was a long shot. Plus, he had his eye on a different Spartan princess.

[00:04:32]He agreed that if Tendarius would support his courtship of Penelope, he [music] would step in and settle who got Helen. First, he made all the assembled suitors swear an oath to respect his decision and promised to go to war with anyone who quarreled with Helen's chosen husband. They agreed. So, Odysius announced that Helen would wed Menaaus, the richest prince among them. [music] He was the younger brother of King Agamimnon of Myini who happened to be married to Helen's halfsister Clyimnestra. With Helen on his arm, Menaaus became king of Sparta. The couple ruled for 10 years and had one child, a daughter, Hermione.

[00:05:18]Meanwhile, on Mount Olympus, the gods gathered for a wedding, but they failed to invite the outcast of the [music] moment, Aris, the goddess of discord.

[00:05:29]Furious, she caused a ruckus by throwing a golden apple into the party. [music] It was inscribed to the fairest one.

[00:05:38]Three goddesses, Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite, jumped up to claim the prize.

[00:05:45]They agreed to let Paris of Troy decide which of them was the most beautiful.

[00:05:50]All three lovely ladies offered bribes to the prince. Hera promised him immense wealth and power. Athena untold knowledge and Aphrodite the hand of the most beautiful mortal woman, Helen.

[00:06:05]Paris chose sex and declared Aphrodite the fairest of them all. Hera and Athena were left disgruntled.

[00:06:14]Paris set sail for Sparta under the guise of a diplomatic mission. He was really there to claim his prize.

[00:06:22]According to Homer, Helen went with him willingly. She was, after all, under the influence of Aphrodite, [music] the goddess of love. However, some later versions paint Helen's departure as an abduction. Either way, her husband Menaaus was big mad. He [music] went to his brother Agamemnon and together they gathered the other suitors who had sworn to go to war with Helen's husband's enemies. Also joining the Greek side [music] was the hero Achilles. His mother, a cineymph, had tried to make her baby boy immortal by dipping him in the river sticks. She succeeded in making him impermeable, but he remained vulnerable at the spot which she held him. his left ankle. [music] Once assembled, the armies of Greece prepared for war. But the winds refused to blow. That was because Artemis, [music] goddess of the hunt, was furious with Agamemnon, for killing her sacred deer.

[00:07:27]A priest advised him to sacrifice his own daughter, Ephaganiah, in order [music] to appease the goddess. The girl's mother, Clyimnestra, begged her husband not to murder their child, especially for the sake of her sister, Helen, with [music] whom she did not get along. But the king went ahead with the slaying of his child. Artemis [music] had pity on poor Ephagenia and transformed her into a deer at the last moment. She did change the winds and the Greeks were able to sail to Troy. But Clyde Nestra was left fuming.

[00:08:07]The cast of Trojans include Paris's father, King Priam, and his older brother, Hector, champion of Troy. Their city was defended by high stone walls, and they were able to shut out the Greeks for 10 years. During this long siege, many surrounding towns were sacked by the Greeks. The gods also picked sides and amped up the violence by aiding their favored warriors in various ways. Odysius was a key player in the action. A wise and level-headed leader, he was often the one to settle arguments and suggest [music] successful strategies.

[00:08:50]Most of the Iliad focuses on the climactic 10th year of battle. Patrick, a close personal friend of Achilles, borrowed his armor to charge into battle. Homer does not explicitly say that they were lovers, but numerous scholars since have interpreted their relationship. Thus, he was killed and Achilles was devastated.

[00:09:15]Achilles went on a killing [music] spree, slaying hundreds of Trojan soldiers. Even the gods tried to stop him, [music] but nothing could temper his rage.

[00:09:26]Finally, Prince Hector came out to face Achilles. [music] After a tense battle, Hector was stabbed to death. Achilles then dishonored his enemy's corpse by stripping his armor and dragging him around the city strapped to the back of his chariot.

[00:09:46]A few nights later, King Priam stole into the Greek camp [music] to beg Achilles for the return of his son's body so he could give him a proper funeral. Achilles was moved by the old man's tears and the two men lamented their losses in the terrible war. Priam carried Hector's body back into Troy and the city mourned. Homer's story ends there without revealing how the war ended or who won. The most famous part of the story, the Trojan horse, does not appear in the Iliad at all. Homer's sequel, The Odyssey, does make brief mention of the infamous con. But the Trojan horse wasn't actually fleshed out until 800 years later when Roman poet Virgil wrote his own account of the Trojan War. The Anid written in 19 B.CE tells of how Achilles was finally defeated by Paris who shot an arrow into his vulnerable heel. In the resulting battle, Paris was mortally wounded.

[00:10:57]Nearly all of the great heroes were now reduced to ashes on funeral pers.

[00:11:05]Odysius came up with a brilliant plan to finally breach the walls of Troy and end the war in a nuclear fashion. He commanded the Greeks to build a giant wooden horse on the beach and then sail away from Troy. The Trojans, believing the horse to be an offering to the gods for a safe journey home, claimed it as a trophy and dragged it inside of the city. In the glow of victory, they drank and partied around it all night. But when they were drunk asleep, Odysius and select few warriors crept out of the hollow horse. [music] They unlocked the gates to the rest of the Greek army who had quietly sailed back. Then they decimated [music] the Trojans from within their own walls. They murdered men and enslaved women and children.

[00:12:00]Then they burned mighty Troy to the ground, including the temples, which pissed off the gods. Big mistake.

[00:12:10]Elderly King Priam sought sanctuary at the altar of Zeus. But Achilles's son, Neoptomus, ignored his pleading [music] and brutally murdered him. Only a handful of Trojans escaped the carnage. According to Virgil's version, Trojan hero Anias made it to Italy, where he became an ancestor of the Romans. Helen also made it out alive. Her love for Paris, which was never really her own, had been fading throughout the long conflict.

[00:12:45]Over time, she became disgusted by his cowardice in battle and wished to return to her husband, Menaaus. [music] In the end, she made it back to Sparta. In Homer's version, her husband, who had sacrificed so much to get her back, was furious. He intended to kill her for her betrayal. However, when he saw her unparalleled beauty, his anger melted away, and they lived together happily for many years.

[00:13:16]When the victorious, blood soaked Greeks jumped back in their ships, ready to sail home after a decade of fighting, the angry gods sent foul storms to blow [music] them off course. Thus begins the Odyssey.

[00:13:32]Before we too sail away from Troy, let's find out if this legendary city and its famous war were actually real. Ancient Greeks considered the Trojan War to be a real historic event. However, [snorts] 18th century scholars [music] dismissed it as a fable. In the 1870s, Frank Calvert and Hinrich Schlean followed clues in search of a real place that matched Homer's description. These Indiana Jones types uncovered a site called Hisarlic in present-day Turkey.

[00:14:08]Over 4,000 years, this ancient city was destroyed and rebuilt nine times. Troy 7 existed during the late Bronze Age when the Trojan War is said to have [music] occurred. Calvert and Schlean used destructive excavation methods. More careful archaeologists have since uncovered jewelry, shields, arrow heads, [music] charred stone, and damaged human remains, suggesting violent deaths, plus the remnants of a massive fortification wall, perhaps the very rampart from which King Priam watched the approaching Greeks. Scholars continue to debate if this was the site of the homeriic legend, but it seems there were many grains of truth to the story of the Trojan War.

[00:15:02]Similarly, while the monsters and magic in the Odyssey are mythical, the characters, places, and events may be rooted in real history. Over the centuries, scholars have attempted to map out Odysius's journey. In the 3rd century B.C.E., Erostosanes, librarian of the great library of Alexandria, theorized that Ithaca was hiding in plain sight as the island of Ithaca northwest of the Greek mainland.

[00:15:33]19th century archaeologist Wilhelm Dorpfeld came to the same conclusion, though his excavations of various Masonian sites failed to render up definitive proof and other nearby islands also claimed to be the real Ithaca. This leads to the obvious question, was Odysius a real person?

[00:15:55]While there is no certain evidence that Homer's hero was a real ancient king, scholars believe the character was a composite of various Bronze [music] Age chieftains and warriors. Likewise, other characters in the Iliad and the Odyssey may be inspired by real people, but none of them definitely existed. In 1991, a large beehive [music] tomb was discovered on the island of Kefalonia. It dates to 1300 B.CE around the time of the Trojan War. It's a tomb fit for a king and could have been the resting place of Odysius or someone like him. Homer's saga includes many real geographic features discovered by the ancient Greeks during [music] their extensive voyages, leading to a fairly clear idea of Odysius's route. Though exact locations will continue to be debated. Now come along and ride on a fantastic voyage. Warning, high winds, monsters, and spoilers ahead. Perfectly in line with the Christopher Nolan movie, Homer's Odyssey actually begins near the ending. in Odysius's home, Ithaca. While many other Greek neighbors have returned home from war, Odysius had been missing for a further 7 years. In his absence, his devoted wife, Penelope, was besieged by 108 [music] Borish suitors. They hoped to wed the queen and thus rule her kingdom. Penelope told them that she would select a new husband only after she finished weaving a burial shroud for her father-in-law. But each night she snuck back to her loom and picked apart the strands she'd completed. While they waited, the hordes of rude house guests, ate her food, drank her wine, wore her husband's clothes, and generally tore the place up. The goddess Athena advised Penelope's son, Telmachus, that he must seek news of his overdue father. So he set sail for Sparta. There he learned that King Agamemnon had been murdered by his own wife, Clynestra, in revenge for sacrificing their daughter.

[00:18:23]Then Talamakus learned what had become of his father.

[00:18:28]After departing Troy, Odysius stopped in Ismada to raid the Cissone's tribe, who were allies of the Trojans. He hoped to provision his fleet for the long journey home. But the tribe was mightier than he bargained for, and he retreated and sailed on. While he was circumnavigating Greece, [music] the gods, who were angry about the decimation of Troy, sent storms to blow him off course. Battered, lost, and hungry, the men finally [music] spotted land and went ashore.

[00:19:00]The inhabitants offered them fruit, which grew in abundance on their mysterious land. But the magical lotus blossoms made the crew fall into a stuper. They forgot who they were and desired only to consume more of the placid produce. Odicius realized what was going on and carried his sleeping companions back to the ships, making a quick escape. While Lotus is non-toxic, scholars equate this particular legendary food stuff to opium, a potent narcotic which is produced from poppies commonly grown in North Africa where the lotus eaters dwelled.

[00:19:41]On their next land sighting, they brought ashore wine to trade for food.

[00:19:47]They found a flock of sheep and a nearby cave full of meat and cheese which the hungry crew devoured. But the shepherd, a cyclops named [music] Polyphimis, returned home and furiously gobbled up two of the cave invaders. [music] He rolled a stone over the cavern, trapping the crew inside. Each morning, the Cyclops left to tend his flock and returned each night to feast upon another member of the terrified crew.

[00:20:20]Eventually, Odysius came up with a plot.

[00:20:24]He offered the giant wine, and when Polyphimas asked who he should thank for the libation, Odysius answered that his name was nobody. When the Cyclops was snoring drunk, the king stabbed him in his eye. His howls of agony summoned other cyclopses who shouted, "Polyphimus, who is hurting you?" He replied, "Nobody. Nobody is killing me."

[00:20:52]Confused, the other cyclopses left. The next morning, Polyphimas opened the cave to let his sheep out. Now blind, he felt each woolly beast as it passed to make sure it was not one of the crew escaping. [music] But they had strapped themselves to the sheep's bellies and were able to bleet a hasty retreat. As Polyphimas hurled boulders at the departing ships, Odysius boasted that he was not nobody, but Odysius, hero of the Trojan War. His hubus was a huge mistake. Polyphimas complained to his father, Poseidon, god of the sea. He cursed Odysius to wander the ocean for 10 years.

[00:21:42]The crew next landed on the floating island of Aolia. There its king, Aolus, god of the wind, gave them food, wine, and [music] a bag of wind. He instructed Odysius that if used with great care, the wind bag could speed his journey home. Odysius painstakingly rationed the magical gales until he had navigated so close to Ithaca that he could smell Penelopey's cooking, but his crew suspected the bag was actually filled with gold. So they opened it when the king's back was turned. The benevolent breeze was set free [music] and the fleet was blown all the way to the other side of Italy. A group of scouts went to shore but [music] quickly discovered that the land was populated by giant cannibals called le estreonians.

[00:22:38]They chased the scouts back to the beach, hurling rocks at their ships and devouring every sailor they could reach.

[00:22:46]They smashed every vessel in the fleet save one on which Odysius and his surviving men barely escaped.

[00:22:56]On Aya, the depleted men split into two [music] groups to search for food and water. One group discovered a palace owned by a beautiful woman. Docile wolves and lions quivered at her feet.

[00:23:11]She invited the men to a sumptuous feast, [music] but mixed with the barley, cheese, and wine was a more sinister ingredient. Finally full, the men fell [music] asleep. But when they awoke, they had transformed into pigs.

[00:23:27]One man who had not been hungry remained human. He ran to Odysius, who set out to rescue his crew of swine. On the way, he met the messenger god, Hermes, who offered him a plant, which [music] was black at the root and had a white blossom. The gods called it Molly. It would allow him to resist the sorceress's magic. Odysius accepted [music] Cersei's invitation to dine, but she was astonished that he was not transformed into a beast. He [music] put a knife to her throat and demanded that she return his men to their human form.

[00:24:05]This passage has an interesting bit of real botany behind it. A common plant in the Mediterranean, gypsum is packed with compounds that if consumed disrupt the vital neurotransmitter acetylcholine.

[00:24:22]This can cause amnesia, vivid hallucinations, and bizarre behavior. It may even make people believe that they are transformed into animals.

[00:24:33]In the 1950s, pharmacologists discovered a plant in the Eural Mountains called Snowdrop, [music] which is black at the root and has a white blossom. It was being used by locals to prevent paralysis amongst children with polio.

[00:24:48][music] After study, the pharmacologist discovered that the plant was rich in galantamine, [music] a compound which prevents the disruption of acetylcholine.

[00:25:00]This may have been the very plan Hermes gave to Odysius to protect him from Cersei's magic, or rather her chemistry.

[00:25:09]Cersei was so impressed with his heroics that she invited him to bed. He couldn't resist that chemistry, [music] and he remained with her for a year, even fathering a son by her. But he was determined to get home to Penelope. So, he bid Cersei farewell. They parted on good terms and she advised him how to survive a few upcoming perils and instructed him to travel next to the underworld where the prophet Tyresius could tell him how to get home.

[00:25:44]Odysius sailed west to the edge of the world where an entrance [music] to the underworld could be found. By making a ritual sacrifice, he [music] summoned the spirit of the prophet who warned him that when they reached the island of the sun god, Helios, [music] they must not harm his sacred cattle. Odysius was confronted by several other spirits as well, including his late mother, expired members of his crew, [music] and his former comrades, Agamimnon and Achilles.

[00:26:17]As the crew were rowing past another island, they began to hear sweet music on the wind. Cersei had warned Odysius about the sirens. Half woman, half bird, they lured sailors with their hypnotic voices, only to watch with glee as they crashed on the rocks and drowned.

[00:26:41]Odysius [music] plugged his crew's ears with bwax, but he wanted to be the only man to survive the song of the sirens, so he had them tie him up to the mast. The douls tones drove him nearly mad with desire, but the crew could not hear his please as they rode past the treacherous island.

[00:27:03][music] Once they were out of earshot, the sirens themselves perished. They had been faded to die if a mortal ever escaped [music] their entrancing song.

[00:27:14]Odysius next had to navigate a treacherous straight which was almost certainly the straight of Msina, the 1.9 mi or 3.1 km gap between Sicily and mainland Italy. But it wasn't just submerged rocks he had to avoid. On one side of the passage was Skyla, a six-headed monster, [music] and on the other was Kuribdus, a bottomless whirlpool. Odysius made the difficult decision to sail nearer to Skyla. For while it would devour six of his men, the whirlpool would consume them all.

[00:27:54]Sure enough, the six heads of Skyla swooped down from the cliff [music] and ate six crew members who screamed in agony. But the rest survived.

[00:28:07]With heavy hearts, they took shelter from an oncoming storm on the island of Thratia, the home of Helios. Odysius warned his men not to touch the sacred cattle who grazed on the island, but the storm trapped them there for over a month, and their supplies ran out. While the king slept, his hungry crew had a barbecue. When Odysius awoke and saw what they had done, he [music] wept, for Tyresius had prophesied that this act of slaughter would seal their fates. When the storm finally passed, they set sail.

[00:28:47]But Helios had complained to Zeus, who struck the ship with a giant thunderbolt, sinking it and killing every man on board.

[00:28:58]Save one Odysius, who had not eaten any steak. After 9 days a drift, clinging to Driftwood, the lone survivor washed onto the shore of Okajia. There, the beautiful nymph Calypso, daughter of the Titan Atlas, nursed him back to health.

[00:29:19]She promised him immortality if he would stay with her, but all he wanted was to get home to his wife and son. [music] Insulted by his rejection, she kept him captive for 7 years. [music] Every night before going to bed with the nymph, Odysius wept for his family. Athena, his longtime patron, was heartbroken for him. She finally convinced Zeus to allow Odysius to return home. He ordered Calypso to set him free and help him build a raft.

[00:29:56]On the last leg of this 10-year journey, Odysius's final vessel was destroyed once more by Poseidon, who just wouldn't let it go. The king once again barely survived and was washed onto another strange shore. But this time it was a place with no monsters, ghosts, or temptress. The hospitable people listened to [music] his epic tale with sympathy. Then they provided him safe passage home. 20 years after saying farewell, Odysius finally set foot back on Ithaca. But as he stumbled towards his palace, he was met by Athena. She warned him that his home was not as he had left it. The goddess disguised Odysius as an old beggar. He stopped at the home of his faithful [music] servant, Yos. They were soon joined by Odysius's son, Telmachus, who had just returned from his fruitless search for his father. Both men recognized the king [music] and were overjoyed. Together they hatched a plan to rid Ithaca of the infestation of suitors. Penelope was being forced to choose a new husband. So she announced that she would marry the man who was able to shoot an arrow through 12 ax heads using her longlost husband's great bow. The suitors each stepped forward, but not a single one was able to string the mighty bow.

[00:31:32]Finally, the old beggar came forward and asked for a go. The lusty young suitors laughed at him, but they were amazed when he easily strung the bow, then shot an arrow through the gauntlet cleanly.

[00:31:47]Next, he turned the weapon on the suitors and struck them down one by one.

[00:31:53]In shock, they scrambled for their weapons, but Yos and Telamakus had hidden them. They joined in the slaying and soon all the suitors were lying dead on the ground. At long last Odysius embraced Penelope, [music] ending his agonizing journey with the words, "But come, let us go to bed, dear woman, at long last delight [music] in sleep and delight in each other."

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