Odysseus appears before Penelope as a long-suffering wanderer, and his rhetoric, including his assumed name, underscores his displacement from the aristocratic position in life that he once occupied. And yet Aithon’s biography also serves to emphasize just how aristocratic, or, more precisely, how king-like that position actually was. The conceit of the Odyssey is that its hero is intrinsically a king, and recognizable as such. When he is reduced to having nothing, not even clothes, he could theoretically become any kind of a person – a beggar, a pirate, a wandering bard – but although he plays some of these roles, that is not what happens in the end. Instead, Odysseus shows himself to be a king already on Skheria, where he is offered the hand of a king’s daughter. On Ithaca too, it is not a matter of simply regaining his position, but of proving this position to be truly his.

The qualities of a perfect king are also a preoccupation of Hesiod, and this is an important point of contact between the Hesiodic and the Odyssean traditions. Some of these core qualities are, I submit, evoked in the Odyssey by Aithon’s descent.

In Hesiod, as in Homer, a true king is sanctioned by Zeus:

The kings appear here somewhat mysteriously along with the poets in the midst of praise for the Muses. But there is a connection, since one of the gifts of a true king is the true and well-spoken word, and related to it is another {50|51} gift from Zeus, namely his dike, the ability to pronounce judgment. [1] In the Theogony a good king is both nourished by Zeus and favored by the Muses with the result that he can render ‘straight judgment’ and speak unfailingly:

ὅντινα τιμήσουσι Διὸς κοῦραι μεγάλοιο
γεινόμενόν τε ἴδωσι διοτρεφέων βασιλήων,
τῷ μὲν ἐπὶ γλώσσῃ γλυκερὴν χείουσιν ἐέρσην,
τοῦ δ’ ἔπε’ ἐκ στόματος ῥεῖ μείλιχα· οἱ δέ νυ λαοὶ
πάντες ἐς αὐτὸν ὁρῶσι διακρίνοντα θέμιστας
ἰθείῃσι δίκῃσιν· ὁ δ’ ἀσφαλέως ἀγορεύων
αἶψά τι καὶ μέγα νεῖκος ἐπισταμένως κατέπαυσε.

(Theogony 81–87)

Whomever of the Zeus-nourished kings the daughters of the great Zeus
honor and look upon as he is born,
for him they pour sweet dew on his tongue,
and honey-sweet voice flows from his lips; and all the people
look at him as he determines the established custom
with his straight judgments. And he, speaking unfailingly,
expertly and quickly stops a quarrel, even if it is a big one.

Both the proximity of Zeus and the power of dike are characteristics of the royal line of Idomeneus, Aithon’s supposed brother. When Idomeneus boasts in the Iliad, he describes himself as the ‘offspring of Zeus’ and claims direct descent from the king of the gods:

ὄφρα ἴδῃ οἷος Ζηνὸς γόνος ἐνθάδ’ ἱκάνω,
ὃς πρῶτον Μίνωα τέκε Κρήτῃ ἐπίουρον·
Μίνως δ’ αὖ τέκεθ’ υἱὸν ἀμύμονα Δευκαλίωνα,
Δευκαλίων δ’ ἐμὲ τίκτε πολέσσ’ ἄνδρεσσιν ἄνακτα.

(Iliad 13.449–452)

So that you may see what kind of man I am as I come here, a descendant of Zeus,
who first begat Minos, the overseer of Crete. {51|52}
And Minos in his turn had a perfect son, Deukalion,
and Deukalion had me, a ruler over many men.

The special position of Minos seems to be marked here by an unusual and archaic title – epiouros of Crete. [2] In his talk with Penelope, Odysseus also claims a special relationship to Zeus for his supposed grandfather Minos and emphasizes it by a curious description of Minos as oaristes of the god. [3] Thus both in the Iliad and in the Odyssey Minos’ connection to Zeus is singled out as his preeminent quality. It is in all likelihood as a result of this connection that Minos has a Zeus-granted gift of dike, shown by the role of judge over the dead that he assumes in the afterlife:

ἔνθ’ ἦ τοι Μίνωα ἴδον, Διὸς ἀγλαὸν υἱόν,
χρύσεον σκῆπτρον ἔχοντα θεμιστεύοντα νέκυσσιν,
ἥμενον· οἱ δέ μιν ἀμφὶ δίκας εἴροντο ἄνακτα,
ἥμενοι ἑσταότες τε, κατ’ εὐρυπυλὲς Ἄϊδος δῶ.

(Odyssey 11.568–571)

There I saw Minos, the splendid son of Zeus,
sitting and holding a golden scepter, uttering judgments to the dead,
and they consulted the lord about their cases,
sitting and standing, all over the wide-gated house of Hades.

This role of an arbiter is precisely the role attributed by Hesiod to his ideal king (διακρίνοντα θέμιστας, Theogony 85).

It is worth emphasizing the loftiness of the lineage Aithon claims for himself, since it makes for such an astonishing statement in the mouth of a beggar. As we have seen, he begins his conversation with Penelope with a performance of the “ruler’s truth,” showing that he knows what a real king is and has mastered the discourse characteristic of such a king. [4] He then expands on this veiled demonstration of his identity by making a direct claim to belong not simply to a royal lineage, but to an exalted royal lineage with a {52|53} special claim to Zeus’s support. The genealogy is thus one step in a purposeful process of establishing himself as a “real” king during this dialogue, and of reminding Penelope what such a king is like. The theme of Zeus’ sanction, moreover, resonates strongly in this part of the Odyssey, because it is after his return to Ithaca that Odysseus’ own relation to Zeus becomes especially prominent. For example, beggar-Odysseus twice swears by Zeus that Odysseus will return soon (14.158 = 19.303), and on the morning of the bow contest prays for, and receives, an omen from Zeus, a thunderclap from the clear sky (20.105, 114). [5] Furthermore, Odysseus-the-beggar claims in his tales that Odysseus is in Dodona, consulting the oracle of Zeus (14.327–328 = 19.296–297).

Transgressors can be blazing in their turn, but nothing is a match for the fire of Zeus. An example illustrating these connections is the description of Kapaneus and his opponent, Polyphontes, in Aeschylus’ Seven against Thebes. Kapaneus is a hybristic attacker, who cares nothing for Zeus and chooses fire as his weapon, in effect making himself out to be a human Zeus. Not only does Kapaneus have a torch-bearer and an inscription ‘I will burn the city’ on his shield, but he also claims that he will do so even against the will of Zeus, whose lightning he disparagingly compares to the warmth of noon (427–431). In response to a messenger’s description of Kapaneus, Eteokles expresses his {53|54} hope that Zeus will strike the braggart with a lightning ‘not at all similar to the midday warmth of the sun’ (445–446). In the meanwhile, the opponent of Kapaneus, Polyphontes, is described as a man of ‘burning purpose’ (αἴθων . . . λῆμα, 448). [6] The appearance of the adjective aithon is hardly surprising in this context, full as it is of words relating to fire and lightning, but it has a connotation that goes deeper. Associations of aithon with Zeus, lightning, and the punishment of offenders all combine to make Polyphontes into a veritable human lighting bolt, a weapon of Zeus. In Euripides Phoenissae, Kapaneus is indeed eventually struck by lightning as he tries to scale the walls of Thebes (1181).