Indeed the Odyssey elsewhere represents Odysseus’ family as so predisposed. Asked by the disguised Odysseus why no brothers help him to oppose the suitors (16.97-98), Telemachos asserts:

Apart from the simple fact that Telemachos is an only son, this information is superfluous in the immediate context of Book 16, and seems motivated in part by the irony of having the son tell family lore to his own disguised father. But the ornate rhetoric, in particular the jingly anaphora built around moun– ‘only, single’ suggests a more significant function. That function, I shall argue, is to be found in the implications of Telemachos’ statement for the Odyssey’s relationship to non-Homeric traditions.

In this chapter I explore the manner in which non-Homeric Odysseus-traditions realize the hero’s post-Odyssey adventures. Particular attention is paid to three themes that recur in these stories: Odysseus’ exile, his siring of children other than Telemachos, and his death by violence or away from home. The Odyssey rejects these themes explicitly, but nevertheless preserves them in “false” tales and in allusions to discarded narrative possibilities. I then conclude by proposing that that the association of these non-Homeric accounts with major religious centers in west Greece may explain the Odyssey’s need to engage with them.

The Odyssey’s conception of the journey Odysseus must take after his return is revealed, not at the end of the narrative, but near the middle, in the prophecy the hero receives from Teiresias. Once you have killed the suitors, Teiresias tells Odysseus,

An important function of this part of Teiresias’ prophecy, I suggest, is to explain the “fact” of the obligatory journey as a mere tidying up of the Odyssey’s own loose ends and to render it otherwise consistent with the themes that are identified with Zeus in the main narrative. In other words, since the larger tradition demands a post-Mnesterophonia voyage, the Odyssey realizes that voyage in terms that help to bring closure without pointing the way to a new series of adventures. The voyage likewise has no connection with the killing of the suitors, in which respect Odysseus is again assimilated to Zeus’ Orestes, whose revenge is uncomplicated by guilt, retribution from mortals, or opposition from gods. As Odysseus describes it, the projected journey hints at the exotic locales that the proem associates with the Apologoi (compare 23.267 with 1.3); but Zeus’ settlement circumscribes these adventures by reducing them to the victory lap of a blessed and pious man, leaving no purchase for sequels that would compromise Zeus’ theodicy.

Similarly poor in dramatic possibilities is the death scenario that Teiresias reveals to Odysseus. Again, this scenario, or rather range of scenarios, is linked thematically to Zeus’ settlement (the brackets are meant to preserve significant ambiguities in translation):

The sympathy between Teiresias’ prophecy and Zeus’ settlement is evident in the stipulation that “the people will be prosperous” when Odysseus dies (cf. 24.486). Further, Teiresias’ scenario of a peaceful death, in old age, and during a time of prosperity, implies the seamless transfer of power from ruler to son, Odysseus to Telemachos, that Zeus’ settlement implies.

A distinguishing characteristic of these “false” and non-Homeric accounts is a messy, “real-world” staging and outcome of Odysseus’ return, which again stands in contrast with Zeus’ eklēsis. This “false” scenario corresponds to a recurrent theme in ancient Greek myth and history: an ousted king or tyrant has himself reinstalled by the military forces of a neighboring ruler. Such a return is a recipe for a fleeting victory and a protracted struggle, on analogy of for instance the Theban saga or the career of the Peisistratids in historical Athens.

It is then my argument that the geographical references to west Greece in these non-Homeric Odysseus stories, and in the Odyssey’s “false” stories, suggest that the region may have been a locus of particularly vigorous epichoric Odysseus-traditions. While the relationship between poetical and “real” geography need not be so transparent, it is nevertheless unsurprising to find Odysseus-tradition flourishing in the area of the hero’s reputed homeland. The considerable body of non-Homeric literary evidence, as well as material evidence, allows for a fairly detailed examination of the relationship between the west Greek references in the Odyssey and the kinds of epichoric and proto-Panhellenic traditions with which the Homeric narrative may have engaged.

My purpose here is not to assess the accuracy of the Homeric view of west Greece. Rather, I survey the region with an eye to contexts in which stories about Odysseus may have been performed and disseminated. Admittedly, the evidence discussed here allows for a number of plausible reconstructions, but it is nevertheless possible to recover at least the broad outlines of the shadowy traditions that, by my interpretation, exerted a significant influence on the Homeric conception of Odysseus. Ithake not surprisingly offers abundant connections with the hero. I further propose that Thesprotia and Aitolia appear as important settings in accounts of Odysseus’ non-Homeric exile, and in de-authorized accounts of Odysseus in the Odyssey, because of the associations of these regions with the two major religious centers in ancient west Greece, the oracle of Zeus at Dodona and the cult of Zeus at Olympia, sites that could have served as the foci of regional Odysseus-traditions.

Lastly, Greek travelers from further afield, a truly Panhellenic constituency, may have had the opportunity to experience Ithakan performance traditions. Narratives developing at nominally Panhellenic sites like Polis Bay and Aetos would however correspond to what I defined in the Introduction as a “proto-Panhellenic” register of the ancient Greek epic tradition. This is because the cults on Ithake itself never achieved the kind of prominence that would allow them to develop and disseminate a narrative tradition comparable in authority to the Homeric Odyssey. Nevertheless, Ithakan traditions could have been sufficiently well-known to have exerted an influence on the Homeric Odyssey, even as they were themselves influenced by it.

In a sense, then, Eleans could lay claim to two sets of heroes, Aitolians and a less impressive group of native sons. In the Iliad, the Eleans, who are regularly called “Epeioi” (see 2.615-624), play a minor role at Troy, where at least two of the ἄρχοντες Ἐπείων fall in battle (Diores at 4.517, Amphimachos at 13.185). The Homeric Elean-Epeians remain tied closely to west Greece. Thus an Elean exile, the aforementioned Meges, leads the contingent from the nearby island of Doulichion (2.625-630); and Nestor recalls Elean games in which his father participated (11.686~698), and others in which he himself and other Pylians, Epeians, and Aitolians took part (at the funeral of the Epeian leader Amarynkeus, 23.630-42), as well as an epic struggle between Pylians and Eleans (11.670-761).

Wherever possible, the fully Panhellenic narratives exploit strategies of inclusion, or obfuscation, in order to gloss over potential conflicts with epichoric traditions. Thus Teiresias’ ambiguous account of Odysseus’ death and the uncertain fate of the Phaiakes appear to leave open narrative possibilities inconsistent with Odyssean thematics. In the case of west Greek traditions about Odysseus’ return from Troy, I propose, the inconsistencies were too fundamental, and the conflicting traditions too influential, to allow for inclusion or obfuscation, for which reason the Odyssey exploits another strategy, de-authorization through recontextualization. By framing as lies accounts of Odysseus’ return in which he wanders “real” ancient Greece, takes control of Ithake through outright assault, and suffers exile, the Homeric account undermines traditions in which the hero’s wander- and bloodlust deny him the opportunity to live happily ever after in accordance with the poem’s larger themes.

What the Cretan tales and the paths suggested but not taken in the Odyssey seem to construct, then, is a non-Homeric Odysseus, one whose journey takes him from Troy to places like Crete, Egypt, and Phoenicia (perhaps receiving the aid of the metrically equivalent Phoinikes instead of the Phaiakes), as well as Thesprotia, Dodona, and at last Ithake, where his undisguised return issues in exile and an ignominious death. Not surprisingly, one of the themes lacking from these accounts is a Dios boulē.

Zeus’ absence from the non-Homeric material may seem to problematize my association of these putative west Greek traditions with cult sites dedicated to him. However, not every narrative performed at a festival made conspicuous homage to the festival’s patron deity. Thus, for example, though Athene is considerably less prominent in the Iliad than she is in the Odyssey, there remain strong arguments for associating both poems with the Panathenaia festival at Athens.61 Further, from the perspective developed in this and the preceding chapter, Zeus’ absence is consistent with the real-world, political orientation of the themes of exile and epigonoi, mundane concerns with which the epic Zeus normally plays no part, except when dealing with his own offspring.

A further consideration is that, if the equation of divine plan and narrative plan is as I propose specific to the Panhellenic register of ancient Greek epic, a Dios boulē theme would be out of place in narratives that were not compelled make the kind of narrative decisions I ascribe to the Panhellenic, and Panhellenizing, Zeus. It is in this respect noteworthy that the subordinate Olympians Athene, Ares, and Apollo seem to conduct themselves in the non-Homeric Telegony much as they do in the Iliad (cf. Proklos 102.11-12 Bernabé, quoted above), only without the direction or arbitration of Zeus. Conversely, Zeus’ only appearance in the Homeric passages discussed in this chapter is as the offstage oracular voice of Dodona in the Cretan tales, where he is invoked in order to define the parameters of the “false” plot, that is, to determine whether Odysseus will return openly or in secret. This function, I propose, is a specifically Panhellenic one. I shall be arguing in the next chapter that another account of the aftermath of the Trojan War in the Odyssey, one told by Nestor to Telemachos, also presents Zeus in a role analogous to that which he plays in the main narrative, as the guiding force behind the narrative decisions that reduce the mass of epichoric stories about returning Greek heroes to a Panhellenic synthesis that reinforces Homeric themes.