Odysseus the Pirate

The noble heroes of Greek Epics were brutes and bloodthirsty pirates. And proudly so.

In public imagination we tend to view the Ancient Mycenean heroes as great warriors fighting noble and epic battles and duels. All set in front of the walls of Troy in a war for love, honor and glory.

Of course, as always we shouldn’t take the epics at face value. We shold be very careful not to think of the Odyssey and Illiad as History. They are epics. However, they are written in a set of circumstances and may reveal a lot about the times in which they were conceived. Acclaimed scholar Jeffrey P. Emanuel in “Black ships and sea raiders”, explains that even epics written down around 700 BCE may contain strands of historical truth about earlier periods. As well as the time when the epics were written down, of course. The trick is to make out the difference and to some extend that is feasible.

For instance, we know that the international system of the Late Bronze Age collapsed a little after 1200 BCE and traces of historic elements of this can be seen in the Odyssey. Also we can note that attacking unsuspecting civilian settlements were a natural thing for warriors in the Bronze Age as and perhaps the Iron Age as well. That is, killing the men and then rape and enslave women and children. And of course plunder anything else of value. Odysseus boasts about this and his only regret is that he and his men did not escape fast enough to avoid retaliation.