Homer wrote one of the greatest and earliest literary works, the Odyssey around the eight-century BCE. The Odyssey provides us with a lens through which we examine Greek society around eight hundred BCE. Prevalent themes including, Greek hospitality, their attitudes towards the afterlife, and their relationship of gods and man are all present in the Odyssey, which are also contemporaneous in ancient Greek life around the eighth century. Ultimately, the Odyssey allows us to learn more about people’s customs and beliefs in archaic Greece.
Beginning with one of the major themes found in the Odyssey is hospitality. The Greeks emphasized the relationship between hosts and guests who settled in their homes. Homer writes, “we ourselves here as suppliants…
Furthermore, for the Greeks they detested the afterlife, and didn’t hope for a life beyond earth after their departure from earth. In the Odyssey Odysseus dialogues, “I would rather work the soil as a serf on hire to some landless impoverished peasant than be king of all these lifeless dead” (Homer 152). This exemplifies how Odysseus would rather prefer life on earth as a slave to the poorest of all classes instead of accepting Achilles offer to become a god. Moreover, Odysseus decision shows us how the Greeks would in general would take part in the lowest division of the social hierarchy in Greece than have eternal life in an afterlife with Gods. Through the Odyssey we can grasp Greek beliefs, in specific it exemplified that there was no beauty in the afterlife. Additionally, the Greek masses strived to live a life with nothing in excess, as a consequence these choices allowed them to be truly content with their time on earth. Greek citizens weren’t living a “just” life in order achieve an immortal and eternal life, in essence they were eluding from the thought of an…
