The abuse of hospitality
The suitors arrive as guests and stay as an occupying force. They eat Odysseus’s cattle, drink his wine, demand entertainment, and treat his household as their own. Telemachus calls an assembly in Book II to denounce them, and they dismiss him. Penelope delays them with the weaving trick, but the poem makes clear that the household is being consumed.
Their behaviour violates xenia in every respect. They give no gifts, show no respect to the old or the poor, and plot to kill the heir. The Odyssey sets their disorder against the ordered hospitality of Nestor, Menelaus, and the Phaeacians.
The slaughter
When Odysseus returns, he enters the hall as a beggar and endures their insults. Penelope sets the contest of the bow, and Odysseus strings it and shoots Antinous. With Telemachus, Eumaeus, and Philoetius, he kills the suitors, sparing only the herald Medon and the singer Phemius.
The massacre is both a restoration of order and a terrifying act of violence. The poem does not soften it: the suitors are killed in a trapped hall, and their families later come for revenge. The final settlement requires Athena’s intervention to stop a blood feud.
Relations
Enemy
Affiliation
Backlinks 4
The following entries mention “The Suitors”.