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With Iliadic hetaireia now fallen apart, mutual distrust among hero and hetairoi spirals into autocracy, on the one hand, and rebellion, on the other. The post-hetaireia pathology

becomes political as soon as the Ithacan force leaves the Cyclopes’ island. After the ships receive

copious gifts from Aeolus, they sail within sight of Ithaca itself. Then Homer provides a nearly

political image of pure one-man control:

ἔνθ’ ἐμὲ μὲν γλυκὺς ὕπνος ἐπέλλαβε κεκμηῶτα· αἰεὶ γὰρ πόδα νηὸς ἐνώμων, οὐδέ τῳ ἄλλῳ

163 (Odyssey 10.31-33)

Odysseus remains awake because he cannot trust any hetairos to steer the ship.49 _{He falls asleep} because he cannot stay awake forever. The dative singular τῳ ἄλλῳ with the genitive plural ἑτάρων shows the hetairoi as a group whose members are distinguished from their single

controller.50 Odysseus is in charge, not only of his hetairoi, but also insteadof any one (τῳ ἄλλῳ) of his hetairoi. This command structure is unintelligible in the framework of Iliadic hetaireia. Nowhere does an Iliadic king take charge instead of hetairoi. On the contrary, Achilles’ greatest mistake is to appoint his dearest hetairos commander when only Achilles himself ought to have led the Myrmidons against Hector; and Achilles rebukes himself in the voice of “some” hetairos

for keeping the Myrmidon hetairoi from battle against their will.51 _{But hetaireia has so}

deteriorated that Odysseus feels that none of his hetairoi can be trusted to steer the ship, even in sight of the Ithacan shore.

The proto-political image is followed by quasi-political action. The hetairoi form a mutiny, a stasis opposed to the king. Again they speak among themselves—but this time out of

49 _{Contrast the trustworthiness of the ships of the Phaeacians, which at Odyssey 8.557-559 need neither kubernetes} nor pedalion because they themselves know the thoughts and minds of humans (ἀλλ’ αὐταὶ ἴσασι νοήματα καὶ φρένας ἀνδρῶν). For Odysseus’ refusal to cede control of the ship as an effect of combat trauma see Shay 2002, 51- 57.

50 _{The image describes a collective with a single controller (kubernetes; the term is not used but the concept is} activated by αἰεὶ γάρ) and prefigures the metaphor of the ‘ship of state’, first elaborated explicitly by Alcaeus but also present in Theognis and Archilochus (for the history of this image see Gerber 1997 142n21; Thompson 2008 esp. 167ff; Brock 2013, chapter 4). In the political image, the demos is passive and needs to be led. Here the hetairoi are passive and need to be led. The steersman must take charge because the subjects cannot be trusted to keep themselves safe. The ship magnifies the need for an autocrat because everyone on a ship quite literally floats or sinks together (whence the English idiom ‘in the same boat’). The nautical setting of the Odyssey is susceptible to autocracy, but Odysseus’ explicit statement that he refused to entrust the tiller to any of the hetairoi suggests that it is conceivable, and perhaps even normal, that someone besides Odysseus himself should steer the ship.

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Odysseus’ hearing, while he is asleep.52 Their reasoning begins with the assumption that

Odysseus does not deserve their trust:

οἱ δ’ ἕταροι ἐπέεσσι πρὸς ἀλλήλους ἀγόρευον καί μ’ ἔφασαν χρυσόν τε καὶ ἄργυρον οἴκαδ’ ἄγεσθαι … ὢ πόποι, ὡς ὅδε πᾶσι φίλος καὶ τίμιός ἐστιν ἀνθρώποισ, ὅτεών κε πόλιν καὶ γαῖαν ἵκηται. πολλὰ μὲν ἐκ Τροίης ἄγεται κειμήλια καλὰ ληΐδος· ἡμεῖς δ’ αὖτε ὁμὴν ὁδὸν ἐκτελέσαντες οἴκαδε νισόμεθα κενεὰς σὺν χεῖρας ἔχοντες. (Odyssey 10.34-35, 38-42)

What the hetairoi accuse Odysseus of here, is what Achilles accuses Agamemnon of in Iliad 1: taking all the spoils for himself, an unforgivable crime against the economic foundation of

warrior-companionship. There Achilles was correct, and here Odysseus’ hetairoi are wrong. Aeolus’ bag contains only the winds, instruments for nostos. But after Odysseus’ leadership on the Cyclopes’ island, the suspicion of the hetairoi is understandable, if unfounded.53 The evil counsel of the hetairoi is victorious (βουλὴ δὲ κακὴ νίκησεν ἑταίρων: 46) – cf. Odysseus’ good

52 _{Contrast Odyssey 9.493 where they speak from both sides of the ship and Odysseus hears (but is not persuaded).} Here Odysseus is asleep (10.31), as they conspire under Eurylochus when Odysseus falls asleep on Thrinakia.

53 _{So also Rutherford 1986, 151 (“understandably, they do not trust him”) and Segal 1994, 34 (on the opening of the} bag of the winds: “the most painful failure of trust between Odysseus and the companions”).

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boule at Odyssey 9.318 – the winds escape, and the spiral of mistrust results in the most tantalizing disappointment: the removal of homecoming in sight of home. The hetairoi groan (στενάχοντο δ’ ἑταῖροι: 55) with a verb that in the Iliad responds to death.

That the dysfunction of hetaireia holds in both directions is manifest in Odysseus’ attempt to recapture the winds. Re-supplicating Aeolus, Odysseus blames his “bad” hetairoi and sleep itself for the loss of the guest-gift:

ἄασάν μ’ἕταροί τε κακοὶ πρὸς τοῖσί τε ὕπνος

(Odyssey 10.68)

Odysseus presents himself to Aeolus as the direct object of ἄασαν—the victim of ate, whose agents are his own hetairoi, along with the sleep that kept him from retaining absolute control over the ship (cf. Odyssey 10.32-33).54 The strength of the accusation is matched by an equally damning adjective: nowhere else in Homer are hetairoi called kakoi. Odysseus’ words to Aeolus are also more accusatory than his narrative twenty lines earlier, where the agent of the error of

the hetairoi is simply “evil counsel” (βουλὴ δὲ κακὴ νίκησεν ἑταίρων: 46). In conversation with hosts and kings, he feels particularly that he must scapegoat his hetairoi. But the ploy does not work, as Aeolus declares that Odysseus is personally hateful to the gods (ἄνδρα τὸν ὅς τε θεοῖσιν

ἀπέχθηται μακάρεσσιν: 74). Odysseus has ruined his relationship both with his hetairoi and with a royal xenos.55

54 _{This is probably a deliberate rhetorical ploy for Aeolus’ ears only: in his narrative to the Phaecians, Odysseus} implicates himself along with his hetairoi (αὐτῶν γὰρ ἀπωλόμεθ’ ἀφραδίῃσιν: Odyssey 10.27).

55 _{Aeolus triply cuts off all future relations with Odysseus, calling him “most reproachful of living things,” judging} his request “not right” (οὐ θέμις), and concluding that the gods must hate him (Odyssey 10.72-75).

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