THE NOSTOI (C 600s B.C. or 500s B.C.) NEGLECTED GREEK EPIC

THE NOSTOI aka THE RETURNS is a neglected epic in the Trojan War cycle. It is attributed to Agias or to Eumelus of Corinth. In the Epic Cycle, The Nostoi comes after The Sack of Troy and before The Odyssey. The epic deals with the homeward journeys of certain Greek heroes of the Trojan War other than Odysseus. The verse rendition of The Nostoi survives only in fragmentary form but there are surviving prose summaries of the work written by Proclus and Apollodorus.

THE NOSTOI – Picking up from the end of The Sack of Troy, the goddess Athena is still angry with the triumphant Greeks for the way Ajax the Lesser led the desecration of her temple inside Troy. She causes arguments among some of the Greek leaders, including the brothers Agamemnon and Menelaus, as a prelude to more deadly measures to come.

*** Diomedes and Nestor, free of hubris and considered free of the taint of the temple’s desecration, are granted swift and untroubled voyages with their fleets as they return home to Argos and Pylos, respectively. 

*** Agamemnon is visited by the ghost of Achilles, who warns him not to set sail because of Athena’s anger. Impatient to return home, Agamemnon tries to appease Athena with a quick sacrifice, then departs. A storm sent by Zeus at Athena’s request ravages Agamemnon’s fleet, killing many on the Kapherian rocks, including the mad Ajax the Lesser.

        Agamemnon himself eventually reaches Mycenae with his captive Cassandra but is murdered by his wife Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus. Clytemnestra’s main motive is revenge for Agamemnon sacrificing her daughter Iphigenia back in the epic titled Cypria. Elektra and Orestes, the daughter and son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, plot revenge against their mother and Aegisthus.

*** The archer Teucer, half-brother of Ajax the Greater, is put on trial in his homeland Salamis by his father Telamon, who is furious that Teucer did not return home with Ajax’s body or his shield. Teucer is found guilty of negligence, disowned and banished. The archer makes his way to Cyprus and establishes a city called New Salamis.  

*** Neoptolemus, the son of Achilles, is warned by his grandmother the nymph Thetis not to travel home by sea. He instead travels overland with his captive woman Andromache & friend Phoenix and at one point has a brief “crossover” with Odysseus at Maroneia.

        Phoenix, the elderly man who trained Achilles and told him to name his son Neoptolemus, dies while traveling home and is buried by Neoptolemus in either Eion, Macedonia or Thessaly. At last, the hero reaches Phthon and is welcomed by his grandfather King Peleus.

*** The seer Calchas, prominent in Iliad Minor, takes an overland route with Leonteus and Polypoites to Colophon. Once there, Calchas engages in a divination contest with the prophet Mopsus. Calchas loses and dies of shame. I think we’ve all been there.

*** Menelaus and his wife Helen, whose abduction by Paris caused the Trojan War, were blown off course by the storm that Athena urged Zeus to cause and wound up on Crete. They and their party then made their way to Egypt, where they languished for eight years due to unfavorable winds. 

        At length, the nymph Eidothea led Menelaus to the god Proteus, whom he bested in battle and forced him to reveal why he and his followers were stuck in Egypt like the castaways on Gilligan’s Island. Proteus told him he failed to make proper sacrifices before heading home, so he needed to perform them at the River Aegyptus in order to finally get favorable winds.

        Menelaus did as he was told, and at last he, Helen and their retinue returned home to Sparta. The couple were promised a place in the Elysian Fields after their deaths. 

With the other major Greek survivors of the Trojan War accounted for, the lengthy epic The Odyssey concludes the return voyages next.