CHAPTER20
THE RETURNS AND THE ODYSSEY
The returns of the Greek leaders from Troy were narrated in an epic called Nos-
toi (Returns), of which only a brief prose summary and three lines of verse are
extant.^1 It omits the return of Odysseus, which is the subject of Homer's Odyssey.AGAMEMNON, MENELAÙS, AND NESTOR
Agamemnon and Menelaùs quarreled over the departure and so parted com-
pany. Agamemnon sailed for Greece with part of the fleet, including the con-
tingent of the Locrians. Near the island of Mykonos, Athena, in her anger at the
sacrilege committed at Troy by the Locrian leader Ajax (pp. 475^76), caused a
storm to wreck many of the ships. Ajax swam to a nearby rock, where he boasted
that not even the gods could prevent his escape from the dangers of the sea. For
this Poseidon struck the rock with his trident, and Ajax was hurled into the sea
and drowned.
During a second storm, which struck Agamemnon's fleet at Cape Caphareus
in Euboea, Nauplius avenged the death of his son Palamedes by luring many
ships onto the rocks with a false beacon. Agamemnon finally reached Mycenae,
only to be murdered by Aegisthus and Clytemnestra.
Meanwhile Menelaùs, Nestor, and Diomedes set sail together from Troy.
Nestor returned to Pylos safely. In the Odyssey he tells Telemachus how
Menelaùs lost all his fleet except for five ships in a storm off Crete and eventu-
ally reached Egypt. On the advice of the sea-nymph Eidothea, he forced her fa-
ther, Proteus, to tell him how to appease the gods and secure a safe voyage
home. Thus after seven years he and Helen returned to Sparta, where they re-
sumed their rule.^2 At the end of his life he was transported to the Elysian Fields,
avoiding the usual fate of going to Hades, because he was the husband of He-
len and the son-in-law of Zeus.
DIOMEDES
Diomedes reached Argos quickly, but there he found that his wife, Aegialia
(daughter of Adrastus) had been unfaithful. Her adulteries were caused by
Aphrodite, angry because Diomedes had wounded her at Troy. Diomedes left
Argos and came to Italy, where the Apulian king, Daunus, gave him land.
482