When you consider the punishment handed out by Odysseus to the unsuccessful wooers and the maids you have to consider the time in which they live. It was a hard time when death was common and there weren’t any courts of law . The victim was Odysseus and he was the judge as well. That may explain the harshness of the punishments. Nevertheless I believe the punishments (death) were unfair and did not fit the crimes.
The only person who I believe deserved death, just like Eurymachus said, was the leader Antinous just because he was the leader and was more responsible and possibly Amphinomus. Homer rightly assigns Antinous as the first one to die and there recognizes the greater crime. But then he goes and assigns the same punishment to all his followers, the wooers. This I believe was unfair.
At the time when this story takes place, it was customary for noblemen to try to become the …show more content…
All the maids ever did was sleep with them. I think that Odysseus held them to too high of a standard. They were just maids after all and accustomed to taking orders.Also consider that he was gone for ten years! So why is it so disgraceful that the maids slept with the suitors?. If anything, what they did had bought Odysseus wife Penelope, more time. And what is their payment for this? Telemachus is ordered to kill them all.
Eurymachus shrewdly begs for their lives and points the finger at Antinous as the main evildoer. But he, seeing that Odysseus is unmoved and intends to kill them all, is the first to attack him. And so he is the second to fall. Homer seems to appoint blame in the order of their deaths. But at that point the killing should have stopped. This points out a difference in ideas of justice between Homer's time and ours.As for our justice today, I believe the punishments were too
The only person who I believe deserved death, just like Eurymachus said, was the leader Antinous just because he was the leader and was more responsible and possibly Amphinomus. Homer rightly assigns Antinous as the first one to die and there recognizes the greater crime. But then he goes and assigns the same punishment to all his followers, the wooers. This I believe was unfair.
At the time when this story takes place, it was customary for noblemen to try to become the …show more content…
All the maids ever did was sleep with them. I think that Odysseus held them to too high of a standard. They were just maids after all and accustomed to taking orders.Also consider that he was gone for ten years! So why is it so disgraceful that the maids slept with the suitors?. If anything, what they did had bought Odysseus wife Penelope, more time. And what is their payment for this? Telemachus is ordered to kill them all.
Eurymachus shrewdly begs for their lives and points the finger at Antinous as the main evildoer. But he, seeing that Odysseus is unmoved and intends to kill them all, is the first to attack him. And so he is the second to fall. Homer seems to appoint blame in the order of their deaths. But at that point the killing should have stopped. This points out a difference in ideas of justice between Homer's time and ours.As for our justice today, I believe the punishments were too