The ancient Greeks thought and wrote a lot about what it means to live within a society, bound by shared laws and responsibilities. These classical ideas were vital to our modern understanding of community, duty, and purpose—values that root us in the larger structure of the Republic, just as they did for the ancients.
In The Odyssey, Homer contrasts the uncultivated aspects of nature with the structured life of the city-state (polis) to examine the struggle between lawless existence and civic duty. Odysseus’s encounters with untamed lands and beings serve to reinforce the significance of divine laws that guide his role and responsibility within the polis. Thus, Odysseus’s journey is a symbolic return not only to Ithaca but to the values and institutions that make life meaningful.
Encounters with the Lawless: The Cyclopes
Odysseus’s encounters with beings who live outside the polis showcase the dangers of a world devoid of order. One of these encounters is with the Cyclopes, who live without laws or communities:
“Neither assemblies for council have they, nor appointed laws, but they dwell on the peaks of mountains in hollow caves, and each one is lawgiver to his children and his wives, and they have no regard for one another.”
In Homeric Greek, the passage says the Cyclopes lack agorai, boulephoroi, and themistes. The agora was the marketplace, a central public space in the polis where citizens gathered for political, social, and commercial activities. Here, representatives—the boulephoroi, or ‘wish-carriers’—would discuss and decide on public life.
The Cyclopes, in contrast, lack both an agora and willing citizens to engage in lawmaking or community life, emphasizing their isolation and disregard for social order. The other attribute that the Cyclopes lack are the themistes. For the Greeks, Themis was a goddess that personified divine law and order, representing the natural, unwritten laws that govern human behavior and justice. In this context, themistes refers to the traditional or divine laws that kings and leaders are expected to uphold and dispense. They are not formal laws created by humans but rather the customary rules and principles of divine justice, reflecting a sense of moral order.
Not only do the Cyclopes disregard these natural laws, particularly Zeus’s law of hospitality, the passage says that “each one is lawgiver to his children and his wives”. In the Greek, Homer uses the word themis as a verb: “themistevei de ekastos paidon ed’ alochon”. The use of the verb form of themis conveys the Cyclopes’ rejection of divine law. The Cyclopes thus not only break ordained natural laws, they seek to create their own laws for themselves in place of the divine ones, in a sense becoming gods and lawmakers to themselves.
The shocking encounter Odysseus has with the Cyclopes reveals the beliefs held by Homer and the ancient Greeks – that self-rule leads to vice and disorder. In order to be a virtuous person who follows the natural, divine laws, one must live in a polis where one engages in the community.
This state of lawlessness stands in stark contrast to the life in Ithaca which Odysseus is desperate to return to. The Cyclopes live in accordance to appetite, not reason, love, or duty. They “…have no regard for one another”, leading lonely lives apart from others of their kind. On the other hand, Odysseus is a father, a husband, and a king. He desires to return to the people and the duties which provide his identity and are the source of his happiness.
The Lure of Uncultivated Freedom: Circe’s Temptation
Odysseus encounters another form of lawlessness in the seductions of Circe, who attempts to draw him into a life of indulgence without duty. He tells the Phaeacians of the beautiful goddess Calypso and of Circe, who each desired him as a husband. He recalls:
“It is true that Calypso, the beautiful goddess, kept me by her in her hollow caves, yearning that I should be her husband; and in the same way Circe held me back in her halls, the guileful lady of Aeaea, yearning that I should be her husband; but they could never persuade the heart in my breast. So true is it that nothing is sweeter than a man’s own land and his parents, even though it is in a rich house that he dwells afar in a foreign land away from his parents.”
Before he meets Circe, Hermes advises Odysseus on how to resist her poison and remain unharmed. Hermes warns that Circe will attempt to strip him of his courage and manhood, qualities that he must retain to return to the polis. Odysseus confronts Circe, saying, “…and now [you] keep me here, and with guileful purpose bid me go to your chamber, and go up into your bed, that when you have me stripped you may deprive me of my courage and my manhood.”
The courage and manhood Odysseus refers to is the last part of his homecoming he can hold onto. These traits contrast with Circe’s world of “appetite over duty. In the isolated, uncultivated world that Circe and the Cyclopes and the others are part of, courage and manhood have no meaning, for here there is nothing to prove, and no one to protect. Only in the polis he so loves do courage and manhood actually matter. Odysseus recognizes the danger, knowing he must comply in order to free his companions, but also knowing that the further temptation could lead him to forget his duties as a man of the polis, stripping him of his courage and manhood and causing him to forget the responsibility he has to return home.
The Allure of a Premature Paradise: Calypso’s Island
The travel-worn man faces another similar temptation when he is held captive on Calypso’s island of Ogygia for seven years. Calypso offers him immortality and bliss. He has a chance to forget everything about his past and to live in a paradise where he need not work, age, or suffer. A beautiful goddess desires him to be her immortal husband. He is invited to forever leave behind the polis and live lawlessly – without the institutions of marriage and home and city – in an island paradise, living by appetite instead of by duty.
But even now Odysseus can’t move on. Every day, he sits on the shore and stares out at the ocean, weeping bitterly for the land he loves. All he can do is remember. And he must remember, because he has seen what happens to those who don’t remember. When his companions forgot Ithaca, they also forgot their identity – who they were, where they came from, and the duties and joys they had waiting for them at home. Those who “forgot their homecoming” didn’t make it home. They lost sight of the end goal and made short-term decisions that destroyed them in the long run.
This act of remembering is tied to the polis. Odysseus remembers his home because it’s an institution he’s still part of, grounding his identity and purpose. He cannot bring himself to live in a hollow imitation of the life he values. For Odysseus, a life of indulgence without accountability is as empty as an unlit polis.
The Polis as a Moral Anchor
Odysseus’s journey illustrates the contrast between the temptations of uncultivated freedom and the structured life of the polis, symbolizing the ongoing battle between indulgence and duty. Through his encounters with the Cyclopes, Circe, and Calypso, Homer highlights the allure of a lawless existence that threatens to strip Odysseus of his civic and familial roles. Ultimately, his remembrance of the virtues and responsibilities of the polis strengthens his resolve and leads him home.
The Odyssey demonstrates that there is an enduring need for a structured society bound by laws, family, and community. Like Odysseus, we may face temptations to abandon our commitments, yet it is through our ties to each other that we find true meaning. The themistes—the divine and societal laws—sustain identity and purpose, with the result that a life grounded in communal bonds is richer than any fleeting paradise.
Wow, this is deep! When I get my own copy of the Odyssey I’ll print this out and keep it in there! Thank you, I learned a lot