parents or with the kinsmen of her deceased lord. Greek law in fact never recognised the independence of the woman. "A woman, whether maiden, wife, or widow, was always under guardianship, always at the disposal of another. Her own sons, if two years past the age of manhood, would be her guardians, supposing she were left a widow without any other Κύριος."[1] We know from the poem that her parents proposed to exercise their authority over her. She herself tells her disguised husband that her parents were instant with her to marry.[2] That the same kind of compulsion on the part of her kinsfolk may have been the basis of the story, in its current form, I think there are strong reasons for suspecting.
This much, however, is noticeable, that though Penelope represents that her parents were pressing her to choose a husband, Homer nowhere tells us that Odysseus was plan-ning or executed any vengeance upon them, though, of course, he might fairly have blamed them as he did blame the Suitors. It is possible, on the one hand, that Homer used only so much of the primitive tradition as suited his artistic purpose ; or, on the other hand, that in his time the parental control had taken the place of that hitherto exercised by the kinsfolk. The one being familiar and the other archaic, the latter was more easily modified to suit the exigencies of the plot.
Who, then, were the Suitors ? We are told that they were "all the noblest that are princes in the Isles, in Dulichium and Same and wooded Zakynthus, and as many as lord it in rocky Ithaca." From Dulichium came fifty-two ; from Same twenty-four ; from Zakynthus twenty ; and twelve were lords in Ithaca.[3] The information in the Odyssey is not sufficient to fix exactly the limits of the realm of Odysseus or the dominions of his immediate kinsfolk.
