I think I had an epiphany about the layout of Odysseusâ palace in the Odyssey today. It might be really obvious to other people but I canât resist a rabbithole!
NB Iâm just working with translations here, not the original text, using the Rieu for quotations
Penelopeâs quarters and the womenâs quarters:
- these seem to be upstairs but with easy access to the megaron - âwise Penelope came down from her apartment, and they drew up a chair for her by the fireâ (Book 19) and sheâs always described as going up to her bedroom to cry herself to sleep. It is not unusual in Mycenaean palace complexes to have more than one storey. She has access to the megaron (the hall) from her private quarters, as she comes down with her maids to speak to the suitors in there. From the megaron we are told there is a door that leads to the womenâs quarters, which would seem to be in the same place as both Penelope and the maids seem to be locked out of the megaron by closing the doors to the hall that can be locked: Book 19, Eurycleia âlocked the doors leading from the fine hallâ behind her when she goes back to the womenâs quarters, and she does this again in Book 21 just before the Suitors get slaughtered, to stop the maids coming down to help and Penelope from getting involved.
So, a suite of rooms upstairs, the maids rooms (where, presumably, the looms are), next to Penelopeâs (and Odysseusâ) room, for ease of servitude.
Heâs no longer a child, so wouldnât be in the womenâs spaces, and does not sleep up in the womenâs and Penelopeâs quarters: when Eurycleia has locked the doors from the hall to the womenâs quarters, and he is done helping Odysseus hide the weapons, âhe went off through the hall to find his way by torchlight to the bedroom where he always sleptâ. This sounds like itâs off the megaron somewhere, but not through the locked doors or upstairs.
So, a ground-floor room, somewhere off the megaron.
We get a little description of where the storeroom is in Books 21 and 22.
- Penelope goes to get the Great Bow at the start of Book 21: âShe then made her way with her ladies to a store-room in a distant corner of the palace where her lord's treasure was kept - bronze, gold and 1o wrought iron. Here too was the supple bow and quiver full of deadly arrows which had been given to him by his friend the godlike Iphitus,â
- Melanthius tells the Suitors he will go to the store room: â âThe big door into the courtyard is alarmingly near, and the mouth of the passage is dangerously narrow: one strong man could keep us all back single-handed. But let me fetch you some armour to put on from the store-roomâ ⌠So Melanthius the goatherd went up by devious ways through the palace to Odysseus store-room, where he helped himself to a dozen shields and spearsâŚâ
In the first passage, the storeroom is tucked away and Penelope doesnât seem to need to go through the megaron to access it (as when she comes into that hall to speak to the suitors, they seem surprised) and in the second Melanthius sounds like he has to follow a twisty route to get to the storeroom. So, it must be accessible from the megaron, but also isnât next to it, and is accessible from other parts of the building too, which would make it difficult for it to be open and yet still inaccessible to the women from their quarters. Iâm imagining it down a corridor that comes off the megaron, with a door to the room itself that Penelope opens with a key she normally keeps in her room, and then which she leaves open or, at least, isnât described as closing, suggesting how Ody and Tele access it in Book 22. However, Odysseus and Telemachus seem to have had access to the storeroom in Book 19 when theyâre putting away the weapons from the hall, without the need of a key. So, it warrants asking: are there two storerooms? One that Penelope keeps the gold and Odysseusâ bow in, thatâs tucked away, and another one which is more regularly open and contains armour and weapons and is accessed via the megaron? It would be pretty sensible to have two different rooms for things you wanted guests to be able to access and others that you do not.
So, two storerooms: one accessible from the upper rooms and down a corridor somewhere, and the one with the armour in it, with a door that can be closed, but off the megaron, through an entrance that canât be barred.
Given the similarity between this area of the palace complex in Mycenae, Pylos and Tiryns, would also reasonably expect the one in Ithaca to be the same.
(Iâve nicked an internet image here)
Nb thereâs an opening in the roof above the hearth in most reconstructions, just like in the Minoan Knossos palace throne room reconstruction.
The king sits on the throne opposite the fire, unable to be seen from the porch. Guests would enter through the front porch and sit here by the columns, waiting to be called in by a herald. This is where Odysseus sits when a beggar in the palace, and where Irus the other beggar finds him in Book 18. Itâs also where Odysseus and his friends stand, blocking the threshold for the suitors, in Book 22 when the slaughter begins. It could have had doors that are closed - in Book 18, Odysseus fights Irus âon the polished threshold in front of the high doorsâ, and in Book 22, Melanthius tells Agelaus that âthe big door to the courtyard is alarmingly nearâ, but I donât know if the original word is âdoorâ or âportal/openingâ. And, Odysseus sends Philoetius to bind closed the gates of the courtyard so no one can get out of the palace compound - if they get out of the megaron they still canât get out of the palace. So are these doors closed? Is there an actual door?
This porch âdoorâ does seem to be different to the ones leading from the megaron to the womenâsâ quarters: when Odysseus is sending Eumaeus to speak to Eurycleia to get her to lock the womenâsâ quarter doors in Book 21, Philoetius is binding shut the gates in the courtyard at the same time:
âWithout a word Eurycleia went and locked the doors leading out of the great hall. At the same time Philoetius slipped quietly out and barred the door leading into the courtyard, which he made fast with a ship's hawser of reeds that was lying under the colonnade. This done, he went in and sat down on the stool he had left, with his eyes fixed on Odysseus.â
So, they must be different doors. Itâs also not described that the porch doors are physically closed. That might be instantly suspicious, I would guess.
Thereâs a moment in Book 22 where Odysseus tells Eumaeus to guard the âside doorâ in the megaron:
âNow let into the solid masonry of the wall there was a side door, on the same level as the raised threshold of the hall, that gave access to a passage. It was usually kept firmly shut with close-fitting doors. Odysseus told the swineherd to stand on guard by this side door, to which there was only one approach.â
This is the same passage that Melanthius describes as âdangerously narrowâ. Agelaus seems convinced a man could âclimb to the side door and and tell the people and raise the alarm?â This sounds to me like this is a kind of Sally port/emergency exit, like the one we find at Mycenae:
This is an extremely small doorway, limiting access or egress to one person at a time, and passage that goes through the external walls themselves, at the back of the citadel where the ravines tower over the city and itâs very sheltered. The interesting description of the âside doorâ in the megaron of Odysseusâ palace and the way Agelaus says you must âclimb upâ to it and would then be outside the city possibly means itâs not immediately accessible, a little way up the wall, which is why Odysseus only needs one person to guard it, but is a shortcut out of the palace. Itâs also such a fussy detail and one that isnât referred to again that it makes it seem very real, like the poet is referring to a real place he has seen or been in.
We know it has gates because Philoetius locks them, but also Eumaeus describes them in Book 17: âAthene are buildings beyond buildings; the courtyard wall with its coping is a fine piece of work and those folding doors are true defence. No one could storm it.â
We also know thereâs a pile of dung âin profusion at the gate, awaiting removal by Odysseusâ servants for use as manure around the estateâ (book 17), and poor Doggo Argus is lying in it.
We also know it has mills: in Book 20, a woman grinding corn in one of âthe kingâs hand-millsâ in âa building nearbyâ can be heard speaking by Odysseus, originally lying in the porch is now standing outside it, so they must be in the courtyard.
It possibly has a well - Eurycleia orders the maids to go get water form âthe wellâ, although given its proximity to the fountain where the people draw their water (book 17), that might be what is being referred to. But, again, any good stronghold is going to have its own water supply, and the maids came back from the well âsoonâ, so I reckon it would have its own in the courtyard.
The palace complex overall:
From all these details, combined with what we know of Ithaca being much smaller, almost âbackwaterâ kingdom compared to those of Mycenae and Tiryns, and those citadels being on high ground, hereâs what Iâve managed to extrapolate:
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