the least modern thing in the odyssey is all the slavery, but also like...the ethics in general. homer (the abstract homer) understands that being enslaved is a very terrible thing to happen to you, but doesn't really seem to think *buying* or even really selling slaves is like, a bad thing to do. which i think is just a particular example of a general policy where homer doesn't seem to think like, harming people is bad. it's a weirdly amoral book. characters mostly just care about their own self-interest, or the interest of their loved ones, plus social consequences of harming people you dont care about. it emphasizes the guest right heavily, but this is explicitly framed as "if you break guest right, zeus will kill you". there doesn't seem to be an idea that something is wrong to do in itself. i wonder if plato was thinking of the odyssey and similar tales when he wrote thrasymachus...
The Odyssey, like many stories from older times, places a lot of moral weight on hierarchies.
Odysseus is a king and a warrior and beloved by Athena. So it is a great tragedy when he is betrayed by his men, losses his ships and loot and power, losses his autonomy and freedom to Calypso. He is brought low- until he is literally naked and shipwrecked, at the mercy of Princess Nausicaa's kindness. And it is good and right when he regains his power and authority when he returns to Ithaca and cleanses his palace with *soooo* much bloodshed.
It's fine if a swine herd is treated like a swine herd, but it is unjust and tragic for a KING to be treated as a begger. (So, yes. Odysseus and Penelope own slaves. And the story treats this as fine. Of course the king and queen would own slaves. That's the hierarchy. Which is wild for modern audiences.)
It's not that you can treat other people however you want, but that you should treat people according to their place in the social hierarchy. Guests have a specific place in that hierarchy, and guest/host obligations are HUGE in the story. But also the obligations between captain/crew, king/subject, god/mortal. (And man/woman. The gender politics, especially when you look at Circes switch from antagonist to ally, and Odysseus being forced into the wife role with Calypso are *intense*) (Also, slave/master. The reason that the slave girls are killed because they slept with and were friendly to the suitors is because by doing so they were disloyal to Penelope and Odysseus. Never mind our modern understanding of consent and coercion- their deaths are needed for Odysseus to reestablish his authority on Ithaca. It's the most brutal part of the Odyssey, and by far the most difficult for modern audiences to grapple with.)
We often talk about Hubris as being about arrogance, excessive pride, but it's more accurate to frame hubris as Pride which violates those hierarchies, excessive because it doesnt acknowledge ones proper place. Pride which makes the common man think he's better than a king, Pride which makes a king think he's better than a God.
Id argue that it isn't so much that the Odyssey is amoral, so much as its morals are very different from our own. We are very used to a moral worldview which holds that all people are equal, that how you treat others should be consistent and equitable, without regard for class or caste. And that's an incredibly *modern* worldview.
