Eurylochus

Eurylochus was born on the island of Ithaca, a rocky kingdom in the Ionian Sea off the western coast of Greece. He was a kinsman of Odysseus, the cunning king whose plan of the wooden horse had brought down the walls of Troy, and he held a position of authority among the crew that sailed from Ithaca to the war and back again. When the Trojan War ended after ten years of siege and slaughter, Odysseus and his twelve ships set out for home, but the gods had other plans. Storms, monsters, and divine enmity scattered the fleet, and by the time Eurylochus found himself on the island of Aeaea, the company had been reduced to a single vessel and a handful of exhausted men.

Aeaea was the domain of Circe, the sorceress daughter of Helios, the sun god, and the Oceanid Perse, a sea nymph. She was a figure of terrifying beauty who lived in a palace of polished stone in the centre of a forest, surrounded by wolves and lions that were once men. Odysseus sent a party of twenty-three men to investigate the island, led by Eurylochus as his second-in-command. The party found Circe's palace and she welcomed them with food and wine, but the wine was drugged with a potion of forgetfulness and the food was laced with magic. When the men had eaten, she struck them with her wand and transformed them into swine, driving them into pens and feeding them acorns. Eurylochus alone had suspected a trap. He had stayed outside the palace, refusing to enter, and when he heard the screams of his companions he ran back to the ship and told Odysseus what had happened. His caution, which some called cowardice, made him the only witness to the sorceress's power.

Odysseus, determined to rescue his men, set out for the palace alone. On the way he met Hermes, the messenger god who moved between worlds, who gave him the herb moly, a plant with a black root and white flower that made its eater immune to Circe's magic. Odysseus entered the palace, resisted her potion, and forced her to restore his men to human form. Eurylochus and the others were freed, and for a year they lived on Aeaea in comfort, feasting and drinking while Circe loved Odysseus and taught him the secrets of the underworld. But Eurylochus never trusted the witch. When the time came to leave, he was the first to urge Odysseus to depart, warning that delay would destroy them all. His voice carried weight, and the crew sailed on.

The worst trial came on the island of Thrinacia, the sacred land where Helios kept his cattle, the seven herds of immortal cows and the seven flocks of immortal sheep that grazed on the island's pastures. Before they arrived, the prophet Tiresias, the blind seer of Thebes who had lived as both a woman and a man, had warned Odysseus in the Underworld that these cattle must not be touched. The gods would destroy the crew if they harmed a single beast. But when the ships reached Thrinacia, a storm blew in from the south and pinned them on the island for a month. The winds howled without ceasing, and the stores of food ran out. The men caught fish and birds, but the supply dwindled, and hunger gnawed at their bellies.

Eurylochus, seeing his comrades starving, called the crew together and made a speech that would doom them all. He declared that death by hunger was the most miserable of ends, worse than any storm or monster, and that the gods themselves would pity men driven to desperation. He argued that they should slaughter the finest of Helios's cattle, feast upon the meat, and offer the thigh bones to the gods in sacrifice. If they died on the voyage home, he said, at least they would die with full bellies. The crew, ravenous and afraid, agreed. They chose the best of the herd, cut its throat, and roasted the meat on spits. The hides crawled and the meat bellowed on the fire, a sign of divine anger, but they ate it anyway. Odysseus, who had been asleep, woke to the smell of roasting beef and knew instantly that they were doomed.

When Helios learned that his cattle had been slaughtered, he demanded vengeance from Zeus. The king of the gods promised to destroy the ship with a thunderbolt. The next day, when the crew set sail from Thrinacia, the storm returned. Zeus hurled a lightning bolt that shattered the mast and split the hull. The ship went down in a whirlwind of fire and water, and every man aboard was drowned. Eurylochus, the man who had warned against Circe and then led the mutiny against Helios, sank beneath the waves with the rest. Only Odysseus survived, clinging to the wreckage and washing ashore on the island of Calypso, the nymph who would keep him prisoner for seven more years. Eurylochus's body was never recovered, and his ghost joined the countless others in the halls of Hades, the kingdom of the dead.