the Suitors

• 108 suitors - book 16
• introduces them in bk 1 - Athene witnesses their arrogance and greed
• bk 13 -Ody returns and their destruction is planned
• the success of Ody's plan relies on his remaining unrecognised in the palace
• the Suitors are fooled throughout
• their insults are more outrageous when pronounced in front of the object of their scorn
• great irony when they pray that the gods might grant the beggar with dearest wish or when they play happily with javelins
• victims of Ody's deception
• victims of P's deception
• force their presence on her and consume her wealth
• no grasp of how successful they are being with regard to their marriage bids
• tricked by P
• each knows that he is incapable of passing the bow test
• the deaths of the majority are presented as the destruction of a mindless humanised group
• like cattle pursued by a gadfly as they rush in panic through the hall, or like a shoal of expiring fish flapping desperately as they breathe their last
• corpses are piled up in the courtyard, while the remains are unceremoniously scraped off the floor
• Antinous and Eurymachus are equally evil and their deaths are portrayed in gory detail
• Amphinomus shows signs of conscience, but is killed anyway
• Leodes pleads for his life but Ody has decided he is guilty
• Phemius and Medon escape the slaughter through the intervention of T, but only by chance
• line between justice and revenge is fine
• pay the price for Zeus but could be seen as bloodthirsty and unjust
• most gruesome deaths are reserved for the palace traitors