slaves

• Eumaeus takes seriously his responsibility for his master's livestock
• he resents the presence of the Suitors
• he has a fundamental respect for his master, the laws of Zeus and justice
• Eurycleia shows a similar devotion to the family, and outrage at the Suitors
• she is retained in the family as a nurse and now has the honour of being T's torchbearer
• these 2 slaves have arrived in the house through being captured in war and kidnapped by pirates
• we know from Eurymedusa's story and the casual way that Ody mentions taking what he needed from the Cicones, that pirates, wars and kidnapping are ways of life
• there must have been many others working in the palace
• we know abut the 50 maids who work at the loom in Ody's palace and the same in Scherie
• the meat carvers taken to the banquets in Ithaca
• only slaves who have a role in the success of the hero's nostos are part of the heroic world
• the purpose of the epic is the kleos of the hero, not the life of the slave