The length of time during which Ulysses had been absent, will account for much disorganization in his dominions: and their lying chiefly in separate insular possessions would tend to aggravate the evil. Still not only Nestor, Idomeneus[710], Philoctetes, Neoptolemus, but also Menelaus, who was absent almost as long as Ulysses himself, appear to have resumed their respective thrones without difficulty; so that we are led to suppose there must have been much peculiarity in the case of Ithaca. Part of this we may find in the fact, that the family of Ulysses may but recently have attained to power, and that the consolidation of races was imperfect. Besides his force of character, he had accumulated[711] great wealth, following in the footsteps of his father Laertes, who was both a conqueror and an economist[712]. His power, thus depending on what was personal to himself, could not but be shaken to its very base by his departure, and by his long detention in foreign parts.
So far as we can learn from the text of Homer, the family of Ulysses had come, like the other Hellic families, from the north: and it had only reigned in Ithaca at most for two generations. His extraction is not stated further back than his paternal grandfather Arceisius[713]. But his connections all appear to be in the north. His maternal grandfather, Autolycus[714], lived by Parnesus, or Parnassus, in Phocis, near to Delphi. And his wife’s father, Icarius, had a daughter Iphthime, who was married to Eumelus[715], heir-apparent of Pheræ in the south of Thessaly: a circumstance which affords a presumption of proximity in their dominions. Thus it is probable that Laertes may have married in Thessaly; and, as we have no mention of the sovereignty of Arceisius, it is highly probable that Laertes was the first, either to acquire the Ithacan throne, or at least to hold it for any length of time.
The fountain near the city, which supplied it with water, and which probably marks its foundation, was constructed, as we are told, by Ithacus, Neritus, and Polyctor[716].
The first must have been the Eponymist of the island: the second of its principal mountain[717].
Peisander, called ἄναξ and Πολυκτορίδης[718], is one of four principal Suitors, whose gifts to Penelope are specifically mentioned in the Eighteenth Odyssey. Thus he would appear to have been most probably nephew to the Eponymist of the island. Sometimes indeed the patronymic is derived from a grandfather, or even, as in the case of Priam (Δαρδανίδης, Il. xxiv. 629, 631), from a remote ancestor; but then he must apparently be a founder, or one of the highest fame. But Peisander at the least may have been the son of Polyctor; and he was probably the representative of the family, which had been displaced from the Sovereignty by the house of Laertes. He afterwards appears among the leaders in the struggle of the Suitors with Ulysses[719].
The names applied to the subjects of Ulysses in the Odyssey are three: Κεφαλλῆνες, Ἰθακήσιοι, and Ἀχαιοί. In accordance with its use in the Iliad, the first of these, which is but four times[720] used, appears to be a name of the whole people of the state; and, judging from what we have seen of the force of the word, it implies that the Hellenic element was dominant. The difference in the use of the other two is very marked.
In the first place, the Suitors are commonly called Ἀχαιοὶ[721], never Ἰθακήσιοι, nor ever Δαναοὶ or Ἀργεῖοι. Either, being the aristocracy, they were an Achæan race; or else, without all being of Achæan race, they were called Achæan, because they were the aristocracy. Of that class they are stated to have constituted the whole[722].
The more probable of these two suppositions is, that they were by no means exclusively of Achæan blood, but took the name from their birth and station. It is most natural to suppose that the displaced family of Peisander, and probably others, were not Achæan, but belonged to an older stock. This stock may have been Hellenic; for, as we know, there were Hellenic, and in particular Æolid, families in Greece long before we hear of the Achæans there.
The house of Ulysses still indeed had friends in the island, like Mentor, like Noemon, son of Phronius, (or the class represented by these names, if they be typical only,) or like Peiræus, who took charge of Theoclymenus at the request of Telemachus[723]. But the bulk of the people were neutral, or else unfriendly. The best that Telemachus can say is, that the whole people is not hostile[724]. And in the last Book, whilst more than one half the Assembly take up arms against Ulysses the rest simply[725] remain neutral: so that he has no one to rely upon but his father, his son, and a mere handful of dependents.
While the Achæan name is thus exclusively applied to the Suitors, and apparently to them because they formed the aristocracy, the people, when assembled, are invariably addressed as Ἰθακήσιοι. It is said indeed, that the Achæans[726] were summoned by the heralds to the Assembly of the Second Book: but it seems to have been customary to send a special summons only to principal persons, as we find in Scheria[727]; though all classes were expected to attend, and did attend.