Eurytos and his Progeny: an Archer Family in Greek Archaic Culture

Archers are very uncommon in Greek classical culture, as the bow is usually considered an inferior and disliked weapon. Nevertheless, bows seem to have played an important role in Greek archaic culture. Amongst godly and heroic examples (such as Apollo or Heracles), authors such as Homer and Hesiod occasionally mention a family from Oechalia which is closely linked to the bow, both on a linguistic and a narrative level: Eurytos and his children Deion, Clytius, Toxeus (cf. τὸ τόξον, “the bow”), Iphitus and Iolea. This family is cited in Hesiod’s Catalogue of Women, and is also mentioned in the last books of Homer’s Odyssey, in which Odysseus slays Penelope’s suitors after the contest of the bow. The mention of the origin of Odysseus’ bow, which has long been considered an interpolation, is in fact a reminiscence of an Indo-European rite called the svayaṃvara in the Indian terminology, during which a bride to be chooses a suitor amongst the contestants of an archery contest. And since Heracles, according to Apollodorus’ Bibliotheca, took part in a conflicting svayaṃvara organized by Eurytos to give his daughter Iolea’s hand in marriage,the mention of Eurytos’ family, occurring at the end of the Odyssey, announces the massacre of the suitors by the rightful king of Ithaca. Comparison between Greek and Indian literary cultures then shows that the use of the mythological family structure and names in archaic poetry, as well as the mention of a singular and punitive weapon in Greek culture, force us to break through disciplinary limits and reconstruct rites and literary elements at a higher level in order to fully understand the Greek archaic heritage.