Antinous of Ithaca
Who is Antinous of Ithaca in the Odyssey?
What did Antinous do to Penelope?
What did Odysseus do to Antinous?
Antinous of Ithaca, in Greek mythology, most prominent of the 108 suitors of Penelope and the first of them to be killed by her husband, Odysseus, on his return to Ithaca after the Trojan War. Antinous is the principal mortal antagonist in Homer’s Odyssey, which relates Odysseus’s difficulties while getting home and how Penelope and her son, Telemachus, struggled to maintain their authority on Ithaca.
Suitors of Penelope
Violent and arrogant, Antinous was an agent of chaos and disorder in the Odyssey. He and the other suitors depleted Odysseus’s household resources in his 20-year absence, violating the Greek custom of hospitality, xenia. They spent their days carousing and feasting in the hall of Odysseus’s palace while Odysseus was away fighting the Trojan War and then trying to return home to Ithaca. Pressured by the suitors to choose a new husband, Penelope devised a delaying tactic: She announced that she would not do so until she had woven a shroud for her father-in-law, Laertes. However, each night she secretly unraveled the piece she had woven that day.
The misdeeds of Antinous
Actor Robert Pattinson plays Antinous in The Odyssey (2026), directed by Christopher Nolan. The film stars Matt Damon as Odysseus, Anne Hathaway as Penelope, Tom Holland as Telemachus, Charlize Theron as Circe, Zendaya as Athena, and Lupita Nyong’o, whose role is not yet known.
Antinous and Eurymachus, the other prominent suitor, led a conspiracy to kill Telemachus, who had traveled to Pylos and Sparta for news of his father. Warned by Athena, Telemachus evaded the ambush that had been set in a strait near Ithaca by sailing around it. On receiving news of Telemachus’s safe return, Antinous unsuccessfully attempted to incite the suitors into murdering the young prince in person. He was confronted and berated by Penelope, to whom Eurymachus then falsely gave his word that Telemachus would not be harmed. Antinous later shocked the other suitors by insulting and assaulting with a footstool an elderly beggar who had spoken to him in the palace hall. Unbeknownst to the suitors, the beggar was Odysseus, who had finally returned to Ithaca and had been disguised by Athena.
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First to die
Meantime, Penelope’s ruse had been revealed to the suitors by her treacherous attendant Melantho. No longer able to ignore the insistent suitors, Penelope announced an archery competition in which any man who could string Odysseus’s bow and shoot an arrow through 12 ax handles would win her as his bride. When the first suitor failed to bend the bow in order to string it, Antinous rebuked him and had a fire made up to warm lard with which to oil the bow. When Eurymachus lamented that failing to string the bow would prove the suitors inferior to Odysseus, Antinous suggested that the competition be postponed to the next day and that the suitors should sacrifice goats to Apollo, god of archery, for success. The disguised Odysseus then encouraged this plan and asked Antinous that he be allowed to attempt to string the bow, prompting a furious response from the suitor. After Penelope interceded, Odysseus strung the bow easily and completed the task. He then discarded his beggar’s rags and shot an arrow through the throat of Antinous, who was about to drink from his cup of wine. Now recognizing Odysseus, Eurymachus tried to lay the blame for the suitors’ disrespectful actions on the slain Antinous. Undeceived, Odysseus slew the remaining suitors with the help of Telemachus.
