Spartan Wolf

Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster has been a massive financial and critical success. I thought it was fun. It’s not perfect, of course, not least because if you don’t already know the story, it was a little confusing to follow. However, I think it’s unfair to complain about it being inaccurate. The story is a work of fiction and claims that lurking behind the original poem is some sort of historical event doesn’t seem to me very helpful.

The Historical Background

Over the years there have been numerous books and documentaries centred around The World of Odysseus, tracing his travels across the Mediterranean and using the archaeological evidence of the Mycenaean Period to give such accounts an aura of authenticity, but there is so much speculation and guesswork involved that it is ultimately a rather pointless exercise.

Fortunately Nolan generally lets the story tell itself without too much rationalising of events. But even he falls into the trap of suggesting that the underlying motive for the siege of Troy was the strategic trading position of the city on the coast of Turkey, despite the fact that there is no evidence that the Greeks thought in such economic terms, even in much later times. If you want a simple explanation for attacking Troy, in which Helen becomes just an excuse, plunder is far the most likely answer.

And why not? Plundering enemy cities and killing or enslaving their populations, was undoubtedly a part of Greek culture, however repellant it may be to us. Odysseus does his share of plundering shortly after setting off from Troy on his way home. In Book 9 of The Odyssey he recounts:

The wind behind me brought me from Ilium to Ismarus, the town of the Cicones. I sacked the town and I killed the men. As for the women and all the chattels that we took, we divided them amongst us, so that none of my men, if I could help it, should depart without his fair share.’

Odyssey Book IX 39-42 (translated by Walter Shewring OUP)

The moral dimension?

So it is somewhat ironic that Nolan’s biggest change to the original story is to make Odysseus regret the killing and destruction of Troy. In his version, our hero is eventually plagued with guilt and at the very end of the film embarks on a quest to appease the gods for the destruction he has caused through his creation of the wooden horse. Of course, there is nothing wrong in giving the film a 21st Century moral twist. It turns Odysseus into the sort of tormented hero very much in the modern mould, but in Homer’s original tale his motivation is much more straightforward. He needs to appease Poseidon for blinding the Cyclops, his son, and boasting about it. He is told by Teiresias in the Underworld to travel inland with an oar until he comes to a people who are so far from the sea that they think the oar is a winnowing fan (used to separate grain from husks). Then he must plant it in the soil and offer a sacrifice to the god.

This is not a question of morality. There is no suggestion that Odysseus was wrong to blind Polyphemus in order to save himself and his men and Odysseus certainly shows no guilt. In fact he never shows guilt about anything, only occasionally regret at a misjudgement. All the same he has offended an important god and you can’t get away with that.

The Homeric Code

The Odyssey may have no factual basis but it does have a coherent ethical framework (that presumably evolved during the period of its conception), and this is why the story works and is not just a series of loosely connected episodes. In the world of Odysseus, there is an over-riding obligation to honour and fear the gods and this has ethical implications. The most important of these is to respect the conventions of hospitality. It is a requirement, sanctioned by Zeus, to host strangers, giving them food and allowing them shelter. However, there is also an obligation for strangers not to abuse that hospitality.

It is often argued that the Odyssey as a whole is an exploration of these obligations. While it is doubtful that whoever put the story together was thinking in these terms, it is certainly true that the story revolves around the various ways in which hosts and guests behave towards each other. Here are a few of the most prominent examples. The monstrous beings, the Laestrygonians and Cyclopes, ignore the laws of hospitality altogether and eat Odysseus’ men. The demi-gods, Circe and Calypso subvert the laws of hospitality by keeping Odysseus under their spell far too long, while the suitors make a mockery of the conventions by refusing to leave Penelope and consuming the wealth of Odysseus’ house. Their punishment is just on every level.

However, it is not quite as simple as that. The Phaeacians (in an episode entirely missed out in the film) treat Odysseus with respect and make sure he reaches home safely. So you might think they would be rewarded by the gods for their generosity, but in fact Poseidon is angry with them for helping Odysseus and punishes them.

Which brings us back to the obligation that over-rides everything else, the need to honour and respect the gods and the danger, even inadvertently, of offending one of them.

The Lessons of the Odyssey for Classical Greeks

These aspects of Greek culture did not disappear in Classical times, and in my books I have tried to reflect them. Lykos, even though he is only twelve years old, is acutely aware of his duty to the gods, especially thanking them when he has had some success. And when he stumbles on a farm near Argos in his wanderings, the family feels obliged to give him hospitality even though they are uncertain of his status. Before he leaves, Lykos in his awkward way, tries to mimic the conventions of guest-friendship by exchanging gifts.

I put this episode into the story because I believe there was a strong continuity between the mythical past and historical present for the Greeks of the Classical period. It is not easy to know how far ordinary Greeks viewed The Odyssey as fact or fable but it was an epic tale that they all shared and all understood. It was embedded into their culture. The world of Odysseus might be a fiction but it was real to the Greeks and part of their identity.

Lykos - The Wolf

Lykourgos - creator of the new order or mythical wolf-man?

I chose the name ‘Lykos’, partly as a nod towards Lykourgos (Lycurgus in modern spelling) the man who supposedly founded the system by which Spartans lived in the 5th Century BCE. In fact nothing for certain is known about him and many modern scholars doubt he existed at all! The name in Greek means ‘wolf-worker’ or possibly ‘someone who holds back wolves’ and it has been claimed that this name shows his quasi-religious or mythic roots. (The man-wolf had a long tradition in Greek folklore particularly in the northern Peloponnese.) One way or another, it seemed appropriate that my hero’s name should be an echo of this legendary figure so strongly associated with Sparta.

The Wolf-Pack Mentality 

I also chose the name as it seemed to fit my protagonist’s ambiguous situation.

Spartan elite male society was divided common messes (syssitia), fifteen or so members in each, living and sharing their food together. They probably fought alongside each other, as well as hunting together for recreation. The broad parallels with the communal behaviour of a wolf pack are obvious.

Lykos spends his boyhood in a similar pack of ‘cubs’ and feels destined to join an adult group in due course.  As a member of the pack he tries to conform but also to excel according to the shared understanding of what it means to be a Spartan elite warrior.

There is, however, a crucial difference between the Spartan mess and an actual wolf pack. A wolf pack is an extended family unit, including the young and the infirm, dominated by a breeding pair. The Spartan mess on the other hand, was a highly artificial construct of adult men only. This created a strong sense of solidarity and shared identity within the group but it must also have been conservative and inward looking.

The Lone Wolf

Unfortunately for Lykos, Spartan packs were exclusive, not inclusive and there was no place for the weak or disabled so that if he is not accepted into a mess,  Lykos must face the possibility of being a ‘lone wolf’, with all the modern connotations that the term implies - self-sufficiency and independence certainly, but also isolation and a loss of social identity.

In practical terms he would have to become one of the underclass of ‘inferiors’ or seek a new life outside Sparta altogether. Either choice would involve humiliation and a profound sense of shame. However, there is another side to this. By becoming an outsider he is freed from the rigid constraints of his upbringing and life within a mess. He can begin to gain a wider perspective of the world around him. For better or worse, he learns to see things differently.

If you enjoyed reading The Hidden Prince there are other titles in the Spartan Wolf series awaiting publication. Below are some brief summaries to whet the appetite.

Book 2 - A Persian Archer

On the death of his grandfather, Archidamos is set to assume royal power, but the general Pausanias has other ideas. Now seventeen years old, Lykos is forced to go undercover in an attempt to expose the general’s plot to overthrow the Spartan system and reduce Archidamos to little more than a puppet king. But first he needs to unravel the mystery of a Persian coin marked with a mysterious sign and he is soon caught up in a web of murder and intrigue.

Book 3 - Earthshaker

An earthquake brings massive destruction to Sparta. Archidamos struggles to cope with the immediate aftermath but his problems are only just beginning as the slaves threaten to revolt and Sparta’s neighbours seek to destroy the city once and for all. Lykos becomes the king’s advisor but their relationship remains uneasy and eventually he finds himself an outcast. There is now only one way for Lykos to save his city but it comes at terrible personal cost.

Book 4 - Paths of Atonement

Lykos seeks to atone for his crime against the gods by searching for a boy kidnapped during the earthquake. His quest takes him east across the Greek world into Persian territory where he has a taste of the luxury and the brutality of the most powerful people in the ancient world. On his return he finds the Spartans engaged in a siege of an impregnable Helot stronghold. Somehow he needs to help his king resolve the situation without loss of life on either side. But with Persian sympathisers, political enemies, and embittered rebels at his throat, a solution seems impossible.