Amphithea

Amphithea is a minor but symbolically resonant figure in the Odyssey, known solely as the wife of the master thief Autolycus and the maternal grandmother of the hero Odysseus. Her single appearance in the poem occurs during a flashback to Odysseus's youth, when he travels to his grandfather's home on Mount Parnassus to receive promised gifts. In that scene, she performs a gesture of pure, uncomplicated familial affection that is almost unique in the epic: she throws her arms around her grandson, kisses his head and both his beautiful eyes, and welcomes him. This moment of tender recognition stands in stark contrast to the poem's dominant atmosphere of danger, deception, and the long deferral of homecoming, offering a rare glimpse of a nurturing, stable domestic world that Odysseus left behind and has been struggling to regain for twenty years.

Identity and Background

Amphithea is the wife of Autolycus, the son of Hermes, who was renowned as the most accomplished thief and perjurer in the world. She is also the mother of Anticlea, who became the wife of Laertes and the mother of Odysseus. Her name, meaning "she who sets great store by the gods" or "divinely powerful," suggests a figure of piety and substance, though the poem provides no further details about her lineage or life. She resides with Autolycus on Mount Parnassus, in a household that, despite its patriarch's morally ambiguous reputation, is depicted as orderly and prosperous. The family possesses substantial lands and herds, and the domestic routine includes the proper observance of hospitality: when Odysseus arrives, Autolycus immediately orders his sons to prepare a feast, slaughtering a five-year-old bull, and the household eats together through the day until sunset.

Role in Odysseus's Youth

Amphithea's sole narrative function occurs during Odysseus's visit to Parnassus as a young man, a journey undertaken to claim the presents that Autolycus had promised him when he named the infant "Odysseus" (meaning "the child of anger"). Upon his arrival, it is Amphithea who first greets him: she throws her arms around him, kisses his head and both his beautiful eyes. This embrace is the only physical expression of grandmotherly affection recorded in the entire Odyssey, and it stands as a poignant counterpoint to the poem's pervasive themes of separation, longing, and the erosion of family bonds through time and distance. The scene also establishes the context for the event that will later serve as Odysseus's most crucial proof of identity: the boar hunt on Mount Parnassus, during which he receives the distinctive scar on his leg that Euryclea recognizes twenty years later. Amphithea is present in the household when Odysseus returns from the hunt wounded, and she is presumably among those who help tend to him, though the poem does not specify her role in his recovery.

Thematic Significance

Though Amphithea appears only briefly, her presence carries thematic weight. She represents the unbroken, affectionate family line that Odysseus has been cut off from—a line that includes not only his parents, Laertes and Anticlea, but also his grandparents. Her embrace of the young Odysseus foreshadows the many recognitions and reunions that will punctuate the second half of the epic: the tearful reunion with Telemachus, the cautious recognition by Penelope, and the emotional meeting with Laertes in the vineyard. In a poem so concerned with the testing and proving of identity, Amphithea's immediate, unquestioning welcome of her grandson stands as a model of the kind of unmediated recognition that the hero must fight and scheme to achieve in his own home. Her brief appearance also subtly reinforces the poem's interest in matrilineal connections: it is through his mother Anticlea, and thus through Amphithea, that Odysseus is linked to the cunning Autolycus and, through him, to the god Hermes, a lineage that helps explain the hero's own celebrated craftiness.