Clytoneus

Clytoneus is one of the three sons of King Alcinous and Queen Arete of the Phaeacians, a seafaring people who inhabit the island of Scheria. Along with his brothers Laodamas and Halios, he represents the royal family in the competitive games that Alcinous stages to entertain and honor the shipwrecked stranger Odysseus. The Phaeacians pride themselves on their athletic skill, and the king's sons are expected to lead by example.

Athletic Victory in the Games

When Alcinous calls for athletic contests after the banquet in Book VIII, Clytoneus competes alongside the other young nobles of Scheria. The foot race is the first event, and the course is set out from the starting post. The competitors raise a cloud of dust as they all fly forward at the same moment, but Clytoneus comes in first by a long way. He leaves every other runner behind him by the length of the furrow that a couple of mules can plough in a fallow field. This decisive victory establishes him as the swiftest among the Phaeacian youth, a reputation that aligns with Alcinous's later boast that his people are singularly fleet of foot.

Role in the Royal Family

As a son of Alcinous, Clytoneus belongs to a household of extraordinary wealth and divine favor. The palace of Alcinous gleams with bronze walls, gold and silver doors, and immortal gold and silver mastiffs crafted by Hephaestus. The king's sons, described as comely as the gods, gather around Nausicaa when she returns from washing clothes at the river, taking the mules out of the waggon and carrying the laundry into the house. Clytoneus thus moves within a court that is itself a marvel of craftsmanship and abundance, where the Phaeacian nobles feast daily and listen to the blind bard Demodocus sing of the loves of Ares and Aphrodite and the fall of Troy.

Narrative Significance

Clytoneus's victory in the foot race serves a specific dramatic purpose within the larger structure of Odysseus's reception by the Phaeacians. The games are designed by Alcinous to showcase Phaeacian excellence and to draw Odysseus into revealing his own identity and prowess. After Clytoneus wins the foot race, the other events proceed—wrestling, jumping, discus—until Laodamas invites the stranger to compete. Odysseus, stung by the taunts of Euryalus, throws a discus far beyond any Phaeacian mark and then declares himself ready to box, wrestle, or run with any man present except Laodamas, since he is his host's son. The athletic contests thus function as a threshold: they provoke Odysseus to assert his heroic identity, which he will fully disclose later that evening when he reveals his name and begins the tale of his wanderings. Clytoneus, by winning the first event, sets the competitive tone that leads to this crucial moment of self-revelation.

Thematic Significance

Clytoneus embodies the Phaeacian ideal of effortless excellence in the peaceful arts of sport and seamanship. Alcinous explicitly contrasts his people with warriors and wrestlers, declaring that they are singularly fleet of foot and excellent sailors, and that they delight in good dinners, music, dancing, warm baths, and good beds. Clytoneus's victory in the foot race is a concrete demonstration of this cultural identity. Yet the Phaeacians' very perfection as hosts and athletes makes them a transitional people in the epic: they convey Odysseus safely to Ithaca in a single night, but Poseidon punishes them for this service by turning their returning ship to stone and threatening to bury their city under a mountain. Clytoneus, as a prince of this doomed hospitality, participates in a world that is both magnificent and fleeting, a final haven of civilized comfort before Odysseus must return to the brutal realities of Ithaca.