ABSTRACT
Since little is recorded of the Returns beyond a brief outline of its plot, we will begin by examining in further detail what Nestor and Menelaos have to say about the returns of the Greeks in the Odyssey, and then consider how the story of the great storm was developed in the subsequent tradition. When Telemachos, the son of Odysseus, visits Nestor and Menelaos in the Odyssey to seek news of his longabsent father, they have much of interest to say about their own return voyages and the fate of their comrades. Nestor tells him that Zeus had planned a dismal return for the Greeks because not all of them had behaved wisely or righteously (presumably during the sack of the city), and many of them had come to grief accordingly through the wrath of Athena. The goddess had started the mischief by inciting Agamemnon and Menelaos to quarrel immediately after the fall of Troy. The two leaders summoned a meeting of the troops to put forward their opposing views, Menelaos arguing that they should make an immediate departure, and Agamemnon that they should delay until they had offered splendid sacrifices to Athena (little realizing that she would not be appeased by them, for the mind of a god is not turned in a moment). The meeting was an ill-ordered and ill-tempered affair, held at sunset when the troops were befuddled with wine; and no common decision was reached at it since neither brother was able to convince more than part of the audience. So Menelaos sailed away on the following morning with half of the Greek force while the other troops remained behind with Agamemnon.3
