Aeolus

Core Myth

Homer's Odyssey places Aeolus on Aeolia, a floating island ringed by an unbroken wall of bronze and a sheer cliff of rock. He lives there with his twelve children - six sons and six daughters, whom he has married to one another - in a palace that echoes with feasting day and night. Zeus made him "keeper of the winds, both to still and to rouse whatever one he will," a standing authority over the weather that no other figure in the poem holds. When Odysseus's ships put in, Aeolus hosts him for a full month, asking in turn about Troy and the Achaean fleet's homecoming, before granting his request to sail on. As a parting gift, Aeolus flays a nine-year-old ox and binds inside its hide the paths of every contrary wind, leaving only the West Wind loose to blow Odysseus's ships toward home; he seals the bag with a bright cord of silver so that not the faintest breath can escape. For nine days the plan works, and Odysseus, refusing to trust the sheet to anyone else, stays awake the entire crossing until Ithaca itself comes into view on the tenth. Exhausted, he finally sleeps - and his men, convinced the bag is a hoard of gold and silver Aeolus gave him alone, cut it open. Every wind bursts out at once, and the resulting storm drives the fleet all the way back to Aeolia. When Odysseus explains what happened and begs a second time for help, Aeolus refuses outright, telling him to leave the island at once: a man driven back like this is hated by the blessed gods, and Aeolus will not risk helping someone the gods have already condemned.

Later Traditions

Virgil's Aeneid recasts Aeolus as a figure who answers to Olympian politics rather than his own judgment. Jupiter has shut the winds inside a mountain and set Aeolus over them with a scepter to hold them in check, but when Juno wants a storm to wreck the Trojan fleet before it reaches Italy, she simply comes to Aeolus and offers him the nymph Deiopea for a wife in exchange for unleashing the winds - and he agrees, since, as he tells her, whatever standing he has is hers to grant. The storm he releases nearly sinks Aeneas's ships until Neptune, furious that the winds have churned his sea without his leave, calms the waters himself and reminds them the sky is Aeolus's domain, not the deep. Where Homer's Aeolus acts as an impartial and independent host who judges Odysseus by results, Virgil's is a subordinate whose control over the winds is only ever borrowed from more powerful gods.

Also Connected

5 recorded connections, each with the ancient line behind it.

Where Accounts Differ

• whether Aeolus acts on his own authority or only as another god's instrument

• Homer's Aeolus and Virgil's Aeolus disagree on how independent his authority actually is: the Odyssey treats him as a host who judges Odysseus on his own account, while the Aeneid makes his control of the winds contingent on Jupiter's grant and biddable by Juno's bribe.

Mythology

• Mythology Greek Mythology

Sources