Original subtitles

NARRATOR: His name is Odysseus, and he's on a mission--

to return home to the woman he loves before she marries

someone else.

Blocking his way are bloodthirsty monsters,

enchanting seductress, treacherous seas,

and angry gods.

[THUNDER RUMBLING]

This is the continuing journey of Odysseus, the epic quest

of the greatest mythical hero of all time.

To us, it is myth.

But to the ancients, it was reality, and perhaps even

a blueprint for one of the Christian gospels.

This is the real story as it was originally told of The Odyssey.

[THEME MUSIC]

The story of Odysseus, King of Ithaca,

is not like tales of other mythological heroes.

He's not a god with special superpowers.

Instead, his character is written as a regular man trying

to get home from a 10-year war to his wife and son.

SCOTT HULER: Everybody can relate to this guy.

This is all of us like to spend more time with my family.

I don't like my job.

I'm not treated the way I want to be.

And I'm tired.

I want to go home.

That's Odysseus' story.

NARRATOR: But the Odyssey is not just a return home.

It's a race against time.

As Odysseus battles danger on the high seas,

his wife, Penelope, anxiously awaits his return

and wonders if she's become a sailor's widow.

Meanwhile, a rogue's gallery of suitors

is knocking at her door, pressuring her to forget

her husband and marry again.

And according to custom, he who wins the crown

will win the crown.

If Odysseus doesn't get home in time,

he'll lose his family, and his kingdom.

The aristocracy of the area starts saying, Odysseus

isn't coming home.

We don't know what happened to him, but he's not coming back.

So we need to decide who's going to be king instead of him.

The person who would be a candidate

would be the person who marries Penelope since everyone

assumed that she was now a widow.

NARRATOR: Odysseus has struggled to get home in time

is the central focus of The Odyssey.

This epic myth was the Greek author Homer's most famous

work.

And to the ancients, it was more than just entertaining fiction.

It was a guidebook to living in a dangerous world.

We need to understand, we need to tell stories to make sense

of our world.

And so the Greeks had myths.

These are incredibly human characters

going through incredibly human emotions.

NARRATOR: Odysseus' adventures on the high seas

reflected how the Greeks viewed the unknown world

beyond their shores.

His myth was written at a time when their empire was just

beginning to expand across the seas.

GEORGE ZARKADAKIS: Odysseus represents someone who is

very, very prototypical Greek.

Greece at the time was a very poor country.

It's a rocky place surrounded by the sea.

So people had to make their fortunes by being adventurers.

It was the only way you can make it in ancient Greece.

[OMINOUS MUSIC]

NARRATOR: In the myth, Odysseus' heroic journey home

began with his departure from Troy,

where he had spent 10 years fighting the Trojan War.

He had hoped his return to his home island of Ithaca

would be quick and painless.

But for him and his soldiers, it turned into a trip from hell.

On a stop for supplies several weeks into the journey,

Odysseus narrowly escaped death at the hands

of a man-eating cyclops, only to draw

the wrath of the monstrous father, the powerful sea

god, Poseidon.

KRISTINA MILNOR: By attacking the son of a god,

he makes a double mistake.

One is he angers a god, but the second

is he angers the god of the sea.

He's sailing home.

SCOTT HULER: And that's the curse

that is working against a disease

the entire rest of his journey.

Poseidon, one of the most powerful gods

has this personal antipathy to a disease.

NARRATOR: Now, Odysseus is way off course.

Months into a journey that should have taken weeks.

Little does he know, he's got years still to go.

[OMINOUS MUSIC]

But Odysseus is not one to surrender

in the face of adversity.

PETER STRUCK: He may be knocked down just as much

as all the rest of us, and even harder than all the rest of us,

but he always can get back up.

He can always find a way.

And I think that really crystallizes this desire

that all of us have to make it through, to persevere.

He's just a human being up against all kinds of odds, up

against gods, and he has to make it through simply

on his intelligence.

[OMINOUS MUSIC]

NARRATOR: Desperate for an escape from Poseidon's

stormy seas, the hero and his men

make landfall on a coastline overflowing with food.

Odysseus sends a scouting party to investigate while he stays

close to shore.

The men discover a stone palace surrounded by wolves and lions.

There, they meet the beautiful sorceress, Circe.

For these Greek warriors who have been out at sea

for the past four months, she's a stirring sight.

And so are her maids.

Circe invites the men into her home to enjoy a sumptuous feast

of food and flesh.

DAVID GEORGE: Circe is supposed to show us

what happens when men get led astray

not by drugs, but by sex.

And men coming home when you've got sexy woman with great power

that can make you happy, give you anything you want, well,

what does that do?

It turns me into pigs.

NARRATOR: As Odysseus' men indulge their appetites,

the sorceress teaches them a hard lesson.

She literally transforms the men into swine.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

[PIGS SQUEALING]

But one man manages to escape Circe's spell and returns

to warn Odysseus.

Without hesitation, he sets out to confront the goddess.

KRISTINA MILNOR: He has this almost optimism about the way

things are.

He has this idea that any challenge that comes his way,

he can overcome.

And he never really seems to falter in that.

[OMINOUS MUSIC]

NARRATOR: According to the myth, on the way to Circe's palace

where his men have been turned into pigs,

Odysseus crossed his paths with a valuable ally--

the ancient Greek messenger god, Hermes.

KRISTINA MILNOR: He's often the god

who is sent from Mount Olympus down to Earth

to perform errands essentially.

He's sent to Odysseus with a drug called Moly.

We don't really know what this was,

but it has mystical powers.

He gives it to Odysseus and Odysseus

takes it so that he's actually not subject to Circe's powers.

NARRATOR: Ancient storytellers may

have referred to this mythical wonder drug as Holy Moly,

and inspired the phrase we know today.

[OMINOUS MUSIC]

With the power of his Moly protecting him,

Odysseus swaggers into Circe's palace.

Circe tries to turn him into a pig but fails.

So she changes tactics.

She lures him into her bedroom, but Odysseus plays hard to get.

Odysseus responds, not so fast.

Before I agree to this, you have to promise to turn my men back

into human beings.

And you have to promise no more funny business, no more turning

any of us into animals.

And Circe agrees to these terms.

[OMINOUS MUSIC]

NARRATOR: With that, Odysseus enters the inner sanctum

of the sex goddess, and doesn't come out for a whole year.

KRISTINA MILNOR: This to us seems

like an extramarital affair.

Homer doesn't really seem to think that this

is a problem in any way.

This likely has to do with the double standard

in Greek society, that is to say women were expected to be

chaste and loyal, not to seek or particularly enjoy

sexual relationships.

Whereas men could go out and have really

a lot of different extramarital affairs

without anybody thinking that it was wrong.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

NARRATOR: After one year, Odysseus

decides enough is enough.

He's had his tryst, but his heart

is with his wife, Penelope.

And he must get home.

DAVID GEORGE: I think at this point,

the Odyssey is trying to show us something about Odysseus.

He is a man like any other man.

He should be striving to get home.

He owes Penelope, and he owes Ithaca a king.

And the longer he spends with Circe's, the more

he is denying what is owed.

NARRATOR: But before he can set sail for his home island

of Ithaca, he'll have to make another detour

to visit a place that isn't on the map, but beneath it--

the underworld of the dead.

It is a harrowing chapter in Odysseus' journey

that some scholars believe even influenced

one of the Christian gospels.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Odysseus, the mythical hero in Homer's Odyssey

has been away from his family and kingdom

for almost 12 years.

He spent a decade fighting the Trojan War and a full year

in the bedroom of Circe, the sex goddess.

Now, he knows the time has come to move on and get home.

Circe consents to his leaving but imparts an ominous warning.

To overcome the curse of the sea god Poseidon and get home,

he'll need instructions from the blind prophet, Tiresias.

Just one problem--

Tiresias is dead.

[OMINOUS MUSIC]

Odysseus must now make an unplanned stop

in the underworld of Hades.

I think you're just going home,

you're going someplace that you didn't expect to go.

You're going to hell.

BARRY STRAUSS: Odysseus is horrified at this thought.

No human has ever gone to Hades and survived.

NARRATOR: But Odysseus has no choice.

Poseidon's power over the seas is strong

and he's getting nowhere fast.

If he ever hopes to reclaim his family and his kingdom,

he must seek out Tiresias in the underworld.

[OMINOUS MUSIC]

Today, we picture hell as a pit of fire and brimstone.

But the ancient Greeks saw it differently.

PETER STRUCK: The ancient Greek underworld

is mostly characterized by being misty and cool.

In contrast to later ideas that come in with Christianity

of the underworld as being a place of eternal punishment,

it's not a kind of nasty, hot, fiery furnace.

Instead, what we've got is a gray area that's

difficult to see, that's misty, murky, and very far away.

NARRATOR: Odysseus makes a harrowing descent into Hades.

The agonized cries of perished souls echo from all sides.

[SOULS WAILING]

Inside the gates, he comes face to face with the prophet

Tiresias, who explains that Odysseus and his men

can overcome the wrath of Poseidon

and make it home if they follow his instructions.

SCOTT HULER: Tiresias gives him very specific advice.

Above all, what you need to do is not eat the cattle

of the sun god Helios.

No matter what else you do, do not eat this cattle.

NARRATOR: It's advice that will come back to haunt Odysseus.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

As the souls of the dead begin to close in on him,

Odysseus makes his escape from the underworld, more determined

than ever to get home.

[SOULS WAILING]

He has done what no living man is supposed to be able to do,

survive a trip to Hades.

So goes the myth.

But what is the link to reality?

[OMINOUS MUSIC]

Some scholars believe this chapter

of The Odyssey influenced one of Christianity's most

sacred texts.

The Gospel of Mark.

It's almost impossible to overestimate the importance

of Homer for ancient Greeks.

BARRY STRAUSS: Mark, of course, was a Greek speaker.

The Gospels are written in Greek.

He almost certainly would have known the story of The Odyssey.

So if there are things in the Book of Mark

that remind us of The Odyssey, that

may well not be an accident.

NARRATOR: A close comparison of The Odyssey and the Gospel

of Mark reveals some shocking parallels.

Both stories revolve around the hardships of a suffering hero--

Odysseus and Jesus.

Both main characters have carpentry backgrounds.

Odysseus was a skilled woodworker who even built

his own palace in Ithaca.

Jesus was the son of a carpenter and in one passage

in the Book of Mark, he himself is

referred to as the carpenter.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

But the most intriguing connection

is the similarity between Odysseus' visit to Hades

and Jesus' last days on Earth.

Both stories begin with a banquet.

Odysseus and his men feasting at Circe's palace.

Jesus and his apostles at the Last Supper.

Then as their comrades sleep, both men

agonize about their impending encounter with death.

DENNIS MACDONALD: When Odysseus learns from Circe that he needs

to go to Hades, he despairs of it.

And the reason is, and he says so, that no mortal has ever

gone to Hades and returned.

Jesus is about to die, he has the Last Supper

with his disciples, he despairs of life because he knows

he must face the cross.

NARRATOR: Ultimately, Odysseus would travel to the underworld

of the dead and return.

Jesus would die on the cross and then rise to new life.

Could these parallels be more than coincidence?

[OMINOUS MUSIC]

As the myth continues, Odysseus leaves Hades and set sail

for Ithaca.

He is finally on his way home again.

But in his path lurks another obstacle,

the island of the sirens.

DAVID GEORGE: The sirens are these creatures whose songs are

so beautiful that they pull you off course and you shipwreck.

[SIRENS SINGING]

NARRATOR: Odysseus knows he is approaching the island

of the sirens so he orders his men

to plug their ears with beeswax to prevent them from hearing

the siren song.

But Odysseus, a man of insatiable curiosity,

is the exception to his own rule.

He has the crew tie him to the ship's mast.

This way, he can listen to the sirens

without steering the ship toward the island's rocky shores.

As they roll through, he's screaming untie me, untie me,

but they can't hear him.

[ODYSSEUS SCREAMING]

And so he hears what the siren song is.

The only human who's done it and survived.

But for the ancients, you see this scene depicted again

and again on face painting after face painting,

and it's meant to show you what the ideal man is about,

doing whatever is necessary to learn something new.

NARRATOR: Odysseus' encounter with the sirens

is one of mythology's best known stories.

But new evidence suggests the song of the sirens

may be more than just a legend.

[OMINOUS MUSIC]

Italy's Li Galli Islands.

Traditionally, they have been cited

as the setting of the story.

Centuries ago, they were even called Le Sirenuse, the islands

of the sirens.

In 2004, a team of German scientists

set out to investigate their link to the Odyssey,

and made a stunning discovery.

What the German team found on this island was that there was

a naturally-occurring formation of rocks that served as kind

of a natural megaphone.

Any sort of sound source that happened to be located there,

the sound waves would bounce off them

and they would amplify them out off the coast.

But even with this built-in megaphone,

human voices are impossible to hear offshore.

So what could have made such a loud sound?

Monk seals-- centuries ago, there

were common throughout the Mediterranean,

including the Li Galli Islands.

JOHN RENNIE: The German team was able to demonstrate

the sound of their cries actually

could be heard quite clearly off the coast.

NARRATOR: Could this be the call that lured sailors

to a rocky grave?

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Back on the high seas, Odysseus has survived his brush

with the sirens.

But an even deadlier challenge lies beyond the next wave.

To make it home to Ithaca, you'll

have to confront one of two terrifying threats.

Some researchers believe these dangers were real and may still

be out there.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Odysseus' shrewdness has helped him

survive a series of deadly obstacles on the high seas.

But he's not the only one using his wits.

Hundreds of miles away in his kingdom of Ithaca, his wife

is keeping her suitors at bay with a clever ruse of her own.

She promises she will marry one of them

as soon as she finishes weaving a burial shroud for Odysseus'

father.

But each night, she unweaves what

she has woven during the day.

This trick has been buying her time for years.

Just as Odysseus is characterized by his craftiness

and his cleverness and his ability to weave plots

and plans, so also Penelope has her claim to being

able to weave plots and plans.

NARRATOR: Penelope is doing her best to remain hopeful

but she doesn't know what has become of her husband.

She really has no idea whether Odysseus is still alive.

And if he is still alive, whether he's on his way

back to her or maybe he's just decided to go somewhere else.

It's a terrible state of not knowing.

NARRATOR: Meanwhile, a horrific set of new obstacle stands

between Odysseus and home.

He must now choose between two deadly routes.

The first runs through the wandering rocks,

floating boulders that smash ships so hard.

[OMINOUS MUSIC]

The second slips through a narrow channel flanked on one

side by a man-eating sea monster called the Scylla

and on the other by a massive whirlpool known

as the Charybdis.

SCOTT HULER: So it is this terrifying sea monster

with many heads and many eyes, this terrifying creature who

you know for a fact will grab up six of your men and eat them.

[MONSTER GROWLING]

They sail by Scylla, that is what will happen.

[MONSTER GROWLING]

PETER STRUCK: Facing the Scylla is the Charybdis,

a giant vortex that twirls around and sucks into itself

and sort of vomits back up all the stuff in any nearby area.

If Odysseus would go close to that,

he would risk having his whole ship capsized and sucked down

into the bottom of the deep.

NARRATOR: Odysseus is literally trapped between a rock

and a hard place.

In fact, some believe this is where the cliche originated.

He orders his men to avoid the wandering rocks

and instead sail for the hard place,

The Strait of Scylla and Charybdis.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

There, Odysseus faces two grim options--

death to some or death to all.

He realizes in a kind of cold calculated way

that losing his whole ship would be a worse outcome than losing

a few of his men.

So he decides actively to steer closer to the Scylla.

BARRY STRAUSS: There's a lesson here, of course,

and the lesson is the most gentle and caring commander

sometimes has to be willing to sacrifice some of his men

in order to get the mission accomplished.

[THUNDER RUMBLING]

NARRATOR: As they entered the strait, the sky goes dark.

Suddenly, multiple tsunamis appear out of nowhere.

[OMINOUS MUSIC]

Odysseus leads the ship away from the Charybdis.

As they passed by, the giant whirlpool sucks up the ocean,

seizing everything within its reach.

Suddenly, from the opposite side of the ship,

the Scylla strikes.

[MONSTER GROWLING]

It snatches six men off the ship's deck

and swallows them whole.

[MONSTER GROWLING]

[MAN SCREAMING]

[MONSTER GROWLING]

Odysseus describes this as the worst moment of his travels.

His men being carried away in the mouths

of this awful creature, crying his name.

Odysseus, help us, help us.

And he can't, and not only that, Odysseus

knows that those men are dying because of his decision.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

NARRATOR: For centuries, scholars of The Odyssey

puzzled over what might have inspired

Homer's monstrous Scylla.

[MONSTER GROWLING]

Then in the mid-1800s, corpses of massive tentacled beasts

washed up on shores across the globe.

This was the answer--

giant squid.

Overnight, fiction became fact.

JOHN RENNIE: Giant squid is a creature that's basically

as long as a school bus.

Now, imagine how big a giant squid

had to look to sailors who were in boats that were just

a few dozen feet long.

NARRATOR: Was the Scylla based on real sightings

of a giant squid?

And what about its neighbor, the whirlpool Charybdis?

Modern oceanographers have discovered

a giant whirlpool zone that matches its description

in the narrow Strait of Messina between Italy and Sicily.

JOHN RENNIE: To the North, you have the Tyrrhenian Sea,

to the South the Ionian Sea.

The waters of the Tyrrhenian and Ionian seas

actually are quite different.

As a result, the water moving back and forth

through these straits is tremendously churned up

and you get huge whirlpools and vicious tides.

We can scarcely imagine just how powerful they must have been

back in ancient times, especially for sailors who

are going through them.

NARRATOR: Giant squids, treacherous whirlpools--

two real-life threats faced by ancient sailors.

Could they have been the inspiration behind this chapter

of The Odyssey?

[MUSIC PLAYING]

In the myth, Odysseus has just seen six of his men torn apart

by the Scylla.

When his ship reaches safety, he gives into his shell

shocked cruise demand for rest.

Despite the prophet Tiresias' warning

to stay away from the sun god's cattle,

he agrees to make landfall on the island

where the cattle are kept.

Odysseus sees the cattle, and says to his men,

OK, we're on the island overnight, whatever you do,

don't eat them.

Do not eat them.

But with supplies running low and starvation setting in,

the crew disobeys Odysseus and butchers the cattle.

It will be the last meal they ever eat.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Helios, the sun god is furious, and turns to Zeus,

the king of gods for justice.

KRISTINA MILNOR: Angering a god in antiquity

was one of the worst moves you can make.

The gods didn't have a lot of qualms about using their powers

to punish mortals that they disapproved of.

Zeus agrees to punish the trespassers.

He sends a perfect storm that strikes down Odysseus' ship.

[THUNDER RUMBLING]

All the men perish Except for one.

Odysseus is spared because he alone didn't eat the cattle.

But this is where the good news ends.

Now, he has no man, no boat, and no idea where he is.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

After three years at sea, Odysseus

has lost all his men and ships.

He is alone, isolated, and still no closer to home.

He is washed up on the island paradise

of another beautiful seductress, the nymph, Calypso.

In Greek mythology, nymphs were pretty young girls

with magical powers, every man's wildest fantasy.

MICHAEL FONTAINE: They lived in forests and in woodlands.

As their name implies nymphs or nymphomaniac,

as our English word, they were very spritely

in their behavior.

NARRATOR: At this point, Odysseus

is relieved just to be alive.

Washing up on the island of beautiful nymph

is an unexpected bonus.

While his wife Penelope faithfully

preserves her chastity back home,

Odysseus treats himself to another extramarital tryst.

This time, he winds up staying seven years.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

PETER STRUCK: Odysseus was given license to pretty much sleep

with whoever he wants.

There doesn't seem to be in Homer's tale any particularly

negative connotation that's attached to Odysseus'

dalliances.

In fact, they seem to make him into a greater more powerful

kind of man because he can conquer all these women.

NARRATOR: Calypso promises Odysseus immortality

if he'll stay with her forever, but he

refuses, knowing he must return to his wife and his kingdom.

In some ways, it's a stupid choice to pick mortality

and being a man over being a demigod.

But for Odysseus, it's not a question.

He must reject Calypso, he must leave Calypso

to fulfill his fate as a man.

NARRATOR: But with no ship to take him home,

Odysseus must take matters into his own hands.

He builds himself a boat.

DENNIS MACDONALD: For ancient Greeks,

carpentry was understood to be one of the great gifts

and intellectual accomplishments in antiquity.

We often call Odysseus, his craft, a raft.

But it's anything but a raft, it's got a mast,

it's got a rudder, it's got gunwales.

It was a metaphor of his wisdom.

It's a part of his cleverness that he's

able to be such a wise carpenter.

NARRATOR: When the boat is finished,

Odysseus returns to sea.

He has spent nearly 20 years away from home.

Now, the end of the road is finally in sight.

And it's not a moment too soon.

Back on the home front, his loyal wife Penelope

has exhausted all of her stall tactics

to ward off the men who have pursued her year after year.

Her suitors are losing their patients.

The suitors say, he's not coming home.

He's not coming back.

His ship must have been destroyed on the way.

You must choose one of us as Odysseus' his successor.

NARRATOR: Can Odysseus get back to Ithaca before it's too late?

[OMINOUS MUSIC]

Like many elements of Homer's Odyssey,

the island home of Odysseus has a clear connection to reality.

For centuries, scholars have pondered which Greek island

the author had in mind when he wrote his epic story.

Traditionally, it is believed to be a Greek island known today

as Ithaki.

But Homer's writings about Ithaca

don't match up with its modern day namesake.

ROBERT BITTLESTONE: Look at what Homer says.

Homer says, Ithaca is the western island.

The furthest out to sea, and its low-lying,

and you think, hello, this is completely wrong.

Ithaki is not the farthest out to the west,

it's not the farthest out to sea.

NARRATOR: When researchers compared ancient maps

with modern day satellite images,

an island called Kefalonia next to Ithaki

caught their attention.

It seemed to match Homer's description of Ithaca

in every way but one.

ROBERT BITTLESTONE: What Homer describes is four islands.

He says there should be four islands here.

Well, we have a problem.

There's only really three.

Where's the fourth island?

And he also says that Homer's Ithaca, he just uses it,

should be farther to the west.

Now, you solve the problem if you split Kefalonia in half.

If you say that the western peninsula of Kefalonia

3,000 years ago might have been a free-standing island.

NARRATOR: Could this single island once have been two?

In 2006, a team of scientists set out to solve the mystery.

Using high-tech surveying equipment, the kind used in oil

and gas exploration, they drilled a 400-foot hole

into the ground of the low-lying valley that

lies between Kefalonia's east and west branches.

If there was ever a split in the island,

this would have been the place.

ROBERT BITTLESTONE: We went on drilling until we ran out

of drill stem, actually, and that was about 50 meters

below sea level.

And at no point did we hit a solid mountain bedrock.

Now, you know how unlikely it is that.

The simplest explanation of that is to say that at some point,

the sea went through that valley and you can still see residue

of that today.

NARRATOR: These results suggest that the valley was

once underwater.

And it makes Kefalonia a prime candidate

for being Homer's Ithaca, the island Odysseus finally

saw on the horizon 20 years after he went off

to fight the Trojan War.

KRISTINA MILNOR: Odysseus never gave up.

He spent years trying to get home

but he was going to get home one way or another.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Against all odds, Odysseus is finally home.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

It is the moment he has been dreaming about for the past two

decades, but there is no homecoming parade waiting

for him.

Instead, the final arrangements are being

made to redistribute his power.

Unless he could pull off one more miracle,

Odysseus will lose everything he's fought to come home to.

It is the setup for a dramatic ending,

but could Odysseus' homecoming have really happened?

And if so, when?

Using clues buried in The Odyssey,

modern astronomers have been able to pinpoint the exact date

Homer had in mind.

[OMINOUS MUSIC]

Odysseus' returned to Ithaca was a journey that

took 20 years, sent over 600 men to their graves,

and 14 ships to the sea floor.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Finally, after all that, the hero

is home but is he too late to save his wife and his kingdom?

SCOTT HULER: When Odysseus returns home, his island,

kingdom of Ithaca, is in a state of complete chaos.

[MEN LAUGHING]

Everything has been going terribly wrong.

His wife is beset, his household is

beset by suitors, 108 suitors.

[OMINOUS MUSIC]

[MEN LAUGHING]

NARRATOR: Odysseus realizes he can't just walk into his palace

and reclaim his former life.

These suitors have long coveted his queen and his kingdom.

If they find out that Odysseus has returned,

they will undoubtedly try to kill him before he

can recapture his throne.

One last time, Odysseus must outwit, outlast, and outplay

his enemies to survive.

KRISTINA MILNOR: When Odysseus arrives Ithaca,

he doesn't come with a great following.

He doesn't arrive as the great returning king.

He actually disguises himself as an old beggar.

And he does this probably partially because he's not

sure of what reception he'll receive.

NARRATOR: Meanwhile, Odysseus' long suffering wife

Penelope finally yields to the suitors pressure

and announces an archery contest to determine her new husband.

Whoever can string Odysseus' bow and shoot an arrow through 12

axes will win her hand in marriage.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

It is the fateful day in Ithaca.

[OMINOUS MUSIC]

Just before the game is about to begin,

Homer writes that the sun is blotted out of the sky.

For centuries, this one line has been scrutinized.

Is it a poetic device to build suspense?

Or the record of a real event?

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Even the ancient Greeks thought this maybe

meant that Odysseus was returning home

on the day of a total eclipse.

NARRATOR: Recently, scientists examined the Odyssey

for astronomical evidence that could reveal the exact date

Homer was referring to.

JOHN RENNIE: They looked more closely at all the references

in The Odyssey that might refer to something

about astronomical events.

They then tried to match up those combinations of events

with their eclipse dates.

And they found that, in fact, it all

matched for one of those eclipses, one that took place

on April 16th, 1178 BC.

So it's possible that that was the day when Odysseus returned

home to Penelope.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

NARRATOR: In the myth, a two decade pursuit of Penelope

now comes down to one main event.

One suitor after another proved too weak to string Odysseus

bow.

[MEN LAUGHING]

They are all about to give up when a tattered beggar steps

forward.

DAVID GEORGE: And the beggar steps up and wants a turn.

By the rules, he should have a turn.

Their response is to be irate and to deride.

NARRATOR: But the beggar strings the bow without any hesitation.

And the laughing suddenly stops.

He lines up his shot, it flies straight through the 12 axe

handles.

The contest is over, but the suitors

are not about to give up without a fight.

[OMINOUS MUSIC]

Odysseus' final battle ends with the suitors slaughtered

and the hero victorious.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

He has won back his throne.

Now, he has to win back his woman.

The king of cunning has one last test to pass.

PETER STRUCK: After Odysseus has slaughtered all the suitors,

then he and Penelope enjoy a very intimate moment,

and they sit across from each other lit only by firelight.

Penelope has one last test.

After a long conversation, she says to her servants,

I want this stranger to be comfortable

so please bring my own bed out of my chambers

and put it on the porch and let this stranger

sleep in my own bed.

At that point, Odysseus realizes that his wife is giving him

a final test.

And he says, Penelope, I know this is a test.

I built our bit around this tree, rooted into the ground.

Our bed cannot be moved.

Because she has never let anyone inside of that bedroom,

she knows for sure only Odysseus would know that that bed's not

movable.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

NARRATOR: Odysseus' long journey, his odyssey,

is at its end, but his legend will endure.

PETER STRUCK: It was common among ancient Greek warriors

to have as a decoration on their armor the figure of Odysseus.

He was there for them as a symbol of someone

who had always endured pain.

Odysseus' very name in Greek means man of pain.

He suffers like all of us suffer.

But maybe unlike all of us, Odysseus always also endures.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

So it's that ability, I think, to always get back up

after being knocked down that makes him a character that's

so relatable to people over many centuries.

[MUSIC PLAYING]