Eumaeus

Swineherd of Odysseus and host of the *Odyssey*'s long central recognition sequence. Born a king's son on the imagined island of Syria (Syrie), he had been kidnapped as a boy by Phoenician traders and sold to Laertes, who raised him in the household; he kept Odysseus's pigs on a wooded ridge above the harbour for the twenty years of his master's absence (Homer *Odyssey* 14.1–28, 15.403–484). To his hut comes first the disguised Odysseus, who is welcomed without recognition (*Od.* 14.45–80), then Telemachus newly returned from Sparta, who recognises and embraces his father here (*Od.* 16.1–219). At the slaughter of the suitors he fights at Odysseus's side and is freed and made a member of the household with the cowherd Philoetius (*Od.* 21.188–225, 22).

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