When Athena visits Telemachus in the beginning of the book, she focuses her attention primarily on the subject of Penelope's ravenous suitors. Telemachus is all too happy to discuss the subject and wails bitterly about his inability to effect change and restore his father's house. Throughout this conversation, Odysseus is created in the reader's mind as the sole character with the ability to cast out the suitors. As is suggested by Athena, he would be able to "take his stand, armed with his helmet, shield and pair of spears, as strong as the man I glimpsed that first time...if only that Odysseus sported with these suitors, a blood wedding, a quick death would take the lot!" (Homer, Book 1, 298-308). Athena values Odysseus for his wiles and cunning, yet her final use for these gifts is destruction. "Great Odysseus who excels all men in wisdom," (Book 1, 78-79) as Zeus says, is celebrated and wanted only because he can turn his brain into a weapon.
             In the world painted by The Odyssey, the benchmark of power among men is the ability to kill and inflict pain. Odysseus is certainly praised for his sharp mind, but the praise takes the form of loaded rhetoric with a brutal slant. At one point, he is called a "mastermind of war" (Book 11, 458), and at another, a "foxy veteran" (Book 18, 59). Both of these oft-repeated phrases share a common dichotomy: one word is intellectual, the other, militaristic. If Odysseus had been only smart, he would not have been legend
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