The Odyssey, told by "Homer", is one of the most famous poems ever. Many ideas, phrases, and references from the story and the Illiad, such as the infamous Trojan Horse, are emulated in various cartoons and movies. The story tells about the travels of Odysseus, a war hero in the Trojan War. He is depicted as the one to be revered at, admired at, and to be inspired by. However, many readers of The Odyssey today often find themselves not seeing Odysseus as a hero at all, rather a "dishonest and arrogant" person. However, the people listening to Homer's story did not see these qualities in Odysseus. They still saw him as an intelligent, brave hero. This shows that the values of Homer's people and the values in today's society are different. These different values affected the perception of The Odyssey to the people listening to Homer.
The values that people in Homer's audiences had were somewhat different than the ones that we have, which would cause the different perceptions. One of the huge values that people's lives revolved around was the idea of war and military power. This is conveyed when the army of Odysseus invades the Ciconies and kills every male in the village and enslaves the women. Normally, today we see this as a completely ridiculous action, but in ancient Greece, this seems like a noble act. War was perfectly normal, in any case. For example, the whole Trojan War was over Helen running away to be with Paris. Over a seemingly little thing, a whole war was created. Again, to today's society, that would seem horribly unnecessary, but in ancient society, it wouldn't seem like a big issue. Another major value that the Greek people cherished was "xenia", or hospitality. When a stranger came to someone's home, the owner of the house was obligated by the gods to welcome the guest in and give him almost anything he wanted. To today's society, this would seem like overkill, because if someone was to show up at a person's doorstep, the most hospitality that he or she would give is a little money and some food.
