Mnemosyne — Classical Greek Myth Library

Melanthius son of Dolius, goatherd who favored the suitors, met Odysseus (disguised) and Eumaeus on the road to the town. He mocked and kicked the beggar, prayed the suitors might finish Telemachus, and later fetched the best goats for the suitors’ feast while insulting the stranger again in the hall. When the bow contest began, Melanthius helped set up the axes; in the slaughter he slipped to the storeroom, armed twelve suitors with shields and spears, and nearly turned the fight until Eumaeus and Philoetius trapped him. On Odysseus’s order they bound him, hoisted him to a roof-beam in agony, and after the killing cut off his nose, ears, hands, feet, and genitals as food for dogs—the poem’s harshest servant-punishment. Melanthius embodies household treason against the returning king, foil to the loyal Eumaeus and Philoetius.