Returns

δῶρα γὰρ ἀνθρώπων νόον ἤπαφεν ἠδὲ καὶ ἔργα.
—The Returns[1]

The sixth installment in The Trojan Cycle, a lost work.

So the Trojan War has come to an end. The next epic in the cycle, the Returns (Νόστοι), deals with the Achaean's respective returns home. Exactly when the epic was completed is very uncertain; it is often dated sometime in the seventh or sixth century BC.

As the Achaeans prepare to set sail, Athena causes Agamemnon and Menelaus to argue about the coming voyage. Agamemnon chooses to wait a few days in order to appease the goddess's anger (who did not approve of the Achaeans' impious behavior during the sack of Troy), while Diomedes and Nestor set out and safely reach their homelands.

Menelaus, the next to set sail, is not as lucky: he ends up in Egypt (most definitely not Sparta by any stretch of the imagination) with only five ships, as the remainder were destroyed during the voyage.

Other Achaeans -- Calchas, Leonteus, and Polypoites -- try a land route and avoid the dangers at sea. Calchas dies at Colophon and is buried there.

Agamemnon, feeling he has postponed his journey enough, is about to set out when he encounters Achilles, who foretells what will occur and tries to stop them. His group continues regardless and meets with a storm at sea, losing many ships.

The storm was sent by Zeus at the request of Athena, who finally punishes Ajax for his actions in the Sack of Ilion. His ship is among those lost in the storm, and he is killed on the Kapherian rocks.

Neoptolemus is advised by his divine grandmother, Thetis, to make his way home by land. His journey is uneventful, and he briefly encounters the unlucky Odysseus in Maronea. The son of Achilles finally comes to Molossia, a land he and his descendants come to rule.

Both Menelaus and Agamemnon do finally reach their homes, but Agamemnon is murdered by his wife, Clytaemestra, and her lover Aegisthus. His son, Orestes, eventually returns to his home and avenges his father's murder by killing his mother and her lover.

Meanwhile, Odysseus's return home is chronicled in the following epic, The Odyssey.

Ancient fragments on the Returns, including Proclus's summary, are available in English here.

The Returns likely provided examples of:
Works derived from the myths of the Returns:
  • Aeschylus's
    • Agamemnon, a tragedy concerned with the homecoming of the epynomous character and his murder there. The first of Aeschylus's trilogy, the Oresteia.
    • The Libation Bearers, dealing with the reunion of Orestes and his sister Electra, and their avenging of their father. Also the second tragedy of the Oresteia.
  • Euripides's
    • Electra, a tragedy telling another version of the myth behind Aeschylus's Libation Bearers.
    • Helen, a tragedy set during the time Menelaus spends in Egypt. It follows an alternate tradition, where the gods for some reason sent the real Helen to Egypt, and The Trojan War was fought over a phantom (eidolon in Greek).
  • Sophocles's
    • Electra, yet another version of the story.
  1. ↑ For gifts delude the minds and actions of men.
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