Many years after reading Homer’s Iliad, the opportunity to read its sequel, The Odyssey, arose when a daughter’s standard book was designated for high school college entrance exams. After some 2,700 years of acclaim from most of the world’s great authors and literary critics, the book doesn’t need new reviews, but it can’t help but provoke some comment about life as it was then and life as it is now.

In evolutionary terms, 2,700 years is an insignificantly small period of time. The people of Homer’s world shared the same hopes and fears as modern people. They were intensely loyal to family and friends and hospitable to strangers who came in peace, but hostile and often violent to adversaries. Just like now, they suffered from the rule of oligarchs and plutocrats, after all, it was the Greeks who invented the terms, but some city-states were run by benign dictators, and the hero of Homer’s story, Odysseus, and before him his father. Laertes had established such a reputation. The economy depended on slave labor but, unlike today, slaves were well treated, many serving their masters throughout their lives with great loyalty and affection on both sides.

The ancient Greeks started the process of scientific investigation of nature, but the benefits in terms of practical inventions mostly came after their time. Young people today may especially notice the absence of the Internet, but instead, the ancient Greeks had gods that performed the same function. Like the Internet, the gods knew everything that was happening and had happened, everywhere. They also knew what would happen in the future, although this information was more difficult to access; applicants needed a special relationship with service providers. Odysseus enjoyed such a special relationship with the goddess Athena, daughter of Zeus, the King of the Gods.

Gaining access to the gods was in many ways easier than accessing the Internet; one did not need a computer or a mobile phone. The only personal data required was the father’s name or sometimes the mother’s name or the name of a grandparent. There was no need to reveal one’s email address, zip code, or phone number, and if a password was needed, it was part of a well-known charm, one that would probably never be forgotten. However, there was a need to make a burnt offering, usually parts of a domestic animal with some barley flour and wine, and this could be expensive, especially if the victim’s horns needed to be gilded with gold. Then, as now, everything was possible for those who had the means to pay.